#Im just impressed that someone wants to cosplay my art

[tepkunset]

@avatarfandompolice​​​ is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

[g4yw3nch]

Can I please ask for a Star Wars, and Marvel matchup? I am 5’1, with a sort of athletic build tho I am quite smol and petite, tanned brown skin, dark brown eyes, and medium length wavy black hair always tied up. As for style I sorta dress like whatever fictional character I’m channeling that day. I’m talking like daily cosplays but not screen accurate more inspired. My pronouns are She/Her. I’d like to be shipped with a male. I am a very sarcastic person and have a witty sense of humor. I’m quite the cunning and clever person as well. I tend to thrive on my own and am very much a lone wolf. Im very content with living in my own world in my brain and forgetting the existence of reality. That however doesn’t mean I’m quiet. When it comes to a topic I’m interested (film editing/making, science fiction, theoretical physics, video games etc.) I sort of have a light bulb moment and take charge of the group, being loud, excited, humorous and elaborate I always speak my mind in such situations. However, to everyone I am quite blunt and won't sugarcoat my opinions. I have the emotional intelligence of a gold fish. I do find it very hard to trust people and tend to shy away from deep feelings either being oblivious to them or pretending they don’t exist. I usually only open up those true feelings if I’ve been friends with you for ages and trust you. Saying that I have very few friends, I’m talking like four that I can talk too without feeling out of place or bored with small talk conversation. I am a little bit of a rebel. I’m not one for social norms and when everyone goes right I’ll find some way to make left work. I pride myself on uniqueness. I’m a digital artist, with a passion for video game design, filmmaking and cgi/visual effects. I adore anything to do with art and technology. I adore playing rpgs whether in real life (like dungeons and dragons or just larping) or in video games (like mass effect, dragon age, baldurs gate etc). I’m also a massive and I mean massive sci-fi geek. I can probably quote Doctor Who, Star Trek and Star Wars in my sleep. I love true crime, theoretical physics/astronomy, and conspiracy theories as well. I also adore working out, especially kickboxing, in-line skating and weight lifting. Thanks!!

I hope you like it 💞

MCU ship: Tony Stark

• Tony would immediately be impressed by how blunt you are, he needs someone to put him in his place from time to time (or all the time)

• He loves to tease you for how short and small you are, but mostly because he knows you will quickly jab back at him with a sarcastic comment

• You are always the first person he shows what new tech he’s been working on since he knows you’ll appreciate it (and he loves any excuse to spend more time with you)

•You both are very independent and love to stray from the pack and make your own rules, which inevitably causes lots of chaos (and fun)

•The rest of the avengers pretend to be annoyed by your shenanigans but can’t deny how perfect you are for each other, they’ve never seen Tony happier

•He sees a lot of himself in you, you make him want to be a better person

Star Wars ship: Obi Wan Kenobi

•Obi Wan is DETERMINED to make you open up to him

•He does everything he can to make you feel comfortable and safe, he knows you don’t have many close friends and so badly wants you to trust him

•He admires you sooo much and will sit and listen to you talk about your passions for hours

•He wants to know more about everything you love and will ask questions about it even if it doesn’t particularly interest him (because YOU interest him and he loves to hear you talk)

•Your rebelliousness sometimes scares him because all he wants is for you to be safe, but you know he secretly loves it

[usagi-mitsu]

This is something I never thought I would ever write – or would have even considered writing down even a few hours ago. But I feel like this needs to be addressed and I hope you all can forgive me for venting my feelings – about art, the reader/author relationship, art-theft, and the following consequence: deleted art.

And… this is also some kind of diary entry for me, to never forget.

About three to four hours ago, an artist who I truly admire, closed their account on Wattpad. Wattpad is not my personally preferred platform, simply because I’m not sure it’s ok for them to monetize an authors content the way they do – and that is a topic for a whole different discussion. But they had pulled their stuff from fanfiction.net a few years prior and (if it even was their account) even from AO3.

The last message they posted on Wattpad reads as follows:

“DUE TO PEOPLE CONSTANTLY TRYING TO STEAL MY FICS AND CLAIM THEM AS THEIR OWN, I HAVE REMOVED THEM ALL FROM THIS PLATFORM. VERY SORRY TO THOSE WHO HAVE READ AND ENJOYED THEM BUT ALREADY MULTIPLE TIMES MY WRITING HAS BEEN STOLEN AND IM DONE.”

