#but seriously my asks are open <3< /div> Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[evilhasnever]

…the almost 69 people (nice) who voted xiyao: hi, where have you been all my life?

[zabiume]

Hello! I just wanted to ask if you think Orihime might have been a little too complex for the audience that bleach was aimed at? (teenage boys that is). I mainly interact with the bleach fandom on tiktok (the bleach tiktok fandom is horrendous but moving on) the opinion of Orihime is kind of mixed on tiktok, there's a big portion of people who love her, but there's also a big portion of people who hate her. Whenever I get into an argument about her and ask why people think her writing is bad, they always say stuff like; ''she's too emotional/she has too many emotions'' and I'm just like ??? How does that make her a bad character?? To be fair the bleach tiktok fandom has A LOT of internalized misogyny so it's not that suprising that they hate Orihime, but again I wanna hear your opinion because I do feel like people on tiktok trow around the good/bad writing a lot without even really knowing what it means.

this is an interesting question! my joke answer is that it should be illegal to hate orihime😂, but my serious answer is that i feel like there's a difference between enjoying something as an audience member vs enjoying something as a critical reader, so if we're talking about pure enjoyment, it's perfectly okay for people to have preferences and like/hate certain characters based on those preferences. enjoying something as an audience is subjective. for instance, i really can't stand the kuroko no basket movie as a critical reader but i do enjoy it a lot as someone who was there to have a good time! i liked seeing my favorite characters again, i liked seeing them bicker and interact. sometimes stories fulfill simple needs, like "woah! that was a cool fight!" or "some dude had an incredible entrance backed with an incredible OST" and your knee jerk response is to just enjoy it. i have lots of characters that i don't really care about, so it's not surprising to me that orihime is a character lots of people don't care about. it's not a big deal.

but i think critical reading is a little more nuanced than that, especially if we're talking about what "counts" as good writing/bad writing. i don't think there's one particular way to write a Good Female Character, and i think trying to make good female characters a monolith is very bad for writing in general. trying to make any identity a monolith while writing them is obviously bad, and having different kinds of characters is a better indicator of good writing to me, which i would argue that bleach does, to a certain extent. there are lots of female characters in bleach and they're all very different from each other, and we do get to see some interiority, however rich or poor. BUT, i also think it's important to note that kubo does draw women like a freak, and a lot of the fanservice leaves a bad taste in my mouth. it's good to view a series in its totality — what it does well, what's kind of shitty, etc etc. you can acknowledge some of the great character beats for a lot of these female characters but also acknowledge that the story is not free from the author's perception of the world, and of women in particular. yes, a lot of them are interesting and have engaging storylines, but sometimes they are here to be Sexy keeping a specific kind of reader in mind (male) and orihime is not free from that kind of depiction, though she is nowhere near the only bleach character to be a "victim" of that! even ignoring the fanservice aspects of it, we could always make an argument about certain storylines and have those criticisms be valid, but it's important to do that in good-faith, which is what i mean by seeing a story in its totality!

and this is where the point you bring up comes in, because i think a lot of fans don't account for their own internalized misogyny, and how much accountability they have as an audience in writing certain characters off, especially if they're pushing goal posts that they wouldn't for male characters. yes, it's important to be critical, but you have to be critical of the series in a way that suits the genre. bleach is a shonen, which is historically a genre that appeals to the lowest common denominator of people — which means it's not going to be a transcendent, transgressive indie work of art that has radical things to say about gender and society and capitalism or whatever. if you want that, you have to pick up a manga that does that and assess how effectively or ineffectively it achieves those goals. as it stands, i think it's cruel to expect things from a story that it never even set out to do.

