#SEE IT'S ME THAT'S THE PROBLEM HERE NOT FANDOM

[igbylicious]

me: hm fandom is always so exhausting for me even tho it's fun :( i gotta figure out a way to be in this space so it costs less energy & it won't constantly exacerbate my chronic bullshit :(

me later: okay so reviving my old ateez blog @wooyoungslipmole to reblog gifsets, art, memes etc etc works really well! (/blatant plug-in) i can easily mute the blog's notifs to manage the overstim better and i'm not flooded w/ small, flashing images in my writing blog's activity anymore so it's less of a strain to look at! yay, progress!

me, who should have stopped there: huh, maybe then a separate blog for fic recs is also smart 🤔

me: and it's also a nice excuse to finally create an actual tagging system so ppl can search recs by members! and by genre! and whether it's reader insert or not! and oneshots or series! maybe i should tag different types of au's too? 🤔🤔

me: AND OH WHAT IF, WHAT IF, what if i go through all my old recs and queue them up for the new blog so they're neatly gathered in one place, AND i rotate them by member so there's a nice even spread in content!!! and i should also spread out the writers too so they don't get spammed too much. yes yes let's do this 👍 hmm wait i've got like 80 fics in my queue now and i'm not sure if i have any recs left for certain members... i knew i'd have more for some than for others but this... hm... maybe i should tally which members are in the remaining 90 fic so i know what the exact disparity is 🤔 oh dang i read a LOT more San fic than i realised lol oop okay so all i gotta do is dig through my tumblr tbr for the other members and read massive amounts of fic for them so i can keep my queue nice and balanced! yeah lately i've felt too blocked to read anything on tumblr, that's true, but having a deadline will make all the difference to kick my brain back into gear, i'm sure 👍 brute-forcing it will have no negative consequences 👍 let's start wi— wait what do you mean it's 2am already? why is my brain all frazzled and foggy???

me: ...okay maybe, just maybe, it's not fandom that's exhausting.........

[altschmerzes]

in general if you want to enjoy your ships and romantic interpretations of character dynamics without running into the territory of amatonormativity and casual fandom arophobia i think a good standard approach is if you’re going to refer to the dynamic you see as romantic, there’s just no need to bring the idea of friendship or platonic relationships into it at all! i talk a lot about how people get very habitually and jokingly mean about nonromantic relationships in a way that’s really hurtful and upsetting to me as an aromantic person, and people often get very defensive in response, how it was just a joke, it’s not that deep, it’s just shipping, etc. so my best advice if you want to continue enjoying your ships and jokes and lighthearted fun in fandom without hurting aros and others who value nonromantic relationships, just stick to uplifting what you like, and not bringing up alternatives at all!

comments like “they were so in love here” or “they’re soooo gay for each other” or “this was so romantic” might be annoying to me on the basis of standard affection or care or whatever else, but that’s a me problem and there’s nothing harmful or wrong about it. just don’t bring platonic relationships or friendships into it, because at that point that’s where the shitty behaviour arises, because that’s where the purpose is almost always to put them down in comparison. i.e. “there’s no platonic explanation for this” or “who looks at a friend like that” or “sure they’re juuuust friends [based on some degree of intimacy or care or concern etc]”

you can have fun and enjoy your ships and make lighthearted jokes and posts without being amatonormative and casually arophobic!! it’s perfectly possible and easy. when in doubt you just don’t need to reference nonromantic relationships in your ship posts at all. celebrate what you enjoy! don’t put down what you don’t.

[utilitycaster]

thank you so much for your analysis on BH, Ive been thinking for ages that they seemed like the wrong fit for this particular campaign and it's nice to see that I'm not alone. It kinda baffled me that even knowing the crux of the campaign was going to be about the fate of the gods, Matt didn't like... just tell the cast that their characters opinion on divinity would be important?

I really feel like this plot needed more religious characters, even if they weren't outright clerics or paladins. The only one filling that role is Sam and while I love him and FCG his approach to religion seems kinda... cynical? shallow? Possibly just more focused on the goofs of it all. Which is a fine choice in a vacuum but god, what I wouldn't do for this party to have a Caduceus or even a Vax figure so it didn't feel like a bunch of agnostics were deciding the fate of religion.

So here's my opinion, and I've said this before: I agree that making characters who had a coherent, developed opinion on divinity before the campaign that was discussed as part of the character build is important...but I actually don't think it matters if there's no clerics or paladins or even religious characters. I also said this before: my ultimate problem, in the end, is not just the indecision but the fact that they're not even exploring indecision; they just are drifting through a narrative from which they feel disconnected. I as a person viewing the show think killing the gods is a dumb idea, but a campaign in which the characters confidently embraced an anti-god position and took actions in the service of that goal would be infinitely more enjoyable. I do not need characters to live out my personal values, because I do that in my real life, in the same way that I can enjoy characters who are vastly different than I in personality.

