#fun fact: originally i was gonna do firsts

[qiu-yan]

3 6 7 11 16 20 25

bro is trying to get me killed lmao /s

choose violence ask game

3. screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr:

this shit

6. which ship fans are the most annoying?

gonna be honest here, the single most annoying part of the MDZS fandom is that one hyperspecific sort of wang and xian stan who insists on shitting on not only the other characters, but also other wang and xian fans who ship the characters in ways they don't approve of. this kind of stan can not only be relied on to have the worst possible takes on everyone ranging from jin guangyao to jiang cheng, they can also be relied on to harass other wang and xian fans simply for putting wang on the bottom. fun times.

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

surprisingly, no one yet. sometimes i feel the hater urge to dunk on the morally-pure version of wei wuxian that the diehard wei wuxian stannies have collectively hallucinated, but i still find the wei wuxian from canon to be quite compelling.

11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered

the "canon jiang cheng" and "canon jc" tags. everyone stfu

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

"morally pure wei wuxian who did nothing wrong ever." to me, wei wuxian's hubris, his unique capability for inventing new kinds of cruelty, his failure to think of the consequences of his actions, his tendencies to run away from negative feelings, and his ultimate failure to protect the people he was trying to protect, are what make him a compelling character to me. these flaws in parallel with his courage, kindness, stalwart moral compass, and genuine love make him interesting to me. so i don't quite understand fans who instead insist on erasing all the morally grey and highly interesting stuff he did in favor of insisting he did nothing wrong ever.

20. part of canon you found tedious or boring

not quite what the question is asking, but i found the actual wang and xian romance in the original novel to be a bit lacking. mainly because (as other people have said already) a lot of the romantic development happened when lan wangji was drunk. at the very least, i wanted to see lan wangji's reactions to his various drunken adventures once he sobered up the next day, and i'm rather disappointed we never got to see that.

furthermore, on wei wuxian's end, it did kind of feel like wei wuxian was using this exciting new romance to distract himself from his past problems, even though it also seemed like he didn't actually know all that much about lan wangji. the only version of the romance that makes sense to me is the one where wei wuxian was already into lan wangji (subconsciously or consciously) in his first life; otherwise, wei wuxian falling in love with lan wangji during his second life, when he's yet to process any of the shit that happened in his first life, feels too much like him running away from his problems with a guy he believes will validate all his decisions. meanwhile, on lan wangji's end, i feel like the novel just did not give us a lot to work with in regards to his character. so it feels like, if you want to be a fan of lan wangji, you have to do a lot of the legwork of building up his personality yourself.

what also disappointed me a bit about wang and xian, as well as lan wangji's character arc itself, is that lan wangji is never really challenged on a moral-dilemma level in the same way that many other characters are challenged by the story. how do i explain this...alright, i'll put it this way. i've been brainrotted about madohomu (madoka magica) since i was in middle school. and that's partially because i know for a fact that, if homura was put in the trolley problem and had to choose between [killing 5 strangers] and [allowing madoka to die], she would choose to kill those 5 strangers to save madoka. but after reading MDZS, i realized i legitimately did not know what lan wangji would do in such a moral dilemma. because MDZS equates [being morally righteous] with [supporting wei wuxian], lan wangji is never placed in a dilemma where he has to choose between sacrificing wei ying and doing something the audience would think of as unforgivable.

these are just my own hyperspecific tastes, though.

25. common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

gonna put my hater hat on for a second, but i kind of roll my eyes at the jiang cheng haters complaining about how jiang cheng stans keep posting in the "canon jiang cheng" tag. dude, if it bothers you that much, just block the jiang cheng stans. then things will be peaceful in your favorite tag again.

[aboringredmop]

k still don't know how im gonna post the videos (YouTube? unlisted?someone please help) but I can't sleep so I thought it'd write down whatever I remember happening!

