#and the stuff they created wasnt for a huge fandom

[aicosu]

Hey, just saw your post about Veilguard - do you mind me asking what it is that put you off? Thanks!

I can start by saying I've not played it. I'm not going to at this point. But basically, every cutscene and dialogue option and plot point I've watched. And for those of you that don't remember I was hugely critical of Inquisition despite my love for it. And I downright hated Trespasser. So this shouldnt be shocking.

And its a lot of stuff I dont like. I can make a short list of major things below, obvious spoilers.

Please dont read this if it will make you angry okay? This is a lot of angry ranting.

1. I said this with inquisition and trespassers but veilguard seals my hatred for the decision to center the entire plot of ripping apart the dalish culture and religion. I'm sorry I just don't think this is compelling. It's icky to create an oppressed and marginalized race with parallels to most indigenous cultures in the real world, and basically call them wrong and stupid for clinging to their culture and history. I don't care that validating the Enuvanris existance means also invalidating the maker and the tevinter reiligions too, or even the dwarven: the game centers this narrative on the DALISH. The entire implication that its their fault all along or they sold themselves into a cult and slavery is gross. The game could have easily done this but centered it around the Maker. Andraste as the blight corrupted crazy deity or spirit whatever the fuck. Makes more sense with how much Chantry has been shoved down our throats since origins, and given how much wider spread it is after literal genocides of the dalish, qun, etc it would just mean a lot more to target the oppressors/majority religion directly. And look listen, I'm a pretty hardcore athiest and even anti thiest. I hate all religions, I find stories about dismantling religion compelling but to couch it histories of marginalized people like... its just not great. Not to mention twisting their gods into systematic greedy people or shoving their "bestest god" into a human woman and trying to make her prostheltize at me. I don't like it!

2. I get why old decisions dont matter. The world is too big, sure. I dont mind that at all, actually, even with all the problems, it gives people invested in those choices. Im happy to accept it. But then... make the actual plot less beholden to it. Why bring in cameos at all, then? Fuck man set it 50 or 80 years later. But if you cant cause everyone wants closure in the DA fandom then give us closure. If not personal closure with wardens and hawkes and etc cause its all too variant — lore closure. We arent going to talk about how darkspawn were thinking and talking? Blight was always just a random elvhen weapon? What apparent the tevinter magisters then? What about the architect? What about the idea of darkspawn becoming their own race and culture? What about the old gods themselves they were just always enuvanris? How do magisters actually feel about that? Why did those who worshipped corypheous or the black church follow Elvhen gods, their most oppressed and hated enemy aside from the qunari?

Speaking of, what about all of us who wanted to confront Minrathous and Tevine for the atrocities we've built up about it for 3 games. Slavery? Off screen solved before we get there? Dorian fixed it all? I had a heated debate with Dorian about him saying how slavery wasnt all that bad "They like being slaves!" And so many conversations with Fenris about how horrible it is. Rape and murder and submission? We don't as players get to finally confront that?

How about red lyrium being sentient. How about it being a tool the elvhen then used to murder titans, but not its alive and unstoppable? How can anything be unblighted? Because plot?

What of the calling? What of it really? What of those in The Calling who were unblighted? nothing?

Not even a deep conversation about the murky ethics of liberation/slavery when it comes to the Antivan crows stealing children? I'm to forget that?

How about anything all to do with the Qun? How about that burnt in memory I have of Saarabas immolating himself in service to not just the system of his culture but his belief in his faith. We're writing him off as a terrorist and not as an example of the Qun? Lets be really real; they have been retconning the Qun every game till now them being a fully gender and sexual accepting society.

How about the changes of mages vs templars if and maybe they walk free now? As if that entire conflict wasnt the brewing boiling point for three games?

What about the elvhen rebellion they so rightly started after centuries or murder and racism? Can we stop pretending that rebellion isnt an act of violence and has to be? Can we stop erasing the idea that systemical upheavel can be anything other than radical? Hello? Anders is one the phone asking for you?

How about that ending, the veil isn't even torn? Spirits don't walk the earth as intended. Why not solas' plan? Why not restore order. Why not join or dissuade him as he asked us to in trespasser?

It just all feels washed off, Thedas. I'm allowed to be angry and upset that they spanned all of these topics and asked me to engage with them on a deep ethical and moral grounds only to never mention them again. I dont think making your player base feel stupid for caring is great.

3. On personal levels, Solas has been ooc since trepasser. And frankly, the explanation of his relationship with Mythal is disgusting. Made the first slave and turned from his true nature into a tool of war—and reaffirming his subservance by making it that only Mythal could stop him? How is that not a toxic dynamic, and they fram it as loving and romantic? Imagine them trying that Fenris who can only be talked down by Danerous. Come on. It should have been Lavellan — or it really should have been not at all. Let him. The devs want to destory Thedas and start over? Let solas reset time and recreate the earth and tear is all down and erase most of the history. Do it you cowards. Give me an unrecognizable DA5 where spirits and mages rule and the elvhen thrive and war with each other. Give me slaved humans and a topsy turvy all that changes remains the same reality. Why not if you want to illuminti titan everything anyway.

4. I dont believe in the veilguard, I should have a choice not to. I should have a reason to care about it or my companions or fewl some sort of reason we must all work together aside from "theyre adorable". All the other games you had companion parties in organic and believable ways. Rook is leader cause.... ? What if I dont want to be? At least my Dalish inquisitor fought tooth and nail not to be called a christian messiah. Hawke had FRIENDS. And the warden found those who knew what a blight meant. And many of all of us disagreed. Vivianne got not sympathy from me. Why should Neve? Fenris will leave your party if you waste your time when the Magister comes to town. I dont want to coddle Harding about her stupid chantry. I do not to talk to Lucanis happily about the crows. Maybe I dont want to be friendly all the time. Maybe I hate everything Bellara is doing. Or taash.