I think Keyleth is a fantastic example of both indecision as an actual conscious character trait (during Campaign 1) and a character who is not religious or even particularly respects the gods but who seems to have actually thought through the implications and made an assessment. Keyleth's analysis paralysis and fear of making a harmful decision or being hurt is the point of the character, and Marisha explores it directly during Campaign 1; it is ultimately what is holding Keyleth back from becoming the leader she needs to be, and working through it is the arc of her character. Avoidance or indecision is a fantastic character flaw to explore (Bellara in Veilguard is a recent example that's been on my mind) but it is a character flaw to be explored, and for the character to do something interesting with, and Bells Hells just...as I've said, drift. They keep going through open doors because they are there and never say "do I even want to go through this door? Why or why not?" and the entire purpose of a character in fiction, in my opinion, is to ask that question.

I actually pretty strongly disagree about FCG. I think they took a bit longer than I'd like to click but I actually found FCG's exploration of religion to be one of the deeper ones in the series. I think the party often disparaged it, and the fandom certainly did ("Fearne should make that stupid robot eat his own coin" will remain burned in my brain forever; I cannot take someone who said that as anything but a shriveled husk of a person unless they admit it was horribly mean-spirited and they regret it) but FCG is the rare member of Bells Hells who actually explored the concept of having autonomy and agency - that was his entire arc, actually - and to have this be told through embracing the god of chance and freedom, whom he learned about by chance, was a highlight of the campaign. I would strongly advise you reconsider seeing this as nothing but a bit; just because Sam tends to make a lot of dumb jokes doesn't mean he's not often telling a pretty profound story underneath, and this is a lesson it took me until this campaign to learn, to be honest. But I will say I don't think FCG being here now would fix things any more than Braius does, in part because the rest of the party looked down on faith but also didn't really condemn it. They just made vaguely unkind comments and continued doing fuck all. As my ask earlier today said, they didn't actually challenge each other; they just sort of passive-aggressively bitch. The point that many people made very early on, that Bells Hells has a veneer of cooperation and civility but lack the actual true bonds that only arise through working through conflict, remains true.

Getting back to it, I think the fact that NPCs who are not affiliated with the Prime deities nor Betrayer Gods and even struggle against them (Percy, Keyleth; the entire Kryn Dynasty; a massive number of entirely secular governments including the Clovis Concord, the remnants of the Cerberus Assembly, as far as I know the Marquesian governments, the Silken Squall) are unambiguously against Ludinus and the release of Predathos means that it's not the lack of clerics or paladins or everyday religious people. I don't care if agnostics decide the fate of the world, but DAMN those agnostics better have a fucking vision for what the world should be. I could talk at length about why I think killing the gods is a deranged and unrealistic solution to the problems the characters claim to think it will fix, but ultimately I don't even feel like the characters care about those problems. The titans are still going to be fucking dead, conquest and colonialism already exist within Exandria without the aid of any gods. Hell, Ashton's whole situation could be replicated precisely again in a world with no gods; and as the Ruidusborn were created by Predathos as keys to release it, I don't think there's a reason to have any more but I don't think that's really what Imogen was going for. It's the same kind of thing we call rapture culture among terminally online types: the idea that with one big act of violence you will usher in a new, better age. The idea that violent change is inherently for the better is infantile and utterly self-centered, as is the idea that putting off a choice until it becomes inevitable is anything other than selfish and stupid. I would rather the choice of the fate of the gods come from atheists who weren't infantile and self-centered and selfish and stupid than clerics and paladins who were. That's it.

[cindersnows]

the problem with mitsi (or as i like to call it. mitsogyny)

(context: this was written under a youtube video, which i'm sure most of us have at least seen pop up in our recommendeds, in response to many people taking criticism against the new episode. it has been edited a little to be more cohesive as a somewhat-essay)

ok, i wanted to write out a rant/essay/ramble/whatever sort of summarising the criticism against mitsi's plotline because a lot of the people here seem to be misunderstanding the fundamental issue that people have with it, including some of those people themselves.

first off, an analysis that i think tell both sides of the argument very well which i feel should be read before reading the essay: Mitsi: What Makes A Fridged Character (and why y'all are wrong about it) | an AvA essay by InksandPensblog. i will note: i don't care to discuss whether mitsi was fridged or not and that won't be of much importance in this post. the above link gives some insight into some of the fandom's criticism of mitsi and how she was "fridged", defining common tropes for examples. that's what's relevant to this post.

the main issue with mitsi, in my opinion, is less with the fact that mitsi's a girl and moreso the fact that she's one of the only female-coded character in the series, and that her character's main purpose was to further victim's own development. the other arguably female-coded character in the series is pink, who (like navy) only really exists to explain purple's motivations. i don't have much of an issue with that since they're not meant to be important or sympathised with at all. that's not their job in the story.

with mitsi, i've seen people point out that she has more character to her than just victim's love interest and supporter: she invents rocketcorp, she's smart, she's kind, innocent and helpful. narratively speaking, she shows other creations' relationships with their animators, parallels her innocence with victim's trauma, and introduces victim to the outernet (as most fans call the stick realm).