Becky and Joe walked on stage wearing sunglasses and red leather jackets and threw 3 of the trio plushies into the crowd. didn't get one unfortunately but it's really cool some people got free plushies :)

they made this robot child called the Inspiration Child, who's clearly meant to be a nod to ai (can learn from our show and generate it's own content!)

they explained how they met (and had some dodgy animated retelling), and how they started with small projects like commercials and music videos, until they came up with designs of the trio (and a mysterious fourth fella)

they made the designs first, then made the set, then the song and finally wrote the script for creativity. red guy was just a red mop head with legs at first ("alien squid thing") but Joe put the red guy head on for shits and giggles once and Becky thought it was hilarious so they kept it in the show

they were really not expecting it to blow up, and when Sundance called because they wanted to show creativity Becky thought it was a scam caller lol

they talked about the kickstarter and the credit card fraud kid. the mailed him saying "hey maybe dont do that" but the kid didnt know how to undo it cuz he just found a website full of credit card information and went ham, so Becky and Joe had to contact kickstarter because people were pulling out of the funding because they thought the project was overfunded (kickstarter was very difficult to contact)

they also made (lighthearted) fun of nsfw fluffybird art ((no padlock 😔) "using OUR characters to act out their SICK FANTASIES" - Becky) and theorists, especially because most if not all of the webseries is just them fucking around.

Inspiration Child also says something along the lines of "wow what a cool show with a great message of how corrupt the media is. I hate the media!"

Becky and Joe had these rules to make the show as vague as possible (no pop culture references, no names, no swearing and way too much detail put into small things)(the duck guy drag queen absolutely obliterates the no swearing rule lol)

they talk about the pilot, how they focused too much on the story because they felt like they had to due to it being on the big screen now, and how it ended up ruining the atmosphere and such of the pilot. they did show the entire thing sped up but my phone sucks ass so I could not get it to focus correctly. I'll see what I can salvage so you people can dissect frames of your blorbo you're Legally Not Allowed To See (which is also the official reason we don't get the pilot)

also pilot concept art showed that Mean Steve is in fact just called Key

they showed a whole post-it wall full of ideas for the tv show. don't know how much I got on footage, but what stood out most to me were 2 episodes called Money and Christmas. Joe mentioned "clock in a wheelchair" specifically

also really fun fact. Becky made the Lesley suit during covid, and pretty much threatened Baker into writing a human character into the show to wear it. concept art also shows Lesley with a mask made out of the same fabric, don't know if this was part of the original suit tho

they showed Warrens old models (?). he was gonna be a wayy more ugly looking silicone pug-worm thing y'all got lucky with the bald fuck

lily and todney were directly based off of some cancelled show about two porcelain doll children with panda parents. do not for the life of me remember what it was called but Becky and Joe were very enthousiastic about it (UPDATE: Candy and Andy!)

international release of the show soon!

Inspiration Child talks about what he's learned and sings a little song, then generates his own dhmis inspired content of a cult meeting in a forest at night. the dhmis Discord server called this "potential new content" but I doubt it

3 cultists walk on stage, face the screen backs to the crowd, drop their cloaks and boom! drag queens!!!

they were not mentioned on the site or during earlier parts of the show at all so they were a complete surprise. I asked Becky about it later during the night and she said she really wanted them there, so she asked and they were excited to! hope this means more official content with them soon I love them

they dance to There's Three Of Us, then Duck lipsings the shredder song which turns into a techno remix while Red and Yellow dance during the background

then Duck and Yellow make out while Red tries to undress to the instrumentals of the Fucked Up Part of Creativity but can't get out of his suit on time before the song ends

the drag queens, Becky and Joe and the Inspiration Child walk around during the meet and greet later and I got signatures from all of them! except inspiration child he didn't have thumbs

the drag queens were so fucking funny. Duck adopted inspiration child and loudly yelled at everyone to "GET AWAY FROM MY FUCKING CHILD" (their duck voice is sooo good). yellow stood in a corner staring at a wall for like 10 minutes and red was constantly awkwardly hovering just outside the frames of pictures (and also could not see shit lmao)

Becky liked my shirt! (the one with the melting trio heads) said she handdrew it

I'll post the signatures and some more stuff tomorrow because it is. 5 am

edit Heres the signatures! yellow guys is Italian I think? and means hi I love you :)

(the liyskaen is duck trying to spell my name. they got pretty close)

[astrobei]

make me long for your kiss

[thirdeyeblue]

“Nine would have treated Martha better than Ten did”

I need to talk about this argument that never seems to stop circulating.

Note: Not a venomous/anti post. There’s more than enough of that across fandom spaces as is, and this is supposed to be a place for ✨sweet, blissful escapism✨

When making this argument, people seem to envision a scenario in which Nine never met Rose.

While I can appreciate a good hypothetical, recognizing Rose's significance to the Doctor (Nine and Ten) is essential to understanding why things with Martha played out the way they did in the first place.

