#This is not carte blanche for white people to make these headcanons

[jasontoddsno1simp]

Uh...

Where is all this Black Jason Todd discourse coming from?! Because, last time I checked, headcanoning Jason as Black is not exactly all that popular. Unless I'm missing a huge subset of his fandom; I've yet to come across the mob of He Did Nothing Wrong girlies who are deadass that Jason anti's swear run Butstan Twitter/Tumblr.

[lgcmilan]

EVENT: PERSONALIZED SET POST TYPE: HEADCANON SOLO

as somebody who rarely plans things out and usually does things on a whim, milan has spent more time that she cares to admit on this little project. the first hurdle being of course having carte blanche on the design of both pieces. so many possibilities. she'd make up her mind one day then change it the next. this wasn't a linear process at all for her but rather a choatic one, reminiscent of when she had to work on long term projects during her student days. without surprise, she submitted her final selection close to the deadline while exclaiming "ah! i don't know! whatever!". thankfully, seeing the final result, she has no buyer guilt.

microphone: after much deliberation, milan has decided to keep her microphone quite simple and simply request a slight shimmering effect, so that the peach color looks like it has specs of glitters doted here and there inside it

in-ear: rather than make the design for her microphone stand out, it's on her in-ear that milan has requested to most costumization. though the result is simply the same peach color as her microphone with a fairy silouhette drawn in white on it, rather than just a design, milan's ear pierce is also a reminder of her hope and desire, of how she strives to be and appear. while most people would just associate the fairy silhouette her title of 'nova's fairy', it has a deeper meaning; milan doesn't see herself as this gracious and pretty figure. even after over a year of debut, she still sees the many ways she's lacking both as a performer and as a person. thus this drawing is the ideal she wishes to reach; beautiful, graceful and charming.

[samwpmarleau]

I've always been lowkey annoyed when people draw/gif the Daynes as light skinned/white. Imo, noone in Dorne has light skin (light eyes/hair yes maybe, but not light skin), in 1000 yrs Rhoynar blood will have dispersed evenly among the population so the whole stony/salty thing is weird. Also Nymeria had a son with a Dayne - therefore the Daynes are not white. Its just a pet peeve of mine. And you know its because of the whole purple eyes thing. I wish there was more darker!Dayne art/edits. 😭

Yep, there’s nothing said about the Daynes’ skin color in the books, so really anything goes. I personally headcanon their mom to be an Allyrion (pretty much entirely based on the fact that the youngest is named Allyria and that they all have A names lmao) so that would also go towards them having darker skin. I admit that my chosen fancasts for the elder three are a bit lighter than I envision the actual characters to be, but I have yet to find a perfect fancast for basically any character, Dornish or otherwise. Though I’m always open to suggestions!

But yeah, while there would likely be some variation in skin color because of the differing climates, all Dornishmen would almost certainly be darker than anyone outside of Dorne because of the Rhoynish blood that is virtually nonexistent elsewhere, plus the lack of non-Dornish people marrying into Dorne.

And the pervasive view that Dornish characters fit into one of three categories is stupid. What about, say, the Sand Snakes? Their father is “salty” Dornish but their mothers are not (in fact, Nym and Sarella’s moms aren’t even from the same continent!), and Tyene and Sarella couldn’t look more different in appearance — so where do they go? Ryon Allyrion, a “sandy” Dornishman, is married to Ynys Yronwood, a “stony” Dornishwoman, so where do their kids go? It’s a holdover from Daeron I trying to classify them as though they’re separate species or something.

The fact that it’s 2020 and people are STILL using Katie McGrath as an Ashara fancast says all there is to say, really. The Daynes are more likely to be white passing and so people take that as carte blanche to make them straight up white. Because obviously the most beautiful woman and the best swordsman in Westeros couldn’t possibly be people of color...