 The author I’m talking about was called “Lusterrdust” on Wattpad and wrote the very popular Skyrim Romance Mod fanfiction about their Dragonborn Niamh and the mods main character Bishop. Their first story “Ranger of the Woods” covered the whole of the mod in about 52-53 chapters and told it beautifully: From when Niamh and Bishop first met in Riverwood (?), to them fighting side by side, him leaving her to go fight Alduin alone, them reuniting a few months later, the journey to Solstheim, the battle with Miraak and finally a small wedding far away from the public. The second story was called “Saviour of Tamriel” and was set about four years after the first one, with Niamh yearning to be a mother, while the Aldmeri Dominion was planning on slowly expanding it’s … well … dominion across the continent, with Niamh and the High King Ulfric receiving death threats, her actually getting pregnant and Bishop trying to keep his family as safe as possible. A meeting with the emperor Titus Mede was on the way and I think Niamh and Bishop were about to drop their baby boy Julian off with the greybeards to keep him safe, since the Dominion had already put a hefty price on the not even three month old infant.

 The reason for why I write this, why this is affecting me like this, is that Lusterrdust was the first author I ever interacted with: I wrote comments when I read the story and I left my impressions and came back to read it again and again. I even dropped theories in the comments, even though I knew the story was not yet one and when I left my ideas and theories at the end of one of the last chapters, they even asked me, if they could use my idea. And my comments were not there anymore, since I offered them to delete them – just so that nobody else would be spoiled by my … inspirational rants at the end of each chapter. (Which is why I assume Niamh and Bishop were in Ivarstead at the end of the last chapter – it was my suggestion to place the baby with the Greybeards. Who better to look after a baby, than a bunch of super powerful elderly men and an elder dragon..?

But aside from having a baby at the worst possible time, aside from Niamh and Bishop still trying to learn how to communicate with her being the Dragonborn and therefore a person of public and political interest, aside from a potential alliance with Titus Mede and a hopefully good ending for them all.. there was so much more: There was the sub-plot with Breezehome being remodelled to be an orphanage, Niamhs brother having been brainwashed by the dark brotherhood, Lydia and Farkas having a third baby, Vilkas being with a Mere (elven woman), the implication of Ulfric slowly growing old and openly admitting to wanting Niamh to be his High Queen …

There was so much yet to explore.

But the author stopped updating in 2018, when their grandfather died. Which was ok. And everything was still ok to this day. At least for me: Even though they did not publish any new content, I still had all those many chapters to read again and again in my own time, whenever I got to it.

And it inspired me. It inspired me so much, that I went ahead and dove head first into Elder Scrolls Lore. A few years back, I could name all the Daedric Princes (Sanguine is the god of tits and wine – change my mind) and tell you which of Tamriels nine gods ruled over which dominion and why the fight between the Elves of Summerset and the other peoples of Tamriel was utter religious bullshit.

It even inspired me to think about my own Dragonborn, a nord woman called Kahira van Rae, and what she would do in a situation like Niamhs. A train of thoughts, that lead to me having RP sessions with my friends via WhatsApp and hour long talks about the politics of fictional lands. It even made me call my new character in the next fandom I’d dive into “Shia Tamriel”. In honour of a story and fandom I had come to love deeply.

And while it has been some time since I last checked in with these stories, I never forgot them. I did keep on coming back, enjoying them again and again. And every time I read them, I discovered something new.

These two stories were important to me.

The author was important to me.

 And now, all of those things are gone, because someone apparently copied their work and posted them as their own.

And that’s what really gets me.

Some random person out there on the internet thought it was ok, to simply copy-paste another persons hard work and put their name on it.

And let me put this as simply as possible:

THAT IS NOT OK! NOT IN ANY WAY!

 Because of your selfishness, a few hundred people will never get to know the end of Niamhs story.

Because of your selfishness, a few hundred people will never get to reread the story.

Because of your selfishness, an author was hurt and annoyed so badly they decided to pull all their content.

You should be ashamed.

You stole someone’s precious art that they decided to share with the world and let me be clear – just because they shared their art, you are not allowed to simply make it your own!

 Copyright is an iffy topic in fandom culture, with different countries having different rules and different companies going after fan works in highly differing intensities. But it should be common curtesy to not simply steal another persons art! Be it literal artworks as in pictures or edited videos or cosplay ideas or written art like fanfiction!

