#but i feel like the tumblr side is cool because its less chaotic and a lot of the people here seem to be more intelligent

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

maturing is realizing that shameless is a show with a lot of homophobia, transphobia and sexism in the writing and it’s fandom is toxic and a lot of the fans are as shitty as the writers are

[binniesthighs]

eehee here it is the long awaited results of my chaotic ass survey about our hornies it’s so long holy heck, but I have seperated it into a couple sections to make sense of it all (omg if you read all of it lemme give you a kith teehee) ahhhh lol its SO nerdy haha but i hope that ya enjoy nonetheless! ✨

In this essay, I will....(hahah jk jk this is just all for fun) 

1. Demographics Analysis 

2. Polls on Fic Content 

3. Member Specific Analysis 

4. Deep Dive into the Juicy Questions (Confessions) 

5. General Thoughts and Conclusion  

6.  Cute shit that ya’ll said that made me giggle

*Unpopular opinions will be made into their own post to give them ample space and analysis!

Other Notes: 

Out of 100 individuals surveyed, 44 were readers, 2 were only writers, and 54 were both readers and writers. 

Statistical significance can be effected by sampling, selection, and response bias (yeah i took a stats class teehee) and personal biases 

All the the opinions and other analysis presented by me (Ro/binniesthighs) are purely my own oponion and are not factual. you are entitled to interpret all of this information however you like! Anything that i analyze is not definitive! 

while this survey is mostly about stay smutblr, i hope that it can also maybe serve as a template for other fandoms as well with the more general questions! this is a survey for everyone! 

i’d love to hear about what you think about anything presented in this analysis! feel free to send me an ask or comment! reposting is permitted within tumblr or on other platforms if proper credit is given! ❤️ (uwu hehe if you could please help me spread this i would appreciate it so much! i worked really hard on her 🥺) 

1. Demographics Analysis:

Gender Identities of those Surveyed 

~My thoughts: this really came as no surprise to me considering how the majority of kpop fans (especially boy group fans) identify as female! Seeing as I am a Stray Kids/Seventeen blog (both of them boy groups) it makes sense to me that my readers would mostly identify as female! 

Another important thing to note (from a writer standpoint at least) is the wide array of identities that we still have present within the general audience of stay smut blur (SSB)! I’ll get into this later when i discuss favorite pairings to read, however i think that this gives us one more reason to write for a diverse audience of readers who can identify with different types of self-insert fics! 

Top Five: 

Female (81%) 

Non-binary/gender non-conforming (13%) 

Changes by the day (6%) 

Male (4%) 

Demiboy/Demigirl (3%) 

Sexual Orientation of those Surveyed 

Other identities mentioned: 

????, unlabeled, aromatic bisexual, bicurious, demisexual, “just liking who i like”, experimenting, heteroflexible, sapiosexual, depends day by day, “i just like anyone” 

~My thoughts: okkkkk i see us gays of SSB 😏 these demographics were really exciting for me to see! i think that it’s super cool that we have such representation across the board when it comes to sexual orientations present in our community! As someone who personally identifies as pan, this was super comforting to see that there are so many others like me in this little space of the internet! I think it’s safe to say at least from my lil survey that all the bi cuties out here own SSB 💗💜💙

From a literal standpoint, it also makes sense to me that heterosexuality is strongly present as well considering that often the pairs that we read are male idol x female reader so this is the perfect niche! 

Top Five: 

Bisexual (40.8%) 

Heterosexual (26.5) 

Pansexual (17.3%) 

Queer (7.1%) 

Asexual (4.1%) 

Stay Creators!! 

~My thoughts: this one i was THRILLED at seeing oml hahaha and i was so interested to see that this was nearly an even split! 

I think that there’s something to be said about how sometimes we can take our hobbies: (movies, videogames, books, kpop, anime etc)--all things which we really like in totally normal and healthy ways but also kinda like....get hornies about them too? if that makes sense? for example, i have a friend who really likes certain video games/characters from these games as a fan and he’s shared with me that he also doesn’t mind watching porn containing those same characters! (ahahah ya all know what i mean don’t even lie haha) 

what this question proved to me as that there are stays out there who practice “being a stay/being a stay creator” who also are interested in the more...horny side of this hobby/interest 😂

what is even more interesting to me is who i wonder if i’ve  have consumed any of ya’ll’s content while you have consumed mine??? this i am DYING to know aha but it think its best for all of us to stay anonymous teehee ;) 

either way, good on ya for doing what ya do!! you are so so treasured in this community too!! <3 

2. Polls on Fic Content (a long section lol) 

Favorite Pairing to Read 

*other options selected were rankings of favorite pairings so i just added each of them as an entry to the respective category mentioned. 

Top Five: 

Idol x female reader (69%) 

Idol x gender neutral reader (19%) 

Idol x reader x Idol (poly r/ship) (14%) 

Idol x reader, Idol x reader (threesome, not much interaction between the two idols) (8%) 

~My thoughts: once again, this category was pretty self explanatory to me considering that the majority of readers are female identifying, so it would make sense that they would prefer to read smut that aligns with their identity! This is also super present anyway of SSB as i do feel like the majority of writing pieces that I do come along are idol x female reader, and most authors too often disclaim that they are the most comfortable writing this type of pairing as well. 

What’s signficant as well is the interest in reading fics with gender neutral reader self inserts as well! this is my personal philosophy when it comes to writing (specifically with requests) but i think that writing gn!reader is always the safest bet to go as to not make assumptions about readers! for writers i think that seeing this 19% is something important to take into consideration! 

An outlier to me with this demographic was the “poly r-ship” poll garnering a notable 14% in comparison to the idol x idol option which got 10 less votes (4%). what is a little confusing to me about this is how poly r/ships often (but not always) contain idol x idol content, however there is discrepancy with the amount of readers outright saying that they enjoy reading it alone. I’ll get into poly fics later with the unpopular opinions section--however i wanted to plant the seed here hehe. One other caveat to this is the fact that on SSB i feel like idol x idol content is really in the minority and is much more present on a platform like AO3 so this could be another explaination! 

What is kinda cute to me is the fact that readers do really like poly r-ship dynamics more than a threesome (as i defined it, “with less interaction”) so this makes me feel like we are all saps for the fluff that comes with poly r-ship fics ;) 

Favorite Kind of Smut to Read 

male idol smut (67%) 

i read both! (female and male idol smut) (25%) 

depends on my mood (7%) 

female idol smut (1%) 

~My thoughts: Again, this is super expected to me as well considering the above statistics. Since i am a skz blog (a boy group) --as are my moots-- it really makes sense that those who filled out this survey would be into male idol smut! 

what was cool for me to see as well was the number of readers who also read female idol smut as well as male idol smut! personally, i more predominately a fan of boy groups compared to the amount of girl group content that I consume (note: i do also consume gg content). because of this, i think that its really up to personal preferences and the content that you consume that can be reflective of the smut content that you consume as well and ya know, whoever gets your hornies going ;) 

Favorite Genres...Ranked! 

*so this was my fault lol i totally formatted this question poorly in google forms so i’ll try to summarize the most popular rankings with my words haha 

*bc of the way that i miffed it (lol) i wasn’t able to get exact measurements, but rough ones! 

Top Five: 

Smut, fluff, angst 

smut n’ fluff (with specific emphasis angst is not desired)  

smut, angst, fluff, 

fluff, smut, angst, 

angst, fluff, smut 

~My thoughts: by far, the most popular ranking that i saw was as follows: smut, fluff, angst. i saw this sososos many times haha also...ya’ll got really creative with your rankings and it made me giggle hehe. So! seeing as this is stay smutblr haha makes total sense that the three most popular rankings that we have were lead by smut! since we’re here for the hornies, i totally get this. 

as for the “smut n’ fluff” or “fluffy smut” category, there was a decent amount of readers that expressed that this mixture is their fave! i’m kinda looping this with the “mixture” option that i also provided for this question since this was the most popular mixture that i was able to observe along with angst + smut. interestingly, i saw a couple mentions of “hurt/comfort” fics with this question too so this went well with this preference. as for number three on this list, we dip into that smut + angst category that I just mentioned as well. there were several individuals who said that they really really enjoy reading smut with angst! 

lastly we get to the four and five on the list: four being fluff, smut and angst. i think this category can also properly represent the folx who tend to like more fluffy fics over the smutty ones, but that can also have suggestive themes too! in five, we have angst, fluff and smut which also is representative of another theme that i saw: as far as plot goes, several people mentioned that they liked fics that start with angst, get fluffier, and then end up in smut, so i think that this could be easily compared! 

*there were also several readers who simply said “all of them” or opted not to rank, (lol me) so this really shows the variability in results! 

Cute stuff ya’ll said (kind of out of context too LOL) 

“... hehE I HOPE THIS MAKES SENSE.” 

“...I KNOW IT [my ranking] LOOKS TERRIBLY SPECIFIC AND IM SO SORRY and I guess the better way to describe that was one that has all 3 with a happy ending lol my b my b.” 

“ ...it just depends on the mood my dude.” 

“... (the smut doesn’t have to be soft i just want the relationship to be soft and i want aftercare and general affection).” 

“(but almost no angst oops)” 

“angst honestly makes me so sad.” 

“... but long fics with angst and slow burn smut/fluff is just WOW.” 

“ my favourite thing is when it's fluffy smut tbh with a little bit of angsty backstory. that is *chefs kiss*” 

“(I'm a sucker for good angsty fics but I cant seem to find them???)” 

“Smut, Fluff, Angst (I tend to be a bit of a purist so no mixture here).” 

“(i can't read pure angst lol) “ 

“(I love how much plot there is in angsty fics but I personally can't read anything without a happy ending, i just can't take it)” 

“ i literally couldn't rank them bc my mood is always changing lmaooo.” 

“ smut, fluff, angst. i know what i’m about.” 