but most of this things imo are either stretches or invalid arguments. she's not really a 2/3-dimensional character in any way; her main character traits boil down to the fact that she likes to be in service of others with no nuance behind why she likes helping people. she hypes up victim for the villagers, she starts a company with him to share his talents with the world, and she helps him overcome his trauma from alan's torture. all of her main plot beats center around victim: and while technically the sticks are genderless and free to be interpreted however the viewer wants, alan and most of his team see all the main characters as male, and that subconciously affects how they're written. mitsi, the first major female-coded character, spends most of her storyline in service of victim, a character not written as female.

there's also the issue of her being victim's canonical love interest. i feel like this statement from alan is important to keep in mind (don't mind the sound effects and edits, this is the only isolated clip i can find at the moment). in particular:

"i just assume that [the ava/m characters] are just a bunch of bros]. i haven't thought of adding any female stick figures but i think it'd be good. i don't want to introduce any romance though, i don't want that to be a theme."

he seems to have changed his mind on that last part, which is fine, but the notable part for me is that he seems to associate female characters with romance from the getgo. before anyone misinterprets this, i'm not trying to call alan sexist or anything. but there's a common issue with women in stories being reduced to just a romantic partner for the male lead, and mitsi falls under this, with her entire character existing to serve victim. (not to mention people will make things about romance whether you like it or not. that's just basic fandom. search up grapeduo or chodark.) even her death is to put victim on the path of vengeance--- it doesn't need to happen to show the extent of tco and tdl's destruction, because that's already made pretty clear in ava s2 the flashback and the earlier scenes showing various characters escaping burning buildings. when you write a female-coded character whose only purpose is to serve a male character, you're contributing to sexist narratives.

a counter i see many people point out with the idea that she has no character is that she does have character traits, it's just that they're generic ones like "kind" and "innocent". the issue is that she has no flaws to counterpoint this; it's not that she didn't have enough screentime. in ava4 for example, we see tsc's flaws pretty clearly; they can be very mean when they want to, they're petty (albeit for a fair reason), they're a little impulsive. this is shown in 11 minutes (from the moment they come alive to the end of the video).

with mitsi meanwhile… she doesn't seem to have any flaws? she helps victim whenever she can. she's nice to all the villagers. her customers all like her and she's a great leader at rocket corp (to note, specifically as part of a pair with victim. they're a power couple, she's barely given credit for her work alone). she has 13 minutes of screentime, or 10 if you count from her waking up in the outernet. there's plenty of opportunities to show her having flaws; maybe she acts a little selfish during tdl and tco's attack, only wanting to help herself and agent smith, or maybe she overworks herself, or feels awkward at having too much attention (and that could also be why she redirects so much attention to victim, she's shy). you could argue that the episode needs to develop victim and agent smith too, but ava4 shows that's easy to do too: just a few seconds dedicated to showing rgyb fighting over who leaves first shows that they can be selfish and childish. it's very easy to insert a moment like that for mitsi.

it's a little disappointing when the first major female-coded character in ava is completely flawless, with no personality outside of being nice and helpful for others.

also, slightly unrelated, check out this quote from mitsi's plushie website: "her white featureless face seems to ooze mystery and feminine power all at the same time." her main character trait, as a woman, is being feminine. it's irritating as someone who's been raised a woman to see her reduced to just her gender. she feels more plastic than a person, like the concept of what a woman should be (perfect, kind, useful) and not an actual character/person.

i would expect more from the writing in the series seeing as it's not just an independent passion project anymore, and has multiple writers that all could've worked to flesh out mitsi, or at least get a sensitivity reader of sorts to point these issues out. it's extremely disappointing and i can understand why people were upset.

tldr: the problem isn't just that mitsi's a girl, or that she's nice or dating victim, it's that she's written in a misogynistic way.

[floatingshark]

This has been in my head for like weeks and it's what makes me struggle to actually finish arcane LMFAO. For context ive been mostly interacting with arcane stuff on tiktok and ive seen some stuff and opinions that doesn't sit well with me.

also on another note i havent fully finished arcane, i stopped at s2 ep6 so ep7 to 9 i have no prior knowledge apart from spoilers i got bc of arcane edits.

and on one last note, if you disagree or agree with me in this you're free to express it. just be civil. we can all be adults and we know how to understand so just mind your words bc people on tiktok state their opinion so aggressively, it is not needed. we dont need that energy here.

okay so with that out of the way, like i said ive seen a lot of tiktoks lately and i want to kind of speak my mind (technically rant) about some of the discourse regarding characters and whatnot. This is going to be long.

also, spoilers.

so first up is caitlyn. How do i start?