If something inspires you, that’s great! But you always ask consent before doing anything with the art! And if asking consent is an entirely new concept to you, I’d like to ask you kindly to go educate yourself on it. It will not only pop up in fandom culture.

 To conclude this…

I’m just sad at this point. I remembered the story two nights ago and I jumped right back into it at some random point and read it. I even put up with Wattpads shenanigans like forcing me to log in to keep on reading or requiring me to download the app so that they can show me stupid 30 second long ads in between reading.

I know that the world is not ending because of this.

I am well aware of the fact, that it was just a story.

And I truly support the authors decision.

 But until they pulled all the content, until they deleted their account, I had always hoped to maybe one day read more about Niamh and Bishop. And Bragor and Julian. About their Ulfric and Ralof, Lydia and Farkas and their children. I had hopes to discover their Titus Mede and how they were going to resolve the conflict between Skyrim, the empire and the Dominion

But now I cannot even go back and reread the sassy exchanges between Casavir and Bishop. I will never again be able to experience Bishops anguish when Niamh receives an almost mortal wound. I’ll never again know the inner thoughts of the Dragonborn, who thought she was barren, getting told that she is pregnant.

 I think the author did the right thing. It saddens me nonetheless.

 So let me end this here with one last plea to everyone in every fandom out there:

Do not steal art.

 Thank you for reading.

[vampanic]

okay here’s what i remember from THE CON

i can’t remember if the ticket was cheap or pricey. i don’t know why. i wanna say it was more expensive or of equal value to a bigger con and i justified it to my parents and myself because it was the first one. but i went because i thought the idea of a con that was centered on the various fandoms popular on this site at the time was a genuinely neat idea. i also thought, okay let me just go because it’s another one to attend.

i should note: that have been to a lot conventions in my time. i’ve been to acen twice i think? i’ve been to nebkon twice. sadly i have never been to c2e2 or flashback chicago (which i may never get to go to now whoops) and i’ve been to wizard world chicago i wanna say 4 times?

now at these cons (mostly wizard world) these fandoms aren’t as present. in fact, the main demo of that con was adult to middle age to older visitors as well as families, so usually teens and young adults would find each other at this con (whether planned ahead or by accident there) and freak the fuck out over our cosplays or mutual love of whatever.

so because of this again the idea of a t.umblr con was exciting to me, even though i was already at the end of being interested in those fandoms (as i’m sure most people were at the time)

okay so first, this con was far. wizard world and acen are held at the rosemont convention center which while kind of far from where i live, is accessible by train via downtown or via one of chicago’s big airports. i always got a ride though which with summer traffic, took forever. so much like that this con was a journey away.

the hotel the con choose i remember thinking it seemed new, but it was far from where i lived which inpacted the amount of time i spent at the con and the decision to only go two days (i didn’t return the last day because it was a shit show)

i went to this con by myself because i think at this point i had already had a falling out with my friend who i went to cons in the area with (she did not attend that i know of). i wore two cosplays that i had made already for other things, gwen stacy and america chavez. this would have been the ideal place for me to cosplay something more niche, but i just didn’t care that much about it. maybe i didn’t think it was worth it at the time since it wasn’t going to be a big con.

so i get there and there’s no long line to get my badge in fact i don’t even remember a line at all. which, for me, was bizarre. every con i’ve been to before had huge lines even on off hours to get badges. but whatever. i cant remember if where i got my badge was in the the same room as where the ball pit was or not. but yes, i did go into the ball pit and i was silly in it with some other people because

idk you see a ball pit you go in the ball pit? in hindsight i know it’s not acceptable to have this at a con, but shit i guess i was high on life at the time. someone took a pic of me in the pit, but i have never seen it.

i remember seeing some very impressive cosplays at this con. i also bought some really great art in the dealers room which was small. (here’s the artist. also this was nonfandom art. i don’t remember buying anything else from anyone because i don’t think i saw anything i liked/could afford) there was no unlicensed night vale merch sold here that i remember, but i do remember receiving free unlicsenced night vale like pamphlets from a random vendor and also  there was a vendor who was giving away a large piece of night vale fan art with a purchase of over something dollars i dont remember.