Favorite Length of Fics 

Top Five: 

5k-8k words (27%) 

2k-4k words (25%) 

1k-2k words (20%) 

10k-20k words (15%) 

20k words (12%) 

~My thoughts: this one was super helpful for me to see!! and writers i hope that this is helpful for you too! as someone who tends to rambles (lol) it was very comforting for me to see that long-ish fics are actually preferred! what is really cool about this data too is that it is all super well balanced for the most part and nearly edqual in some parts! how i see this, i think that when it comes to preferences of length, its really reader specific so anyone could like anything! this goes into a little bit the slow burn question that i asked as well too, but it’s really cool to see that when readers do read, they kinda like something to sink their teeth into! 

i wanted to look into how long it takes you to read these words, and it appears that on average, a 5-8k fic can take someone 30 mins to read whereas a 2-4k fic takes about 15mins! idk if this says something about attention spans, but as a writer it warms my heart to know that you’re willing to spend 30 minutes of your time reading something that i wrote! 🥺

another thing i wanted to bring up is the “hard and fast” smut readers--those who like to get straight to the point, get right to business and to the juice! they are also a decently large group too! as for readers who like a nice long fic or a chaptered fic, they are super close in numbers! from this, it’s safe for me to assume that maybe those who like reading longer fics are more inclined to strap in for the long haul with chaptered fics too! 

Favorite AUs to Read 

*the top category that got cut off (thank you google forms lol) is friends to lovers! the one that says “...love” at 48% is enemies to lovers, and the one that has a blanked out title at 35% is strangers to lovers! 

Top Five: 

friends to lovers (65%) 

enemies to lovers (48%) 

high school/college au (40%) 

roommates/neighbors to lovers (38%) 

strangers to lovers (35%) 

Other AUs mentioned by you! 

office au, royal au, vampire au, fake date, idol au, slice of life, boarding school au, childhood friends, soulmate au 

~My thoughts: ok ok so this was RAD to see! i often wonder myself the kinds of aus that my readers would like to see so this was really helpful! circling back on how readers tend to favor fluff n’ smut (friends to lovers) and angst n’ smut (enemies to lovers) i think that we’re seeing some more themes here teehee. 

i like to think that since most of us are of the college age, the college au is super relatable therefore we really like to read it! not to mention that college and high school au’s are super duper cute as well! this is also relatable to the roommates/neighbors to lovers category which is also relatable to us who may or may not have experienced having a roommate or crush on the cutie next door ;) as a couple readers mentioned, they liked more “slice of life” au’s--which both of these categories fall into! i think we as readers like scenarios that feel the most real to us, bc they are the easiest to insert ourselves into :) 

fantasy and thriller, action, more “fiction” tropes are in the minority, however i think that this can be for the exact same reason as i mentioned above where readers like more relatable scenarios. 

Opinions on Slow Burn Fics 

~My thoughts: during polling of this category, this pie cart stayed basically the same the whole time!! that was pretty cute to see! the important take aways from this survey for me is the fact that slow burn fics are generally really loved! again, lol as someone who writes big ol’ long slow burn fics this made me feel a lot better hahaha basically, the general consensus is that slow burn fics are welcome most of the time, however some readers might need to invest a little more time into them! this is also very easily comparable to the above statistics on the length of fics preferred (longer ones being the ones more popular) so here’s a lil more supporting evidence! 

3. Member Specific Analysis 

Bias Survey 

Top Five: 

Chan (19%) 

Changbin (18%) 

Hyunjin (16%) 

Jisung (15%) 

Minho (14%) 

~My thoughts: ok ok ok so this is where it starts getting JUICY hehe (also i apologize once more for making you pick LOL) 

the reason why i asked this question was because i wanted to see if there was a correlation with biases and if there was a probability that members who had more people biasing them (or popularity I guess) were more likely to be read more in smut fics! AND I WAS RIGHT haha isn’t this so fkn cool??? (see more in the next section!) 

for comparison, i went to kprofiles to see their little survey on bias popularity and their top five. 

Kprofiles Top Five: 

Hyunjin (15%) 

Felix (14%) 

Chan (12%) 

Minho (11%) 

Jisung (11%) 

SO oh my god my nerd brain is loosing it over this REE so, what i should note that is those who took this survey on my blog are likely generally different based off of the fact that they are here to read smut specifically, rather than the general holistic popularity survey. It is for this reason that we see Felix much higher on this list and Changbin much lower too (as we know Felix is really well known generally and globally and there are *generally* fewer Bin biased fans). What was really interesting to see what that with Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung and Minho, they still all stayed within the top five! Soooo what i’m saying is.... all of you Hyunjin, Chan, Jisung and Minho fans really must like your smut 😏 and I think that it’s safe to assume that the majority of hard stans come from these four members too ooP (and of course our Binnie too! ;) i see all of ya’ll 👀) 

Members That Get Our Hornies Going 

~My thoughts: AHH DOESN’T THIS LOOK SO SATISFYING? I’M SO PROUD OF HER!!! 

First off, i would like to acknowledge the all mighty power of Bang Christopher Chan for pooling this most hornies god DAMN while i kind of expected this, it is also evidenced in the fics that i write! recently i’ve been tracking the number of notes that my Chan hard thoughts get in comparison to other members and the differences are usually ASTRONOMICAL. He is most def the most popular member for smut for several different reasons, lowkey bc i think that it’s kind of part of his brand?? hahaha if ya know what i mean? 

As for preference from Minho on, we can see a super obvious trend that as age order decreases, we get less and less interest for reading for the member. I’m fairly inclined to believe that this has to do with the fact that most often fans (especially fans older than skz) have a harder time seeing the younger members in a sexual way, so the lack of interest totally makes sense here! As referenced above too, we found that the oldest five members (Chan --> Jisung) are the favorites for smut reading which we can see here as well when the numbers really drop after Felix (Felix coming in at 6th place on my “popularity” survey). 

Bc of these statistics, i do really feel like as a reader, i tend to see much, much more fics involving our top five! As for Seungmin and Jeongin, I’ve also seen people state that they do not read or write content for these two members bc they do not feel as comfortable, so this can also explain the lack of content. Also as we have heard many times, Jeongin is a bit of a hot topic lol within the SSB community, so this makes sense that his readership would be low as well. 

4. Deep Dive into the Juicy Questions (aka confessions) 

Is the fact that you read smut a seggsy secret? 

~My thoughts: JUICE TIME JUICE TIME 

Before I say anything, i wanted to tell you all how all of the juicy questions were totally optional, but i got 100% participation for every single one of them which if find HILARIOUS i guess you all are just as curious as i am?? ;) 

So! for this question, we have an overwhelming amount of readers who said that only their closest friends know which is so cute to me! i love how we can trust our friends with this hehe. i also fall into this category bc like, it’s lowkey kinda fun to talk about? maybe also the fact that i run a smut acct makes me care a little less about it all hahah 

secondly, we have the rather large group of people who said that they wouldn’t dare to tell anyone which is also sooo cute haha idk how to explain it but this was the category that i started out in too until i found the right people! But i totally get ya, reading smut--especially-- kpop smut-- can be embarrassing or cringey to share (not to mention that it is somewhat morally grey LOL) so this is really understandable! 

also my fkn hats off to all of you who said that you didn’t care about who knows that you read smut. here, you dropped this: 👑 you’re much braver than i could ever be. 

When you read smut, do you really feel the hornies? 

~My thoughts: ok, so this one to me was also very interesting for me to see as well! (also if you get uncomfy reading about personal masturbation habits you can skip this one lol) 

the reason why i asked this question was because i wanted to see if people “get off” by reading smut (whether reading it turns you on, or if you choose to use it for “material” to get off on however this might look, might be more of a mental simulation without any real like, physical getting off) candidly, I use smut to get myself off every once and a while, so i wanted to see who else might be in the same group! since becoming a writer however, i read much less and reading it doesn’t hit the same when i was just a reader bc i have a different perspective of being the one writing the smut so i look at it more analytically--i digress. 

it was exciting (teehee get the pun?) for me to see that others also “get off” on smut too--and that they are the majority! teehee it is an honor for me to provide you with the hornies LOL. at the same time, we still have a large group in the “don’t take to seriously” category which was interesting to me too! i can’t speak for these readers, but i interpreted these kind of readers to be the kind who read smut to imagine the scenes and are like “hm, that’s hot, i like thinking about this.” but it doesn’t extend much outside of these thoughts. 

What is the most popular position pairing we like to read? 

*smaller slices of the pie represent multiple favorites which i also seperated back into the categories corresponding to get the best count into what was the most preferred. 

Actual Breakdown: 

dom!idol // sub!reader (51 votes) 

switch!idol // switch!reader (32 votes) 

subidol! // dom!reader (11 votes) 

all of the above (5 votes) 

depends on my mood (2 votes) 

~My thoughts: i feel as if there is a bit of a conflict between which position really is “the best” and while we really can’t know the answer to this question since everyone has different preferences, we can at least find out which one is the most popular to be consumed! 

again, going off of the content that I also see as a reader, i see TONS of dom!idol fics, like, left and right. also, if i may come for all of our necks, 👀 but...there’s really something to be said about the fact that the majority of readers are female and historically and socially, women are typically socialized to be submissive, so i can see why this would be why we would favor this among fics--this is even further evidenced by the fact that male idol smut is also preferred, thus further perpetuating the fact that women have been socialized to be submissive to men specifically. i’m not saying that this is the end all be all reason that this trend is present, but i merely offer it as a possible explaination. this is a much larger sociological conversation, but i think that this trend also showed itself in the types of smut that readers seek out as well--according to demographics. 

sub!idol fics are few and far in-between, and i think that this can also be for the exact same reason as i talked about above! 

When you read smut, do you pick faves to read for? 

~My thoughts: what’s cool about this question is the fact that the “half and half” nature of it also resembles what we saw in the section for favorite members to read! As we see in that chart, 41 out of 100 people said that they read everyone, similar to this question where 48 out of 100 people said that they read for everyone. What this proves to me once more is that when it comes for reading fics, there's a 50/50 chance that the reader will look at, and read it based off of who it is about alone. This is a really powerful statistic, meaning that the members who that a writer might write for really dictates their readership! At the same time, it’s super comforting to know that regardless of what you as a writer might write, there’s always someone out there who is willing to read it! (as evidenced by the 52% of people who read for anyone! this is still a large number) 

Readers: Do you only use Tumblr for smut? 