5. The writing was on the wall in inquistion hoenestly. What with Iron bull letting me decide is he mass murders his found family or not. But jesus these new companions are like 10 yrs old. I don't know you decide. Your a fucking adult. I cant take a single one of them seriously. Even Sera screamed and yelled at me if I challenged her. Solas and I almost broke up mutiple times arguing about tradition and purpose or that damn Mythal well (again and no wonder he would object to doing anything akin to being emslaved by her, only to submit himself in this game. As if the well mattered at all. As if morrigan matters at all.) I just don't feel as though I'm bonding with anyone, I'm babysitting. Im being told what a great person I am that I can teach everyone elementary school behaviorial learning. I dont want to, I dont even want to be "good".

6. Petty stuff:

I hate the art style both in the UI and the models. I hate it. And the expressions are so poor compared even to Da2.

I hate all the armors. Everyone is bulky. Hate it.

Ugly combat.

Cant control or walk around as my companions and try out other classes.

CC cant change eyes or facial structure much so all rooks heads look the same and kinda... everyone looks like a dwarf. Sorry. Imo, imo, every rook I have seen looks like a dwarf.

Dont like the music.

Dragons are ugly.

Morrigans outfit makes it look like she has 4 titties.

I hate this elvhen "steampunk" tech when so much of their magic was shown to be earthen and mystic. Dumb. No explanation as why it would become this way it just is now.

Blood magic erasure cause the devs are scared of us being cool I guess.

I hate the humor. Every joke doesnt land for me. And there are simply too many.

[kinardsboy]

I read your "rambling post" about some peoples insistance that Eddie is gay and that Chris is the most important thing in Bucks life and tbh I think the answer as to why is simply fanfiction brain rot. There are a lot of BoBs whose opinions are based on what they read on AO3 and not what they see on the show- I´m sure a huge number of them do not even watch anymore. they consume edits created by other Buddie shippers. I think this is also why you can´t get any examples for any kind of romantic inclination between Buck and Eddie from them that happend after season 4 and even those are not as cut and dry as they make them out to be. The Will scene is not a love declaration. Buck being upset over Eddie getting shot is not a sign of his romantic feelings for Eddie. However, in all the fanfic and edits that followed it is. I think people are quite literally conflating fanfic with what happend in the show and can´t tell the difference anymore

Hey anon,

I totally agree with your analysis. I was working on a post but deleted it where I basically said that shipping has ruined people’s perception of shows and how they interact with fandoms and buddie is just proof of that. Dont get me wrong I love shipping people, but I feel as though a majority of these types of buddie shippers only watch a show if there’s a ship to be had, instead of enjoying a show just because its good.

Because canon 911 doesnt actually have a lot of buddie content, they turn to edits and fanfiction and then forget or replace canon in their head because they like it better. Now there’s nothing wrong with preferring fanon to canon, but it becomes a problem when you genuinely start acting like its canon and try to pull “evidence” from stuff that never happened or that you’re straight up interpreting wrong.

As for the will, it is definitely not a love declaration and I actually think its a little unfair. I understand where Eddie was coming from, his parents arent the best and there aren’t a lot of other people to watch Chris, but it was something he shouldve asked Buck about first.

Buddies love to joke and say he baby trapped buck and while I can fill a whole post about why that’s nasty to joke about I will just say, baby trapping isn’t something to joke about; but its also not what happened in the will scene. Eddie was trying to reassure Buck that he wasn’t a failure and that Eddie trusted him. Thats all. Like you said it wasnt a love declaration.

Ryan (or Tim? Honestly I forget) *edit* ryan said he didn’t understand why eddie would do that, yet Buddies chose to ignore this. They also repeatedly ignore the fact that Ryan and the show has doubled down on Eddie’s heterosexuality.

So yeah, heres more rambling lol. Thanks for the ask anon!

[neverchecking]

To help with Four's little bio on the character list, Im pretty sure the rest is based on the Four Sword manga (thats literally the only other place aside from the LU fandom where the four Links have the nicknames based on the colors they wear). Also major spoilers for the manga ahead cause I just cant explain a lot of stuff without spoiling it.

So... here it goes...

- Honestly when it comes to what personality Green has, it wasnt that clear?? Like according to the manga he's aggressive but that also could be Blue who's known as the short tempered and over confident one so I think Green is just stubborn? But he plays the role as leader trying to keep the others in line (and also constantly argues with Blue)

- Shadow's basically like a shapeshifting monster/demon created by Vaati to thwart the 4 Links, even sometimes using his illusions to disguise himself as one of the other Links. But he's also a kid who's just acting out because he wants a friend. Also... poor dude died twice in the manga. First time was when he was defeated by the other four and the second time when he sacrificed himself by breaking the Dark Mirror, which was both his and Vaati's source of magic and life (so he took Vaati down with him)

- The reason Vio is closer to Shadow than the other three is because in the manga there's a plot twist of Vio going to the dark side when he and the others got separated from each other but later its revealed that he was playing the role of a double agent trying to figure out what the enemy's weak points were. But during his stay he genuinely becomes friends with Shadow and begins to feel bad for betraying him, even kinda hesitating to break the Dark Mirror when he had the chance. He was basically the first one out of the others to realize that Shadow really just wanted a friend more than anything else, as well as be the first friend he had for the short while he was there.

And... thats about it. Think you covered the rest. Ive read this manga so many times I practically have all the chapters memorized so was just really itching to share. I have no life. 😅

-✨

✨anon!

