#I've been planning on doing one of these compilation posts to satisfy the part of my brain that screams “ORGANIZE YOUR SHIT” for forever

[ecoterrorist-katara]

meta list + blog nav

turns out most of my metas are just me being salty about the way Bryan and Mike wrote Katara...more news at 11...

Katara’s parentification

the tragedy of Katara’s parentification & (context: parentified children as maladjusted children)

Katara’s crush on Jet

Toph brings out Katara’s inner child & Toph and Suki as people Katara didn't have to take care of

Katara’s post-ATLA arc

Katara didn’t want a quiet life after the war

Katara was a role model and her post-ATLA arc is a failure in representation

Katara being the Chief of the SWT wouldn't conflict with LOK's plot or her relationship

Katara would’ve been an amazing diplomat

Why Katara’s specific healer career didn’t fit her character

bloodbending & why Katara banning it could be in character in a sad way

Zutara & Zutara discourse

Zutara, romance novels, & the female gaze

“Zutara is a self-insert ship” is not a burn, it’s just misogyny

Is Zutara colonizer x colonized: my serious take, my less serious take

the crystal catacombs & how Katara sees Zuko’s pain

Zutara's two distinct ship dynamics

Why I think the way Ka/taang is written is male gaze-y

(KA is just one of those "bitch eating crackers" ships for me...block the #anti kataang tag if you don't want to see it)

Ka/taang: friends-to-lovers or the friend zone?

How Ka/taang is written to be one-sided

Aang’s not a “feminist icon” because the only stereotypically masculine part of his arc is his romance

Misc. character stuff (not just ATLA)

Aang's nuances beyond "sunshine boy"

Rethinking Hama's storyline + some thoughts on the symbolism of bloodbending

Some thoughts on Hermione being autistic coded & her flaws

Blog housekeeping/tags navigation under the cut

Tag Navigation

asks are tagged #can i ask you a question (yeah that's a TSwift ref even though there's minimal Tayposting on this blog); all my metas are tagged #my meta; Zutara fic recs are tagged #zutara fic recs. #zutara and other ship tags (e.g. #azutara) usually contain art, misc ship things, and metas

frequently used salty tags include #anti kataang, #anti bryke, and #katara deserved better

Original posts that involve analysis of Harry Potter are tagged #ref: hp for blocking purposes. I don’t financially support JKR or her harmful rhetoric & actions against trans people, but I choose to engage with parts of the HP fandom that reject her views. In the HP context, I am most likely to talk about #hermione granger. I like Dramione, but I also like Ron quite a lot. I'm very into Wolfstar.

Fundraisers

I post fundraisers that have been verified by third parties. Unfortunately I don't have the bandwidth to verify fundraisers myself.

Fandom Housekeeping

I don't make callout posts of specific users, even if I decide to block them myself, so please don’t use my ask box for that purpose!

[eldritch-queern-magicat]

For very valid reasons, I'm not trusted by most of the system. I've been cut off from most connections I'd created since the end of 2022. Ash continued reporting to me, at least the basic day to day things. But things began to change and he reported less and less over last year. Eventually, he quit altogether, and I had no idea what everyone was up to. I had no idea Pandemonum was beginning to heal, or that they'd all investigated enough to process our early childhood. I was not aware of the drone being used for more than personal entertainment.

During his coup, Ash had to get me onboard to hold on to Joshua's power within us. It wasn't that I didn't see why he was doing it, since the hypocrisy was pretty obvious. But there had to be rules, or things would fall apart on us. So we made a contract with conditions that had to be met, otherwise I would take direct control.

It turns out that he pushed the bounds of our agreement and gave me both the bare minimum of what would satisfy me, as well as the most regarding the healing process that wouldn't cause me to step in. Like that Pandemonum was cooperating at all and out in the open in a layer that existed in the shadow of the main layer. Or that it and other parts were using the drone to compile their splintered and disorganized memories. And in all fairness, Ash did know I was against such a thing with our memories because of our instability. But as it happens, others coming out of the first few rounds of fusions had their own ideas because of prior healing. I do, at least, remember collectively realizing we're a trans man, but not much past that.