(On the Nymeria thing, while I like to think Nymeria’s son married back into the Dayne line so they can be directly descended from her, we don’t know that. Davos Dayne was Nymeria’s consort, not the Lord of Starfall, so unless their son married back in, the Daynes would not be descended from her so directly. But even if they weren’t, they were still descended from a Rhoynish person and intermarried in the 700 years since, so it’s more or less a moot point.)

To give a shoutout to fanartists, @gaystannis draws the Daynes as dark-skinned, and so does @naomimakesart (for instance, in this portrait of Maekar — who fandom also likes to pretend was not a person of color — and Dyanna that I commissioned), so I’d recommend checking them out if you haven’t already!

[oranges8hands]

last two anons - your under the read more. but basically I’m sorry, I didn’t realize how the tags on the third post about Booker/Exile discussion sounded, I agree with your point, and I removed them.

anon 1: ________ 1/4 hey, just an FYI, but nearly everyone knows this, has been over the discourse, agrees and knows biases/racism exist. ppl have had death threats over saying they prefer one position to another even when it's properly written. ppl have been horribly bullied over FICTIONAL character, + more than one person (one that WAS MENA/LGBTQ+) was bullied off the site and was called horrible names. the discourse is, at this point, horrible. We ALL KNOW racism exists in fandom, but real ppl are hurting…

2/4 when they are not actually being racist. If someone is PLEASE feel free to talk to them, but we have been over all this within this fandom, multiple times. NO ONE should get death threats for writing top nicky OR top joe. Yet posts like yours are bringing back discourse instead of talking about it with an author who could have VERY easily made a mistake. There are much more productive ways to fight bias/racism in fiction, other than bringing back an atmosphere that...

¾ allowed people to have their art stolen, get horribly bullied, get death threats, forced to out their trauma, get called names, etc… if there IS a fic/art/etc… that is showing bias and racism talking to the creator is ALWAYS more helpful. People fuck upm they have biases, and they should learn. But PLEASE don’t bring up this horrible atmosphere again. It’s not helping, even though I’m sure you’re only wanting to help.

4/4 ppl will have different opinions on characters than you do, than I do… and that’s FINE. People have different experiences, people come from different countries with different views, people have different biases, trauma, etc. We can’t expect people to all be the same and have the same ideas on the characters. And if you DO have evidence of people being racist to joe… show that to the creator. Blogging in a vague manner does not help. It makes ppl HATE the fandom. That’s not fair to anyone. _______

anon 2: hello! so Im actually brown and muslim (from egypt but live in the UK rn) and honestly... a lot of this fandom shit is SHIT. there's racism yes, as there is in every fandom cause PEOPLE but not nearly as much as you made there out to be. it kinda is reading like you're trying to bring back the discourse after its done. the WORST part of this fandom has been those "white saviours" deriding anything they think is wrong as racism instead of communicating well, in an effort to "help". ________ follow-up to this (post about fandom and Booker and the Exile), this (post about fandom and Joe's feelings with regard to the exile in response to an ask that brought up the controversy), and this (post someone saying they liked what I wrote for the second post)  First, I agree with you! No one should get death threats over fictional characters. Real people are more important than fandom/fictional things/etc. People shouldn't steal art. People are all different, have different experiences, and interact with canon/characters/fandom differently.(That's not, like, carte blanche for fandom which it can be taken as, but yeah people headcanon and focus on different parts.) And I also agree talking to an individual creator can be helpful, and I have done so before and will again, though (not including this joe/nicky top/bottom topic cause of what it turned into) sometimes it's less about something being an issue for an individual fic and more about the larger fandom pattern, and I think that’s fair to talk about on your own blog.  Second, I can definitely see why you read my third post's tags as having to do with the top/bottom nicky/joe debate, and while that was not what I meant with them (I was actually vagueblogging about something completely different, but did not contextualize that well when doing the tags), and for that I am sorry. I too have 0 fucking interest in restarting that topic. I was actually starting a completely different topic (Booker and the exile) and it got brought up in an ask, so I answered it (under a read more) and well, here we are. But yes, I agree that topic should be put to bed because literally no good can come of it on a more fandom-wide scale and vagueblogging about that def. doesn't help. I'm removing the tags and saying why.