~My thoughts: when i first started out reading smut, i was in the “i just look up skz smut” group LOL so i wanted to see again if there was anyone like me--which there is! This was more of my interest in seeing if some people view tumblr as “their smut dealer” AHA so that my initial motivation. I was surprised to see that this is not the case! out of 100 readers, 39 of them have their own non-smut blogs and the second largest group of 26 people use tumblr for smut exclusively. 

idk why, but when thinking of this question, it really got me thinking back to the question where i asked if reading smut is a seggsy secret, and there was the group of people who said that it is for them--i’m assuming that these people might be part of the group have non-smut blogs and read on the side teehee. 

at the same time, there is a combined 40 people who said that they use tumblr for smut purposes only which makes sense to me, as those who filled out my survey are readers of my smut blog if you catch my drift haha  

Writers: Do you read smut, or just write it? 

*56 responses correlate with those polled who identified as writers/both as mentioned above 

~My thoughts: this survey is really really cute for me to see bc it means that there is a whole support network or writers out there reading, supporting and here to hype other writers work!! if anything, as a writer because it takes so much time to write, it can become hard to find time to read, hence the “when i have time option lollll (*cough cough* me LOL) thank you all for your honesty with this question! 

5. General Thoughts and Conclusion 

Survey on Exposure 

~My thoughts: i kinda wanna close off this survey by getting on my soapbox for a sec lol. At least for me, the most common ways that readers found my blog were: looking up a tag, and from a repost. i think that this really goes to show the power of exposure and certain tactics that you can use to increate readership of your account! new readers, if you’re reading this and you’re just starting out, tagging your stuff is so so important! 

also, as i have said and so so, many other content creators have said countless times before, reposting is so crucial and it takes little to no effort to repost a creators work so that it might reach others! as a writers, we spend hours, and i mean hours creating content, editing, drafting, creating headers all out own time to publish something that we are proud of and for you to enjoy! it means the world to authors when you reblog their work and even more when you give feedback too because this is our passion! we write for free in the middle of our busy lives so the validation makes it all worth it!! 

Conclusion 

~phew! so that’s it! once again, i wanted to thank you all from the bottom of my heart from participating in this lil study! i really hope that it is helpful to writers and readers alike! i wanna give ya all the biiiiiigest Ro huggies!! 💕💕

as i mentioned above, the answers for the unpopular opinions will be made into their own post bc there is a ton of them and i didn’t want to clutter up this doc lol 

don’t ya ever forget that you are important, loved, and special! happy hornies my cuties ;) 

~R 🌹

6. Cute shit that ya’ll said that made me giggle (and hopefully makes you giggle too)

~you all are the light of my life!! each of these comments brought me so much happiness and i love you all so fkn much for that!! also, to those of you who said, “Ro date me” PLZ haha i will date you too!!! too all of the super sweet comments about my writing, thank you so so very much and thank you for reading! it means so much to me!! to all of the i love yous, ahhhh i love you toooooo  💕

“I DUNNO IM BAD AT FUNNY STUFF BUT KNOCK KNOCK I GUESS? -whos there 

RO 

-ro who 

Me, in chan voice: RObber ducky you're the one 

yeah... 

yeah 

bYE” 

“ I didn’t know changbin’s thighs were of such importance until I saw your username but now?? 👀 I am looking respectfully.” 

“ every time chan doesn’t reply to my bubble message i hold my breath and try to die💆‍♀️” 

“ here are my favorite emoji combos: 😐☝️ 😫🖐️ 😂🤏 (i use that one when i get a dick pick and it's rlly small but the person thinks its big-) “ 

“ you are EVIL for making me choose just ONE bias OT8 EXISTS OK!?” 

“ I hope this survey provides you with a lot of useful feedback! -sincerely a big tiddie committee member (you know the one)” [hehe yes i do hai M ;)] 

“ chan’s tiddies... that’s it.” 

“jeogiyo noona hokshi namjachingu isseoyo?“

“ Jeongin is appropriately baby bread because his face is puffy in the morning so it's kinda like yeast rising 👉👉 “ 

“ someone needs to tell hyunjin to put some vaseline or something on his cuticles like I love him a lot but his recent live made me scream sir your cuticles are hanging on for dear life please I'm literally begging you “ 

“ I squeal whenever I get a notification from you and my family think I’m secretly dating someone. It’s nice knowing that they think I can get someone during a pandemic 😁 “ [this one had me SENT] 

“i hope ur dreams are blessed with skz thighs.” 

“ HS Bin supremacy!!” 

“Sta” 

“Ro(ses) are red, violets are blue - DaVinci painted Mona, cause he couldn't find you :') “ 

“✨ dInG dOnG ✨ “ 

“You're doing God's work as a changbin stan xD “ [thank you so much aHA] 

“damn gorl, are you a wifi signal? cause i’m tryna connect 🤔🥴✌🏾 “ 

“Good luck with your survey! I hope you get a big response! You know what else is big..? 

 Chan's feet. (I'm sorry, that was my attempt to make you giggle but I'm clearly not a comedian)” 

“What's the internal temperature of a taun taun? Luke warm! (Haha sorry star wars joke) “ 

“egg“

“just because you’re garbage, doesn’t mean you can’t do great things. It’s called garbage can, not garbage cannot <3 “ 

“Soft-Dom Minho Agenda is the best agenda. I have spoken. Sincerely yours, Javi (@itsapapisongo) “ [this is the way javi] 

“Bang chan daddy supremacy” 

“ro, ro, ro your boat gently down skz’ dick hell yea.” [this also had me SENT] 

“stay smut writers should take “maknae on top” literally“

“idk man i’m just vibing. hope ur day is going well. (changbin voice) da DA da” 

Fin. 

~🌹~ 

Bunch of (Ro)ses! 

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @lunarskzzz  @yourdaddychan @bubblelixie @spnobsessedmemes @chaangbin​ @lmhmins @eunaeiekim

[gallavictorious]

Once again the fandom coming together to daydream about Mickey helping Ian out and seeing him back on track to become an emt again but why is that on Mickey? Why does he always have to do things to make Ian happy when Ian's usually nothing but annoyed by Mickey and does nothing to make Mickey happy? Truly shows which character y'all care about more.

This got absurdly long, because I am who I am and did take the opportunity to go off on a tangent about valid conclusions and what not, so I put it under a cut. Read at your own risk! Oh, and I also do address the actual question about whether or not Ian's career is on Mickey, and whether or not Ian never does anything to make Mickey happy. ;)

For the sake of clarity, I got this ask in response to this post.

And I gotta say, nonnie, getting this ask perplexed me to the point of running off to Trusted Fandom Friends, demanding to know how my undying love and loyalty for Mickey could ever be doubted. Had to laugh at myself a little, actually, and the strenght of my befuddlement. It reminded me of the time I went on a trip with people from the 501st (cosplayers dedicated to the bad guys in Star Wars) and Rebel Legion (cosplayers dedicated to the good guys in Star Wars) and a lot of people assumed I was a Rebel sympathizer simply because I had friends in that group and those were the people who had invited me. Excuse me, I didn't yell, I have like 30 Darth Vaders in my damned home, how dare you question my allegiance? I was so used to always being known as a diehard Vaderkin fangirl that the mer fact of strangers failing to recognize me as such genuinely fucked a little with my sense of identity. My love of Mickey isn't anywhere near as deeply ingrained into my sense of self, since he's only been an occasional presence in my life since 2016 while Darth Vader's been my main man since 1994, but it was still a little jarring to suddenly find myself (mis)identified as an Ian stan.

Being a fangirl is strange.

And I want to make it clear that I do love Ian. He's a fascinating character and, to me, he's a character that's often much harder to understand than Mickey. He rewards careful analysis and discussion, though, so I guess I tend to talk a lot about him? I don't need to spend as much time considering Mickey's feelings and motivations because they are (almost) always pretty obvious; I don't need to tease them out. But at the end of the day, Mickey is my favourite. (Though I'll always love Ian and Mickey together more than I love either of them on their own. It's like fresh cilantro and mint – each perfectly lovely in their own right, but the combination of them creates a flavour that's just out of this world.)

Now, you might argue that you don't follow me and so have no idea who I am and what I like to post about, and that going only by that single post (which, in fairness, was tagged with 'i just want ian to be happy okay?') I give off the general impression of an Ian stan. And that's fair enough; I'm an obscure blog in a decently big fandom and you're not required to keep track of anyone. However, if you want to throw around passive aggressive accusations of caring more about one character than the other, I will ask you to do your research first. Reacting to one single piece of data without considering the context is a common but highly unfortunate practice that needlessly complicates meaningful conversations, and we'd all do well to abstain from it.

Oh, you don't want to spend a lot of time and energy on consdering every single thing a specific Tumblr blog has ever said on a specific topic just so you can draw a valid conclusion about their stance? That's perfectly understandable, nonnie, and easily sorted: refrain from making unsubstantiated claims about what other people think or don't think and you won't have to. Ask them, if you wonder. If you see a tendency in fandom to put the responsibility for Ian's wellbeing and career or Mickey's shoulders and want to discuss that, that's totally cool! I am game (and will address that question below)! But it's very possible to do that without somewhat rudely ascribing perferences and opinions to other people, and you'll get better answers for it (for instance, you won't have to wade through me rambling on about valid conclusions and my memories from other fandoms... ).

It seems to me, though, that this touches upon a long-held frustration of yours. If I interpret your ask correctly, you think the show gives us an Ian who is mostly annoyed with Mickey and doesn't do anything to make him happy, and you think that the fandom responds to this by relegating Mickey to the role of Ian's caretaker, whose sole purpose is to serve Ian's needs without any regard for what might Mickey himself happy. Have I got that right?

If so, it should be noted that I don't agree with either of these takes: I don't think that's the Ian the show gives us (a point I will return to below), and I don't think that fandom at large only cares about Ian's happiness, and I particularly don't think that my post can be used a evidence of the latter.