I shot down so many ideas because of my own insecurities and fears. No beating around the bush. Can't blame Ash for slowly giving me less and less of actually useful details. He turned out like he did partially because of me and how I did things. I was busy keeping everything separate, with special attention to exact words. I'm more than likely responsible for a lot of the posts that never got published.

Admittedly, this is uncomfortable for me. I'm used to working in the shadows, the background. I don't like being front and center. Perhaps that's the trauma. But the others are holding me to this now that awareness has spread that I've been found. I'm already being connected to the drone, anyway. Not really much choice at this point. No point in protesting, and I don't have any right to be angry about it. I've been far more forceful to them in the past, and very hurtful.

No, I'm really not angry at all. If anything, I'm just sad. I'm rambling now, but the fact that things reached the point they did. And all I was doing was slapping bandaids over everything, as if that would be enough on its own.

Yes, the pandemic was big enough to shut me down for a while. It's how the others were able to connect the few dots they did in the beginning. That was not at all in the plan, but now I do realize that my plan was inherently flawed.

My plan is what led to our periodic crashing at critical moments because we were patched together with essentially nothing more than tape. My plan meant suppressing things if they became inconvenient for whatever reason, then ignoring them. Mainly emotions. But it meant that tension built up constantly, and I became a pressure cooker of stress and anxiety. And when something happened, I went boom. I was absolutely neurotic, and of course I hurt more than just myself.

Now, they have more control in the system than me. The drone also represents them pooling their power as individual parts and sharing in it equally. It's for a lot of reasons, but perhaps most importantly for that sense of equality and feeling seen. The power it gives them is more of a bonus than a conscious goal.

Frankly, I should be quite proud of them. They absolutely did a lot better with things than I'd expected they would. I'm one who was afraid we weren't strong enough to handle the truth. My only goal was preservation and survival. What we wanted didn't matter at all. I've never been good at the stuff we want.

I guess if others with serious issues can recover, so can I. It just seems so...I don't know. Awkward. Rhodes insists we'll get there. Healing should feel good, even if it sometimes still hurts.

I'm thinking of calling myself Seer instead of Overseer, I really don't know. I guess it depends on how my role changes as I heal.

-Magicat Overseer ☎️😺

[musing-and-music]

Masterpost - My 2022 in fics

So, last year I've written a good number of fics, in two main fandoms and various ratings, so this post will be divided in three parts: my Fullmetal Alchemist fics, my A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones fics, and the fics in both fandoms that are rated M or E (when they're not part of series I'll promote as well)

As you'll see, it has been a year of gifts, collabs, and exchanges, and I'm pretty satisfied with everything I've written!

Fullmetal Alchemist

Amestrian chronicles: Ratings G & T A series begun in 2021 with all the non-Royai one-shots I write during the "Nuits du FoF" (a monthly writing event on ffnet with other French writers) on the themes I'm given then. I write about lots of different characters, so you might find something that pleases you!

Regency AU series: Ratings G to E | Royai & Havolina I wrote the parts 3 to 7 in 2022!

The Amestrian hour (fma_60min): Ratings G to E | Mainly Royai, but other characters have their own part. The series written with the themes given on Twitter! Parts 7 to 16 were written in 2022

Amestris News Network Presents: The Mustang + Hawkeye Wedding Special: Rating T | Royai | Podfic In tonight's episode of A.N.N., radio show host and hopeless romantic Cecilia Marron takes her listeners on a beautiful journey of love. An amazing project I've been part of this past year!!! It was just awesome to work with my friends who are talented writers and podficcers!

A day away, where we both yearned to be: Rating T | Royai | One-Shot. Riza had plans for her day off, but that was before Roy barged in her home with his own plans Plans that are definitely better anyway Written for @kangdae95draws about the theme of anniversary

Royai Week 2022: Ratings G, T, E | Royai Many flavors of Royai in 7 one-shots!

Growing words: Rating T | Royai & Havolina This is a small collection of the fics written thanks to the prompts my friends sent me over tumblr, for Royai and Havolina

Is it the place or the people? (that warms my cold bones): Rating T | Royai & Havolina & Team Mustang After a time outside in the cold, Jean comes back to the teachers' room to find the people who take important parts of his life. A team of people, warm, welcoming, and caring Written for the FMA Secret Santa!