[charmingpplincardigans]

If le petit prince Crowley is your fourth favorite thing about Good Omens fandom, I implore you to share the first three! (Also, what fictional character do you have the same energy as: I can't figure it out because I associate people too strongly with their favs! DO YOU have Crowley energy? Is that what the kids these days call "vibes"? But if I got creative I could absolutely justify saying you have Crowley energy anyway so moot point!)

Oh god. I don’t know if I have Crowley energy. I certainly have ‘asking-too-many-questions, wanting-to-sleep-for-literal-years, past-me-constantly-inconveniencing-future-me’ energy, but I don’t know if I can claim that certain je ne sais Crowleyness of him. He really is relatable for a demon though, right? Like, I too just want to drink wine with my friends and have my plants be verdant and be left alone by my boss to FUCKING PINE. The cute girl I like that I rudely turned down because of my rude brain posted an internal profile to the department the other day and I was just sitting at my desk going ‘OH NO, SHE’S STILL CUTE AND GREAT, FFFFFFF.’ I’ve done this to myself, but then so did those dummies. 

Anyway! KL’s Top Three-ish Favorite Things About Good Omens Fandom 2K19!

3. How it just fucking, rose from the depths!! I was mostly a lurker in Good Omens fandom back in the late 00s. I wrote some (VERY BAD, DON’T FIND IT) fic and I roleplayed Crowley in a multi-fandom game where he got to terrorize Cesare Borgia a bit, but I didn’t really feel like I was a part of it. Probably because I was in Too Many Fandoms at the time. But now this has happened and I’m just. SO. ECSTATIC. There’s so much new art and fic and headcanons and discussion-and and and-for this book turned tv show that I absolutely love to pieces and have for YEARS. There’s so much art in particular that I queued that Le petit prince post a month and a half ago and when I saw your ask I had to stop and go ‘WAIT, WHAT WERE THE OTHER THREE THINGS??’ My queue is groaning. My drafts folder is burgeoning. MY PLANTS ARE WATERED AND MY ANGEL IS FED. 

And mainly, mainly my favorite thing about all of this is that I haven’t seen a single person try to make a distinction between book fans and tv fans or “real” fans and “new” fans. We’re all just in here crying about these idiots (and I certainly mean Crowley and Aziraphale, but also everyone else HEY ANATHEMA, HEY I LOOOOOOVE YOOOOOU) together and it’s beautiful and I’m so happy. 

2.5 The David Tennantssance. Look. I’m just. If you need me I’ll be huddled in my blankets re-watching that whole four seasons of Doctor Who again and also everything else he’s ever been in. Just yesterday Audible informed me they had a voice play of Carmilla with him in it and I cackled to myself in my bed for close to a minute. Like yes, lesbians, vampires, and David Tennant, the true trifecta of common interests. 

2. ALL OF TIME AND SOME OF SPACE. Don’t get me wrong, there was always fanwork for Good Omens that utilized historical moments (for all the characters I believe, because why not). Especially that much detested fourteenth century. But now I feel like that cold open gave us carte blanche to just go ape shit by breathing a little more context into those moments. Never have I been so pleased to see so many people utilizing their hyper specific knowledge/education/interests/upbringing when it comes to depicting these characters because it all works! It’s all on the table! Pick a time period! Pick an occupation! Pick a favorite dessert or type of flower! Pick a PLACE IN THE SKY BECAUSE CROWLEY HELPED BUILD THAT NEBULA. God, I am never going to get over that stupid, single line. I am here for Crowley among the stars, especially outside of time and space. TV!Crowley hits so many of my buttons and I AM ABSOLUTELY LIVING. 