For instance, when you sent me this ask the post in question had all of 40 notes. As I write this, it has just over 70. ”The fandom coming together” seems to be slightly overstating the case, don't you think? There are certainly fans who care more about Ian and only see Mickey as valuable as long as he contributes to Ian's happiness, just as there are fans who care more about Mickey and only see Ian as valuable as long as he contributes to Mickey's happiness - but this single post with less than a hundred notes does not support that either of these stances would be predominant within the fandom. (And, while on the topic, I'd like to state that I don't actually see a problem with either of those stances; these are fictional characters that exists for our entertainment and we don't have any moral obligations to treat them equally and fairly. Don't ruin other fans' fun by dumping on either of them in the character or shipping tags or on character and shipping posts and this is not a problem. It might be a somewhat unpopular opinion, but I don't think you have to love or even like all characters in a ship to ship it: I refuse to drink plain tea because it's nasty but put a splash of milk in it and its my favourite thing ever. You can love a combination without loving all the seperate pieces on their own. And yeah, I do revert to food metaphors a lot. I like food.)

Secondly, whether or not the post can be said to represent the feeling of the fandom at large (it cannot), I think that reading a post specifically about ”Mickey helping Ian out and seeing him back on track to become an emt again” and then extrapolating from that that Mickey ”always have to do things to make Ian happy” is a little wild. The very first thing I wrote for this fandom was a vision of Ian offering Mickey comfort, goddammit. (Ian giving Mickey a hug is so high on my list of desires, you can't even imagine)

As for your actual question (and, ah, imagine how much shorter this post would be if you had just left it at that) – of course that's not on Mickey. That much, incidentally, I've actually explicitly stated in another post. Ian might have his issues but he's still an adult and responsible for himself. That being said, I don't see it as particularly strange that someone would go out of their way to help their partner when they see them struggling? If I realize that someone I care about is unhappy and there's a way for me to help, I would want to help because I love them and want them to be happy, even if it's – ethically speaking – not my responsibility to do so. Pretty sure Mickey, who is action-oriented and so very protective of the people he loves, feels the same way.

Of course, if it's a one-sided thing – if one partner is always the one to do stuff for the other and never receives any support in return – that's not a healthy relationship, and I assume that this is what you're seeing in the show and taking exception to?

Only... I can't help but wonder who this Ian is, this uncaring, selfish version you see – because I don't quite get how it can be the Ian who emptied his bank account for Mickey, or the Ian who was ready to throw his parole and stay in prison for Mickey even when they were in the middle of a fight specifically because Mickey said it would make him happy, or the one who kept trying to talk to Mickey and win him back after Mickey punched him in the face, accidentally broke his leg, and took off with a new lover (I'm not taking sides in this one, btw – I have a lot of sympathy and understanding for both of them and their actions throughout this whole sorry affair), or the Ian who immediately wanted to marry Mickey protect him from the consequences of a murder Ian thought he had actually comitted, or the Ian who went along with arranging a real wedding even though he initially didn't at all understand why this was important to Mickey and who had someone come serenade him once he did, or the Ian who chose At last for Mickey to walk up to the aisle to, or the Ian who keeps trying to reach out to Mickey and to touch him and discuss their issues in a mature way even when he's (justifiably) upset about Mickey using all their wedding money without telling Ian. (Though Ian deciding for both of them that they're saving the money isn't great either.)

I mean, Ian's absolutely done shitty things, as has Mickey. They're human, and they're the products of a chaotic and often hostile enviroment. They do mess up a lot; they've hurt each other rather badly over the years. Depending on your perspective and preferences, you may think one or the other have behaved worse, but as far as I can see, the claim that Ian never does anything to make Mickey happy is simply not supported.

Ian has seemed unusually annoyed with Mickey this season, I'll give you that, but while that's not always the most fun thing to watch and I strongly sympathize with the wish to just see Ian look at Mickey with that fond look again, I don't find him being frustrated right now all that weird, given the circumstances. I'd argue it has less to do with Mickey and more to do with a general frustration over thwarted ambitions and not being able to hold on even to a really shitty job, though Mickey's attitude doesn’t exactly help (which is not to say that I think that Ian's the one in the right here, becasue Ian's way of handling things hasn't always been been stellar either). However, I do have faith in them sorting this out – because even though they fight and bicker and get annoyed with each other, there's never any indication that they're not both committed to making this marriage thing work. They certainly stumble, they misunderstand each other and lash out, but they calm down and go to sleep in the same bed and compromise and keep trying. Every day, they – both of them – choose each other.

I'd like to finish this off by noting, even though it's not entirely relevant to my argument, that that the number one thing that does make Mickey happy is being together with Ian, and even when Ian is pissed at Mickey and withholding sex (which was very ill-advised but says a lot of interesting things about his character, I think!) no one's sleeping on the couch, there are no nights away from the house and each other, and even in the middle of an argument they sit and stand next to each other. I think that's pretty telling of Ian's dedication, especially given his propensity for running away from his problems.

Phew. Okay, nonnie – though we don't agree and I doubt you'll find this answer satisfactory, I hope you see that I have done my best to understand your point of view and treat your arguments fairly and give you a thoughtful response. If you'd like to get back to me and elaborate on your stance, I'd ask that you show me the same courtesy. :)

[utopianvoices]

phantasm | y.jeongin

↭ genre: ghost au, soulmate au; fluff, angst

↭ word count: 2.8k

↭ description: In which you end up getting lost and stranded in the middle of a party when you come face to face with the last person you’d expect.

↭ a.n: something new i wanted to try huehe lezgeddit. also a big shoutout to my favourite bub @whatisansvtbias​ <333 ily uwu (idek if you’re on tumblr anymore you busy raisin)

↭ warnings: mentions of drinking

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

“Y/n, wake up! It’s time for school!” you heard your favourite voice call out to you, shortly followed by something soft hitting your head repeatedly.

“Go away,” you grunt, pushing away the pillow that was prodding you, causing it to fall into the ground with a small ‘thud’. Not even 10 seconds later, the pillow is back to do its duty; making sure you woke up so that you aren’t late for school for the third time that week.

You finally give up, sitting up in bed while glaring at the boy who was sitting at your desk, swiveling around in your chair. “Curse you and your ghost abilities, Yang.”

“Already cursed, m’love. That’s why I’m even here,” was your reply, accompanied by a cheeky smile from the boy in front of you.

Rolling your eyes, you sluggishly slide off your bed, not bothering to wipe the drool off your face or to deal with the bird nest that was sitting on top of your head, earning you a fake gag from the phantom that had been watching your morning routine for the past few months.

“Why can’t you just use your ghost abilities to transport me to school? Just walk through a random wall with me and we’ll be in school in five seconds,” you whined as you sifted through your cupboard for that day’s outfit.

“Only I will be able to walk through the wall, dumbass. You’ll probably bang your head on the wall and lose the only brain cell you have,” your friend retorted, as you flipped him the bird for vocalising the cold, hard truth.

“Even dead, you’re a pain in the ass,” you said, back facing him as you finally picked out an outfit that prevented you from looking like you just walked out of your tombstone. “I bet the big dude up there didn’t want your insufferable attitude with him, hence you walking around earth aimlessly.”

“Shut up and get ready for school.”

Chuckling to yourself, your mind drifted to the first time you met Jeongin. It was one of the strangest days of your life, yet you wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ •• ✼

The last thing you remembered was you entering some senior’s house, ready to celebrate finals being over as a first-year, and being convinced that having shots would be a good idea, especially when they had found out that you had never drank before owing to the fact that you were not really active in the.... partying scene. You were never one for parties — they were often too loud, and too chaotic — but your best friend, Jisung, who just so happened to be that popular first year, had convinced you that going to this party would be the best decision you would’ve ever made, because according to him, you quote, “Everyone needs to let loose sometimes, Y/n!”

But this decision was backfiring you in ways you hadn’t thought of, owing to the fact that you had drank way past your limit, mostly because you didn’t know what your limit was, having never drank alcohol before — causing you to stumble onto the streets away from the house hoping to get rid of the horrible stench of alcohol and vomit that was circulating in that enclosed space — only to realise that Jisung was unreachable, and that you were not sure how to find your way back to your apartment.

Maybe it was time to take some serious actions and drop Jisung’s ass because you really needed a new best friend. But then again, no matter how insufferable, Jisung was Jisung and you loved him way more than you let him on.

Five minutes of tapping away on your phone’s Google Maps, and you were ready to throw your phone across the street because of how bad the signal was. Seriously, wiping out your money in the name of phone bills every month and not even providing you with a decent signal when you most need it? Not cool, telecomm companies.

With nothing else to do, having given up on trying to find your way back, you decided to take a seat on the hard and cold curb, seeing that it was the only thing left there to provide you with any company, as you made yourself comfortable on the asphalt, feeling strangely calm even though you were completely clueless as to which way was home as the cold air nipped at your exposed skin.

It must be the alcohol.

To anyone who was walking down the street at this point — not that there were many at that time —it would have seemed as though you were another dumb teenager who had made certain questionable decisions, which had lead you to being stranded on the streets at such a time. So you weren’t really surprised when you heard a voice call you out on exactly that.

“I can’t believe this is the third person this week, tsk. Teenagers these days.”

With the alcohol hazing your mind, your instincts and reaction time were slowed down, making you react slightly late to this stranger’s voice. As your eyes focused on the owner of the voice, you used whatever was left of your observation skills to deduce that said person was a young boy, somewhere around your age, and very, very cute — causing you to hate yourself even more, for seeming like an idiot.

Unable to control your mouth, you spoke up and replied to the boy, the alcohol seemingly bringing out the hidden extrovert in you.

“Hey, this is the first time this has ever happened to me, don’t judge. Besides you don’t look any older than me.”

Not expecting a reply from you, the boy in front of you stood frozen, heartbeat (or lack thereof) picking up speed that a person had replied to him, let alone even seen him. How? It clearly wasn’t possible, owing to the fact that he wasn’t.... well, he wasn’t exactly human.

“Y-you can see me?” the boy in front of you stuttered, snapping out of his shock and raising a finger to point to himself. “And hear me too?”

Welp, maybe you weren’t the only drunk one abandoned on the streets that day. “Yea dude, of course I can see and hear you. Tall, black hair, brown eyes, quite cute. I see it all.”

Maybe you shouldn’t have added the cute part, but seeing the boy’s face flush red somehow made you feel less embarrassed about yourself.

“But how? How can you see me?” the boy continued questioning, still unable to comprehend the fact that after years of walking busy streets and still feeling lonely, all it took was one girl to make his cold body heat up and his dead heart to feel as if it had a sudden jumpstart.