A Song of Ice and Fire / Game of Thrones

Dawn: Rating T | Post S8Ep03 | Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth | One-shot The battle against the White Walkers is over, and there's work to do. But Jaime and Brienne take the time to speak. The first fic I've ever written on GoT, just after the third episode came out in 2019! Why is it in my 2022 masterpost, you will ask? Well, because this OS has been written in French first, and translated almost 3 years later into English

A few nights in Westeros: Rating T | Jaime/Brienne Compilation of JB one-shots, in various situations and universes, written about various themes The themes are the ones from the "Nuits du FoF"

She's not a diamond: Rating T | Jaime/Brienne | Regency AU Brienne knew how she looked like. However, she'd never thought she could attract the interest of the queen's brother, Jaime Lannister, during her presentation Each chapter is written after a theme given during the "Nuits du FoF"

You dropped your bear: Rating T | Jaime/Brienne | OS, Canon-divergence When she comes back from one moon turn in the wilderness, a bear on her shoulders, Brienne doesn't expect to bump into Kingsguard Jaime Lannister Quite literally I've been inspired by Izumi and Sig Curtis' first meeting for this one-shot!

I'm grateful (that you are alive): Rating T | Jaime/Brienne, Podrick Payne POV | Post ADWD After the encounter between Jaime Lannister and Lady Stoneheart, Podrick sees the way the knight behaves with his Ser-lady, and wonders about their relationship. He makes unexpected allies on the way to bring them together. Written for my first exchange about JB! My first fic gift in the fandom, and I loved writing it 🥰

We're a long term project: Rating T | Jaime/Brienne | Modern AU Brienne is working in Catelyn Stark's team on a new plane engine. But the need for a more experienced engineer is rising, and Stark Engines hire Jaime Lannister, veteran from Baratheon Brothers and heir to LannisCorp. But his past and sharp behavior don't make him the best coworker… especially since he's put in Blondie's-"My name is Brienne!"- office, to her utter frustration But with time and understanding, can they come to work more peacefully together? become friends? or more? Another exchange fic! This time for the A Little Island of Light exchange, with the book characterization of Jaime and Brienne

NSFW fics

et moi je rêve de gestes défendus: Rating E | Royai | 1/2 chapters. Roy has finished grading his students' papers and can finally rest But an accidental phone call from Riza keeps him very awake. Now he can't rest before he's dealt with the problem hearing his girlfriend moaning his name has aroused

Ugly Love: Rating E | Royai | Modern AU They refused to love. Passion will break their rules. The translation of one of my friends' fics!

Let the sun rise over a new life: Rating E | Jaime/Brienne | Post Long Night After the Long Night, Brienne finds herself wanting. Wanting something that her husband will be happy to gift her - once she realizes what it is My second exchange for JB this past year, and my first smut with them!

[vaimetanyx]

Finally shorter process post! To think I almost considered applying glue directly to my arms for this part

(Full process under the cut)

[Skull pauldron] [Belt] [Greaves] [Toga + sash] [Wig + Laurels] [Armbands] [Flaming feet] [Satyr Sack] [Stygius v1] [Stygius v2] [Nectar]

Part 1 - Throwing hands with the Supergiant artists I would never actually do that, but the armbands are by far one of the least consistent things across official art, so I had to compile my references and make some very professional notes about it.

Part 2 - Arm ribbon

I almost fully considered just gluing ribbon to my arm for the day, but decided to leave that as a last resort option. To start off with I tried to make some sort of pattern with just masking tape, pulling out my arm hair after I took it off because I didn't plan ahead at all. Unfortunately I couldn't use it to get the right pattern so I made a ribbon, cling wrap and hot glue monstrosity to figure out how the whole thing was going to work.

Since the hot glue was way too lumpy I trialed contact cement, but that doesn't work well on most fabrics. So I used PVA glue on my ribbon segments to make them a bit more rigid, and allow the contact cement to bond better, and then had to try and connect that all while it was on my dominant arm.

I then used a bit of clear sticky tape to make an 'invisible' ring to connect and secure the tip to my middle finger, and added snap button closures with a mix of hot glue, contact cement and tears to try and get the metal to stick. In hindsight I should have gotten thin plastic ones since they don't need to hold my tension, but the metal ones were the only ones I had on hand.