1.5 ALL OF ART HISTORY IS AN OPEN BOOK. God you guys, I am just, never getting over fandom’s decision to redo EVERY PIECE OF ART with Crowley and/or Aziraphale in it. It’s AMAZING AND BRILLIANT THANK YOU ALL. I’M JUST SO HAPPY. And I’m still trying to think of a reason to ask fandom to redo John White Alexander’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil with Crowley because I am IN LOVE with the lighting in the fucking painting and of course I want to put Crowley in it. 

1. Gender? I don’t even know her! WHAT DID I JUST SAY ABOUT MY BUTTONS? Because like, what even is gender? Fuck if I know. I once asked a salesperson at Kiehl’s that after they apologized for trying to sell me on a men’s moisturizer and they did NOT have an answer either! (Probably they thought they did not get paid enough to deal with that, but I don’t care what side of the store the moisturizer is from, my man, just moisturize me! *spritz spritz*) I’m just out here living in the world being both fine with and affronted by the way strangers read me day in and day out like. It depends, but also WHY DO THEY HAVE TO?

So I love every fucking discussion post about Crowley’s gender presentation in the show and outside of it. And I imagine much of that was the work of the costume department with notes from GNeil et al, but it works because, honestly, why would non-euclidean beings give a toss? They have to blend in, so they do, but for all they’ve come to love us they’re not us. Which leaves them free to do whatever, which fandom has fucking run with. My heart grows another size every time I see art or fic of both Crowley and Aziraphale (especially Aziraphale, hedonist extraordinaire) depicted in a way that embraces that, however the artist or writer chooses to depict it. 

And outside of the aesthetics of it, at the risk of being Serious here for a sec, I love the way that lets other fans explore and express themselves. Here are these characters that canonically love humanity but sit outside of it, so why shouldn’t they navigate those spaces of gender and sexuality to the fullest? For research or business or pleasure or whatever? (I mean, also, more angels-are-monsters interplanar weirdness in your sex scenes 2k20, but that’s a separate issue.) 

And I think they as characters should be allowed to do that in the works we create with them because I feel like it’s a very human thing to want to explore and for some people fandom is the safest place to do that. I’ve always been a big proponent of fandom as catharsis, or even as expression of joy that can’t be shared with the outside world for whatever reason. Which is why I go so fucking feral for Michael Sheen telling off jerks on the internet who think fandom is loving this thing The Wrong Way. Mostly, the wrong way to love something is to assume your way is the right and true way when [rant about the nature of art and ownership and belonging redacted]. Kindly fuck all the way off indeed. 

Anyway, I want people to feel safe to find themselves. Honestly, this is a selfish desire, because I’m in my 30s and I also just want to be safe to keep finding myself for however much time I have left. And I think this is a canon and a fandom sort of uniquely positioned to allow for all of it. So we should continue to celebrate that. 

[rufeepeach]

Loved your essay on Regina's feeling about Belle. any thoughts on how Snow feels about Belle or headcanon why they never became real friends?

ETA: This is the Regina and Belle essay anon referred to!

Some of that I semi-covered in my fic Life in Black and White. But have an essay anyway, because it’s been two seasons since then and I have feelings. Please take this with a pinch of salt: the show’s characterisation isn’t remotely consistent, and so it’s hard to pull the strings together into a coherent argument. 

So generally, Belle and Snow come from a similar place. They have the same black-and-white start point - understandable given the general FTL culture of light vs dark - and they’re both Disney princesses. They both believe in love overcoming all, and any scene where they do connect is based on that.

They’re also both a little obsessive about their faith in heroics. But their definition of a hero, and how they try to live up to it in their daily lives, is where they fatally diverge. Ultimately, Belle believes in individual moral judgements, where Snow believes in the judgement of a group. 

Belle’s point of view is fairly straight forward. She believes a hero saves everyone, and relies their own individual judgement on the best course of action. That best course of action should harm as few people as possible, and benefit as many as possible. Self-sacrifice is encouraged if it saves someone else. Belle is can be stubbornly morally upright, and unwilling to bend or see another point of view. When she makes her moral judgement, she’s hard to dissuade, and has utter faith in her convictions. Only with the Gideon situation are we seeing that bend, love for her son being more important to her than being a hero or morally right all the time. But in her defence, she’s too smart to believe anyone is purely good or evil. She believes everyone should try and be good, not that people fall into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ categories from which they cannot deviate. She’s willing to judge based on the choices someone is making now, not on past behaviour - at least as far as morality goes, if not in terms of personal relationships.