i know this is getting long, but my point is that when i look at orihime, i'm not holding her to the same standards that i would a character from a shoujousei or a seinen. i'm looking at her in relation to other characters in bleach, and seeing how effectively or ineffectively she fulfills her role in the story. and, if i'm allowed to be controversial: i think she's an amazing character for what her role is supposed to be! she's a love interest in a shonen, which should have doomed her from the start, but nope! she's got great relationships with characters other than ichigo, she has flaws, she has a complex belief system that is taken seriously + sometimes challenged/sometimes validated by the narrative, some of the biggest themes in bleach like the rain or the heart are explained through her, she has at least one pivotal scene in every arc (even when the plot of that arc isn't centered around her), and we get such a rich view of her inner life in every chapter centered around her. we know so much about her — from silly things like what she likes to watch and eat, to major things, like who she want to be, what she believes in, what her fears are. we get to spend so much time with her. she gets to have an antagonistic relationship with a character without actually being a full-fledged fighter. even the most bitter of orihime haters i've seen have at least acknowledged how iconic her moral clash with ulquiorra was, and the scene where he accepts defeat in front of her (he WAS accepting defeat and telling her he was wrong btw; you can't take a non-romance moment, convert it into a romantic moment, and then cry about how orihime's plotlines are only ever centered on romance. YOU are doing that, not her!), is routinely seen as one of the most iconic bleach scenes of all time. speaking of iconic scenes, orihime is in some of the most memorable bleach fights even when she's not an active participant, and a lot of times, her presence leads to a major change in how the battle is going

[literally 3/4 of those fights have a major moment with her in it, and they're voted 1st, 3rd and 4th place. yes, those were ichigo's fights but his relationship with orihime is at least hinted at or mentioned in of THREE OF THEM]

it's also worth noting just how seriously the narrative takes her feelings. we see orihime happy, angry, sad, jealous and she's allowed to be it so openly and sincerely, even at the risk of ridicule. she's allowed to cheer people up, but she doesn't exist just to do that! there are so many scenes where she's in need of comforting, where she needs reassurance, and she gets to be a scared, insecure teenager just as much as ichigo does. she's bright and vivacious, she's defiant, she's loud, she's a dreamer and a yearner, she's lonely, she's emotional, and she's so, so warm and kind and human. like, i'll be honest, so many shonen fans seem to think girls can either be tomboys or shy/submissive, but they're the ones boxing characters into those stereotypes when they don't even fit (orihime ESPECIALLY doesn't fit into either category but i've seen so many people do that)

and like, yeah, kubo can be a weirdo, but he defended her, and he considered her important enough to acknowledge her growth, even when he was running short of time. and he could have so easily made orihime's envy of rukia this catty thing of like. oooh girls are falling over themselves for ichigo, they're FIGHTING for him, but he doesn't...do that. he allows orihime to be insecure without making her the butt of a joke, and he allows her the complexity her feelings deserve. and he gave rukia enough respect to have orihime want to be her friend, even as she navigated her complicated feelings about her.

and these are all OUTSIDE of her role as a love interest. as a love interest, she's basically perfect. she has meaningful and thematic parallels with ichigo, she has so many heartfelt moments with him, her confession is almost universally loved by normal people, and ichigo is so kind to her that you never feel like she picked someone who doesn't value her or respect her. these are definitely bare minimum things, but again, i'm judging it by shonen standards, and by shonen standards, she is very, very lucky. i can work with this much material, this is good enough for me, but if people's standards are higher then maybe it's not hitting for them idk! maybe their expectations for good writing were different! at the end of the day, i think it's a good thing for characters to be widely discussed because it just means there's a lot to talk about, and that's always a good thing, but let me just plug my favorite tweet to summarize my thoughts on the matter

[i-like-forcefem]

hi i have a question. my boyfriend is obsessed with lolita fashion and is constantly saving dresses and skirts and sending them to me saying "i would wear this if i were a girl" ...i told him he can wear them without being a girl but he said he doesn't want to, and i said "so you want to wear hoodies and jeans for the rest of your life?" and he hesitated before saying yes and looked visibly upset after... should i say something or just start dosing him with eatrogen

Awww, that's adorable :3 Here's what I'd do: Do whatever you can to give him plausible deniability to wear the dress, maybe do a bet where the loser has to get dressed up by the winner, or maybe say that you really want to BOTH go to comic con wearing lolita, maybe do something for Halloween! (do give her time! Don't force it too much, but if she's anything like me she'll jump on the first chance you give) Cuties like that are always day-dreaming about being allowed to be a girl, to be feminine without judgement, so give her that excuse she craves!

[zouisexo]

.

[ask-team-misfit]

LIEF! CALM DOWN!

[ PT: LIEF! CALM DOWN! End PT ]

Anonymous asked: What's with the aggro, dude!? Who the hell are you even talking to???