In the third series, the Doctor is grieving. This grief is deliberately threaded into nearly every script, whether spoken aloud or not (and these are just a few examples):

He's burning in Rose’s wake the entire time Martha travels with him, which is why it’s so frequently called upon: It’s 100% deliberate in framing his grief. He grieved as Nine too, of course— having been fresh on the heels of the Time War — but then he met Rose, which changed everything.

Back then, he was still a rude, traumatized pain in the ass, but we watch Rose soften more of those jagged edges with every episode as they grow closer; as he lets his guard down and forms a deep connection with her.

He falls in love (against his better judgment) and it's game over.

And yes: provided S1E1 had been titled 'Martha', one can realistically assume things might have unfolded similarly to how they did with Rose. However, it wouldn’t have been that way just because the Doctor was Nine and “Nine was different” — it would be because he wasn’t already in love with someone else. The same can't be said for the start of S3.

Think of it like this: if Rose AND Martha had been in that cellar — if Nine had taken both of them along with him in S1 — we’d eventually be looking at the most melodramatic love triangle ever, what with him living in close quarters with two brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate young women... But Doctor Who is plenty “soap opera” as is with just one woman in the TARDIS.

(I certainly wouldn’t object to reading that fic, though)

Now, regarding the unrequited elephant in the room…

His inability to be romantic with Martha isn’t because he thinks her lesser, nor is it for lack of compatibility. It isn't because Rose is any better than her. It certainly isn’t just because he’s Ten.

It’s really only for one reason, which can't be denied — and now I’m a broken record:

He is still in love with Rose.

(cut from a tenrosedaily gif)

Nine is Ten, and Ten is only such a mess in S3 because he’s just lost the love of his life. Martha merely got caught in the crosshairs of a volatile Time Lord in mourning, and yes — it sucks. Absolutely.

But it also feels dismissive to chalk Ten and Martha’s relationship up to little more than some sort of mindless dance of pining, jealousy, and toxicity.

Ten trusted Martha with his life over and over again — and hers, with him. He constantly praised her brilliance, happily carting her around time and space with no intention of letting her go. In the BBC’s extended universe of novels/comics/cartoons/etc, there’s so much depth to their relationship: love and trust and trauma and sacrifice. They had their own special bond as mates, their own complexities — so it’s a bummer that it's forever overshadowed by the other things.

I’m not denying that there was a lot of stuff that sucked/was for sure toxic about Ten's S3 behavior, but so many of the things I've seen him catching flak for can be directly attributed to being A Clueless Fucking Alien Idiot (not a trait that’s unique to Ten) — as well as his flat-out obliviousness to Martha’s feelings.

So yes, I agree: if Rose never existed, he would have treated Martha differently as Nine. He also would have treated her differently as Ten. Certainly.

But Rose did exist, and when discussing canon, it matters.

“He tells me that he absolutely, 100% loves Rose... He tells me how my daughter; my wonderful, beautiful, clever little girl saved him from himself before… And he says that’s all because of me! I made her into the Rose Tyler that saved him.”

-Jackie Tyler, Flight Into Hull!

Martha got the short end of the stick in S3. She came round at the wrong place and time, but that doesn't mean it was all bad. It doesn't mean the Doctor didn’t adore her. It certainly doesn't mean the time they spent together was wasted or worthless. They were brilliant!

Sure, he could be a twat, but let it be known that he was a twat with Rose as well, both as Nine and Ten. I’m sure Tentoo can be plenty infuriating, too. So while I'll defend Ten (and Tentoo) into the ground forever and ever and ever, I'll concede that he's fucked up.

The Doctor is a certified Pain In The Ass. It’s one of the things I love so much about this character — dynamics.

But never forget that Martha was goddamn tough as nails and overcame every bit of it. She moved on with her life, and the Doctor moved on with his. One can only pray that, when they inevitably drag her back onto the show (which feels inevitable if I'm honest), we see at once that she's been living her best life for all these years.