panels: i don’t remember there being many panels or even very interesting panels. panels i remember going to include: bisexuality in media/bisexuality representation (which was put on by the bisexualbooks tumblr), ask an avenger (which was put on by various marvel cosplayers), and a panel that was about female characters in supernatural (i was a spn stan back in the day jsyk).

the bi one was good. i remember it being the most like a panel that you’d go to at a larger convention. they had slides and info and they took questions and had several speakers.

the avengers one was what we’d call today “cringey” but it was cute. it was exactly what it sounds like. avengers cosplayers sat up on a stage answering questions in character. i believe that all the cosplayers had rp and/or ask blogs which is why they were chosen.

the supernatural panel was, like the bi one, complete with slides and various speakers, but from what i remember it was mostly going down the list of female characters in the show. i remember from the fandom that there a good chunk of people who love the characters, but they’re often killed off or abandoned and this is something a lot of fans did have gripes with. this is gonna sound fake when i say it, but this did happen, we got to charlie and someone said “yeah i like charlie she’s cool because she’s a lesbian but she doesn’t act like one like she’s still feminine” and i spoke up and said “well yeah it’s cool she’s a lesbian, but what do you mean she doesn’t act like one. like queer female character shouldn’t have to be feminine to be seen as good rep.” and people clapped. i know that sounds fake, but please believe me because this is a setting where people are inclined to clap when they agree with statements. people clapped at others too.

i also attended the costume contest, the night vale panel, and the meet and greet with doug jones.

the contest was fine. there was one individual at this con who i can’t name because i didnt know their name, but they cosplayed as ed from edd ed and eddy and they were in character the whole time to the point of discomfort. it wasn’t just for the contest i found myself in a cards against humanity game that they were in and it was even there and it was weird.

then the night vale panel happened and ooooooooohhhh boy

this was the most filled room in the whole con. a main reason i went to this con was to see them and im pretty sure this was everyone’s main reason to go. i known someone from other cons who came from florida to see this. (fun fact: we were mutuals on various platforms and had hung out at various cons and i knew their name, but they could not remember mine and i thought that was bogus so i ghosted them. dont know if i was justified in that but whatever)

so here we all were waiting. for over an hour. during this time people talked and i remember someone cosplaying the glow cloud went up and down the isle with a little glow cloud baby in a stroller and we all laughed and cheered. people started playing card games. we kept busy. for me though.

this was one of the most boring cons i’ve been to honestly. i’m having trouble remember a lot of it and that’s because i went solo. i had no friends there. i cosplayed gwen from like the 60s and this was before spidey joined the mcu and before itsv was a thing so spidey was basically an niche fandom (i was active in the tasm and dane deha.an fandoms at this time and the latter became toxic as fuck but that’s a whole other story) or something older comic fans liked.

my other cosplay was america chavez from young avengers which never got that popular either (though kate bishop and kid loki where more recognized, but for their connection to bigger marvel names). so it wasn’t like other cons where my cosplay was an ice breaker and i could join groups. i was alone.

so a lot of the con for that reason was awkward and waiting for night vale was like being the person texting in the corner at a distant relative’s party because they know no one.

so they finally come on stage to say that night vale will not be performing and people went ballistic people were shouting and the person said “we have doug jones in the next hall you should go over to that” and someone yelled “WE DON’T WANT TO SEE HIM”

i went to see doug jones and i was previously unaware of what his name was but i knew who he was. he talked about his work and acting process and did a meet and greet after. mr. jones was a delight and i’m wondering how they even got him there in the first place. he was leagues above this. 

i had to leave the con early that day to go to my brother’s football game, but i believe that was the night they “protested” at the con and i kept seeing on tumblr that it was cancelled. i decided not to go back the next day because i was unsure of what was happening and because it was too far.

and the rest is history. i’m sure i went to other panels, but i can’t remember them. i do remember going into the room where they were watching pacific rim, but it was on a shitty projection screen and i wanted to go to a panel instead.

it’s shitty what happened with the con. and a lot of the unrest came from literal teens who were cheated from money who didn’t know how to act, but all the responsibility goes to the people who organized it poorly. The concept of a tu.mblr con i don’t think should have been inherently bad. i think it would have been cool to have a con that focused on more niche interests. but shouldn’t have been as big as they wanted it to be for the first go.

anyway that’s most of what i can remember. it’s kind of blur because i spent most of it by myself and there wasn’t much to do so i didn’t even spend the whole day there.

quite frankly, i’m glad i wasn’t there when they started singing les mis because i have no idea how i would have acted.