[ in reference to this ]

[ ID: A sequence of four grayscale drawings. The first two show Lief on his fours, looking very upset before calming down. The third shows Vahni on the floor, blood pooled underneath her ear. She's awake, but injured. The fourth shows Lief again with a shocked expression, realizing what happened. Lief’s appearance is as described here. End ID ]

Lief: “Oh, no no no no…!”

At the sight of what he’d done, he rushed to Vahni’s side immediately.

Just a moment ago, he was ready to fight for his life. Just a moment ago, he became convinced that this burrow was no longer safe.

And just a moment ago, he screwed up and harmed an innocent Pokemon. Not emotionally, not verbally, but physically.

[ ID: A grayscale drawing of Lief shown from the chest up, looking down with concern at Vahni in a frontal view. End ID ]

The Ekans had vanished. It really was as if it were never here. Now it was just Vahni, lying in the dirt.

[ ID: A grayscale drawing of Vahni, shown from Lief's POV. There's some blood smeared on his paw. End ID ]

He felt sick once he saw the blood.

Lief: “Oh gods.”

He rushed off, delving into his stash to look for medicine. The burrow would be filled with the sounds of his panic.

[ ID: A grayscale drawing of Vahni similar to the previous image, but her eyes are open again, watching Lief. End ID ]

Lief: “H-hang in there. Please. I swear, I didn’t mean to– W-what was I thinking…?”

[ ID: A grayscale drawing of Lief, shown from the chest up in a side view. He's grasping a potion in his left paw, looking at it with relief. End ID ]

He’d only relax once he finally grasped the potion. Previously on the brink of hyperventilating, he paused and took a couple of deep breaths.

His fur once more laying flat, he returned to Vahni to begin tending to her wounds, spraying a tiny bit of the liquid on a cloth before wiping at her bleeding ear.

[ ID: A grayscale drawing of Lief shown from the chest up, looking down and speaking with Vahni in a side view opposite of the previous image. He looks somewhat calm. End ID ]

Lief: “You’re gonna be ok. Alright? Once the medicine kicks in, you’ll be all healed up.”

[ ID: A grayscale drawing of Lief similar to the previous image, but with a different expression. He looks much more remorseful and nervous. End ID ]

Lief: “I don’t know what got into me. I should have known better, I...”

His voice sounded very quiet as he uttered his apology.

Lief: “I’m sorry.”

[ featuring Vahni from @ask-the-lywelles ; thanks to @book-of-legends for the guest art! ]

[disappearinginq]

I hate that people on a whole don't understand a narrative. Like...your English/literature teacher should've flunked people over this.

Probably the people who understand it best are the ones marginalized in life, because hey, we see ourselves in those characters. Other people have the luxury of just going "eh" and moving on.

But when hugely popular shows and movies and even books keep killing off their marginalized and suffering characters as the "only way this could've ended" I want to reach through a screen and choke them out because stop telling me the world is better without me in it., Or I will take you with me, and we'll see who's mourned.

It's not even just Bury Your Gays. In Outer Banks, they kill of the kid who is told from season 1 that you'll never make anything of yourself. You will always be poor, homeless, unloved, and alone. And then spend three and a half seasons showing you that this character absolutely will beat his own narrative - he finds friends that are his family, he finds a life he loves with the people he loves and they love him back, and then - they kill him. BUT THE RICH BITCH FUCKING PSYCHOPATH GETS A REDEMPTION ARC? I don't care how good the actors are, the narrative has now wildly swung from 'you can make it if you don't give up' to 'don't even bother - life will find a way to beat you down to where you belong' and airing two days after the catastrophic American elections - where the billionaires and greed and hate win?

The Umbrella Academy had three seasons of fun, quirky, broken people who tried so hard to fix their mistakes, to fix what they broke, and canonically, are representing marginalized groups that never get the happy endings. But dammit, this family tried. They didn't always get along, they were dysfunctional, but they still came together in the end, and loved one another despite the bad they have done. And then - the narrative again spins a wild one eighty and the story ends with "the world is better without you in it - die". Which is a very real narrative a lot of us live with.