[notmoreflippingelves]

[virsancte]

good days aren't easy to come by

[zecoritheweirdone]

first art post of the new year!!! granted, i don't share my art here that much anyway, but– shhh.

hehehehhhooo,, here's something i've been working on for 'bout a month,, albeit not consecutively– took a few,, very very long breaks in between working on this,, but i managed to finish it in the end! am i satisfied with it? .......ehhhh? not completely, but if this took any longer, it might not have seen the light of day, so like. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

anyway,, made a little poster for my favorite fic, tommyinnit's services for villains, vigilantes, and various other vagabonds, by @scorpionoesit!!! it's really really good,,, and i've always wanted to make more art for it,, so i decided– poster! at least,, that's what it's mean to resemble,,, dkdmkdmdkd.

i will freely admit,, i'm... not the biggest fan of the fan-made logo i tried to design for it,, feels a bit boring, and could definitely have used a bit more pizazz, something to make feel more like the fic itself(what does that mean? you figure that out),,,, but– again, steam was running low,, dkdnksjs. graphic design is my passion. i do also have other complaints, but i'm afraid i already punched my one-use self-critique card,, oh well,,, dkdnkxjdkd.

regardless,, even with the flaws only i can really see,, this still turned out pretty okay!! hope you enjoy it, mx. scorpio and mx. alibi!!! and i hope everyone else has a wonderful new year!!!!

[skid-the-mighty-poet]

[crows-of-buckets]

I'm thinking that I may end up making Tyrian the legend mystic when act five begins. The longer I think about it, the more I can't see him willingly keeping his powers or becoming a dragon (I was gonna do dragon mystic however I remembered that he would outlive Daeran and it made me sad)

[grimgummies]

Hi I hope you don't mind the reblog spam I just. really like those drawings a lot kdsjnkjfnksdfn

Read this going 'what spam?' then it hit me all at once ADIROGORMEGMN

(Also I don't mind the spam but how many,, times,, holy crap /pos)

[astramachina]

Why is that YA can get away with so much in comparison to Adult fiction?? Like, aside from "no graphic sex" (tho there's been some pretty spicy scenes in some I read during my youth), the only hard line that cannot be crossed is "protag can't be older than 18" (tho New Adult pushes that to 20/22, I believe). You can have the most fucked of body horror, the most gruesome deaths, and gratuitous amount of gore and it's all good for an age-range of 13 to 18. Some of these "extreme Adult horror" books wish they can be on this level.

[archaeren]

How I learned to write smarter, not harder

(aka, how to write when you're hella ADHD lol)

A reader commented on my current long fic asking how I write so well. I replied with an essay of my honestly pretty non-standard writing advice (that they probably didn't actually want lol) Now I'm gonna share it with you guys and hopefully there's a few of you out there who will benefit from my past mistakes and find some useful advice in here. XD Since I started doing this stuff, which are all pretty easy changes to absorb into your process if you want to try them, I now almost never get writer's block.

The text of the original reply is indented, and I've added some additional commentary to expand upon and clarify some of the concepts.

As for writing well, I usually attribute it to the fact that I spent roughly four years in my late teens/early 20s writing text roleplay with a friend for hours every single day. Aside from the constant practice that provided, having a live audience immediately reacting to everything I wrote made me think a lot about how to make as many sentences as possible have maximum impact so that I could get that kind of fun reaction. (Which is another reason why comments like yours are so valuable to fanfic writers! <3) The other factors that have improved my writing are thus: 1. Writing nonlinearly. I used to write a whole story in order, from the first sentence onward. If there was a part I was excited to write, I slogged through everything to get there, thinking that it would be my reward once I finished everything that led up to that. It never worked. XD It was miserable. By the time I got to the part I wanted to write, I had beaten the scene to death in my head imagining all the ways I could write it, and it a) no longer interested me and b) could not live up to my expectations because I couldn't remember all my ideas I'd had for writing it. The scene came out mediocre and so did everything leading up to it. Since then, I learned through working on VN writing (I co-own a game studio and we have some visual novels that I write for) that I don't have to write linearly. If I'm inspired to write a scene, I just write it immediately. It usually comes out pretty good even in a first draft! But then I also have it for if I get more ideas for that scene later, and I can just edit them in. The scenes come out MUCH stronger because of this. And you know what else I discovered? Those scenes I slogged through before weren't scenes I had no inspiration for, I just didn't have any inspiration for them in that moment! I can't tell you how many times there was a scene I had no interest in writing, and then a week later I'd get struck by the perfect inspiration for it! Those are scenes I would have done a very mediocre job on, and now they can be some of the most powerful scenes because I gave them time to marinate. Inspiration isn't always linear, so writing doesn't have to be either!