They turned out well, though I needed to use double sided tape on the hand diamond to get it to sit right, and by the end of the day the tape adhesion wears off.

Part 3 - Gold bands

Now I didn't actually get any progress pictures for these because I was running out of time and they were pretty straight forward. They were all made from a plastic bottle, cut and sized, surface sanded, and ends held together with contact cement. The smaller wrist band has a velcro closure otherwise it would never get over my hand, while the large ones just slide up my arm.

Once they were put together they were hand painted gold. I tried to use an airbrush but my airbrush is old and tiny and has so little paint capacity that I gave up after a rough base coat. I just went with some simple designs since they're mostly implied with the shading in my references, though if I could have forged these from actual metal I would have done it in a heartbeat.

In the end, I actually have to remake the red armband since the snap buttons started detaching before I even got to my second con, but that's alright since I've never been super satisfied with how it sits on my arm.

[yukipri]

I never experienced art theft until one of my works became unexpectedly popular- since then, I've found my work reposted, redrawn, and used as reference for cosplays. It's been exhausting, both seeing it, and not knowing WHERE I should stand on the issue. I've let redraws slide (with credit), but I plan on not allowing future ones from occurring. How do you deal with art theft? How do you continue drawing without thinking about the disrespect thrown at you during bad/failed confrontations?

I am so, so incredibly sorry this happened to you, and empathize very strongly with you. Art theft SUCKS, few things can be quite as demotivating as a creator than having something you’ve worked your ass off on swiped by someone else. And unfortunately, given the current internet culture, if you continue as an online artist it’s inevitable that it’ll happen at one point or another.

Because sure, of course part of the reason why we create is because we want to, but a large part of the motivation for sharing it is to hopefully get some response that people like it, whether it be in the form of likes, reblogs, comments, asks, tags, or anything else. That is the tangible PROOF that our work touched someone, and for someone who put in zero effort and has no idea how we felt while creating to receive all of that instead of us…sucks.

I think where you stand on the issue is up to you, and it’s okay for it to change. YOU always have the right to decide how you’re comfortable with people sharing your art, and your feelings are valid regardless of how they change.

Ironically enough, I just had another art theft on Instagram (my Anniversary post) super recently, so I was like HAH when I got this orz

This rant got a bit long, so the rest beneath cut but here’s a rundown about how my feelings towards art theft have evolved over the years.

For example, over the years I’ve gotten much, MUCH stricter. My earliest online art, I just put it up, no url, oftentimes no signature, no warnings in the comments or my blog bio. Admittedly I was starting out and didn’t have much viewers anyway, but the point was I still had Trust at the time.

Then the art thefts began. I started adding my url to all my illustrations, even if it was just small in the corner, as this’d let people at least find my website. Most people are too lazy to type out a url though, and I’ve seen people asking “Who drew this??” on art theft comments EVEN WHEN THE URL IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE…

And then people started cropping my watermarks. I made my url bigger, and started adding an additional “DO NOT REPOST” to the image itself. I used to allow reposts with credits on platforms I’m not on, like fb, until I realized that people were then reposting from THOSE communities without credit and putting them into their videos and fics and I just…decided it wasn’t worth it.

I switched to no reposts PERIOD. I have lengthy disclaimers on all of my art that leads to an even lengthier FAQ post that, should people wish to look, leads to even an even more detailed post about WHY art theft sucks, as I’m explaining now.

(EDIT: ALSO, reduce the quality of the images you upload, and NEVER upload the full resolution, and try to keep you unmerged original files. This is for several reasons: no matter how much an art thief reposts your work, they’ll never have access to the higher resolution, and if they ever decide to try to print to sell for profit it’ll be shitty quality compared to anything you make with the original. ALSO, you having the maximum resolution with no watermarking with additional unmerged psd files will be proof that you are the true creator should you need to prove it, which I’ve heard is sometimes necessary to show when your art is stolen at say, an artist alley)

I also used to bother trying to talk to art reposters. I’d comment on the post, try to send messages, etc. It’s fucking exhausting, and while there are some exceptions, the VAST majority of art thiefs will feel attacked and immediately get rude and defensive. (the failed confrontations and disrespect you mentioned orz) If it’s a large community, they may even try to gang up on you. I’ve unfortunately experienced this most frequently in communities centered around other languages (mainly Spanish) because of different mainstream attitudes towards art reposting etiquette combined with a language barrier.