HUGE SHOUTOUT TO ✨ANON FOR CONFIRMING FIFBFN

It makes me feel better that I haven't really picked up on Green's personality bc it isn't overly discernable <3 So he's the leader got it, thank you babes <33

FBFF THANK YOU AGAIN SO MUCH <333

[sungjinhos]

if you truly understood what i said you would know that you are the exception. if you scroll through whatever fandom tags right now you would see sooooooo many x reader fics atop actual fandom content (graphics, updates, gifs, text posts, discussions, etc). as ive said, its intrusive thats why people are mad. if you say you tag differently then dont take their hate personally

i don't take it personally and i am truly not angry over this,

but the funny thing is - fanfiction has and i am afraid will always be a big part of fandom content, and how you try to create a division between fanfiction and actual fandom content is funny to me because even when i was 14/15 in mcfly fandom (lol) fanfiction was huge enough to have it own site in portuguese/brazilian only authors.

it may not be your cup of tea but it is one of its backbone

i do enjoy other types of contents and you might see me reblog a lot of stuff

but in here especially is always the whole gif/graphic/everything non writters going on about notes/tags when the truth is writers are just doing their own thing man

again in my post it was just funny to me bc op also writers +18 content so it wasnt even about tags/disclaimers/read mores - it was just a personal stab at reader inserts - and again everyone can have it own preferences, and build its own community just don't shit other people

like it would be funny if i - who prefers and lean more on the romantic comedy plot of things starts to shit people who write more kinky stuff, like we are doing in the end the same thing, why should it bothers me?

and again about the tagging system - you can always go to your fav blog and start doing a follow spree in their reblogs; is how i find ppl who i like gifs/graphics etc; it may be intrusive but again, it is part of the fandom experience and it will always will be because some people like writting and expressing themselves in that format

[inkling0121]

I'll never understand why leo is so Popular in the tmnt Fandom I mean even before Rise he was everyone's favorite for some reason but he always striked me as the most boring and uninteresting he has funny moments but other than that he didn't have much of a character than being the stern leader.

I wasnt in the tmnt fandom before rise so I'm not sure what it was like, I grew up on 2012 sure but I wasn't online when it aired

However I will say it seems like Leo is the most popular in the rise fandom (followed close by Donnie)

Then in 2012, Leo and Raph are about as popular with each other (from the sides of the fandom that Ive seen)

And maybe it's just the people I follow, but 2003 Leo is the least popular, I think Donnie is the most popular from that iteration followed by Mikey or Raph

As for the 80s, either Raph or Donnie is currently the most popular, however Im way too young to know what it was like a decade ago so...

And don't even get me started on the comics, I havent read much (still hunting down the original comics for free), and I havent seen that side of the fandom much to be able to say

But overall with all the iterations in mind, I genuinely think the fandom is split between the 4 boys pretty good, you just have to look for the people that like the others, maybe its just the people you follow? But I definitely see a lot of stuff created for the other boys

And I don't think he was boring, theres been plenty added to his character when you go in depth

2003 Leo had a deep and intense need to protect his family, to be good enough, he even went through an angry phase when everyone almost died trying to defeat the Shredder

2012 Leo had that space heroes show, was a huge dork, but had great big brother energy (or sister energy if your like transfem 2012 Leo), he also had a bit of a rebellious streak (his crush on the enemy, he snuck out a few times to fight on his own)

I dont remember much of the 80s show cause I only put it on for background noise, and I dont think I need to say anything about Rise

But he does have more personality if you look beyond being a leader, hes an older brother too

I think the reason Leo is given the lead in most movies and shows is because hes the leader and has an interesting dynamic with Raph

Oh and. Dont blame the writers of every tmnt version. There have been plenty ideas for each of the boys that were cancelled BY executives, not thr writers

Show and movie writers like the others as well, but sometimes, stuff gets cut, it happens

[castielsparkle]

hii angelsdean here, i saw you reblogged my art ask game so i wanted to send you a few! palette, inspiration, crayon

omg angelsdean hi!! thank u so much, and thank u for making it its very cool!! ^_^ sorry about the late response, was working on a piece actually lol!

palette: ooh, this ones tough, im like split right in the middle with two choices hehe. i quite love using varying shades and hues of blues! but most of my art ends up being kind of a peachy, almost rosy orange-pink-purple kind of palette :P it always starts out very blue but if i fully finish a piece it usually ends up shifting towards the latter. i love blue seeing as i am a blue guy myself but i can def appreciate both of those palettes!! very fun to work with :)

inspiration: OOH this is so so dear and special to me,, i draw inspiration from most anything that i can!! which includes but isnt limited to: davinci's sketches, baroque art in general, 70s-80s and 2000s retrofuturism (tbh 50s-2000s retrofuturism entirely is just so<333) i was big on the deviantart 2010s like, furry and mlp scene as well LOL so i get insp from there too from time to time! i also have an appreciation for other forms of art such as music, makeup, poetry, dance, etc, and i love kind of translating stuff from there into physical/drawn art :) i also take huge inspiration from my day to day life, the things around me, and my friends, and ofc, all of the media im interested in! (spn, mlp, dexter, stranger things, teotfw etc!) i think i am most inspired/motivated by my life experiences and animals and my passion for biology/anatomy :) i love to create just to create!

crayon: ive been drawing quite literally as long as i can remember! there wasnt ever a time where i wasnt in my memory, i am very very passionate about art in all of its forms and a strong believer that there is so much soul and life and Humanity in creating and sharing and viewing/observing/experiencing art, whether its telling stories or dancing or singing or drawing, i just love love love art. dont get me started on ancient cave drawings LMAO. but anyways sorry that was a tangent, point being that art is very intrinsic to my being, but to get back on topic, ive been drawing for my entire conscious life :) i remember as a wee boy i won an art trophy in my schools district for like, some water safety contest i made a poster for lol. my elective in high school was art, and i spent most of my time physically *in* high school spent in my art teachers classroom, any spare time i had, whether it was supposed to be my spare time or not 😭 as a small small kid i did horse riding, and was very passionate about horses, and had many horse anatomy books and how-to-draw horse books etc etc, was big into bella sara and i adored drawing horses. (later that manifested into an mlp special interest when g4 came out which fueled my art even more, i even run an mlp art request blog w my bf to this day!) but anyways! in my youngest days id draw horses, my family, any animal i could, webkinz, and as a tween-teen it was a bunch of furry art, then youtuber art, then fandom art, etc etc... now its mainly my original stuff and im very into spn right now so! lots of that too :)

sorry for going on such a long rant ahh! 😭 these questions are so cool i just had so much fun answering them lol!! thank you again!!!<3

[haveumetbi]

Hello!