Some people are the type that joyfully write linearly. I have a friend like this--she picks up the characters and just continues playing out the next scene. Her story progresses through the entire day-by-day lives of the characters; it never timeskips more than a few hours. She started writing and posting just eight months ago, she's about an eighth of the way through her planned fic timeline, and the content she has so far posted to AO3 for it is already 450,000 words long. But most of us are normal humans. We're not, for the most part, wired to create linearly. We consume linearly, we experience linearly, so we assume we must also create linearly. But actually, a lot of us really suffer from trying to force ourselves to create this way, and we might not even realize it. If you're the kind of person who thinks you need to carrot-on-a-stick yourself into writing by saving the fun part for when you finally write everything that happens before it: Stop. You're probably not a linear writer. You're making yourself suffer for no reason and your writing is probably suffering for it. At least give nonlinear writing a try before you assume you can't write if you're not baiting or forcing yourself into it!! Remember: Writing is fun. You do this because it's fun, because it's your hobby. If you're miserable 80% of the time you're doing it, you're probably doing it wrong!

2. Rereading my own work. I used to hate reading my own work. I wouldn't even edit it usually. I would write it and slap it online and try not to look at it again. XD Writing nonlinearly forced me to start rereading because I needed to make sure scenes connected together naturally and it also made it easier to get into the headspace of the story to keep writing and fill in the blanks and get new inspiration. Doing this built the editing process into my writing process--I would read a scene to get back in the headspace, dislike what I had written, and just clean it up on the fly. I still never ever sit down to 'edit' my work. I just reread it to prep for writing and it ends up editing itself. Many many scenes in this fic I have read probably a dozen times or more! (And now, I can actually reread my own work for enjoyment!) Another thing I found from doing this that it became easy to see patterns and themes in my work and strengthen them. Foreshadowing became easy. Setting up for jokes or plot points became easy. I didn't have to plan out my story in advance or write an outline, because the scenes themselves because a sort of living outline on their own. (Yes, despite all the foreshadowing and recurring thematic elements and secret hidden meanings sprinkled throughout this story, it actually never had an outline or a plan for any of that. It's all a natural byproduct of writing nonlinearly and rereading.)

Unpopular writing opinion time: You don't need to make a detailed outline.

Some people thrive on having an outline and planning out every detail before they sit down to write. But I know for a lot of us, we don't know how to write an outline or how to use it once we've written it. The idea of making one is daunting, and the advice that it's the only way to write or beat writer's block is demoralizing. So let me explain how I approach "outlining" which isn't really outlining at all.

I write in a Notion table, where every scene is a separate table entry and the scene is written in the page inside that entry. I do this because it makes writing nonlinearly VASTLY more intuitive and straightforward than writing in a single document. (If you're familiar with Notion, this probably makes perfect sense to you. If you're not, imagine something a little like a more contained Google Sheets, but every row has a title cell that opens into a unique Google Doc when you click on it. And it's not as slow and clunky as the Google suite lol) (Edit from the future: I answered an ask with more explanation on how I use Notion for non-linear writing here.) When I sit down to begin a new fic idea, I make a quick entry in the table for every scene I already know I'll want or need, with the entries titled with a couple words or a sentence that describes what will be in that scene so I'll remember it later. Basically, it's the most absolute bare-bones skeleton of what I vaguely know will probably happen in the story.

Then I start writing, wherever I want in the list. As I write, ideas for new scenes and new connections and themes will emerge over time, and I'll just slot them in between the original entries wherever they naturally fit, rearranging as necessary, so that I won't forget about them later when I'm ready to write them. As an example, my current long fic started with a list of roughly 35 scenes that I knew I wanted or needed, for a fic that will probably be around 100k words (which I didn't know at the time haha). As of this writing, it has expanded to 129 scenes. And since I write them directly in the page entries for the table, the fic is actually its own outline, without any additional effort on my part. As I said in the comment reply--a living outline!

This also made it easier to let go of the notion that I had to write something exactly right the first time. (People always say you should do this, but how many of us do? It's harder than it sounds! I didn't want to commit to editing later! I didn't want to reread my work! XD) I know I'm going to edit it naturally anyway, so I can feel okay giving myself permission to just write it approximately right and I can fix it later. And what I found from that was that sometimes what I believed was kind of meh when I wrote it was actually totally fine when I read it later! Sometimes the internal critic is actually wrong. 3. Marinating in the headspace of the story. For the first two months I worked on [fic], I did not consume any media other than [fandom the fic is in]. I didn't watch, read, or play anything else. Not even mobile games. (And there wasn't really much fan content for [fandom] to consume either. Still isn't, really. XD) This basically forced me to treat writing my story as my only source of entertainment, and kept me from getting distracted or inspired to write other ideas and abandon this one.