[takerfoxx]

You don't have to make a cheat sheet. If my investment in cookie-senpai is anything to go by, I'm already too far gone.

(though I can’t say I would have ever expected Mokou to be referred to as Cookie-senpai, but now I shall be thinking of her exclusively with that term)Anyway....

All right, peeps. Here’s the deal with this new story. For anyone who’s only familiar with my PMMM stuff, I actually originally broke into fanfiction through writing stories for the Touhou Project, with Resonance Days premiering exactly two years after that. 

And for anyone that’s not familiar with the Touhou Project, it’s a Japanese indie game series of top-down bullet hell shooters. In fact, many would consider it to be the series of top-down bullet hell shooters, with many of the other entries in the genre often cribbing from Touhou’s notes. They’re notable for being completely created from the bottom-up by one single guy on his home computer. Specifically, this guy.

Meet ZUN, a Japanese video game legend known for eating too little and drinking way, way too much. Seriously, he’s admitted to being drunk during the bulk of the programming of at least one of his games, and his first impression of American culture was, “The meals were too big and the beers too small.” 

Here we see him in what I presume was on an average Wednesday.

Anyway, when I said he does everything himself, I mean everything, from the plotting to the programming to the designing the sprite art (which is super pretty) to the character art (which is charmingly terrible) to the music (which is legendary for how catchy it is) to anything else you can think of. And thanks to a combination of their ridiculously huge cast of endearing characters, absurdly difficult and yet somehow not cheap gameplay, and amazing soundtracks, they have amassed a huge cult following that frankly dwarfs so many professional franchises. Seriously, we’re talking oodles upon oodles of fanart, fan comics, impressive fan animations, entire bands dedicated to remixing and covering the soundtracks, and elaborate cosplays. Every Comiket is largely dominated by Touhou content, and whenever ZUN himself shows up in person to drop a new game, expect people to be lining up out the door days in advance.

So onto the games themselves!

The games take place in the mystical country of Gensokyo, with an approximate map reproduction here.

Anyway, Gensokyo is a little hard to describe, so I guess the best description would be that it’s sort of a pocket dimension intended as a refuge for feudal-era Japanese mythology, where all the gods, monsters, fairies, spirits, and other supernatural thingies went to after Japan started to move away from their beliefs, along with a bunch of humans who wanted to still believe in them. And all of those supernatural creatures have been anthropomorphized as cute anime-esque girls in silly outfits!

This series has inspired a lot of porn.

Anyway, the two main characters of the series are the perpetually poor and always grumpy shrine maiden Reimu Hakurei and her best friend the cheerful but also something of a kleptomaniac witch Marisa Kirisame, pictured here. 

And despite being the protagonists, they’re admittedly kind of a couple of assholes. Likeable assholes, but still assholes.

Also, these guys are also often playable as well.

But seeing how my story takes place decades before the first game and most of these guys haven’t even been born yet, that’s not really important.

Anyway, the series sticks to a formula that it only occasionally deviates from. Some weird shit is afoot, so whoever you selected as your character goes to investigate for whatever reason, spend the first two levels not making any progress and encountering boss fights that have nothing to do with the incident, running into someone on the third level that at least knows what’s going on and can point them in the right direction after having the snot beaten out of them, spending the next two levels facing off against the perpetrator’s minions/allies/friends/family/whatever, before facing off against the perpetrator on the final level. Do well enough, and you’ll unlock a super-hard extra stage feature a super-hard bonus boss that has some kind of connection to the final boss.

Anyway, the plots are rarely important, and most of the bosses end up befriending the protags after having some sense beaten into them and sometimes even show up as playable characters in later games.

So, this is where I come in.

Imperfect Metamorphosis is my flagship story. It’s basically a dark fic that plays all of the darker elements from the series straight and involves a freak accident kicking off a series of disasters that has a lot of factions forming, plots within plots, and overall chaos. Heavily influence by Song of Ice and Fire, if you’re into that sort of thing. And Swiftly Descending Darkness is basically the origin story of one of those disasters. Other related stories include the spin-off Rhapsody of Subconscious Desire and the second Christmas special Over an Open Fire, both of which feature Mokou as a main character and thus tie into this story, which is something I’ve been planning for...Jesus, almost as long as IM’s been running.

