#i mainly post and reblog other fandoms

[elegantmantaray]

So i got back into undertale recently, and apparently both Frisk and Sans can be measured using in-game sprites as 2 feet tall.

Which has some implications, mainly for Frisk, 'cause 2 feet tall is absolutely tiny. Like that kid is either a fucking toddler or has some form of dwarfism.

And poor Sans, he is never going to be taken seriously as an adult by any human ever.

idk what their in-universe canon heights actually are, but i find this really fucking funny.

[luna-loveboop]

I made a side blog! @luna-love-reboops is the current url. It's for reblogging stuff. Mainly Loz and Lu content :)

[codecicle-archive]

wanted to apologise for possibly being someone who fucked up ur tl with 18+ slime posts (coming to grips with how tagging works on this here webbedsite!) please take my sincerest (anonymous) apologies ur a cool goober 🙏

ay man it's alright!! really!!! i understand most of the 18+ people are coming from websites like twitter or tiktok so they don't quite understand how it functions :-) if you ever need a tutorial or any help with understanding the culture here, shoot me an ask! it's insanely different from other social media and i completely understand its weird to adjust to and navigate. peace and love + have fun with your slimeposting ✌️

[eliseliedl]

wish all fandoms were as dedicated as tv-related fandoms fr

[loyyvie]

finally learned how to comment with this blog on mobile because I'm too lazy and attached to start a new main

[adaricruz]

THANKS FOR 700+ FOLLOWERS WHAT

[theshadowrealmitself]

Last song: Tot Musica by Ado

Favorite Color(s): Blue and Green

Currently Watching: Bob’s Burgers (on the episode with the double date where they are not liking the other couple)

Sweet/Savory/Spicy: I like my food spicy and savory, my desserts sweet, and my candy sour

Relationship Status: Single

Current Obsession(s): Star Trek (also just aliens in general), Spiderman, and Cult of the Lamb

No Pressure Tags!: @lenacraft @pandorasparad0x @warlock-pan-astronaut @emotional-fandom-soup @inkytrinket-irii @scientifically-fruity @fandomwandererer @marshthemarsh @the-sprog

Nine people i'd like to get to know better:

Tagged by: @bell-of-indecision, thank you so much for tagging me <3

Last Song: Gmfu by Odetari,6arelyhuman

Favourite colour: Dark red, violet, pink

Currently watching: Death note, ep6

Spicy/Savoury/Sweet: Spicy

Relationship status: Single

Current Obsession: Mbti types and cognitive functions.

Tagging: @somin-yin @a-cloud-for-dreams @axepen @hinsaa-paramo-dharma @basic-bitch-alkali @rhysaka @blackknight-100 @squishywizardd @reykalot

[foone]

so I've been a furry for approximately forever but I have never settled on a fursona. So I figured it's 2025, I should let democracy decide my publicly-assigned fursona, right?

Feel free to reply/reblog with propaganda for your choice.

Explanations for why each of these under the cut, plus why an obvious one is missing:

First of all, robots are right out. I don't have a robotsona, I have roboticization dream. if I was a wolfguy I'd be a wolfguy who wants to be a robot wolf.

deer/antelope: I have a dear deer friend so I see a lot of deer stuff, and it does rub off on ya. Plus I just love faun spots. If I wasn't the whitest human who ever whited, I'd have them tattooed on my already. Antlers can also be Gender, which is a plus.

cows: this one is harder to explain. I grew up on a farm, I've always liked cows, and hey, tits are nice. I'm asexual but tits can still be nice.

cats: I have always had cats as pets. I love them. I wish they loved me more (please imagine me as Sakaki from Azumanga Daioh, even though everyone knows my Azumangasona is Osaka). Cat ears are a certified banger, they've got curves and balance and fun noises (meow is overrated. I'm all about the mrrp).

puppies: I've been on kinky trans tumblr too long to not have some of the puppygirl propaganda rub off on me. Plus I wrote a story about wolf HRT, which is close to doggos?

bunnies: You gotta love big bunnies (see wolfertinger666's art for examples of why), but it's mainly because of how hypersexualized they are in the fandom. Bunnies fuck constantly, and I'm asexual. That's hilarious to me.

owls: My wife's #1 favorite species. We have SO MANY owl plushes, you guys. So if I'm gonna be an animal, I should be something she's gonna cuddle forever, right?

dragons: Speaking of my lovely wife, she's a dragon. Maybe I should be a dragon too?

angel: I have joked on several situations that my fursona is Ramiel from NGE. I want to be a giant geometry shape with a heart of atomic fire and a bitter hatred for Tokyo-3.