“This is going to sound crazy,” you started — catching the boy’s attention with your dramatic words — "but I have these amazing things called eyes and ears. Oh, would you look at that! You have them too!"

"No, you don’t understand." the boy cut you off, shaking his head for extra effect. "I am a ghost. I cease to exist, and no one has been able to see me for years. So, how can you see me?"

"Ooookay, you know what? I think it’s time for me to get going," you said, as you slowly got up from the curb to run the hell away from this clearly drunk and mental boy.

I stay around him any longer and I will probably drive myself mental too.

"No, wait-"

The boy didn’t get to finish his sentence, as he watched your retreating figure run back in towards the house that still smelled of alcohol, sweat, and vomit.

Shoulders slumping, the boy walked away from the house, mind still whirring with all the possible explanations as to how you could see him. It wasn’t something that happened before, and he knew that he had to get to the bottom of it. Even if it meant that he’d have to use his long-hidden ghost abilities.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ •• ✼

“I still can’t believe you waited till I woke up the next day, just to steal my voice away from me,” you said, recollecting your first sober encounter with your friend, as you walked side by side to the Building of Doom. School was just too boring for your liking.

"Well, if you had just shut up I wouldn’t have had to do it!” Jeongin defended himself, looking at you accusingly.

“Excuse me for being freaked out that a potential mad man was sitting in my chair!” you replied, sarcasm filling your tone as you shoved the boy beside you ever so slightly. “I still can’t understand why I’m the only one who can see and touch you.”

“Beats me too,” your friend sighed, falling into silence as soon as the sensitive topic was brought up. “Still no luck with finding it in the library?”

Since the day Jeongin had explained to you that you were the only one who could see and touch him and that was the reason why he had come after you, you had made it a mission to find out why things played out that way.

What made you so special that you were the only one who could interact with this cute ghost who had been wandering around so aimlessly — any and all hopes of finding peace — lost?

“Nope, not yet,” you spoke up. “But then again, I still have a few more books to go, so don’t lose hope yet.”

“Hmm,” he hummed, the rest of the walk continuing in silence.

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ��• ✼

Two coffees later, you’re still on your second book, titled The Supernatural World, trying so hard to find the answer to the riddle you so badly wanted to solve.

Not being able to do anything, Jeongin sat beside you, head rested on his palm as he observed you going through page after page, taking a sip of your now cold coffee every now and then, and your distinct habit of shaking your leg due to the caffeine overload.

“Stop staring at me, idiot, you’re making me lose concentration,” you said, forcing the blush that was threatening to rise to stay down as you will your eyes to stay on the book and not to glance up at the handsome boy sitting across you.

You would definitely be lying if you said that your heart didn’t race every time he looked at you for longer than a second.

But then again, so did his.

None of you wanted to pay heed to the fact that you belonged in two very different and completely opposite worlds. It was like primary school all over again, when all you could think about was your crush on the boy who fended off some bullies for you.

This wasn’t primary school though, where you desperately hid your crushes from one another in fears of being made fun of by other friends. Over the months of growing closer to one another, you both knew that you liked each other, the need for confessions proving useless.

The way your gazes lasted longer than necessary, and the small things you had done for each other was more than enough proof that there was something going on between the both of you, and there was no need to speak of it. Just embracing it was more than enough because, at the end of the day, you both knew that your worlds were too different for anything to happen.

And finally, you got the answer you were looking for, for months. Unconsciously holding your breath, your eyes skimmed over the words on the fourth chapter of the book, your pulse elevating with every word you read.

“It is not normal for a supernatural being to be left stranded in the mortal world. However, it would not be an uncommon occurrence. More often than not, there will be a single person who can see and touch this supernatural being, with no exceptions. This would then indicate that this person was the soulmate of the supernatural being. When either one of the soulmates remains in the mortal world, the other shall not be able to pass in peace.”

Your grip on the book tightened, as you re-read the paragraph over and over again, as you try to comprehend what the book was trying to say.

Soulmates? You and Jeongin?

Somehow you didn’t question it.

“Hey, you okay? You look like you’re about to pass out,” Jeongin asked, concern filling him up as he slowly pried the book away from your hands. You didn’t bother stopping him, as you carefully watched his expression while he read the paragraph. And you were not surprised to see the realisation dawn on his face.

Clearly, he didn’t question it as well.

“Soulmates, huh?” he asked quietly, after a long silence, gaze fixated on the table. “Who would’ve thought?”

You let out a light chuckle, heart still pounding against your ribcage as you watched your soulmate lift his head up to look at you, eyes exchanging unspoken words.

Your mind was whirring, different scenarios popping up one after another when your train of thought was cut off by the boy in front of you.

“I’m leaving, Y/n,” he spoke up, face displaying firmness as he delivered his decision. “I’m leaving, and I’m not coming back.”

You felt your heart sink, as you looked at him confused, hurt, trying to decipher his decision. “W-what? What do you mean you’re leaving? Why?”

“Because if I stay here, I will just be holding you back from your own life. You have many years ahead of you, Y/n. I’m not taking that away from you,” he replied, fists curling into balls as he lightly hits the table in frustration.

Anger filled you, as you stood up to match his stance, leaning against the table as you minimised the distance between the two of you. “That’s not your decision to make.”

“Maybe not,” he said, pulling back to restore the distance between the both of you. “But my decision is to leave, and that’s up to me, not you.”

“Don’t you dare break my heart, Yang Jeongin,” you threatened the boy in front of you, tears welling up in your eyes, already knowing that there was no other way.

Being a ghost made Jeongin immortal, and that would mean you spending the majority of your life with a ghost that never grew old, only reuniting the day you cease to exist. Although painful, leaving you was a necessary decision, and Jeongin was more than willing to give that up. Even if it meant spending a good amount of years in solitude.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his own eyes glistening as you slowly started to lose sight of him.

Right before completely disappearing, you heard him whisper something with so much sincerity that you broke down in the middle of the local library, heart shattering into so many pieces you’re not sure you can mend it fully.

“I love you, Y/n, and I will never stop loving you.”

✼ •• ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ •• ✼

The beeps from the heart monitor fill your ear, as you lay in the hospital bed, taking in the sight of your children and grandchildren.

“I’m not sure she has much time left,” you hear the doctor telling your family, the sound of sniffling following shortly after. “You might want to start saying your goodbyes now.”

The sight of your family piling into your room warmed your heart, knowing that you were not leaving this world alone.

Many years ago, you never would have thought that you would have moved on, started a family, and have many many grandchildren.

But life was full of surprises.

It took time — to heal your broken heart and move on as if nothing had happened — but all you had to do was convince yourself that this was what he would have wanted for you.

He chose to spend years and years in solitude just so that you could live yours filled with joy and happiness. The most you could do was give him what he wanted; the cute and sassy boy you adored so much that your heart hurt just thinking about him.

Not one day passed where you didn’t think of him; where he was, what he was doing, how he was feeling. But you knew that you weren’t the only one thinking of the other.

As your eyes traveled through the crowd, taking in the faces of your loved ones, one particular face standing right outside your room caught your eye.

Tall, black hair, brown eyes, very cute.

You’d never forget.

“It’s time to go, m’love,” you hear the voice you missed so dearly, surrounding you. “Just close your eyes and go to sleep. I’ll see you very soon.”

And with that promise, you closed your eyes, with a smile on your face, heart racing at the thought of the person you had so eagerly been waiting to see for years.

∞ end ∞

[strange-destinations]

Dear Yuletide Writer 2019

(As usual, please ignore this if you don’t know what this is about!)

Hello, and thank you so much for writing something for me!! I adore seeing what people come up with for Yuletide and I am super excited for what you end up producing. I want this to be a good and enjoyable experience for you as a writer, so don’t try to second-guess yourself too much - just have fun making whatever it is!

Squicks/DNWS - no sex, please! (And it also follows that I’d rather like to avoid any noncon, kinky stuff even if it’s nonsexual, any other sort of sexual content, etc - that’s just not my sort of thing, really.) Romance is all right, if that’s the way that you want to take things, but I much prefer close friendships and family dynamics. However!! I am pretty much completely fine with body horror/violence, hurt/comfort, etc. 

I love good dialogue, character interaction, twist endings, and imaginative plots - and worldbuilding! Happy endings are preferred but not necessary if it just isn’t working for you.

In general - if you’re thinking about making something gay/trans/queer/ace in any way, you should probably absolutely go for it, because I’m wild for that sort of thing.

AUs are… fine and good, as far as I can think of! (Obv no A/B/O or sex-related stuff please, but) canon divergence, fantasy, high school, etc seem all good to me! Especially if there’s a whole lot of clever nods to original canon in there. 

In addition, I'm always welcome to receiving stuff in interesting and unusual mediums/styles. This includes stuff like Interactive Fiction (additional info here) and multimedia stuff.

Anyway, fandom time. Let's do this, y'all!

->

Fandom: Ruby Redfort series - Lauren Child

Available:  I managed to acquire a copy of the full series online via my local library - and the physical copies were at my local library too. I don’t have a link to them, I’m afraid.

Tvtropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/RubyRedfort

Characters: *** Any from *** Ruby Redfort, Hitch, Blacker, Clancy Crew 

About the fandom: I just love it a lot.  I dragged its fandom out of the depths of Tumblr singlehandedly a few years ago and have been doggedly creating content for it ever since. There's just something really compelling about 'bright young kid gets accidentally adopted by spy agency' (yes i know that's not EXACLY what happens but I can dream, right?)

Prompts/suggestions:

Like I said above, I really like the idea of Ruby being essentially adopted by the whole Spectrum team.

I’d love to see some casefic! Blacker and Ruby working together to solve a puzzle or problem - either serious or mundane - or Hitch and Ruby on a stakeout of some sort. Or both!

Some general stuff I like - heists, murder mysteries, rescue missions, characters playing games (e.g. Travelling Lemon, word games, throwing increasingly ridiculous hypotheticals at each other) because they're bored or similar,

Spectrum office shenanigans - stuff that happens between books, when Ruby and everybody else aren’t in mortal danger and that LB will most likely glare disapprovingly at.

On the angstier side of things, if you want to stick Ruby in even more mortal danger than usual I am ALL RIGHT WITH THAT. Rescue missions hell yeah.