Caitlyn:

I do love caitlyn... in season 1.

in s2 not so much but hear me out. a lot of people have been debating on her actions and how half the fandom hate her, half love her (some a little,,, off putting but ill get into that later) and here's my unneeded take. I don't think its valid. like her actions in s2 are so morally wrong it blows my mind.

first of all, Im not going to say that its ooc of her because that doesnt make sense to say. this cant be ooc (in my perspective) because we have never seen caitlyn angry to the point of doing this. this is our (or my) first time seeing her go through grief this bad that it has her making decisions we dont particularly agree with or is objectively right to do. we cant say that this is "out of character" because we had'nt had prior idea or knowledge to how she'd cope with her mother's passing.

second off, like i said i dont think its valid. yes, i understand her actions are a result of her mothers untimely passing but we can't keep saying that it was right of her to do what she did.

we can empathize and we can understand that what she's doing is because she's had enough of jinx putting the people of piltover in danger because obviously she cares about these people, and it put her over the edge the day that her mother died because of jinx. but it doesnt mean that her actions were right objectively (i say objectively because we all have different moral compasses).

lets get into what she did

her actions consist of:

-gassing the undercity (even after watching an entire documentary/history lesson about how her mother built the ventilation systems to keep the grey out of the undercity)

i dont want to hear people saying that it never showed people dying, it was only used on the gangs, the goons, and jinx. people, we dont need to see people dying to know that the grey has been a problem zaunites have had to deal with for years until cassandra (cait's mom) built those vents.

yes, you can say that they didnt show people dying, doesn't mean that using it wont have consequences if anyone that was innocent does get affected. gas spreads, it moves, it can and it will affect anyone in the vicinity or anyone that comes across it. how do you know that it didnt affect anyone?

even in a moral lens, isnt it just wrong to use the grey ( which in the real world might be equal to something like tear gas. theory tho, going off of tear gas effects) to "clear out" the streets of the undercity where homeless people litter the streets, where children, old people, and people with disabilities roam freely?

-the scene where she insisted she wont miss her shot at jinx

for this one, i think she said this because she was obviously frustrated. she believed in her abilities and she had jinx right in front of her and obviously she wasn't thinking straight.

but people, i cant defend her when i saw her miss her shot just a minute prior. she can think that about herself, that she can shoot past isha and hit jinx in the head, i cant. like i said she missed, it is absolutely not a guarantee to her that they wont move once she pulls the trigger, which is exactly why she hit jinx in the finger instead, and almost killed vi before too.

like its more understandable for me that that statement would come from her, than if it came from someone that was watching the show.

with that, i think i covered mainly my thing with caitlyn. i do empathize, and i do think that for someone thats grieving and angry, her actions can be understandable in that perspective. i do not however, think her actions are justified, especially bc its borderline fascist (if not already). she's a dictator in simpler terms and its just so wrong no matter how i look at it.

i mentioned earlier as well that there were caitlyn supporters that were off putting, but honestly even caitlyn haters can be the same so really its not just a one sided thing going on. the least we can do with this topic, especially because its not black and white, is be civil and just talk about it properly we dont need aggression.

Jayce:

I love jayce, i truly do. well, for the most part.

this rant simply started bc i saw people saying he's privileged, he's egotistical etc, etc.

here is my take.

some people (might just be one actually) see jayce as a minority, or an immigrant and believe that that erases his privilage. but let's talk about it.

no matter if jayce is a minority, or an immigrant, it does not erase that he is from a known house (even if its small) and lives in piltover. he is in the academy, a known scientist and inventor, and he's part of the council. where is the privilege? right there.

he has privilege, why are we erasing that? he has the privilege to live in piltover, to study and learn, to meet with the highest of the highs that control and lead their entire nation, to be known as a great inventor and scientist who, through hextech, has improved the lives of many, who bears a name that is recognizable as a house, and even if he is not equal in wealth with salo or mel, is still equal in status because he now stands amongst them in the same rank and has mel beside him to get the other counselors on board with his plans or ideas.

he has privilege, we cant erase that just because he's an immigrant, because objectively he's living a life better than anyone in the undercity does. hell, viktor has privilege because he's living in piltover now, he no longer lives in the undercity where people struggle, get hunted down, and killed.

thats mostly what i wanted to talk about, i cant say if he is egotistical because i cant remember him being one? arrogant in a way, maybe. but egotistical im not so sure.

with that note.. thats all the word vomiting i can do. but mainly my main gripe is how s2 loses what i loved with the s1 storyline and its the oppression that piltover has on the undercity. it could have been even better if they had handled it properly but i guess it just gets erased like that..

anyways, like i said im up for discussion. you're free to dicuss, to correct, to agree because i can admit i might be forgetting about certain scenes or diaogue or whatnot and its good to be educated and to learn from other people as well.

so, idk, dont take this too personally. at the end of the day it is a show, with important storylines, but still just a show nevertheless. we dont need to be so personal and so aggressive with debates, we can have it like adults, and we can have opinions and thats okay.

thanks for listening lmao

[sunflower1experiment]

Another mouthwashing analysis

I feel like people forget that Jimmy’s character is important because it forces us to see his crimes and while it is uncomfortable and feels unnecessary.

That is the whole point of the game, what he did was unnecessary and it proves how unreliable he is and how realistic the story is. We have people like him in real life that cause these types of problems, hurt others like he did to Anya and Curly because in his pov he views them as useless or someone to clean up his mess whether he indirectly or directly caused it.