Slimegirl: I recently did a post about being a slimegirl. Like all my stories, it's a little bit autobiographical. I kinda hate bones.

horsetaur: this has been my go-to furry joke for years. It's something that sounds like it makes sense as long as you don't think about it, so making the horsetaur my official fursona would go along nicely with some of my other favorite lies (my middle initial is B, for Benoit B. Mandlebrot, and I'm 5'12") that serve to confuse people. And no, I will never clarify what the fuck I mean by horsetaur: there are multiple interpretations, and they're all wrong.

[hazel-weekpjo]

HAZEL WEEK 2025

Introduction

Hello !!!! I have noticed a distinct lack of Hazel content in the pjo fandom - I have decided to make a week in January for her. This will have her in groups with other characters as well, but mainly ones I don't see as often.

This will go from January 14th-20th, but I will keep reblogging until the end of February!

Days:

Day 1: Frazel

Day 2: Hazel & Arion

Day 3: Hazel & Piper

Day 4: Hazel & Leo

Day 5: Hazel & Lavina

Day 6: Hazel w/ anyone!

Day 7: Hazel !!!!!!!!

Rules + Other Stuffs:

•Any art, fanfiction, and whatever content is allowed! The only thing that isn't is of course AI.

•No nsfw/suggestive content please. <3

•Don't steal from anyone else!

•You can do any day whenever you want, like I said; I will be reblogging things until the end of February.

•Please tag "#hazel week 2025", what type of content you did, the day, and @ me so I make sure to reblog it!

•Last of all: have fun with this !!!!!!

If you have any questions, reply to this post or message me!

[lavendersartistry]

My point still stands. But as a update:

The AU has been updated and has its own blog. Hopefully I can get Lamb's reference sheet done soon so it can be the new icon for the blog.

Consider checking it out if you want to see the Lamb's parental issues-

I honestly couldn't care if the fandom found this post but to put it simply:

The Cult of the Lamb fandom is icky.

It's funny how I can manage being in the fandom to this day while watching this fandom become to... whatever it is now.

This is a bit why I made my AU, Death and the Archivist.

What i mean is that Death and the Archivist is structured to bring into light of what the fandom turns a blind eye to (lore, less favorable and more favorable npcs, the bishops, narilamb flaws) because the fandom is just raging in shipping, woobifying characters, infantilizing Leshy, inappropriate jokes and probably more.

The AU is made to show how dark Cult of the Lamb is exactly. Like the bishops and Narinder are guilty of the lamb massacre and should be punished accordingly by Lamb because their race was wiped clean because of a prophecy due to Narinder's betrayal of the laws of the Old Faith. Yet the fandom badly uses Narinder and praise the bishops as if they never did anything wrong.

Yeah, people are allowed to interpret the characters of the game how they want but to this point, the fandom's "code" is to ship Narilamb without looking deeper into their relationship, woobify characters constantly, never make fem and male ocs interesting, disregard matters like Sozo's shroom addiction, and push aside other npcs for the more popular npcs.

So yeah, I guess I'm alone on this criticism with this icky-inducing fandom-

[tinyfantasminha]

I don't want to keep clogging my blog with vent posts but uh... I guess this is a more general concern/observation

But it's getting real hard to stay motivated in fandom spaces when there's little compensation, and annoying occurrences are more frequent than good ones.

Mainly there's been less engagement/people showing interest in creators and their art (such as sending asks, making comments and reblogging with tags) and MORE parasocial interactions. This goes for both artists and writers.

Over this year I've noticed a vast disinterest within my public in general. Asks about ocs, my art, or just nice simple comments of ''I love your art'' has been getting more and more scarce. My follower number is bigger than 2-3 years ago sure and I get more likes on my posts but they are feeling more like just numbers and statistics than actual people who supposedly like my stuff.

And while people being parasocial with creators has always been a thing, I feel like it's gotten way worse... in general? People sending personal pictures out of the blue in hopes of being validated, unwanted psychological advice or assumptions about the creator without any established connection first ( <- these happened to me in the same week.) ventdump, just insensitive/lacking of common sense comments in general, unreasonable demands (mostly with writers)... I wondered at first if it was just me, but a handful of mutuals/acquaintances who are artists and writers seems to be going through it as well.

It's annoying. It's tough. It's getting exhausting. Creators pour so much of themselves into their work—countless hours, effort, and passion, all to share something meaningful or entertaining with others (and for FREE) The LEAST anyone can do is show respect, even if opinions differ. When a writer posts a fanfic, don't just say ''omg post next chapter!'', when an artist posts a drawing of their favorite character, don't just say ''omg draw (character) next!'' as if they're faceless content machines that are expected to churn out more '''content''' for you without acknowledgment, encouragement, or appreciation.