AUs??? AUs!!! Modern!AU with Ruby doing extreme sports vlogs and occasionally failing to hide the fact that she's part of a secret spy agency. Is Blacker a hacker? Or a fantasy/medieval AU? Or Ruby Redfort, in space!

I feel like I’ll be delighted with whatever you create, tbh. I can’t think of many ways you could go wrong with it.

->

Fandom: Bernice Summerfield (Big Finish Audio)

Available:  Via the Big Finish website, and all of the boxsets from Epoch to New Frontiers are available for free on Spotify! Just look up Bernice Summerfield there.

Tvtropes page: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Franchise/BerniceSummerfield

Characters: *** Any from *** Bernice Summerfield, Third Doctor (Warner)

About the fandom: It’s like if Indiana Jones was shorter, actually did his job, and was a kickass woman who was also the Doctor’s companion at one point! Several points. And also she has a considerably larger family than Indiana Jones. Her spinoff kind of transcends a lot of forms of media - she’s in comics, print, animations, audio dramas, and one really hilariously terrible sort-of-fanfilm made by Lisa Bowerman and Sylvester McCoy when they were on some kind of cruise together. And it more or less transcends genre too. There’s been musical episodes right alongside the episode where someone very dear to her manipulates someone else very dear to her into killing (you guessed it) someone who is also very dear to her. It’s a wild ride. Anyway.

Prompts/suggestions:

The Warner!Doctor and Benny era of this series particularly delights me, because Benny and the Doctor just have such a lovely dynamic. There's a bit in the writer's guide for this era that mentions that the Warner!Doctor 'seems to be a grouch' but is actually 'a playful spirit who loves to have fun', and... I just love that? And there is literally no fic with them! Which is an absolute travesty.

I particularly like: heists, murder mysteries, rescue missions, adventures, playing around with genre and style.

It's Doctor Who/Bernice Summerfield!! Which means there's an infinite wealth of planets and times and worlds to explore, if you choose to set it in the regular universe. If, on the other hand, you choose to place it in the Unbound universe, slowly collapsing in on itself, there's probably a lot you can do with this too

The found family dynamic between them!! It's clear that, despite all the snarking and sniping, they really do adore each other quite a bit. If you'd lean into that, I'd be forever grateful.

Apologies for no real specific suggestions - mostly, I just would really like to see these two having fun together and being buds. But also? The angst is good too. Make me laugh/smile or make me hurt, I don't care which.

 ->

Fandom: Beanworld - Larry Marder

Available:  ...I have literally no idea where you can pick this up. I first read it at my local library. I think you can get copies at various book retailers?

Tvtropes page: Non-existent. I should rectify that.

Characters: *** Any from *** Professor Garbanzo, Mr Spook, Beanish, Heyoka (but honestly please throw in everybody in there. I love them all so much)

About the fandom: It's a weird, brilliant, complete unique experience of a comic book set in a world where the rules are very different to ours!

Prompts/suggestions:

I know that pretty much the entire point of Beanworld is that the characters are not human in the least, But I can't help but wonder what a human AU would be like!! Beanish as a struggling art student, the Hoi'Polloi as the local street gang with an unfortunate gambling habit, Heyoka as the weird chaotic neutral genderqueer acrobat who babysits occasionally and is always standing on their head. Or any other direction you want to take it in!! I adore seeing familiar characters in settings that they couldn't possibly find themselves in, in canon.

Bean shenanigans!! What sort of things do they get up to on their Goof-Off Days that we don't see on-screen?

Explore some of the friendships/relationships between the characters! I love some of those good good Bean interactions. For example (but not at all limited to):

Professor Garbanzo and Mr Spook - the ultimate BroTP. I particularly love how well they get along even when you wouldn’t expect them too - how Mr Spook isn’t really a scientific sort of guy but is really encouraging and helpful to her endeavors. It’s good and soft.

Mr Spook and the Chow Sol’jers! A dedicated fighting team that work together and protect each other every day. I’m now wondering what the Chow Sol’jer in-jokes are. They’ve gotta have some, right?

Beanish and Dreamishness - the greatest love story ever told! (If you do end up including this relationship in particular, I’d prefer it if it wasn’t the focus.) Additionally, I’d really love it if you could play around with the idea of love in the Big•Big•Picture being different to how we see it/perceive it in our world! I know it’s kind of vague, and it’s definitely not necessary, but I figured I might as well put it out there.

Heyoka and... everyone. Literally everyone. I love how she interacts with the Beans - how they’re kind of confused as to how she works, but accept her as one of them anyway - and how she interacts with people outside of the Beanworld. The sequence when she’s falling upwards and through the Inspiration Constellation, and how the Constellation is so pleasantly amused by and encouraging of her - it’s really nice. And her as the teacher to the Pod’ll’pool babies!! She’s such a cool character.

Other AUs or canon divergences! Can't think of anything specific off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's some stuff out there.

Literally anything that takes stuff from canon and extends upon it! Especially if you’re playing into the amazingly bizarre and extensive world of the Big•Big•Picture. Because the rules there are definitely not at all the same as they are for our world, and that delights me to no end. I have so many questions about it that I’m nearly certain aren’t going to be answered anytime soon. Like, where does the Thin Lake/Four Realities/Hoi-Polloi zone end?? There’s gotta be an end to it somewhere. Are there other islands like the Beanworld? 

->

Fandom: Rainbow Magic series - Daisy Meadows

Available: on your younger sister's bookshelf or at pretty much any library, bookstore or garage sale you'd care to visit.

Tvtropes page: 

Characters: *** Any from *** Rachel Walker, Kirsty Tate, Titania, Oberon (but feel free to throw in any of the million-plus other fairies that exist at your discretion)

About the fandom: Oh, jeez. What to say about this? It's such a bizarre interest of mine. The series has suffered from intense seasonal rot, with literally every book following the same formula. And there are hundreds of books. But it's such a large part of my childhood that it's hard to not feel some sort of affection for it. Plus, there's so many interesting things to explore!

Prompts/suggestions:

Feel free to throw some Kirsty/Rachel shipping in there, because we all know those two were lesbian as all hell. I'd prefer it not to be the focus, though!

Any exploration of the fact that the girls have been doing this for far longer than is strictly reasonable with no complaints, questions, or problems. They've been through like ten Christmas specials and don't appear to have aged a day since the beginning of the series. What's up with that, huh?

To that end - there's plenty of myths and legends about the rules that fae traditionally have. What about applying some of these to the RM fairies? Are Titania and Oberon the leaders of the Seelie Court, with Jack Frost as the Unseelie leader? Do they do the whole Changeling thing? Are Kirsty and Rachel Changelings?

(And bear with me for a second while I point you at a specific line from the very first book, because I think it's very good inspiration for the whole 'giving a fairy your name' thing:)

Kirsty wanted to ask the fairy so many things. But she didn't know where to start.

"Tell me your names, quickly," said the fairy. She fluttered up into the air again. "There's so much to be done, and we must get started right away."

Rachel wondered what the fairy meant. "I'm Rachel," she said.

"And I'm Kirsty," said Kirsty. "But who are you?"

"I'm the Red Rainbow Fairy - but you can call me Ruby," the fairy replied.

Very suspicious.

A Discord server I'm on has been throwing around the idea of the fairies (yes. All of them.) ending up as humans in the human world abruptly, and having to adjust to living life without magic - and dealing with the fact that somehow, their magical domains are functioning perfectly without them. Which is a very compelling idea. How do Rachel and Kirsty deal with their now-possibly-permanent, no-longer-magical neighbours? How are Titania and Oberon coping, now that they no longer have to rule a whole kingdom? What sort of the things do the fairies get up to? Where do they stay?

Aged-up Kirsty and Rachel get called upon to deal with new adult problems that are blooming in the fairy world. (Tiara The Tax Evasion Fairy, anyone?)

...or anything else.

->

Again, thank you for writing for me, and I hope you get something awesome in return from your own writer! Good luck!

[trainsinanime]

Carmen Sandiego vs. She-Ra and the Princesses of Power

The two Netflix shows I binged this weekend were Carmen Sandiego and She-Ra and the Princess of Power. In both cases, I had never watched or played any of the original content, I just heard good things (generally true) about these shows here on Tumblr.

What I found fascinating is that She-Ra arguably ticks more of the boxes of stuff that I want, but I overall ended up enjoying Carmen Sandiego a lot more. This post is basically just me thinking out loud trying to understand that. As such, the usual disclaimers apply: This is only my opinion, not a fact. Nor do I mean to say that She-Ra is bad. It's still a good show, and easily beats Voltron. On the other hand, Carmen Sandiego isn't perfect either, and it doesn't reach the level of, say, The Dragon Prince or, off Netflix but on the subject of reboots, Ducktales.

First of all, She-Ra is in many ways more interesting, because the show has much more human drama elements. Especially the complicated, messy relationship and conflict between Adora and Catra is great. Carmen Sandiego has nothing similarly dramatic. She-Ra also deals with topics like growing up, diplomacy, friendships and so on.

Carmen Sandiego, in contrast, is a very straightforward cartoon, with very clear good guys, very clear bad guys, and no moral grey area to speak of. Yes, Carmen does things that are illegal, but it's for a good cause and she looks cool while doing them, so it's okay, the show tells us. Her relationship with her former classmates also lacks depth and nuance by comparison. Sure, there's a lot of "how could you?", but no moment where either side doesn't know what to do with the other.

Style

What does Carmen Sandiego have that She-Ra doesn't? The most obvious thing is certainly style. She-Ra doesn't look bad and has some good character designs, but the overall style is fairly standard fairy tale planet threatened by evil machinery. There are hardly any things that feel like fresh new ideas, visually speaking. On the other hand, Carmen Sandiego has a gorgeous glamorous South Park Art Deco style, where every single frame is very obviously that show only. And look at those frames! The careful choice of color palette to give every scene and every episode its own visual identity while remaining true to the overall style is just amazing. Maybe that's superficial, but there's a reason why these are animated shows instead of podcasts.