As an aside, I don't think this is a necessary step for writing, but if you really want to be productive in a short burst, I do highly recommend going on a media consumption hiatus. Not forever, obviously! Consuming media is a valuable tool for new inspiration, and reading other's work (both good and bad, as long as you think critically to identify the differences!) is an invaluable resource for improving your writing.

When I write, I usually lay down, close my eyes, and play the scene I'm interested in writing in my head. I even take a ten-minute nap now and then during this process. (I find being in a state of partial drowsiness, but not outright sleepiness, makes writing easier and better. Sleep helps the brain process and make connections!) Then I roll over to the laptop next to me and type up whatever I felt like worked for the scene. This may mean I write half a sentence at a time between intervals of closed-eye-time XD

People always say if you're stuck, you need to outline.

What they actually mean by that (whether they realize it or not) is that if you're stuck, you need to brainstorm. You need to marinate. You don't need to plan what you're doing, you just need to give yourself time to think about it!

What's another framing for brainstorming for your fic? Fantasizing about it! Planning is work, but fantasizing isn't.

You're already fantasizing about it, right? That's why you're writing it. Just direct that effort toward the scenes you're trying to write next! Close your eyes, lay back, and fantasize what the characters do and how they react.

And then quickly note down your inspirations so you don't forget, haha.

And if a scene is so boring to you that even fantasizing about it sucks--it's probably a bad scene.

If it's boring to write, it's going to be boring to read. Ask yourself why you wanted that scene. Is it even necessary? Can you cut it? Can you replace it with a different scene that serves the same purpose but approaches the problem from a different angle? If you can't remove the troublesome scene, what can you change about it that would make it interesting or exciting for you to write?

And I can't write sitting up to save my damn life. It's like my brain just stops working if I have to sit in a chair and stare at a computer screen. I need to be able to lie down, even if I don't use it! Talking walks and swinging in a hammock are also fantastic places to get scene ideas worked out, because the rhythmic motion also helps our brain process. It's just a little harder to work on a laptop in those scenarios. XD

In conclusion: Writing nonlinearly is an amazing tool for kicking writer's block to the curb. There's almost always some scene you'll want to write. If there isn't, you need to re-read or marinate.

Or you need to use the bathroom, eat something, or sleep. XD Seriously, if you're that stuck, assess your current physical condition. You might just be unable to focus because you're uncomfortable and you haven't realized it yet.

Anyway! I hope that was helpful, or at least interesting! XD Sorry again for the text wall. (I think this is the longest comment reply I've ever written!)

And same to you guys on tumblr--I hope this was helpful or at least interesting. XD Reblogs appreciated if so! (Maybe it'll help someone else!)

[shidoukanae]

I would like to make an addendum to this piece with the new chapter out and say that I was wrong about Phillip, he's great, 10/10 he went from being a giant red flag of a character to being genuinely relatable and man do i feel bad about side-eyeing him for that line he said last chapter

Also this chapter finally wrapped up another plot thread I was waiting for it to return to and waaaaaah seeing someone else's POV on Helene is so nice (and we finally got another flashback of OG Helene for like,, the first time in literally forever). Helene being called out as a lonely person who hides her kind feelings behind a cold expression...man suddenly my fondness for Helene is increasing thousandfold

Like literally how the fuck does this manga keep making Helene better and better there's literally nothing disappointing about her character and im STILL shook about it

[yamujiburo]

HANAMUSA (JESSIExDELIA) MASTER POST

I probably should have started doing this forever ago but I wasn’t sure how long I was gonna stick with drawing these comics. But I guess we’re in it now! This will be continually updated~ EVERYTHING UNDER THE CUT

BEFORE YOU START:

This post is required reading about Team Rocket’s ages since that’s usually a question that comes up a lot LOL. As for Delia’s age, she is said to be 29 in Takeshi Shudo’s (original writer on Pokémon) novel that built out the world and characters of the anime.

Next, I feel like this chart helps give the vibe of what these characters relationship is (all just headcanons except for their names and ages)!

WHERE TO START:

Here’s a post I made detailing how Jessie, James and Meowth initially start living with Delia. It also goes into what each character does in this AU. Before going into the post, you might enjoy this fanfic my girlfriend commissioned! It’s based off of said post and is a more enjoyable read.

Here’s also a list of headcanons!

COMICS:

Here’s all the comics I’ve done! The order of most of them are pretty ambiguous and up in the air but I put them in the order I kinda see in my head! There are some that do take place before Jessie and Delia start dating though! Also a few comics that have several parts but the “next” and “prev” links will be in each comic. So I’ll only link the first part of those ones in this masterpost.