I've been using tumblr for a long time, but only recently I've felt confident enough in my english to actually try to join communities and make friends. 

A little introduction... That is actually kinda really long and I’m not gonna subject y’all to it unless you want to, so here’s the tldr:

I’m an acearo, bi, cis girl (🇺🇸 she/her — 🇧🇷 ela/a).

White latina from Brazil.

I’m disabled and neurodivergent

I love sitcoms, comedy is my fav genre of fiction

and cats

and The Sims

and Turma da Mônica

and hairstyling, braids, make up

and Jane Austen

and Taylor Swift

If you like any of it, follow me!! I’ll definetely follow back. If your curious, read bellow.

I’m a 23 year old college student who is majoring in History. I’m kind of a huge nerd, I love subjects like History (duh), Literature, Politics, Philosophy, Psychology, Religion, but also Comedy (i find fascinating to analyze it, even if that kinda defeats the purpose, sue me). I kinda only watch sitcoms, actually, maybe because of how obsessed I am with the genre (more on that later). 

Being Brazilian I may reblog/talk about Brazillian issues/stuff and most definetely will reblog things about Turma da Mônica (brazil’s most beloved comic book series that shaped the childhood’s of at least 3 generations now since the 60s/70s), my longest autistic special interest. Oh, yeah, I’m also neurodivergent, AuDHD and also have persistent depressive disorder (dysthymia gang rise up! or dont, ik its hard and tiresome) and fibromyalgia.

Another special interest I’m unhinged about is The Sims, I use Tumblr mostly bc of it, so I’ll definitely reblog stuff about it, maybe if everythings works out I will even create a side simblr, who knows. I love historic/fantasy gameplay, would be cool to share with people.

Idk if its a SI or just regular cat owner thing, but I’m definitely obsessed with these little guys. Speaking of cat lover, I love Taylor Swift. Like, I’m very casual about most music I consume, but she is the exception, I just... feel SO MUCH with her songs. Idk, idk... She also makes me feel things on a sapphic way, though I’m no g*ylor or hetl*r (rlly dont care about who she dates, just here for the art). But not in a wow I wanna bang this celebrity I have a crush on, cuz I dont wanna bang no one, cuz I’m acearo. Just, dont swing that way (or any way, really /hj cuz i'm actually gray-bi-romantic but its very rare, so i'm usually not swinging at all lmao).

I really like to read, but it has been tough to keep the habit with depression and disabled adult life knocking at my door and kicking my ass... currently I’m finishing reading all Jane Austen’s work (i love her sense of humor and analyses of human psychology) in portuguese, but I plan to eventually read the original stuff in english. I just really love stories and storytelling as an art form, maybe that’s why I love to write. I’m obsessed with fanfictions, actually, been writing since I was 11, never anything in english, but who knows, actually creating and participating in tumblr may be the first step. I mostly write about tv shows I’m obsessed about (though I did write some Turma da Mônica Jovem fanfiction...... thank god I deleted, it was terrible, tho in my defense I was still a preteen) and I mostly watch sitcoms so.... About that...

My favorite sitcom ever is probably How I Met Your Mother (it was literally what i needed when i was going through a really rough patch) and BoJack Horseman (yes, cartoon sitcoms totally count, shut up). I’d say my first sitcom love was The Simpsons, my biodad had a lot of dvds and tapes from the golden seasons and the fondest memories of my childhood were us watching together and laughing like two idiots. My first fandom was iCarly (i was a preteen okay), but I wasnt a big fan of the revival/reboot (yes I was team seddie, no it has nothing to do with it, I gave it a shot, but just didnt vibe with it). I also love The Office, That 70′s Show, Never Have I Ever, Community, Our Flag Means Death, The Sex Lifes of College Girls, One Day at a Time and The Good Place.

I’m pretty sure the only other shows that I got obsessed with that weren’t sitcoms were Once Upon a Time and Lucifer, two shows that were quite humorous with its wacky premises (fairytales in real life???? the devil taking a vacation in LA??? i mean, c’mon!!). I’m loving the Percy Jackson disney adaptation, it was my favorite YA book series and it always bummed me that the movie adaptation was so terrible, I'm glad we finally have a great adaptation and can't wait for more seasons to come!!!

I’m very talkative (you dont say?? 😮 /s) and a total extroverted that really loves to make friends, but my communication difficulties really do shine on long distance conversation... be phone calls, video calls, emails, text messages etc... So, although I’d love if you shoot me a message, bc I love to make friends, I also am not the best texter, so dont expect someone who always immediately answers you right back cuz they are online — please dont take it personal, it has nothing to do with who is messaging me and everything to do with my disability mkay? And yes, I am trying to work this shit out in therapy, but you know... growth aint linear. When shit hits the fan, the first thing that I lose is the ability to answer text messages 😭 idk i just stare at them, they stare at me, i combust and die, the end. 

Dont know how to end this text, so, I’ll just show a pic of my cat, cuz shes everything. Bye!! 

[inked-in-art]

Anyone else ever have something nostalgic online you randomly think about from when you were young, and you spend a long time searching for and trying to track down and when you finally do all the parts of it you knew are completely gone?

It’s such a terrible hollow feeling that it leaves in your chest.