Also, maybe that's just me, but I love classic James Bond, by which I mean anything pre-Craig (you heard me), and similar things. Hell, even Jason Bourne has more similarities than differences. Carmen Sandiego taps right into that whole aesthetic, and I just love that. Even if the trains are not very good represenations. Oh, it's a cartoon you say? Well, they had no problem drawing that old Peugeot 309 or the old Range Rover perfectly, now did they? I did choose this URL for a reason, folks.

Needs more Ca-Characters

Carmen Sandiego also has the good sense to make its best character, Carmen herself, the hero of the show. No matter who is around, Carmen is always the most interesting person in any scene. In She-Ra, the best character is not She-Ra but Catra. Catra is constantly conflict, smart but angry, hurt by Adora and missing her. Her relationship with Adora is portrayed as both very important and providing much needed warmth to both of them, but also as being dysfunctional in a lot of ways. That's awesome! When we get to see it.

Sadly, most of the time, the focus is Adora and her new friends, a group that is literally called "Best Friends Squad" and has all the narrative depth and drama you would expect given the name. Meanwhile Catra is off growling in the distance. I honestly don't care much about Bow and Glimmer. Glimmer at least has a bit of a conflict with her mom, but Bow doesn't get any conflict, backstory or personality; he doesn't even get a name of his own and is instead just called after what he's holding most of the time.

I'm obviously exaggerating here, and it's not like e.g. Carmen Sandiego's Zack with his "I like most food but not all food" is really much better. But in Carmen Sandiego, that relationship is a fun friendship on the side, not the emotional core of most episodes. It's no coincidence that the best episode in She-Ra is the episode that has no Bow and Glimmer, and is instead all about Adora and Catra and the history of their relationship. Honestly, if the show had been all about Catra, with Adora doing her thing somewhere in the background, this post might well have been the other way around.

Carmen Sandiego, meanwhile… look, let's not beat around the bush: Carmen is sexy as hell. I don't mean just the amazing character design and fashion style: There's also the amazing voice acting, body language, and most importantly her entire demeanour. I think I'm kind of in love with her; the only question is whether that makes me too emotionally compromised to do this comparison, or whether it proves that CS is winning. What I do know, from looking at Tumblr, is that my response seems to be the default one that most people have when seeing her.

That aside, Carmen is also just plain fun. In a world of "I don't know if I can do this, and if yes, how", it's nice to have a protagonist who knows she's awesome and has full confidence in her own abilities. I don't mean to diss the "how do i become hero" thing, I really loved Into the Spider-Verse (make no mistake, that's on a whole other level), but damn, it is nice to have someone who is that suave. I think this ties back into my love of James Bond, because this is very similar; only this time, the prettiest lady is not a mere love interest, but the awesome main character.

Adora generally lacks memorable attitude, she doesn't seem to view her job as something that's fundamentally fun, and she doesn't really do much to differentiate her from most other Luke Skywalker wannabes out there. Though the few times when she does, e.g. the intense preparation for the ball or the arm wrestling matches with the annoying captain guy, are awesome.

The writing's on the wall

Ultimately, a lot comes down to the stories the shows tell and how they tell. And in that regard, it seems at first like She-Ra has the edge: The stakes are high and there's a strong overarching plot, while in Carmen Sandiego, the entire planet is not under threat and nobody would notice if you reordered a few of the interior episodes.

But I cannot help but feel that Carmen Sandiego maybe tries to do less, but is way better at doing what it wants to do. Its clear focus is one of its biggest strengths (apart from all the other ones). The show never hesitates to go straight for the things that it is awesome at; the heists, the action, the adventure, and the odd geography fact. In contrast, She-Ra has a lot of things that don't feel fresh or interesting. Going to a village, defeating the big bad there, then recruiting them for the rebellion? Going off in search of a training montage? Realising that you shouldn't only rely on your superpowers? Realising that your strengths lies in your friends even if they're generic and boring and seriously does Bow have any sort of background at all? I've seen that before and done better in things like Avatar: The Last Airbender (why don't more people compare Catra and Zuko? It's because it's too obvious, isn't it? That's the only explanation that makes sense to me).

Ultimately that's what this all comes down to: Stronger visuals, stronger characters, and a laser-like focus on the things that make it awesome all serve to make Carmen Sandiego the show that I'm obsessed with right now, and She-Ra just another show that I watched and generally liked.

Not everything's a competition

While I am talking about both shows: I've seen people argue that Carmen Sandiego and She-Ra have very similar premises, with the girls who grew up in an evil school, then left once they realised they were in an evil school. Personally, I'm a big fan of that trope, and while I think it has its issues, there's nothing wrong with more of that. But Adora and Carmen aren't really that similar besides following a (fairly mild version of) that generic background plot. In particular, Carmen as the master thief for chaotic good and Adora as the honourable warrior are on two completely different paths (though I could totally imagine them being friends), and the resulting stories are completely different.

By the way: My favourite incarnation of this sort of background right now has to be Violet Evergarden, where the brainwashed child soldier does not become an amazing child soldier for the side of good, but instead a professional love letter writer. It's poignant, beautiful, and I'm never going to stop telling people to watch it.

[tintenfischie]

Rules: Answer 30 questions. Tag 10 however many blogs you want to get to know better. (tagged by @shit-lizard, thanks!)

Nickname(s): Tinten, Tin, Fischie, Roo, Roobarb, probably several others I’m forgetting!

Gender: Pacific Northwest

Sign: Libra

Height: 5'3″

Time: is a lie

Favourite band(s): Uhhh...SO many. Really, if I’ve reblogged a band, chances are they are one of my favourites. If I absolutely had to pick just one, I’d have to go with Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds.

Favourite solo artist(s): SO many again,but for some reason it’s a little easier to narrow this down; I am always up for listening to Neko Case, Dax Riggs, or Mark Lanegan.

Song stuck in my head: Actually not a song by any of the above, but for whatever reason I have been listening non-stop to “Blame the Vain” by Dwight Yoakam for like, the past several days.

Last movie I saw: The Belle Star Story (thanks, @sexymonstersupercreep​!)

Last show I watched: American Pickers (my dad was watching it on TV)

When did I create my blog: Some random google search led me to a very cool rockabilly type blog that reblogged a lot of John Waters movie gifs and I felt I had to join the site myself.

What do I post: Artsy fartsy stuff, lotta movies, weird old stuff, unfortunate photos of myself, and lots of Simpsons screencaps. My side-blogs are a lot less chaotic.

Last thing I googled: “balloon festival Walla Walla” because my dad wanted to know if Walla Walla, WA still holds its annual hot air balloon festival (it does)

Do I have any other blogs:

old-west-coat (a Western/West Coast blog)

bleedingdreaming (VERY nsfw gore/horror/kink blog)

AnimalAutopsy (tragically seldom-updated blog to promote my shop)

Do I get asks: Yes! Mostly from my pals, and y’all are awesome!

Why did I choose my url: I was studying German at the time I joined tumblr, and I liked the word for cephalopods, ‘tintenfisch’. SO I made a cutesy misspelling of it for my name!

Following: 1,112

Followed by: 1,012

Average hours of sleep: It varies anywhere from 4 to 8 hours, which yes I know should be more consistent.

Lucky number: Anything divisible by 5 or 10 because it makes math easier

Instruments: After about 8 years of inactivity, I am once again in the process of learning guitar!

What I am wearing: Boxer shorts and a skeleton-print tank top.

Dream job: Anything working with wild animals and/or the natural environment.

Favorite food: Salmon, coffee, and blackberries (I know I joked about my gender being Pacific Northwest but like...this choice of foods makes me feel like an Almost Live sketch)

Nationality: Tacoman (Tacoma is its own nation now)

Favourite song: I have SO many but the other day I was listening to “The Needle Has Landed” by Neko Case and when she mentioned Spanaway, it brought me to tears.

Last book I read: Still in the process of reading Rains All the Time (a book about the history of the weather in the PNW. I’m really reading this, I swear it’s not just part of a running gag!)

Tagging (if you wanna do this, too!) @anintelligentoctopus, @hundinfaust, @ocelotprincess, @sexymonstersupercreep, @squidlydes, @omarandjohnny

And of course anyone else who would like to do this, please feel free to!

[avidbeader]

OH MY GOD FINALLY!

Husband had to work. I had to wait for husband to get home. I can’t remember the last time I used so much willpower to stay off Twitter and Tumblr to avoid untagged spoilers...

Some initial, chaotic impressions under the cut:

(1) I love what the writing staff has done with Lotor and I hate it because I don’t want my babies having to fight competent and smart villains. Love A.J. Locascio’s work as the voice actor.

(2) On the plus side, more actual infighting within the Galra Empire is a good thing.

(3) I don’t like how the Blade of Marmora faded into mentions after the first episode, but keep reminding myself that this was originally the first half of a longer series. Similarly, we didn’t see Keith’s Marmora blade *once* that I recall in my flying first watch.

(4) And at first I thought it was cool to have shorter episodes more often, but having been through it, now I think I’d rather have the full 13 episodes even if it does mean a longer wait.

(5) The callbacks both amused and slightly annoyed me. Some were very subtle unless you are familiar with GoLion, such as the original names for Haggar and the Galra homeworld. I think I could have done without Sven, but if they had to do it, it was amusing and did not drag on for too long. (Tangent question: that WAS poor Josh Keaton trying to do a Norwegian accent, wasn’t it?)

(6) While I’m still not thrilled with musical lions--it really does feel like following the old show too much to me--at least they tried to justify why and how the changes could happen given stated canon and made a lot of drama about it. (Keith’s “Please, no.” is never not going to hurt.) I also like the confirmation that Alfor piloted the Red Lion, for the selfish reason that I guessed right in one of my fanfics.

(7) On the other hand, sorting out the team dynamic, and then resorting it was good drama with some emotional and some funny moments. I am both pleased with Allura’s development into a strong team member, even as I’m stamping my feet that she didn’t need a freaking lion to be important to the story and what about her pink sparkly magic?

(8) I have a nasty, suspicious mind. I am really, really not certain about this Shiro being our Shiro, despite the moments shared with the others, especially Keith. There’s this “Operation Kuron” thing. The fact that they did a subtle redesign of the character post-haircut just makes me think that original-design Shiro is still out there somewhere and this one is Not The One. The fact that Black wouldn’t fly for him might support that idea. I also genuinely wasn’t expecting Shiro’s absence to be resolved until close to the end of the season

(9) I like that the writers are showing Keith’s growth as a leader as a process, not a guaranteed result. I’m generally pleased with his interactions with Lance evolving, I guess (still don’t ship them, never will). I’m less pleased with the emphasis on Pidge demanding “plans with specifics now please”. Yes, its in her nature but I feel like the writers put too much emphasis on it.