The MCU - kills off Iron Man/Tony Stark, one of the very first popular characters who suffers from extreme CPTSD along with an alphabet of mental disorders; Loki, who is the adopted child and queer across the board, loses absolutely everyone and everything; Steve, who while he isn't dead, his character most certainly is because he goes from the one who does sacrifice everything to making a selfish, personal decision that winds up fucking over everyone; Bucky, who again isn't dead but he is openly blamed for the things he did while he was a prisoner and a mind-controlled assassin for the bad guys against his will by his mental health professional. And the narrative is "no, you should sacrifice yourself so the rest of us who treated you like shit can live a better life."

The stupidity of wanting to punish your audience who is punished enough in the real world often enough we don't need it or want it in fiction is just...mind boggling. And when those are the real words used by writers to justify their shit decisions?

I hope your death serves a narrative purpose, since you seem to think that is the noblist way to go.

[weezerlvr228]

rivers if he was absorbed by poisonous gas but didn’t care too much

[kindlythevoid]

♾️

Bitter Water by The Oh Hello's !!! :D I must say I wasn't expecting that one, but here we are!!

I must say, I'm very impressed, Helix, considering I don't believe I had actually reblogged the original post yet. XD Imagine my surprise when I saw this in my inbox when I had only liked it!!

Thank you for the message, I truly appreciate it!!

Kindly,

The Void

[allastoredeer]

If I had to choose between the next chapter of "Just Kiss Already" and the next episode of Helluva Boss, I would choose "Just Kiss Already" every single time. When can we expect the next chapter?? Also do you have a discord server? If not, you should definitely consider making one. You legit have your own fan base now and everybody is talking about your fic. Even people who aren't into radioapple know about it. ITS REALLY THAT GOOD!

People -

Wait. People have been talking about my fic O///O Non-radioapple shippers are talking about my fic, I'm - this is news to me O.O The only social media I'm on is Tumblr and Twitter, and for Twitter I'm just there for the fan-art. That's wild that people are talking about it (°ロ°) I'm so flattered >.< I'm glad they're enjoying it!

Also a discord server 👀is that something you guys would be interested in? Technically, I do already have one. I'd just have to do some major spring cleaning before I opened it up again LOL Mayhaps I'll do another poll and see what the general consensus is.

Also also 🥰 that fact that you'd choose the next chapter to "JKA" over the new Helluva Boss episode is one most flattering things' anyone has ever said to me ♥‿♥ (I am so excited for the next episode to drop, I can't wait to be beaten down with angst)

As for when the next chapter will come out, my goal is between May 11-15. I was going to split the whole fic into 4 chapters, but I couldn't split up the last section in a natural way, so it's a pretty long one. Chapter 2 started out as 4,000+ words and after editing it ended up 8,000+ words. Chapter 3 is currently at 6,000+ words, and it hasn't been edited yet, so my estimate based on the last chapter is that it might top out at 10,000+ words 😅

If I can find a way to split it up naturally as I'm editing, I probably will. But if not, that's a lot to edit (for both me and my beta's), so it'll take longer than the last two chapters. (Toiling under the weight of capitalism definitely doesn't help either).

Thank you for this ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ What a way to make my day!!

[puppyeared]

for like 3 weeks i was wondering why i was sleeping so much and felt listless. and just now I managed to email 3 people and responded to a month old message in the span of an hour because I got back to TAKING MY FUCKIN MEDS..........

[madame-fear]

i met someone who lowkey looks like elliot and my fav movie is one of his favs 😶😶

- hxtd

Girl— no FUCKING WAY AJSJKDKDKF

I swear to God I’d be screaming???? Me personally I’m thinking it’s the universe trying to tell you something,, what are the odds???

And what are you going to do with him next? Do you think he’s cute?? ME PERSONALLY ID BE FLIRTING AHDJJFK 👀

[i-like-forcefem]

Um I am a cis guy but keep coming back to read your blog every day because it makes me horny and hazy, please advise

Hmmm, sorry but this one is a bit too difficult for me to figure out, I’ll need to ask our leading medical expert in the field who’s known for never misdiagnosing a single patient!

@isuggestforcefem what do you think?

[dipplinduo]

This is a little embarrassing to say, but your fic has seriously helped me in the final months of my husband's deployment and got me out of a slump to draw again from someone's hc they posted here. I know it's so silly but thank you for helping me during my darkest time

Oh my gosh.