Sure the creator has grown and are doing new things and probably living their best lives but for you there is a piece of your past that is just gone and they won’t ever realize what a difference that is for you

As much as people say “what you put on the internet stays there forever” there’s so much that will just get lost with time

[klowhispers]

ngl im slowly getting tired of spn

[poobit]

My tumblr Year in Review (the graphic was ugly lol

I posted 6,355 times in 2022

757 posts created (12%)

5,598 posts reblogged (88%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@strangeauthor

@kindestegg (<3)

@curly-fried

@taptrial2

@laslloronas

I tagged 3,045 of my posts in 2022

#the owl house - 288 posts

#art - 238 posts

#animals - 148 posts

#video - 146 posts

#samsa´s art stuff - 140 posts

#gif - 112 posts

#insp - 101 posts

#maru - 90 posts

#death note - 82 posts

#fashion - 79 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#when deviantart tells you “take this tutorial draw a picture n well give u whats essentially a tiger shaped sticker for ur page” well then

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

it doesnt matter what game you want to play, ive just gotta live long enough to see the end of all of this.

See the full post

178 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#4

im gonna be honest as someone with over 50 original characters across decades of my life...and as someone whos really into concept and production art...

most "how to build your original character!" advice is utterly useless because you cage the character into a superficial box of traits and trying to build some sort of proper reference for it when you have no idea what the story youre trying to tell actually needs the character for, proffesional productions literally dont work with a chart of what the character likes or dont if its not relevant to the design or the narrative shown,

thats post production shit you talk abt with your coworkers for fun or put it in a fucking booklet , stop trying to build huge reference sheets when you havent even built a basic story to follow, you are GONNA forget about it, even if the character has like a huge family tree , unless its explicitedly exposed or paced correctly, you gotta be FLEXIBLE with your characters instead of caging them to irrelevant details, or else you gonna find yourself rebuilding the same characters OVER AND OVER every 2 years because turns out the ref sheet is outdated or you got feedback and now you wasted a lot of time and energy on something that wasnt even usable !

start SIMPLE guys let a character develop through the story NOT a phamplet , i assure you , it is way more organic that way.

194 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

this one should have more

#3

My condolences to the families of the victims in Uvalde, Texas. This is another senseless tragedy , especially a direct attack on children.

230 notes - Posted May 24, 2022

#2

some of you have no idea of the ripple effect that “su critical” had in the terminology and way ppl interact with “being critical of media” in tumblr and anywhere else rlly,  critical fandom blogs where not started by random white kids overthinking things and taking kids media too seriously, they were spearheaded by , first and foremost as i remember? black bloggers who were really sick of the amount of casual racism and antiblackness that was plaguing (and honestly still does) kid´s media. 

overall you can thank black bloggers in almost every niche group of topics and discussions for BUILDING the present day tumblr , the amount of racism and shadowbanning and censorship these people have gone through (and continue to go through) is fucking ridiculous to the point theres still ppl here thinking that russian tumblr psyops where an actual Real Thing and not just some scheme to delete black people´s accounts whenever they said anything against politicians or even anything political. 

654 notes - Posted January 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

4,942 notes - Posted January 1, 2022

so glad my first post of january was also my most popular lol

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[tweedfrog]

im sorry, but reading ur last couple posts it kinda sounds like you think Ned should have been more overtly racist and bc he wasn’t grrm is racist, but on the flip side giving arya prejudice thoughts also makes grrm a racist and a bad writer? like grrm for sure has dodgy bits but you’re giving him a bit of a no win scenario here. if he had made the targs black like originally planned do you think that would have been better or worse? (1/2)

ok im going to address this point by point because there is a lot of reaching and misunderstanding here

1. I am not here to present a ‘win’ scenario for GRRMs writing. I am discussing the shortcomings of the way he writes racism and yet uses racist tropes. A lot of these are as you state ‘no win’ scenarios because he decided to craft a world where racism exists while having extremely few characters of colour in important positions, AND while using racist tropes. There are many no win scenarios simply because of this tension.

2. I dont want Ned to be a more vocally racist character? And please point out where I said that Grrm was racist because Ned wasnt portrayed as having overt anti-dornish sentiment? I stated that because GRRM created a world where racism exists everything now has to be analysed bearing that in mind. It’s the same as stating that because misogyny exists in universe male characters are possibly (and likely) somewhat misogynistic and their interactions with with women and the way they treat female characters must be analysed in such a way.

Me stating that anti-dornish racism could have been a possible reason why Ned reacted less vehemently to the deaths of Elia and her children is me analysing it within the frame-work that GRRM set up. I’m using this to point out that when white authors add fantasy racism into a story they dont see the raicst implications of what they are writing because they dont understand the way racism impacts almost everything in real life.

For example in our world when non-white children or women go missing or are murdered their deaths are much less publicized than when white women or children get murdered or go missing. So yes racism affects the way that people are treated in such scenarios and when you decide to include fantasy racism in your story you have now included all of this extra stuff and need to do work to make sure that what you are writing does not perpetuate or enforce racism.

3. I literally never said arya having racist thoughts made GRRM a racist and bad writer. I have no clue where you got that. I used Aryas remark to highlight how anti-dornish sentiment clearly exists in the North because 9 year old children dont develop racist ideas in a vaccuum.

4. Where did I ever state that everything that happens to the martells was a micro aggression? I’m also confused as to where you got the word “micro” from??? Because idk about you but things like characters not really caring about the rape and death of a non-white woman and the deaths of her biracial children, a child being shunned because they “smelled dornish” and dornish women being hypersexualised in the narrative are some pretty macro aggressions.

5. Finally you deciding to ‘not discuss the essoss stuff’ is missing one of the main points of what I am trying to say. GRRM’s writing isnt racist because sometimes bad things happen to the Martells. The combination of his writing of the dothraki as savages with no introspection when compared to the free folk, the brutal killing of many martells for shock value, the contrast between the way he portrays Lyanna and the way he portrays Elia, the exotic/erotic trope he uses when writing dornish women, the fact that he hasnt named the princess of dorne while all her male counterparts have recieved names AND backstories and the fact that he made a white character the centre of the essoss plotline and a whole host of other decisions combine to make his writing....kinda racist. If it happened one time it may be a coincidence. If it happens about 10 times its a pattern.