Anyway, canon characters from Touhou in SDD are Rumia, Keine, Mokou, and Kana (also that annoying blue fairy from the first scene, but that was just a cameo). All others so far are all OC’s, but one or two other canon characters might show up.

And that’s all I can really talk about without veering into spoiler territory. Anyone who’s read IM or is even familiar with Touhou can probably guess where a few things are going, but for those of you who aren’t, well, any googling will be up to you.

So yeah.

There you go.

[shamefulbirb]

Does CC have any other outfits? What kinds of things would her wear? (I realized that wearing a sweater to a con in Texas probably isn't a good idea)

Ahah sorry, I know that feel. I have done many a layered costumes, including mabels turtle neck sweater (I made a cartoonishly large turtle neck fold and tucked and icepack under the back of the neck) and suffered through some full labcoat with mascot head for alphys. For CC as a character, I honestly gave him a sweater because it suited his personality of wanting something nice and stress free that covered up as much of his body as possible because he’s so self conscious and I’m a lazy artist who cant draw overly complicated mechanics every time I want my baby.As far as story goes, he only has that sweater because Dark gave it to him (one of marks old ones thats why its a bit baggy) and he cant really go out and buy more stuff because he cant go out in public and deal with the potential screams and stares. he wouldn’t really buy for himself but he would happily accept clothing gifts.as for COSPLAY (which may I say for the hundredth time is the coolest friggin thing, thank you so much like holy shit. if you see Ethan I will die and I expect pictures), you can still get the sweater look from a very thin baggy shirt and roll up the sleeves. Hopefully the convention is indoors so it wouldn’t be TOO bad.  Unfortunately a lot of other things he would wear would EQUALLY cover him up, but the next closest thing is causal pretty comfort. He doesn’t want to worry about his looks whether its his actual body or fashion, and would want free movement. so a baggy t shirt with a nice saying or illustration on it would do (hell, a crankgameplays shirt. Lol wouldn't that be cute if he watched Ethan and supported him even tho he’ll never meet him.) If you dont go for the sweater, its gonna be a bit of a pain in the ass with painting your arms, but if youre willing to go the effort, theres plenty of online tutorials for making arm and torso socks out of pantyhose that makes it look like its painted on skin. (Pantyhose gets hot too tho, so whatever your thinking) and I mean, at the end of the day, its YOUR cosplay so do what you need to feel comfortable and have fun!

[misas-biggest-fan]

yooooo BEJEWLED BAZINGA for the character meme

poly you know my brand a;lkdjfadklsfj

First impression

loved him to death. i don’t think I understood how complex he could be at the tender age of like 12 and sort of boiled him down to ‘oooo he kills people for fun and all he eats is jam and he’s L’s twin with red eyes’

but then again that’s probably exactly what he would have wanted, bless his heart

I specifically requested that the bookstore near my house order Another Note and once they got it in, I saved all my pennies to buy it and I still have that copy to this day. :)

also someone PLEASE tell me they remember Beyond The Limit and their incredibly prolific and popular BB fanart?? i don’t picture him that way anymore but the art is a real throwback LOL

Impression now

is it possible for me to love him more? he’s so ridiculous and bizarre and he’s constantly trying SO HARD, but he’s also trying to look like he’s NOT trying?? He’s the hottest of hot messes and just another super cool character in a long list of super cool DN characters who run their own life into the ground fantastically. he’s way cool but somehow he’s also the World’s Biggest Loser. I also love to picture that he looks, like, Exactly Different from L so that his L cosplay would be super off no matter what. that’s part of the reason why I like drawing him with curly hair because there’s like, no way he’d be able to make his hair actually look like L’s. It’s just that Naomi wouldn’t know that.