What he did to Anya, he blamed Curly, he’s blaming Curly for his crime against her. When Anya can’t handle feeding Curly the pills, she gets nauseous and upset. And there is a symbolic point in two ways, Jimmy getting angry at her for not handling/cleaning up HIS INDIRECT MESS and the fact that he expects her to act normally after Sa’ing her. Because he doesn’t see the problem, only when she asks for help or gets worried about the baby causing him problems so he runs away from the baby and belittles/ antagonizes her as if that was her fault he crashed it.

Now here’s the symbolism, Anya and Curly symbolizing each other because they both had to fawn and or ended up with flight/freeze. Because of Jimmy, Curly is not perfect or a good person and what happened to him isn’t karma.

The only karma he gets is being forced to watch Jimmy cause all of this chaos and then watching Jimmy crawl back to him and practically cannibalize Curly just because Curly isn’t here to clean up his mess.

Anya is young, so is Daisuke, they were both failed we got that bit but we also forget the part that Curly sort of symbolizes what it would be like for Anya if she had the baby with her abuser still roaming around.

Which causes her to get more depressed, his whole plan was to literally kill her and then he lies saying Curly crashed but we all know thats not true which where the irony comes in and my personal theory. Anya and Swansea probably knew especially when Anya told Swansea, and Swansea told Anya his plan.

Anya basically is giving up meanwhile Swansea was too busy getting drunk to take action when it was needed.

Now we all know this dance and repeated it many times but as a fandom we have to understand that Jimmy shows the worst in everyone as Anya said “Our worst moments don’t make us monsters” Jimmy was in his worst moment and he was portraying everyone in their worst moments meanwhile he was the monster of it all.

And he tries to repeat this quote but Polle (aka Anya) stops him. Because if that were true why did he SA her? Why did he think that he had nothing to lose? Why did he ruin Anya and Curly’s potential relationship/friendship just for a power stroke?

Because he saw Anya as an object and sees Curly as an airhead “Good Captain” whom Jimmy knows well because he was able to analyze Curly’s psych evaluation meanwhile Curly was barely able to analyze Jimmy.

They were never friends, Jimmy took advantage of Curly’s kindness and deems him this airhead, heart on the sleeve Captain. But he forgets that being a Captain comes all the stress.

Which cracks me up when he gets angry at having to do four tasks. This should’ve told everyone how useless he is, he didn’t even do anything for the past 2 months and made sure to blank that out until Anya asked for help, they saw the mouthwash and he was expecting everything to be normal.

No Jimmy, Anya is human, Swansea is human and Daisuke is human. You ruined a future doctor’s life, took a father/husband from his family and ruined a young man’s life. Because you couldn’t take responsibility.

He doesn’t even take responsibility for practically making everyone out to be people that they’re not. As he said and I quote “Pain is what makes one know you’re living.”

……..Anyone who hates him, I do not blame you, folks who like him, I still don’t blame you or anyone.

As long as folks aren’t toxic and bashing others about it, I don’t care.

We just gotta understand that when it comes to each pilot’s perspective. Jimmy’s is super unreliable meanwhile Curly’s is somewhat but he also fails terribly at being Captain. He keeps trying to be friend and Captain at the same time which is impossible unless you know how to juggle the responsibility of one of the crewmates acting out to challenge your authority.

Which is what Jimmy did twice….

And let’s also not forget that he was super selfish the whole time and when it came to judgement day. Him putting Curly in the cryopod and taking the cowardly way out, still selfish and doesn’t make him a hero. Instead it sorta makes him worse, he has all the potential to change as it shows in Swansea’s speech but doesn’t. Because he believes everything he is doing, is right.

Thats all I just wanted to rant because I always think about how he says “I’ll take care of it” he says it to Curly and practically ruins everyone’s life then says it to Anya twice and them proceeds to abuse Curly.

Then when Anya gets the chance to have her own authority, it’s to end it all. Which sucks for her because that’s how depressed she was and how stressful it was and Jimmy once again tries to make it seem like she breaks down all the time. When for 2-4 months she’s been handling Curly’s pills.

Meanwhile he broke down at having to do 5 tasks….which is actually crazy. The tasks sorta represent the months, just saying. He never did a single thing for those past months besides correct folks and talk about how he’s Captain now.

Okay Jimmy, and you can’t even be Captain. Under qualified as a pilot and under qualified as a Captain.

[maireadralph]

Oh whoops I didn’t realise this was a side blog of someone I knew, sorry about that 🙊

Ah it seems @pr0x1mma is the OP, I missed that this morning, just tagging in here so they can see.

Excellent! Make one, then two and KEEP MAKING ZINES. SHARE THE LOVE OF YOUR FANDOM ❤️

Honestly when it comes to zines - and this is from chatting with others who made zines, taken part in various ways - there are no set rules.

Some people like to do interest checks, sign ups, multiple check ins in a Discord server etc…OP do what works for you and your schedule.