Would it be racist if the Starks were written as inuit and then split up? Probably - given the history of murder and brutal seperation indigenous families have faced! Would making the more visibly indigenous stark children plainer while making the more white passing stark children better looking be racist? Probably - considering the way that eurocentric beauty standards are still upheld! With GRRM his issue is that he doesn't use 1 or 2 racist tropes in isolation. That could be a mistake. He uses several in succession.

Regarding the Targaryens being Black I think that if he wrote them in exactly the same manner (unlikely given how he treats other characters of colour) it likely wouldnt be racist but that the fandom probably would take it as an excuse to be racist.

So now that weve gotten through all of that straw-man criticism about my “take” I’m actually going to suggest some ways that he could have still written about fantasy racism without accidentally perpetuating it

1. If he is going to brutally kill off Elia he needs to AT LEAST have more discussions surrounding her death. Who Elia was as a person (dont just make her a sad cardboard cut out - I want to see some background on who she was outside of being an abandoned wife and mother). One story about Elia by Oberyn isnt enough. I also want to see more societal shock about Elias death because theres a weirdly small amount. The rape and murder of the crown princess shouldve been an extremely huge scandal and should have horrified many more people.

2. Theres no real way to kill off two non white children and have their white sibling be a prophetic hero without dicey implications so Aegon needs to survive and be the actual Aegon and not a secret blackfyre. We dont know if he is a secret blackfyre or not so this may just be a case of the fandom taking an excuse to be racist and running with it

3. Have more Dornish characters that dont die brutally for shock value (Elia, Oberyn, Quentyn). Furthermore when you only have 2 povs of dornish characters,,,,and you kill one of them off, yes that is not a great look

4. Dont introduce the only WoC pov in the whole damn book nipple first and as a blatant play on the brown seductress when she has legitimate political concerns and greivances

And thats only the dornish characters! With the dothraki and most of essoss just.....anything aside from what he’s done would be better. But of course im sure none of this is actually racist writing decisions. No its simply complex characterisation of course!!1!

[aegialia]

self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill. 

for good: 

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through 

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby. 

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting. 

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends. 

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me. 

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness. 

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories. 

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me. 

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

[torivikachu]

WARNING UNREASONABLE SHITPOST

recently, I see so much hate everywhere. magnetic storms or what but fandoms are getting rlly nasty when clashing with each other.

I think it is important to understand, that we shouldn't be bashing others, whatever we or they might like, as long as it is not offensive or reasonably immoral - and I stress, REASONABLY! some people believe homosexuality is immoral and that is just /warning! offensive language/ dumb.

as a huge fan of SNS I see a lot of anti's this days - antisakura, antiending, antinarusasu, antisasunaru, antinaruhina, antisasusaku, antiboruto and whatever. and - ugh - as much as I myself hate to admit that.... expectant drums sound.... nobody cares!

I mean - it's Kishimotos work. it's his idea, it's his story, it's his vision and - sadly - we don't get to decide whether he was wrong or not.

whether he should have ended the story with SNS,

whether he should have made female characters more prominent,

whether he should have killed Sakura off,

whether he should have made Naruto a better father,

whether he should have done many other things we all want him to do,

because - no matter how much we love the story or the characters - we are not the ones who created them, not the ones who understand them the most.

I mean, I have written myself a couple of paragraphs on how much I hate what is going on in Boruto - so yeah hi hypocrite! - but I sincerely mean well. yeah it pains me a bit to watch Boruto cuz of nostalgia I feel for Naruto series but I keep on watching, because I can't cut out that part of my heart that is responsible to crave more of Naruto universe even if I hate it.

and I am probably going to keep criticizing every damn thing - like, have you heard the Kara soundtrack? omfg I facepalmed the whole episode after that - and I wish it was better, but I am not going to bash characters for being created that way.

bc you know what? people are shitty. good people are shitty. bad people are shitty. everybody is shitty. so I guess made up characters get to be shitty too.

I mean, bashing Sakura for not having same problems as Naruto and Sasuke and thus not always getting them? - duh! remember yourself at 12, 13, 14, 15, you were a fucking whiner and you know it. and what were your problems? not getting a laptop you wanted? being punished for bad grades? getting into the fight with your parents for being unreasonable?

yeah, like you never said stuff like I wish I didn't have parents. I remember a moment after the fight I wrote a note to my parents before going to sleep that literally said ' sorry you got such a bad daughter I wish you didnt have to deal with me' and then went to sleep. in the morning - having completely forgotten it - I was woken up by my crying mom who said it was the stupidest thing on earth I knew I hurt her with it. and I regret it. it was dumb and shitty and I normaly consider myself a good person, but that was a huge shit I pulled. and I can't take it back. but I was like 10 and I didn't know better at the time.

why would I hold Sakura to higher standards then I hold myself?

then people bash her for being mean to Naruto - well, duh again - KIDS ARE MEAN. she got older and managed to see Naruto for who he was, but people still see her as a bully.

well, if we are not ready to accept peoples mistakes if they have managed to live up to them, I dont want to be a part of that 'we'

next I see a lot of bashing for Sakura being a bad mom - ugh, duh again /what is it, third time?/! how come? yeah she works a lot, since she is a single mother and all, but she genuinly cares for Sarada, even if she gets a bit overprotective at times. she doesn't have a very working relationship with Sasuke - well sure, he is never home!

then there's bashing Naruto and Sasuke for being bad fathers - you might think they'd learn to appreciate a family after being orphans.........

well where do I start. Sasuke is clinically afraid of losing loved ones after he has lost so much, so he is much better off not having many bonds and it is obvious as day. it doesn't make what he does right or good or wrong, it's just who he is. Naruto... well, lets start with the fact that he never had a role model. he had Iruka - at times, he had Jiraya for three years, but he never really had a family. he was a good dad - as we can see - when kids were little and he wasnt a hokage...

but now... he might work too hard, he might overdo it a bit at times, but if you think that he struggled his whole life to get appreciation why would you think he'd stop now? he just wants to manage everything, but he cant, and it kills him but he doesnt stop and its beautiful. yeah, its unhealthy and stupid but beautiful, because that is what the core of his character is. thats what this world has shaped him to be.