Favorite moment

everything a;lkjfd I do think it’s hilarious when he lies on the floor and gets stepped on by naomi. Most of his scenes, I think, are made 10x better by Naomi. They bring out some of the best in each other, at least when it comes to entertainment factor. Another moment I love is when he’s trying to learn to do an evil laugh. He’s such a loser i love him ;jlkafjklfds

Idea for a story

so you know im writing a long fic abt how much i love him and naomi and A LOL BUT I have all these complex ideas about naomi and how she feels like although she loves both beyond and raye, she can’t really have either of them because of some of the choices they’ve made in their lives (ie. misogyny and also murder). So I want to write a fic where she is actually able to have both of them as a big part of her life and she meets Beyond in LA before he commits the murders and somehow manages to change his mind. again, it’s a work in progress but I have totally written like, the first few pages LOL so

Unpopular opinion

it’s hard for me to picture exactly how he must feel abt the murders now that they’re over. I’m still trying to suss it out. i don’t want to erase his darkness by saying that he feels really bad about them right off the bat, but I certainly don’t think he expected to have to think about them or live with the knowledge of what he did. I think he wanted to do it and get it over and then die and I think the fact that he has to actually, you know, Suffer the Consequences of His Actions would throw him for a loop. I’m still sorting it out because he’s absolutely monstrous for sure, but he’s definitely less so than he’d like everyone to think.

Favorite relationship

Him and Naomi ;ladj;lsakdjf

But the more I write of him and A, the more I dig them, too? (also poly, I ship him with your A so much she’s absolutely precious and they’re so pure together!!! id die for her. the A i’ve given him in my fics is less sweet to him.)

Favorite headcanon

He loves Misa-Misa. This hc has given me life. He’s also NB and loves make up and painting his nails. 

also, when he set the fire, he realized that he was really afraid but he knew he was too far to turn around. Now he’s absolutely terrified of fire, although he thinks it’s a dumb fear and he’d never admit the havoc he wreaked on his own psyche trying to burn himself to death.

lastly, he’s aroace and he loves naomi and A with his entire heart. if he regrets anything at all, it’s at the very least that his actions led to him having to one day say goodbye to naomi, especially after having lost A.

this got ridiculously long but here’s a rly small piece of something im working on of him and A and i can’t tell if i hate it or not? so if i wake up in the morning and look at this post again and hate it, you all have to pinky swear me that you’ll all erase it from your brains that very second.

[yukipri]

Hey, I want to start posting my own art but i don't know if i should do it on tumblr or instagram...which one should i choose? i noticed that you use both, but all your art has your blog URL... any thoughts?

Okay so here’s my best attempt to answer this, it got a bit long sorry! ^ ^;

I think different people have vastly different experiences posting art on various social media platforms depending on what you post, how you want to present it, how many followers you have, and how you regularly interact/WANT to interact with those followers.

I technically have an instagram which I tried to get myself to restart using after my last convention since so many cosplayers use it, and i tried putting a very small amount of art on there but tbh it’s already fallen back to its original use, which is to sometime post photos to tumblr through it ^ ^; I realized Instagram’s not a great platform for me personally to post art because 1) I personally do not have a lot of followers on it, 2) of those followers, many are rl people who found me through fb which i try to keep separated from my fandom blogs, 3) Instagram heavily controls image dimensions so it’s not great if you frequently post tall or long posts and the majority of my art is portrait, 4) Instagram is good for individual aesthetic images, not so great for long story-telling multi-page comics, which is a lot of what I do, 5) I’m not entirely sure how people find your blog on instagram since no reblogging and tags and stuff seem strange and most of the attention seems to come from people who already follow you, and I’m too tired to learn another social media platform now, and 6) Instagram is full of a TON of art theft and I’ve had too many personal bad experiences to have a good impression of the platform as a whole.

So uh, yep, in other words for me Instagram is mostly for cosplay, selfies, pet pics, and merch pics ^ ^;

I also post on Twitter, but that has its fair share of issues too. It, like instagram, is pretty bad for posting portrait images and works better with square/landscape aligned images. It absolutely SUCKS for long comics and multi-page things because the previews are awful. The text limitation is also pretty miserable for someone like me who loves talking a LOT on my posts. It also has a really weird HUGE hit or miss gap between art posts, and I feel like the amount of followers or comments you get per successful art post is far fewer than Tumblr, though others may have different experiences. It IS good for connecting to a less English and tbh far less America-centric community though ^ ^;

I personally prefer to use Tumblr as my main art posting platform for several reasons, some simply because I’ve been more successful here and that’s motivation to continue, and some also just because of what I post. This was the first fandom social media I was really active on, and I’ve been active for YEARS and have sloooooooooooooowly but steadily gained more success, bit by tiny bit through various fandoms (so yeah, tons of art posts with only single digit notes? been there, done that WHOO).