Snow, on the other hand, believes a hero is loyal above all else, and defends their home and their loved ones first and foremost. Snow is more than willing to sacrifice someone who falls outside of those she personally values, if it will save someone who falls within that inner circle. She relies heavily on the moral judgements of others, her team, and is susceptible to group-think. Her team isn’t just her loved ones, though - unlike Rumple, who will make choices based on their effect on him and his family alone. Snow’s team is the ‘heroes’, with all the moral judgement that term implies. However, that label is not earned via self-sacrifice or moral strength, nor is it lost through vice or hurting others. No, the ‘heroes’ are those who work with Snow and Snow’s family. Morality, for Snow, is based on obedience to the group’s moral judgement. Anyone who works opposed to the group’s interests - such as Rumple, frequently - is a ‘villain’, and will be treated as such until they come into conformity. Anyone already firmly in the group - i.e. her family, and extended family - gets a very liberal carte blanche. Anyone outside gets little consideration at all.

Now, often there is a genuine moral aspect involved: the ‘heroes’ will be fighting at least nominally to protect others, and the ‘villains’ will threaten the safety of everyone, not just Snow’s family. However, consider Gideon. Gideon only threatened Emma’s life, and he did so because he professed a belief that by taking her powers, he could save hundreds of children. Snow never seemed to question Emma’s willingness to kill Gideon for a moment, despite the moral issues at stake. Emma, the ‘heroes’ group leader - the Saviour - had decided to kill Gideon. She didn’t stop to question whether there was a better answer. Neither did she consider the question of saving the Dark Realm’s other lost children. The ‘hero’ group’s judgement was that it was right to kill ‘villainous’ Gideon to save Emma. Morally, therefore, that conclusion was correct. 

For Snow, a decision is heroic by virtue of its decider being a hero; one does not become a hero by making heroic decisions. This is the same reasoning that allows her to excuse Hook’s actions carte blanche - he is a ‘hero’ now by virtue of working with her family, so his decisions are all heroic by virtue of that status. The cart essentially goes before the horse. 

However, for Belle one becomes a hero by making heroic choices, and one can lose that status by no longer making those choices. That’s what fuelled that horrid confrontation with Rumple in 6A - ‘that’s being too weak to be good’. She believes that everyone has the ability to make good choices, and bad ones. Her blindspot tends to be accepting that sometimes the cost of making the good choice is just too high, or that others’ morality can differ from hers without being invalid. It’s stubborn, sometimes even destructive, but it’s grounded in a deep moral conviction and an admirable desire to do right by everyone, not just her loved ones. Her decisions are always on her own moral judgement, whether they be right or wrong. 

Best example: think of the Bear and the Bow. Belle is with the heroes until they will sacrifice Rumple. She refuses to stand by them then, and not just because Rumple is her husband, but because he is a victim of Emma’s machinations and now left weak and alone. Once she opposes the ‘hero’ group’s judgement and goes to find Rumple herself, she is outside Snow’s willingness to help or protect her. Snow doesn’t offer to help, and they have no more contact that episode. Belle then helps Rumple, until he’s willing to skip town and leave them to face Emma alone, despite his having helped create the problem they’re now facing. Whether or not you agree with her choice to walk back to town alone, she made it based on her own moral reasoning: it wasn’t right to abandon Rumple in the woods, and give Emma a free pass while vilifying Rumple despite their both having been the Dark One. But it also wasn’t right for Rumple to skip town and refuse to help, abandoning everyone else without his help or expertise. In both situations, Belle made and followed through with her own moral judgement, despite the opinions or wishes of those around her, even her loved ones.