Pre-Relationship

Fast Food

Ophidiophobia

Boss 🌟NEW🌟

Whipped

Making Eyes

Hairbrush

Inquiries

Separated

First Kiss

Dating

Big Bed

Tattoo

Crumbs

Pet Clown

I’d Like To

Jessica

Lipstick (not a comic but some fun extra dialogue for this)

Glow

Sleeptalking

Official

Early Relationship

Stare Down

Shovel Talk

Invisible Walls

Date Help

Date Night

Face Blind

One Motto Away

Babygirl

Snowgasboard

Delia’s Got a Cold

Mr. Jessie Ketchum

Peek-At-Chu

Hands Off Pikachu!

Wine Nights with James

Beauty and the Beach

Turning Point Arc

Sunscreen

Where Do Babies Come From

Head Scritches

Love Life

Ugly

Ace Trainers

Pikasitting

During Relationship

Mother’s Day

Father’s Day

Gift for Delia

Gift for Jessie

Jessilina Fan

Crossdressing

Type

Hickeys

Journey Arc

Tone

Cooking Twerp

Son

Cooking Advice

Serperior Facts

Cassidy’s Cabin Arc

Father/Son Bonding

Worry 🌟NEW🌟

Later in Relationship

Uniform

Paparazzi

One Upping 🌟NEW🌟

Hand-Me-Downs

Glasses

Study Help

Happy Valentine’s Day

Wrapped

Daddy Daughter Double Battle

Splinter

Married Life

Wedding

Arbok/Weezing Reunion

Snake Eyes

FAQ:

There's a hanamusa section in my FAQ!

[kaleschmidt]

i think abt lining kale and then i burst into tears

[creatingblackcharacters]

"Defying the Default"- Skin Tones and the Presence of Black Characters

Okay, this one is going to be half lesson and half a thought experiment- it may get a bit frustrating, as conversations like this often do- but remember, discomfort is not always a bad thing! So I ask that you walk with me for this one.

It’s also interesting, because I’m going to direct this towards everyone (readers included!), but specifically towards my fanfic writers of media with no visual medium, as I’ve noticed this pattern there, and it makes up a good amount of creators on this site. Okay? Okay.

Behold! Many shades of brown!

I had to wade through a lot of colorism for this, and even this link is subtly racist in its introduction- the idea that brown is ‘unexciting’ 🙄.

Anyway, you know where I’m going with this:

"Chocolate and Coffee"

Even the link above pulled this! Writers who use this... they’re not ‘wrong’ per se but… often uninspired. It feels... Lazy. When you can tell an author has put no thought into the brown of choice, it makes Black readers feel like you believe these are the only shades of brown- that that’s all we look like. Even chocolate is more diverse (white, milk, dark, marbled, cookies and cream?) Coffee can come in numerous shades as well (light, medium, dark roast? Type of bean?)

My first direction to help with this: make it a point to know what shade that character is (whether canonically, or if you're the original creator, look at a reference and write it down) and find a name! Be consistent! Find similar browns to one another. If the canon Black character's skin color is done poorly, find something similar and use that! (I'll get more into this in the next lesson!)

Our skin colors may modify as we age, it changes over the seasons/presence in the sun, and some people even have vitiligo! But we're not gonna be “dark roast coffee” one morning and “light milk chocolate” suddenly. We're not chameleons lmao.

And you know what? That shade you choose might very well be 'coffee'! But it's not going to be because you didn't look and assumed we're all some random brown! That’s the intent showing! If we can find endless ways to describe the beauty of white/pale skin, we absolutely can for brown! Be willing to unpack why you may not believe brown to be capable of beauty, and work through unlearning that- it will show in your writing! One way is by pausing with yourself, and recognizing when you had a biased thought. Even by this, you’re learning!

Here’s where I want us to get into the thought experiment:

I want you to think about the description of characters in stories (as a whole). Challenge yourself- in the fics and stories you read, how often is anyone blatantly labeled 'White'? Read a story or fic; how long can you imagine them as not-White before it's ever clarified? Because not even 'pale' automatically implies a White person!

You know how I’ve mentioned before that 'Black people are not a monolith'? I can find you at least some examples of Black people fitting some of the common descriptions of white characters.