BUT THEN AGAIN THAT IS JUST MY PERCEPTION. I am pretty fucking sure Kishimoto and authors had their own reasons for it that are justified and totally okay because these are his characters who he can do whatever he wants to.

just like we people can.

and I can go on, because there is just SO MUCH HATING AND BASHING I just can't take it anymore.

I mean this whole war of sasunaru and narusasu - why would you care who fucks whom as long as both enjoy it and dynamics in bed dont influence dynamics in the relationship.

I mean... fanfics are not real. hell, even Naruto is not real, but fanfics exist entirely separately from the anime (most of them don't even get personalities right) and it is OKAY. they can exist separately to please those who are unhappy with how things go.

but please please pleeease stop bashing everything just for the sake of it. and I don't mean you are not entitled to feel and I am not telling what you should feel but there is so much more wholesomeness and awesomeness and beauty in portraying and seeing Sakura as a supportive friend and Sasuke as a helpless child inside and Naruto as a strong person who just really can't catch a break. and Boruto and Sarada as a way to make SNS canon in some twisted way.

you know? positive thinking.

but Next generation still sorta sucks.

no offense, though

😆

[freebooter4ever]

i’ve seen the discussion going back and forth on boundaries and sexual objectification, and i don’t have much to add to the conversation other than to say everyone is allowed to determine their OWN ‘lines’ and just because we don’t vocalize them doesn’t make them any less valid. but here’s the limits i set for my blog if anyone feels it is important for them to know (<3):

personally I consider ‘characters’ fair game for anything goes, with ‘public personas’ a little more iffy. ‘RPF’ isn’t new - it just takes on a new more accessible/visible form nowadays. i remember reading my first fic about a ‘real person’ back in my LOTR fandom days - it was a story in first person perspective about the main character meeting orlando bloom on a plane before he was ‘famous’. like a lot of these types of stories, it wasnt so much about the person as it was about the meet cute. the actor was just a convenient placeholder with a handsome face and some personality quirks thrown in to make the romance/dialogue more specific. i personally dont read much xReader fic nowadays, but mostly only cause i’m an old fart who can’t relate to the ‘you’ format. i miss the good old days when people actually created OC’s and then inserted them into things LOL. but also LOL if you think i’ve gone an entire year of quarantine without some imagined personal fantasies of joe mazzello (or steve aoki in the years before)(ramilicious can attest to this. she can also attest to most of these fantasies ending in friendship rather than anything explicit cause that’s just how i roll these days lol). the line i draw is i would never post these types of fics in a place where the subject could accidentally find them - you have to go looking for this stuff on tumblr, most fics are given explicit ratings and under read-mores. with the blacklist tags it’s pretty easy to filter things out. its even easier to add filters to ao3 searches. i am NOT going to do something like message steve aoki and say ‘yeah i watched that movie Ibiza like five times, here is my 1k fic where you’re the dj and i’m the one night stand’. but obviously people still enjoy imagining scenarios like these otherwise movies like Ibiza wouldn’t exist?

for art, i consider anything already on display up for grabs, we all know a certain person’s ass is all over the place...all you have to do is google ‘need for speed’ and rami’s name. HOWEVER, in the case of actors i personally would not draw anything more explicit than what’s already there. i’m not gonna draw full frontal nudity for rami (unless he gifts us with it in a movie, i suppose) or anyone. this is 100% a personal choice for me. 

i was a sophomore or junior in college when i volunteered as a figure drawing monitor where i’d time the nude model’s poses and help them set up the stage and lighting and such. there was this one guy in his mid forties probably, a regular who came every week, and i always thought of him fondly till one day (the day after i ran into my Hot Programming TA during dinner and later sent him an email begging him to go on a date with me because i was desperate for kissing experience)(and Hot Programming TA emailed me back within minutes saying yes) this artist guy who i saw all the time and thought i knew fairly well, decided to draw me instead of the model. which would have been fine except he drew me naked. i was NOT naked at the time, i was wearing a shirt, and a bra, and a full prairie skirt with alternating calico and floral patterns. he drew what he imagined was underneath all that. he came up to me after the figure drawing session and showed me his drawings and told me i had been ‘glowing’ and my response was to laugh it off awkwardly and get the hell out of there as soon as i gave the model their pay check. but inwardly i was thinking a) i was NOT glowing for this creepy man twice my age and b) i did NOT give him consent to sexualize my body under my clothes and then SHOW me that objectification. i never said anything to him or anything else, i continued to be the monitor, and i continued to field off creepy advances from him including multiple job offers, but when i finally realized i could just...stop..and i passed the student volunteer monitor job on to my friend naeem, i also realized that what that older male artist did was NOT ok in my book. and it was probably not something he would do while naeem was monitoring.

nowadays im working in an industry that regularly objectifies female bodies. in the past year alone i have had to deal with requests to make breasts bigger, i have been given character rigs that in addition to the usual elbow, knee, and spine joints also have ‘nipple’ joints but ONLY for the women (to make them jiggle for animation), every time i send out a female pose i get it back with notes that push it further into the sexy type of body language reserved for women (twist the spine more! sway the back more! give it ‘energy!’), i have been told to erase wrinkles and fat and pores but ONLY for the women (men you ADD pores bc realism! and manliness!) and this is all me working for a company that is actually fairly progressive in terms of sexism compared to OTHER studios.