Being a hero for Belle is about stepping up and doing the right thing regardless of the cost, and it’s an option open to anyone at any time. Being a hero for Snow is about being a part of a group of ‘heroes’, and conforming to their reasoning while protecting the group members at any cost.

That’s why they don’t have a better relationship: Snow’s a conformist, Belle’s an individualist, and that’s like oil and water. 

TMI Tuesday - ask me anything!

[margueritestjust-a]

☀, ☢, ❀, ✉, ✦.

Salty Munday | Accepting!

☀ What’s your rp pet peeve?

I have so many pet peeves. I think my current one is when followers needle me about inactive muses. Listen. I love all my characters and I love my partners. But please. Show a little patience and discretion. I’m very open about which muses I have that are active and I try to be inviting about crossovers and AUs. That’s all I can offer y’all. Please chill. 

☢ What fads/trends are you so over?

Icons with PSDs that are so dark, light, or patterned I can’t really see the character’s face. I vastly prefer plain icons - maybe a little brightened or with a border to make it yours. Can we bring back plain icons as a thing?

Like. Also with these fancy icons? There’s so much white-washing and that’s gross and problematic. 

❀ What has made you completely lose your chill?

I don’t think I’ve publicly lost my chill. I have privately lost my chill about a lot of things. I think the thing that hit my berserk button most is when people have expressed hatred for my character and/or fandom to my face or done similar to a friend. You know what I mean: where a mutual thinks because they are mutuals, they have carte blanche to be rude, criticize everything you’re doing. No. That’s not how this works. Don’t IM me to tell me you want to see my character who you’ve never RP’d with beaten to a pulp. Don’t harass my friends because you don’t agree with their headcanons on their characters. Don’t offer unsolicited opinions - especially not unsolicited meanness. Like… Nothing gives you an excuse to be rude. Nothing.

✉ A fandom that you feel is open and accepting?

I don’t play in fandoms; I play with friends. Seriously, I RP with fandomless OC, classic lit peeps, folks in the musical theatre community, Disney RPers, even fandoms I don’t know anything about. I don’t look for fandoms anymore: I look for good writers who are good people. 

The thing is, fandoms change over time. A lot. When I joined the PotO fandom (the Phandom), it was filled with accepting, amazing people whose HCs I clicked with. Since then, we’ve all taken up other muses and tried new things, but remained friends - Whaddup, Salt Squad? That was a great experience and it remains a great experience because despite us trying on different fandom hats, we remain close. I don’t know what the current state of the Phandom - frankly, I don’t care. If I met someone cool from the current Phandom, awesome, but I don’t expect to recapture the experience of meeting my buds. 

What I do hope for is to meet people who not only have interesting muses, but who are kind and open-minded and open-hearted. People who are intelligent and fun and enjoyable to hang around. That’s all I look for. I don’t look for fandoms anymore.

Because - let’s be real - there aren’t exactly large enough groups of people RPing in my canon sources to call it a “fandom”.

✦ Thoughts on duplicates following you?

I do get a little anxious about duplicates following me... Especially since I don’t exactly play popular muses. Like, if another Marguerite followed me, I’d be a little panicky... I’m really insecure since not many people know this muse - and several of my others - and I don’t want to be “replaced”. It’s silly. I know it is, since my friends love me for me, not just for my characterization, and I can always take comfort in that. It doesn’t totally banish the fear that someone else might take up my unpopular muse and do a better job than I can.

That said, I’m not always this way. It’s easier in bigger fandoms. When I RPed in the Phandom, I played Erik. And Erik is probably the most popular muse in the Phandom, so when a duplicate followed me I was like “rad, dude” - in fact, one of my BFFs ( @fantomexnoir ) plays a WONDERFUL Erik and I have always had a blast knocking around ideas about the character with her. She and I have developed relationships between her Erik and nearly all of my other characters. Except Erik. Even when I befriend a duplicate, I’m not really into having our characters interact IC. It’s just a personal preference.