What works for me in keeping Entrapdak Zine as simple as possible is:

making an open post with the details, deadline* etc

having a separate email address for people to submit to

Making a note of everyone’s work, socials in a spreadsheet

Use the details on the spreadsheet to make a “card” with a thumbnail of person’s work and their socials

Use these “cards” to make as many pages of credits as needed

Make or write whatever pages are needed (for example a cover and introduction page)

Stick it all together in a pdf, check the pages all included and are in order, upload and share

*PRO TIP ON DEADLINE: have two deadlines - one public that is put in the post and one private. This Private deadline is your “in case of emergency break glass” scenario, ie something unexpected happens or someone needs an extension - no problem, start running the project on your private deadline. This keeps your zine on schedule and should hopefully prevent the project accident overrunning by MONTHS (this can and does happen with fan project and no one likes this)

The method I use allows anyone to take part in the zine, it’s supposed to be fun for everyone involved including you OP!

Dependent Plant Trigun Zine interest form ‼️

Hello everyone! Proxima here! I’ve come to let the people know that I am in the process of planning a Trigun Zine. Here’s all the information!

────────ೋ✦˚ 🪼 ˚✦ೋ────────

This is my first time making a Zine. To start this year off, I wanted to host a Dependent Plant Zine since no one has seemed to do this yet. I’m still doing research on what goes into a zine, I want to make this as easy as possible!

With that being said; I will of course need some help. Mods, planners, really people who do have experience in making zines I really need your help with this :,D (for the record; I do mind if some of you are adults, I’m absolutely fine with that)

I do not want this to be a profit or anything of that sort, I am not at all good with money or financial things, I’m WAY too scared of accidentally messing something up in that field 😭 I want this to be a simple and fun artist collab sort of deal, free of charge. Because let’s be honest- in this economy? I think NOT.

────────ೋ✦˚ 🪼 ˚✦ೋ────────

NOW. With all of that out of the way, here’s some basic info :p

• This is of course a dependent plant zine! Meaning that it will only host artwork of the dependent plants from Trigun (with the exception of the twins making small appearances, but I really just want this to focus on the plants themselves.)

• SAFE FOR WORK. Since I am a minor, I do NOT want any NSFW artwork displayed in any form. Artistic Nudity is allowed, but absolutely ZERO sexual action / suggestive art.

• NO KV/INCEST OF ANY SORT.

• 15+ Zine! The clear / set age range is 15-20 years old

• Since Trigun has pretty heavy religious elements, those elements can of course be included in the artwork. I HIGHLY encourage artists to show their emotions through their artwork, religious beliefs and everything included. Whatever you need to get out of your system, please by all means do that through your pieces! Art can be used to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comforted. /ref

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Now, if this sounds all good to you, by all means please feel free to fill out the form below! While this is not the official sign up/admission form, this is just an interest form so we can better grasp what number of possible participants we will have for this zine.

This post will be updated occasionally, probably, maybe… who knows, we will see!

[thevioletcaptain]

i genuinely don't care how good a piece of ai generated art or writing looks on the surface. i don't care if it emulates brush strokes and metaphor in a way indistinguishable from those created by a person.

it is not the product of thoughtful creation. it offers no insights into the creator's life or viewpoint. it has no connection to a moment in time or a place or an attitude. it has no perspective. it has no value.

it's empty, it's hollow, and it exists only to generate clicks (and by extension, ad revenue.)

it's just another revolting symptom of the disease that is late stage capitalism, and it fucking sucks.

[theloveinc]

I do think it pisses people off how … good… your relationship with Togame is

[arom-antix]

Hey, just wanted to reach out to say that I found you pointing out and calling this person was really great and you shouldn't have apologized. It was incredibly true what you said, and to be honest it seems out of touch with the reality of a great deal of the japanese fandom, the nuances and their culture. Also, it was as you pointed out, extreme and may I say rude. I want to mention too that the way it was written, as if entitled of the knowledge and the 'explanation' made it all worse in context of the 'fucked up'. The original poster always gets away by using the 'well-written academic'' statement of their 'metas' as an excuse to do or say and make everyone else agree and if not, uses victim narrative and discourses exactly selecting wording for people to agree on it or feel bad.

I don't know if they tagging you in the way they did made you reblog and apologizing/backing up, but no one thought bad about you pointing it out. On the contrary, a lot of people had been bullied and discriminated by this person when they called them out/disagreed going onto lenghts of sending their friends to harass people, and the other persons can't even defend themselves because they are effectively blocked. To quite a few people in the fandom has been done, even accusing them as 'acephobes' (when they're not) or even Nazis by spreading lies. So yeah, I just wanted to say that. I think you were right to call them out publicly.

Thank you very much for this ask. To be completely honest I agree with everything you said here and don't actually feel bad about pointing anything out. I mainly apologised because I didn't want any potentially poor phrasing from my side to cause unnecessary hostility and because I myself have gripes with this person's behaviour but didn't want to cause a scene.

My honest opinion is that they have a serious issue with taking accountability for their own mistakes and highly overestimate their own intellect. If you're reading this, @thegirlwhorideslikeasamurai, sorry if I seem harsh, but it's true. I saw your post lamenting how you're the only academic meta writer / fan in the fandom and I didn't interact then because I honestly do not care enough to start that drama but with the information Blonndiec has just given me, I think it's necessary that someone calls you out.