Honestly this is probably the kindest and most sincere comment I think I've ever received. I can't imagine the loss you're feeling right now and I hope the next few months go by quickly so you two can be together. I'm glad my writing/this blog and community has been a good space for you to keep your mind off of things. I think it makes complete sense to be in a slump, and it's amazing that you could feel creative and inspired in spite of what's going on; this speaks so many volumes about your strength and character.

All the writing & blog stuff will continue to be here - I hope it can continue to be a source of comfort. Your ask was also anything but silly. Thank you so much for sharing, and seriously, it's such an honor to know that it's all been helping during a tough time. <3333 (P.S. lowkey??? If there's ideas you want me to write about somewhere I am so happy to see where I can squeeze them in just for a lil' day brightener.)

[dragonji]

been talking to my transfem coworker a lot more abt our respective gender (and sometimes romance) complications/plans lately and genuinely it like. simultaneously makes me feel pretty cringe and silly to admit i do in fact want things but also its smth I never thought I'd get to have and thus kind of mindblowingly really reasurring and lovely and special. No other point to be made here just that it rly is kind of lifechanging to be a trans person w trans friends👍

[mxbitters]

i hope the people that respond to my nervousness saying “don’t be nervous” know that a certain ronald radke said that to me like seven years ago and good lord if there is one way to instantly rip a 14 year old out of their falling in reverse phase it would be that anyway if you tell me to just not be nervous you are i automatically associate you with that silly, silly man so perhaps do not

[jamietarttsnorthernattitude]

You have accomplished so much and written so many words and put out such a variety of fics for the fandom this year that YOU should do an end of year wrap up!

How many stories did you post?

Which ones were your favorites?

Which one was the most satisfying to write?

The most difficult?

Rec something that you're proud of.

Wow us with whatever big thing you might want to work on next!

Show us that word count stat!

You should be very, very proud of you. I certainly am <3

Ahhhhh FRIEND you are so nice to me! Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Any excuse to talk about my fics :)))))))))))))

1. How many stories did you post? I posted 38 stories!

2. Which ones were your favorites? That's like picking a favorite child! But if I haddddddd to: no thing's so sure that i can't learn to doubt it (aka Jamie is hurt during the Zava period and hides it. It does not go well), in the morning i'm bulletproof (Rupert has Jamie taken out BEFORE the final match of the season) and The Inevitability of James Tartt (Man City introspective).

3. Which one was the most satisfying to write? I don't know if it's one specific story. It was extremely satisfying to write some of the conversations between Jamie and the coaching staff in no thing's so sure that i can't learn to doubt it. And I have a few different post Mom City convos between Jamie and Ted that were satisfying. Mostly I love writing anything where people tell Jamie he's a good lad (after I put him through the ringer).

4. The most difficult? when i told you i was fine you were lied to. Someone requested some Roy whump, so I tried to give him an appendicitis. I had a longer version, but then I was driving home from another state on Friday the 13th, and my brain latched onto the idea of writing something spooky, so I kind of combined that and the comfort at the end got changed. The final product is kind of all over the place. I'm not happy with the ultimate story, but I got caught up with posting each day with whumptober, and it being Friday the 13th. I just ran out of time. I also blame the fact that I was on day 2 of one of my top 5 worst hangovers, stressed about finishing whumptober and knew I had plans or work literally every day the rest of the month. Maybe someday I’ll rewrite it when I can give it my full attention.

5. Rec something that you're proud of. I'm proud of all the fics I managed for whumptober (24!). Even though I'm still working on the final two days, I'll have done at least a chapter for each prompt once I’m finished.

6. Wow us with whatever big thing you might want to work on next! I do have a bad things happen bingo board that I want to work on, plus all the WIPs I have filling my Google Docs folder.

7. Show us that word count stat! My word count is 275,415 (I delayed answering these until I posted two new chapters of not to me, not if it's you haha)! BUT, my third fic is an extended, canon-compliant version of my first fic. The first one was 22K words, so a lot of those were adjusted slightly for the third fic, so really, it's more like 253K.

AND because this was so fun! I think it should be a tag game. So I'm tagging you @jamiesfootball to answer the same questions, as well as @sighonaraa and @fanficfanattic and anyone else that wants to play but as usual zero pressure <3