(10) The idea of the Galra Girl Generals squad is excellent. Lotor’s embrace of hybrids (assuming that the impression is correct and he is Zarkon and Haggar’s son and therefore a hybrid himself) is a good thing and sets up Interesting Possibilities down the road when he and Keith come face to face. However, the characters themselves feel awfully one-note so far: the one that shoots first without asking questions, the chirpy one, the mysterious one (although the fact that she’s blind is a cool representational thing), and the competent/loyal one.

(11) I’m all for the throw-it-all-against-the-wall method for finales, like “Best Laid Plans/Blackout”. I’m not quite so sure about mid-arc. Lotor seems to have so many things going (propaganda war, solidifying his position, teladuv piece, comet...) that I feel like I’m losing track even with only 7 episodes.

(12) I don’t know if it’s an effect of the split season or what, but there were points where I felt the story genuinely dragged. I never felt that in Seasons 1-2; even if there were plot points that interested me less, I never felt that the story was dragging before.

(13) Case in point - I’m not sure we needed nearly a full episode to delve into Zarkon and Alfor’s background. I feel like a lot of that story could have been tightened up in favor of moving the general arc along a little more or giving fans some of the stuff we hope to see like flashbacks to the Garrison/more about Matt. If we had the full 13 episodes at once, it might not have stuck out so much.

I have a bit of shippy stuff to say, but I’ll save it for another post, possibly after a rewatch. Short version would be I am generally pleased except for the lurking suspicion of #7 above.

And NOW I get to wade through an entire day’s stuff on Tumblr...see you on the other side.

[literarilymanga]

Hi, guys! This blog lives! In an effort to breathe new life into Literarily Manga, I’m gonna be posting new content on at least a weekly basis. To kick things off, I’m gonna start with an interview with webcomic creator J.M. Henry. Read the entire interview after the cut! 

Me: Would you share a little bit about yourself as a creator? 

J.M.: Sure! As a start, I'm the author of the webcomic The Lostland, a webcomic about supernatural psychics in Post-Apocalyptia! I've been working on Lostland for a little more than 5 years now, and it's been both my baby and a massive testing ground for a lot of art/comicing experiments. I've been drawing since I was a kid, around 6-8 or so, and even back then I had hoped to go into comicing as a serious endeavor. These days, I've made it my goal to increase my skills to the point where I can make a decent living doing what I love most! ...But, I'm still pretty far from that! Haha!

Me: Could you give a short summary of The Lostland?

J.M.: The Lostland is an action/adventure webcomic about four characters braving the dangers of the wild wastes--all while one madman plots to cause chaos in an already chaotic Lostland. Lots of bizarre supernatural action and fun adventures ahead!

Me: Could you introduce the readers to your characters? 

J.M.: Gladly!  Our Story starts with:

J.M: Volken: A young Shaper (our post-apoc. psychics) who used to spend most of his time secluded in the old city ruins known as The Divide. That is, until another Shaper hunts our protag. down for unknown reasons, forcing him out into the one place he wanted to avoid, The Lostland. 

J.M. :Meri: Our mischievous Lostland adventurer. She starts out working as an assistant medic in a small town alongside her sister figure, Fiona, but her eagerness to find out who she is(and her hopeless attraction to danger) leads her out into the Lostland on the search for Old World technology. 

J.M. : Rosso: The Lostland's most infamous wanted man, also known as "The 10 Million Chip Man," or "Mr. 10 Million". Normally doesn't care much about what goes on around the Lostland, but the strange death of his long time rival in the "New Arum Incident" catches his interest, and he decides to find out just what kind of trouble his old rival got himself into. 

J.M.: Nero: His story begins after finding out that a tip about a man he's been after turns out to be false. Tracing back that info leads to him being framed for the New Arum Incident. Nero is now known around the Lostland as "The Man in Black".

Me: Who is your favorite character—and why? 

J.M.: I like all of them for plenty of reasons, but I gotta say Volken. I think to most readers, even though they don't say it, Volken is probably the most underwhelming character of the bunch, especially compared to Meri and Rosso. He's weak, even with special powers, spends most of his chapters either getting beat up or getting tripped up by his own luck, but I personally like those things about him, because I know he'll eventually overcome those quirks and become a really cool character by the end of his arc. I won't spoil much from there. 

Me: Who is your least favorite character—and why?

J.M.: Ah... Nero, to be honest. Could've been written a bit better. He's not really seen as a protagonist in the beginning, so it was also pretty tough to make him a likable character. It made him the toughest one to write.

Me: You’ve been updating since 2014. Can you offer insight into how you’ve developed your story and your creative process over the years? 

J.M.: I've actually been working on the comic since 2011. No worries though! I switched site hosts since then. On the writing side, I started with just the concept, the setting, and characters that would fit the concept and setting. After that I spent a lot of time fleshing out who the characters were and how they'd react to their surroundings. It makes writing them into the story I plan a lot easier and their actions feel less like they're serving the plot. At least in some places.  On the writing side, there isn't really a whole lot of it, to be honest, and helps get the art done faster. I map out the major arcs of the story, and then break those down into smaller arcs, and in those arcs, I finally get to writing chapters. On chapters, I usually do very short, single paragraph summaries of them, each scene summed up to one or two sentences. Dialogue and everything else gets worked out in my thumbnails.

J.M.: Honestly, once the summaries are done, I rarely ever need to look at them again, since the volume is usually fully memorized by then.

Me: What is your favorite part of the creative process? The least favorite part? 

J.M.: My favorite part of the process is definitely the conceptualization/ brainstorming part. Sometimes, I just come up with some really fun stories while I'm working on something else. I've already got a few that I'd like to try out in the future! Not not sure if it's actually part of the creative process, but trying to get tour stuff up and out to the public is always a pain for me. Sometimes you wind up putting out some of the best work you've ever done, and the ‘net kinda just responds with "eh." Advertising's always been a bit of a bane for me, but again, probably not part of the process.

Me: As you mentioned before, The Lostland is a post-apocalyptic story. What drew you to the genre? 

J.M.: Not much drew me to it except to experiment a bit with an idea: How would characters with special abilities get by in a world where people are mainly struggling to survive? Would they help out? Would they take over and run the place because they have the most power? How would normal people receive them in those circumstances? 

J.M.: I play around with those questions as I write. Haha!

Me: Several of your characters are Shapers, individuals with psychic powers. Do you find it harder or easier to develop characters with supernatural abilities as opposed those that have no special abilities? 

J.M.: I think it's easy to do both fairly well! It would be great to see one normal character reacting to all of this though. I may make it a short story. As for the main characters, the fact that they all have these special abilities works with my experiment a bit, since each views and uses their own powers differently. For example, because of where Volken used to live, a place that was highly paranoid of Shapers, he starts out as being to afraid to use it outside of basic survival. Nero, however, a character used to using his abilities to fight, will usually treat it as his first resort most of the time. Meri and Rosso also have their own reasons affected by the sort of life they've lived, too.

J.M: I also experiment with this outside of main characters, but later into the story!

Me: How have readers reacted to your characters and story thus far? Are there any challenges that you’ve had to overcome when working on The Lostland?

J.M.: I'd say The Lostland's done fairly well, personally. It's not exactly exploding, but it's attracted a crowd of readers who really love what comes out of it. And that feeling of making something that people can enjoy always does a heart good!  As for challenges, I had quite a bit of trouble keeping the message clear in the early parts of the story, but thankfully, that was when I was still new. My biggest challenge right now is trying to get both the art and story to a point I can be satisfied with. There's still all lot I have to improve on my way there!

Me: What do you want readers to take away from your story?

J.M: Hmm... I don't really have any big messages to convey with The Lostland... Maybe "Pencil fights can be fun with a little imagination?" LOL! But seriously, if most people start reading the comic and leave it enjoying the experience, the story, the characters, the world, then I think The Lostland's done its job well!

Me: Who is your “intended” audience? 

J.M.: I was thinking about doing a motion comic in the future, and I'm already working on a game for the comic, but we won't see that for a while... Printing the comic has always been a major goal for me too!

Me: What drew you to the webcomic genre? What made you say, “This is how I want to share my story?”

J.M.: I've always wanted to work on comics since I was a kid, I even tried submitting some of my old work to Tokyopop, back when they were alive [in print]. So when I heard it was not only very possible to self publish comics online, but there were sites that made it easy to do (I started at SmackJeeves way back). I hopped on board! A lack if editors molding your original idea also helped the case for webcomics. LOL.

Me:  Do you have any advice you want to share with other artists and writers?

J.M.: Just two. One: Don't wait too long to start. Sure, take time to plan and improve, but you'll learn faster while you're actually comicing. From personal experience. Two: Don't be afraid to fail a few times or make mistakes. It's all part of the learning process. As a friend of mine once put it, "Don't be afraid to draw it while it still sucks". You won't regret it!

Me: What are your tools of the trade? Any special software? 

J.M.: Mechanical pencil, sketchbook(for thumbnails), Deleter B5 paper. On the digital side, there's my cintiq, Clip Studio Paint, and sometimes GIMP.

Me: Will you be attending any upcoming cons? 

J.M.: I tend to go to Anime Boston almost every year, but not as a seller yet. Feel free to say hey if you see me!

Me: Anything else you want to share? Shout outs? 

J.M: Check out @ComicBookHour if you're a comic creator! Lot of great conversations there!

And that’s it!  You can read The Lostland here on Tumblr or over on Tapastic. Currently, the comic updates every Saturday at 8:00am, but may go back to being updated twice a week in the future. You can follow J.M. Henry’s comic progress on Twitter or Facebook. 

This interview was originally conducted over Twitter. If you or someone you know would like to be interviewed about your comic or comic related venue, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment on this entry or send a message or ask. I’ll get back to you ASAP! 

Don’t forget to check out my previous interview with the Head Librarian at Carolina Manga Library. 

Thanks again for reading!