You're not an academic. You're not beyond the mental capabilities of other fans. You're actually incredibly childish in your metas and analyses and I am not kidding when I say that I was halfheartedly writing essays more academic than every analysis I've seen from you when I was barely a teenager. I don't know how old you are and I frankly don't care. You're not as clever as you think you are.

Also, don't think I didn't notice that you didn't reblog my correction (link here to my correction and here to their "response" for those who didn't see that exchange) of your post so that you could control what your followers saw of the exchange. You're the opposite of an academic. You control information to tailor the narrative, you don't cite your sources properly if at all, you don't format your posts in anything close to how an academic analysis would be, you make unbased claims, you reference posts and canon material without in any way indicating where that information is from, you reference your own (equally unacademic) metas and your conclusions from them without indicating what post it's from or that it's your own theory this new one is based on and instead present it as a common fact, and I could go on and on and on. Your posts are also riddled with logical fallacies and you talk in absolutes and opinions when there's no canon basis to claim such things. I'm sorry, but that's not academic in the slightest.

To be clear, you don't have to be an academic to post on the Internet. You don't have to be anything at all. You could up front be a genuine idiot with no remorse and that's fine. But when you claim to be an academic and also put down the rest of the fandom for not being on your level, you have to be able to back that up. It'd still make you sound like a prick but at least your arrogance would have a basis. It currently does not.

I haven't personally seen the discussions that Blonndiec is referencing and I'm not going to claim anything definitive (because that would be unacademic of me, take notes) but if what they're saying is true and did happen as described, which I have empirical, if anecdotal, evidence to believe could very well be (a friend of mine has personally been blocked by you after they criticised you without actually mentioning your name which I of course can't prove is the reason for the block but the timing is awfully convenient), you should know that you should be ashamed of yourself.

If there's context missing, feel free to enlighten me and call out any incorrect accusations. You have every right to defend yourself. However, I encourage you to cite your sources since you're such an academic. If you don't, then it's just your word against Blonndiec and anyone else who might comment's word and that doesn't prove anything. Don't misunderstand, acephobia and nazi rhetoric should absolutely be called out but only if it's actually happening. False accusations can ruin lives. I hope you know that.

I'm not a fan of calling people out publicly and, again, thank you for this ask, Blonndiec. But considering many of the issues I've personally seen and those I've been informed of by second hand sources were posted publically, I don't really feel bad about calling this out. I could do a full breakdown of just the insulting "academic" comments alone and how there's no academia to be found in said academic metas and, Samurai, if you give me reason to, I will show exactly what I mean point by point (and academically just to give you an example of even low level academia).

If you respond to this, do it in a reblog. That's what a real academic would do. If I'm wrong and you can prove it, you'd have no reason to not show my post in your rebuttal. If I'm right, you'd have every reason to be upfront about your mistakes and how you intend to rectify them. There's nothing wrong with being wrong but there's a lot wrong with refusing to admit to it in a way that lets others peer review you (academic thing, look it up) and come to their own conclusions about the situation. That's what you did when you just @'ed me instead of reblogging my response. A true academic wouldn't hide a peer review. You'd know that if you were one.

I swing in many academic spaces and yet that doesn't make me any kind of expert and I don't claim to be one because I'm not. But since you want to be one so badly, reblog this with a response and show us all how smart you are. I'm dying to know what your academic take on this is.

[spaciebabie]

oh so you wanna fuck that monster huh. make sexy art of them without giving them muscles and/or making them look human

[kermitsbutton]

Hating on jimmy like he is one of the worst, most gruesome villains humanity as ever seen, and dont get me wrong he's quite irredeamable imo and deserves to be hated, sometimes feels like a simplification of his character.

It somehow feels like the whole we're hating jimmy all my bros and aunts and cousins hate jimmy is overshadowing the realness and true horror of the character.

The slow, creeping feeling that there are people out there like this, and not just one or two no, there are so many people who share at least a bit of his character (tho most PROBABLY would not crash a spaceship). Not just one fucked up person but a society build around them.

It's almost, not quite but almost, similar to putting curly on a pedastool, saying he did nothing wrong he's my lil blorbo uwu, putting only blame on the abuser (yet again folks he deserves a LOT of blame do not misinterpret my 6AM interpretation) and forgetting the people who were complacent, who turned an eye. The people who were in a position where they could act, a position of power they decide to ignore.

And I think thats really one of the interesting parts of the game. All the characters are somewhat flawed in their own way or represent something we need to think about. It's human, complex and a commentary on society which just doesn't work if you simplify the characters too much in any direction.

[utilitycaster]

I am curious if you think the campaign wrap up will perhaps address some of the campaign shortcomings or challenges the cast faced in trying to land this campaign narratively, especially in comparison to previous campaigns? Not that they would disparage the whole campaign - but like a little “yeah this didn’t work as well as we wanted at times?” 