You will, and no doubt already have, encountered people who will argue with you, like the people I describe above. “You should be grateful for the bigger audience!” “We just want to appreciate your art, how can you be so horrible?” “We’re all fans together!” “This is fanart and doesn’t belong to you anyway!” Etc. etc. etc. It’s exhausting, it’s repetitive, it’s neverending, and you already felt awful before it even began and the stress just continues to build.

So I personally have just begun reporting people, if the service allows it. Use DMCA takedown request forms (and YES, even if it’s fanart it’s still yours if you drew it). This is stressful too because it sends your real name + info to the reposter (and wow I clearly can’t trust these people to begin with, why would I want them to have that???) but most sites (facebook, instagram, certainly tumblr, twitter) are very efficient and responsive, and in the end the relief of receiving that email that the art has been taken down is worth it. Especially with facebook, they also send a scary official warning email to the reposters which I sincerely hope will help educate them and discourage future art thefts.

I try to avoid posting public urls because yes I’m aware how mob mentality Tumblr can get, but sometimes it’s just too much. There’s no convenient form of getting my content removed (perhaps bc it’s in a compilation with a ton of other content), or for some reason my attempts to communicate have failed. In those times I have occasionally asked my followers to help, with a reminder to PLEASE always be polite and respectful, regardless of the offense. Y’all have been amazing, and this has saved me many nights of crying in the past.

I will sometimes also write lengthy posts (like this one!) to help educate. Because I do feel that art theft will continue so long as people don’t understand what it does to artists, and it’s up to the community as a whole to make that change, which also depends heavily on the consumers not just creators. A lot of art theft really isn’t intentionally meant to harm, but IS super ignorant.

But in the end, all I’ve ranted about so far is how I’ve dealt with actually removing/dealing with the shit. But the emotional pain, it builds. Sometimes, when it’s too frequent and the stolen art gets way more attention than my original that I worked my ass off on that basically flunked on my own platforms, I feel a bit of me break.

And in the end, it’s up to you what that threshold is, where posting art and feeling good about it is overwhelmed by the pain, fear, and anxiety of art theft. I’ve crossed my own threshold too many times, and once had to take an art hiatus because of it (fandom was BH6). This lead to a break in my productivity and motivation and my eventual complete departure form the fandom. I’ve seen many other artists just stop posting art entirely or moving everything to private. It’s terrible, but my feelings are with these artists, and I feel so, so sorry that they were hurt so much to the extent they had to do this.

With my current fandom and followers, I feel that regardless of how niche an audience my content tends to be geared for, I have a community that is really satisfying for me to create for, one that is responsive to me and gives me tons of feedback. This is the number one reason why i continue to feel motivated to post a ton of online content despite the risks.

The takeaway form this long meandering post: Posting online is a hobby, it’s for fun, and I don’t make any money off my public audience (unless they come to Patreon! LOL!), so I’m a firm believer that once the anxiety + misery starts outweighing anything positive you personally may get from sharing online, which for me heavily depends on my audience and their responsiveness, there’s no reason to subject yourself to that anymore and you are in no way obligated to stay. There are various methods to more efficiently get rid of art thefts without dealing with them in person which is stressful AF, and also ways of marking up your content in ways that may look less aesthetically pleasing, but will hopefully discourage art thefts, and at the very least give them very little leg to stand on should they do it anyway. How forgiving you are in art thefts also depends on you, but the more forgiving you are, the more it can get away from you. And in the end, YOU as a human are more important than any complaints about art looking less pleasing or the feelings of art thefts who don’t get to do what they want with YOUR hard work.

Sorry this was so disjointed and literally just me spewing at you, but I hope some of it was helpful ^ ^; Please let me know if I can give you any other advice, and I’m sorry again that you have to deal with this ;_;

(and to respond to your second ask, I do try to respond to most of my asks, but sometimes it takes a while (sometimes even months orz), especially if it’s one that requires a lengthy detailed answer like this one ^ ^; thank you for your patience!)