"Brunette with brown eyes"

(Fun fact: I actually learned back in my Masters program that genetically no one has ‘black’ hair- our eyes are processing it as black, but it’s really just dark brown due to eumelanin. Regardless, if you stand us in the direct sunlight, you will see that our hair is usually just dark brown!)

"Red hair with pale skin"

“‘tanned’ skin with hazel/green eyes”

“blond hair" (period!)

Now, I’m not saying that blond haired Black people or Black folk with albinism are overly representative of my people. What I AM saying is that it needs to not be taken for granted that a reader is automatically assuming a character is White in your piece of fiction- I can assume your character looks like anything if it's not stated! Especially if the OG source is a book or a podcast! We’re just used to assigning these features- and characters- as white until ‘proven not’! The default!

I am guilty of this too! Even still, I reread many of my works and go ‘ah, I didn’t clarify.’ And I have to work on doing better at it. This is having intent for your Black characters, but really, it’s having intent for all of them!

(This doesn't mean going “the Black man said,” the way sometimes people say “the Chinese said” (which…. Tbh we should all stop doing that anyway, it's weird and racist))

My Next Challenge:

Some people may disagree, but- Ahem:

Say BLACK!

Breathe lmao! Take the time to recognize that it's OKAY to introduce a character as Black, to say Black, it's fine! Obviously be sensitive about it, don't shove it in there to “win your diversity points”, but like��� People are Black. It's not a bad word. What matters is the context in which you used it!

You don't even have to say it every single time. Really just the first, introductory sentence will do. For example:

“[Character A], a bright, young, Black girl with knotless braids to her mid back, glittering hair clips matching her bright green t-shirt, and a brilliant smile that shined against her bistre skin.”

I recognize that some might argue that by saying “bistre”, you don't need to say Black. But 1) you don't have to be Black to be brown or dark skinned, and 2) There's a social stigma behind even saying Black- of discussing race in general, because it leads to discomfort. Race (as a sociological construct) exists. When we say nothing about it, allowing Whiteness to be the default, we're still emphasizing race, however silently! If you're already doing it... Why not mention it? 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

(here's a good clip of Ijeoma Oluo discussing the difficulty of discussing race; while I highly recommend the whole thing, the relevant clip is 4:25-5:39)

Maybe they're in the Black student organization in a lead position, maybe they're in a Black main cast of a play- it's okay to have those things in the story to help develop the idea that your Black character is actively Black! Just do your research to make sure you’re not leaning into stereotypes!

“There’s no races in my fantasy/future world!”

That’s fair! But I want to give you an example of how people will still project these identities onto your characters anyway:

No one has an explicitly stated 'race' in Avatar: The Last Airbender (afaik); they’re all divided by element culture. YET, many people were offended that a mixed-Korean actress was cast in her role in the live action- they ‘just didn’t see it’, because subconsciously they'd imagined her ‘face claims’ as WHITE, despite it never once being mentioned in the canon! (there’s also a firm sexualization and east Asian fetishization argument to be made about it, but that’s not within the scope of this particular conversation.)

Point is, if you are including humanoid characters in your fantasy stories, fine. You don't need to say ‘Black’ outright. But, that just means that you’re going to have to be even more detailed in your description. Because if I were watching a TV show and a Black actor shows up as an elf… I know what features I’m seeing! Entire protests have occurred over the casting of Black actors in a role ‘meant for a white person’; so... everyone sees it!

Conclusion

This is another reason why intention in character design and writing is important! Context clues and socialization help me understand who your character is. If it works like this for white characters, it can work like that for everyone else! You just have to know enough about me to write it in (and that's where the social and societal bias lie, because how much do you really know about me?)

A way to better understand this is reading books by Black authors (for fantasy, I would highly recommend Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko and Children of Blood and Bone by Tomi Adeyemi) as well as Black literary classics! Finding and reading Black fic authors in fandoms with Black characters! By learning how we describe ourselves and our skin colors, you’ll learn and practice how to appropriately describe us!

Now I can't make you do any of this! But I do want you all- writers especially- to start noticing our bias, how we may default to the experience of whiteness- and how that affects the way we write. When we have Black characters, and really any character of color, we need to start paying attention to how often their features, culture, and activities are emphasized, even for what we may consider to be 'background' details. That’s how we normalize creation and understanding, and become better at writing!

It’s just something to practice; remember, it’s the thought that counts, but the action that delivers!

In addition, if you are interested in a simple read into why approaching race is so uncomfortable as a whole, I've attached Robin DiAngelo's book here! Thank you to the PDF guru @toiletpotato for the link!