Because Tumblr’s been my main social media, I’ve gotten used to formatting my art specifically for it. Almost all of my art uses Tumblr’s ideal image posting proportions (2 width: 3 height, for those wondering, anything taller blurs), and I’ve learned to take advantage of Tumblr’s vertical scrolling to make posts that stand out when you speed scroll. I’m also the kind of artist who again, rarely posts a “look a pretty picture anyone can appreciate” type art, and more “here’s a really obscure hyper specific AU comic that you’ll have to follow all the links and read the text to appreciate,” type work. This latter means that being able to write long comments (and being able to put it beneath a cut), add links to other posts, and properly tag is really important.

I’ve also found that when I personally post this hyper specific content, on Tumblr and only Tumblr of my social media platforms do I get significant feedback. This is almost entirely because my own unique followers are truly amazing and I’m so incredibly grateful to them, but also partially because there’s so many methods of feedback for people at various comfort levels. There’s the askbox, which I can respond to publicly and where people can send anon if that’s easier. There’s IMs, which I can rarely respond to but it’s an option. There’s replies and comments in reblogs of posts. And there’s tags for people who want to ramble but don’t necessarily look for responses from me. The combination of all of these results in quite a decent amount of feedback that I can enjoy ^ ^; And again, this isn’t for every post; I find that art with less specific context, even if it gets exponentially more notes just don’t have the same type of feedback as my more specific content. And experiences will vary heavily between users, but this is just the community that I feel has grown around my own art here (Thank you all, dear followers, you’re all amazing ;A;).

Tumblr’s url is the one stamped on all of my work because it’s the one I’ve created my brand on, it’s the one that contains all of my content as I meant for it to be seen (comments, tags, links to other related posts and all) so it’s the one that most of my reposts on my other social media link to anyway, and also to be blunt, it has many more times the number of followers than all of my other social medias combined >.

Of course, Tumblr has plenty of cons too. As noted above, but horizontal images are CRAP to post on Tumblr bc they take the least amount of space when you’re vertically scrolling so even it’s a ridiculously huge and detailed long post, it’ll barely blip on most dashes. There’s a limit of 10 images, which can be annoying for me sometimes as a comic artist who has to work around that. Tumblr also does this ridiculously stupid thing where it resizes the image that appears on the dash so it’s really crappy quality and it’s a pain for people to open up the actual resolution image. Tumblr also has, ah, a very specific and rather hostile culture around many things, and depending on what you post you could get a lot of unsavory comments that will be a LOT more rare on other platforms. I’ve found that users on other platforms tend to understand the “You control what you consume,” concept a lot better ^ ^;;;; And given the above various forms of interacting with your followers that I’ve listed above, this also means that people have a variety of tools to make you feel like crap too! And then there’s all that stuff about safety mode going on recently, among other problems. Not a perfect platform, not by a LONG shot.

So which social media platform will be right for you? Again, it really, REALLY depends. If rl people follow you on one or the other and you want or DON’T want them to see it, that’s a factor. If you’re used to talking to your followers on one account and maybe they’d be interested in seeing something else from you, that’s an option. If you want to divide personal from fandom or combine them, that’s a factor. If you prefer more “artistic” or aesthetic art, perhaps instagram and twitter would work far better for you than me. If you have a certain art orientation you prefer, that’s a factor (again: Instagram = square, Twitter = square/landscape, Tumblr = portrait/square). If you want to write a lot of comments or post multi-page work, perhaps Tumblr is better. And of course, it certainly doesn’t hurt to try posting on multiple simultaneously and seeing what works for you, which could be everything! 

But most importantly, please don’t get too discouraged if your work does not immediately get the response you were hoping it’d get. Gaining a following takes time and there are so many factors involved beyond your skill level alone, including the popularity of the fandom if it’s fanart, timeliness, frequency of your posts, and the biggest one is sheer dumb luck. Most if not all followers won’t ever comment. Most of your followers won’t even bother to hit like. It WILL feel exhausting and unrewarding and thankless if you go into it for the notes alone. So please, it’ll be hard but it can be a wonderful and rewarding thing to share things you’ve put your love and passion into, so enjoy drawing, draw what you love, and share because you want to share that feeling ^ ^

Sorry this got SUPER long, but I hope it was somewhat helpful! ^ ^;