like it or not, sexual objectification is a huge part of specifically women’s lives and how we react to that is our business. for me, turning the tables and putting men on display feels like fair’s fair. i cant stop the men from doing it, so if i want to enjoy sexualizing male bodies, damn it im gonna! like dang it, boy do i want to send steve aoki a thank you note every time he posts a video of himself doing those ice baths during the sunset golden hour bc holy shit gorgeous or working out in his gym wearing VERY little clothes, but i dont because i know what its like when someone imposes their personal fantasies on the subject. or, god, there was that time i had to unfollow nicole’s insta for a while bc i had a very explicit dream about her and realized, shit, i need to take a break and get my emotions under control before i can refollow. and god some of the stuff i see dudes sending her during her live videos on mental illness/meditation is TOTALLY gross and not something they should be confronting her with. and she’s not even ‘famous’ famous. or how some fans send their idols explicit direct messages without consent. THAT feels inappropriate to me.

a part of me feels like i shouldn’t have to defend this. men don’t. they’re even encouraged in mass media to sexualize women. but i also recognize the importance of talking about consent. the importance of recognizing that a celebrity deserves to have their boundaries respected. these are my lines in fandom. other people have different lines they won’t cross, and that’s okay to me. i block or blacklist any blogs or tags i think go over the top.

heck, even in fandom-only spaces i still try to keep my own more sexual fantasies off this blog and only in private messages with my friends and mutuals, and i feel like that might come across as unintentionally prudish or judgmental sometimes. i’m not ‘horny on main’ very often. but like...every time i reblog that particular ‘washing machine’ gif of joe mazzello am i thinking about him naked and thinking about how he’s got very loooooong feet, and ‘gee i wonder if that means /other/ things are Too Big for my tastes’ but also ‘gosh wouldnt that make a pretty picture to draw’???? hell yeah.

i dont know who is gonna actually read this essay but yolo i guess :)

[saitoakirachan-fangirls]

Y'all western Xiao Zhan fans make me so uncomfortable cause you guys probably have no idea how much Chinese netizens hate him and why

Just as a note, I have no idea how western fandoms work but Chinese idol fandoms are really structured and organized (Chinese people really DO love bureaucracy lmao). There is one official fan group managed often by the 'biggest fan' and a few big-name-fan moderators. You do not have to be extra popular to have a fan group. These people organize different events such as fundraisers to donate in their idol's name, visits to the set if their idol acts in something, and often create banners and lightsticks for fans to use during live events. They are powerful. Another thing is that the mods are often in direct contact with the star's manager and therefore have a huge influence on normal fans. The manager can also request them for help boosting stats on a post or hype up/restrain fan actions in some cases.

Now, coming back to Xiao Zhan. I'll have you know that, during the whole whirlwind of the AO3 incident, neither Xiao Zhan nor his manager nor his team nor his fan mods spoke up or tried to tame the situation. They had all the power to, but chose to attend a cricket concert. If you didn't know about the AO3 incident, fans of Xiao Zhan mass reported AO3 and all fan works involving XZ that they found distasteful (aka shipping stuff or lgbt+ stuff) and harassed/cyberbullied/doxed people who opposed them. Many people lost their personal accounts permanently on Weibo, the biggest social media platform in China, because of this. They also targeted a Chinese equivalent of tumblr (lofter) and basically destroyed fan circles en masse. Then Ao3 got banned in China.

Later, XZ's team said, guys, we love how much you love us and don't forget to be civil teehee and addressed none of his fans' actions and didn't apologize for causing irreparable damage to fan communities.

To this day, he hasn't said a thing about this event himself.

When his single Guang Dian (which I'll call Light in this post) came out, his fans peer pressured each other to buy extra copies. Now, that's actually kinda normal in fandoms, so I'll let it-wait wtf, they want all students to buy 105 copies and all working adults 1005 copies??? Many encouraged a student to starve to save up???? SOMEONE TOLD HER TO STEAL HER PARENTS' MONEY???? (the last thing is something I saw myself, so maybe not emblematic but... It was happening and nobody else seemed to care and that freaked me out. Expressed my concerns and got insulted for it lmao)

So you can see how, not long after the AO3 incident, people will not let go of such an outrageous thing. New hottest topic oh yeah!

Btw, it was discussed to the point that XZ couldn't have possibly not known such a behavior was being encouraged among his fans. Didn't say anything. As a result of this, his sales shot right through the roof on its first week, surpassing Micheal Jackson's "We are the world" in dollars earned and all other songs that debuted the same week added together

Cool, riveting stuff

Also, this is old news so I wasnt sure if I should add this but there's a disclaimer so, during his uni days, he said his female friends looked like a sex doll on Chinese FB (weibo) and didn't delete that even after he exploded in popularity. When asked about it a year or so back, he said, 'Well I'm just a normal guy, can I not just be a normal human anymore? You are all so unreasonable' instead of just, yknow, saying that he made a mistake and people shouldn't say this kind of stuff in public, especially since he's the hottest new star

All this and that's not even scratching the surface

Anyway, if you like his song, pls pirate it thanks

[bluegrasshole]

if you like to talk about how creators need to make more women-centred works like TV shows and movies and books but then in your own fandom spaces you don’t actually do anything with the characters we do have and keep focussing entirely on male characters, then what’s the point? why WOULD creators write more women, when they know people aren’t going to care about them as much as they care about men? why would fandom creators make transformative works about women when they get no response or interest or likes or reblogs from the stuff they’ve already created, when their stuff about men gets the opposite? you can talk about how women characters aren’t “compelling” or “well-rounded” or “complex” and therefore no fun to play with, but that doesn’t stop anyone from writing and making art and metas and HCs about boring-ass skinny white boys all day long who aren’t well-rounded or complex either. i’ve seen entire longfics written about men who had one line in canon, or showed up in one panel, or were on screen for two minutes. if you’re able to make THEM interesting, then you can make WOMEN interesting, no matter how “boring” they are in canon. and if you don’t think you’re able to do that, then support the people who are! reblog their women-centred art and fics and headcanons and edits! create a demand! you literally have the power to do that! practice what you preach!!!