It’s odd because I find myself weirdly optimistic about CR as a whole despite this campaign’s possible lackluster ending, so I guess I’m hoping the campaign wrap up acknowledges that this campaign didn’t always play to their strengths in hopes that their next long form venture does more, idk.

I don't know if it will but. that's precisely the tenor any question I send will have: I don't think the fundamental concept is the issue - hell, I don't even think killing the gods is actually a problem if you appropriately set up a scenario where killing the gods has a motivation other than "mortals were mean to me in their name" [thing that happens irl all the time in a world with zero proof of divinity, in my religiously observant ideologically agnostic and skeptical opinion] or "I have issues with my parents I never worked towards so I've projected this onto The Ultimate Parents instead of like. being fucking normal." But it needed a lot more scaffolding at the VERY least in the prep for this campaign, and actually, to be blunt, if you want to make this a balanced issue you needed to seed this concept through prior campaigns in a meaningful way. There's a reason pretty much everyone who defends this campaign as Extremely Good, Actually is either doing some form of wildly revisionist history of the fandom and the past campaigns that's demonstrably false if you were like. there; or else they started with C3 and decided they were an expert despite being of below-average literacy and deeply below average personality and have to resort to such miserable efforts as "arguing that canon isn't real" and "posting an out of context Le Guin quote over and over in the hopes we won't notice they're actually 511 mice in a trenchcoat who can't actually read". So yeah I hope Matt is like this was an ambitious project and I'd have done many things differently.

I do wonder what's next for CR, because as I mentioned, it feels like the cast is stronger in shorter form; that even the other longform shows are moving to shorter form right now; and that WBN and C3 kind of show the limits/failings of longform. I hope they do another longform campaign at some point in the future, but it might make sense to take an extended break and play in the space for a while. They only took about 4 months between campaigns for the past two and maybe it would be good to take longer and focus on Daggerheart, Candela, and EXU for much of the year and if they do longform wait 8-10 months, especially with the comparatively extensive touring schedule this year.

I also hasten to add, and I mentioned this briefly in talking about CRPGs, but I think there's a Third Campaign Dip that's not inevitable (NADDPod didn't really have it; TAZ switches systems enough that it's not an issue) but definitely hit here, that doesn't apply to a fourth one. Like, for CRPGs (girl who's played Veilguard twice and gotten through the first day of Disco Elysium voice) it feels like the first run is following what seems most fun to you and then the second is playing around with other choices that maybe aren't as appealing just to see what happens, and then for the third and future runs you kind of know the full lay of the land and what you'll like while still allowing for a range of choices. For class-based TTRPGs, the first is the self-insert/thing that's fairly comfortable and easy/character you've dreamed of; the second is what you do now that you know how this works; and then the third can be...an overextension, shall we say. I think after that you figure out, again, the bounds of your comfort zone, how much you can stretch it, and what you don't like, you're in a much more consistent footing.

[celtrist]

Why does Vassago already have merch, we haven't even met him yet

[unovaslankiite]

Prolly gonna be my one and only rwde post (cus the fanbase is rancid and I'm not rlly a rwby fan, just a person who watches the show): some of you rwby fans are too comfortable using your queerness as a shield to silence BIPOC voices about the racist writing and your 'precious' bigoted CRWBY. You guys unironically act/think that just because you have to deal with queerphobia; you are IMMUNE to being bigoted yourself and you are INCAPABLE of parroting bigoted beliefs. Cus I know there will be a dumbass ant1-rwde posters who will try to drown out this post by saying its 'lies from the EVIL RWDE!!!': You would rather weaponize your queerness to bash on BIPOC voices, while claiming to care about our voices. You would rather be complicit with the racist writers and their racist writing, just because your racist writers gave you a queer ship. There is no shame nor issue in projecting the abused you suffered onto the characters, however you refuse to see through the characters and their writing through a BIPOC lens. You do not get the right to impose your perspective of the characters at the expense of BIPOC voices, you do not get to twist our voices to be alt-right bigots because we called out RWBY's rampant racism. You do not get the right to say you give a shit about BIPOC and have #BLM in your bio when you fervently defend your bigoted company. You do not get to pretend to care about racism when you buy merch off of your bigoted company. My fellow BIPOC (especially the queer BIPOC): why are you guys so comfortable dismissing your fellow poc about their discomfort with RWBY's racist writing? BIPOC are not a monolith with the same opinions about racism in media; but some of you guys are weirdly comfortable with turning a blind eye to your fellow BIPOC getting dogpiled by the white fandom. We can and will disagree, you not agreeing as a BIPOC about RWBY's racist writing is not what I take issue with. The issue lies within you upholding the racial colourblindness in the fandom; like how the fandom was ok with throwing the racism under the bus in favour of queerness, you are ok with throwing your BIPOC peers under the bus for white queerness. Sincerely, a POC who has been watching the fandoms rampant racism problem ever since 2019.

[shikai-the-storyteller]

Tumblr is way chiller than Twitter for sure but sometimes I see a post and I'm like. Y'all DO remember this is a block game, right? You're not gonna get legitimately pissy and passive-aggressive over characters doing things in a block game, RIGHT???