''I want to support creators but I don't know what to say and I feel intimidated by their talent so I just lurk silently :((('' I swear to you, no creator (at least not the majority) is making up an intimidating persona to discourage you from interacting with them. They WANT your comments. A single ''I love your art/writing/videos'' or even something as silly as ''I want to eat your art'' is enough to keep a creator sighing dreamily for WEEKS. It doesn't have to be deep! It's heartfelt and that's what it matters!! (Just remember to keep it relevant and thoughtful... It takes just a bit of common sense NOT to comment things like ''this looks like (another character)'' or ''this but with (another unrelated ship/character/show)''. No one wants to hear comparisons or unrelated ideas when they’ve poured their soul into something.)

In fact, the ''I like your art but I think you're intimidating'' feels more hurtful than flattering. It makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, acting wrong. 💀

If you love that fanfic that changed your brain psyche forever and want to gush about it, go tell the writer. If you loved so much a piece of art that you saved it a million times in your phone and can't stop thinking about it, go tell the artist. Push away the ''they probably won't care about my comment/it won't make a difference'' thoughts. DO IT NOW. You won't know when they might go inactive forever or deactivate. You can't know if that is the last piece they will ever post. Make sure you show appreciation to creators NOW, while they are still here. While they're still not being replaced by AI.

[fisheebonez]

Welcome to my dumpster

A little introduction about me and this account ;P About me: -You can call me Fishee or Skotic / Skot, -Trans and bisexual dude, I use he/they pronouns -I am an 18 year old Vietnamese, my English is not very good ^^' -I have a tiktok account (@/ s0upb0yf1shee) and discord (skotic), while I do have twitter but however it is not for UTMV and it is inactive for a while, if you see "me" on other platforms that I don't have, it must be an impersonator -Very awkward and shy, but don't be afraid to DM me! (I won't bite, only shaking like a wet dog) -Downbad for Classic Sans

-Lowkey a dumbass, please let me know if I follow a proshipper or problematic people TvT...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ About this account: -Mainly post and reblog about UTMV, however I can post / reblog other fandoms as well -SFW account but post + reblog can contains some suggestive content or violent, ect -DNI: proshipper, darkshipper, comshipper (more on thin ice since not all complex ships are problematic, however this term is sort of being shifted into something similar to proship so uh, yeah don't) , TERFs, fontcest, racist, pro-isn'treal, bigots #not my art : reblog #fishee art : my art :p

#fishee answers : answer some questions I got! Feel free to send me your ask or messages! (note: I don't do art request sadly </3) PLEASE CREDIT ME IF YOU REPOST MY ART. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Boundaries: -Don't be jokingly rude to me, especially if we are not close friends, some jokes like *explodes you* are acceptable though -I'm alright with tagging! But please don't tag me in heavy topic posts -You don't have to ask for my permission if you want to draw my characters / designs + use my art as pfp or banner, just credit me properly ^^ -I don't mind romantic or semi sexual comments about my adult characters, but don't make any kind of comments like that towards me and my sona or my minor ocs -I'm fine with people taking inspiration from my artstyle or designs, just don't copy it completely

my sona btw, i'm lazy to make a proper ref sheet 😭

[tales-from-elysivm]

Can you do some headcanons or stories on arcane? Specifically Vi or Sevika if your comfortable. I was just wondering but if you don't want to then you don't have to, you have free will.

Know that you're loved!

★。／ !bark like you want it! ＼。★

pairing: vi x f!reader, sevika x f!reader (separate)

fandom: arcane

word count: 1,470

tw: canon typical swearing/slang, some light spoiler warnings, and MDNI content, mainly because we know these are some dominant ass women ;) 

THIS IS NSFW CONTENT! BE WARNED!

song title: bark like you want it by sir mix-a-lot

notes: i love my girl vi so this request was a given, thank you anon! Hope you enjoy! :D I normally didn't like Sevika as much, but I will admit, writing her head canons for this post definitely made me reconsider

! be sure to like and reblog if you enjoyed !

↳˗ˏviˎ˗ ↴

Vi is (without a doubt) very rough around the edges

She’s street-smart but she doesn’t really know what to do when it comes to actual romantic relationships, sex is easy, feelings are hard 

Her time in Stillwater makes her distrustful of people, along with her generally traumatic and difficult childhood, so it will probably take a while for her to begin to see you in a less-than-threat way

After that things are pretty smooth

You don’t really know where the split between ‘friendship’ and ‘relationship’ is, because they both include her joking, flirtatious personality ranging from skirting touches on your thighs and up your back, or teasing pet names like ‘sweetheart’, ‘cupcake’ and ‘love’

Other than that she’s very protective of you, especially if you live in Zaun

If you go out on errands she’ll always make sure she’s conveniently there at the times you like to go, able to loop an arm around your waist and guide you through the crowds

If someone is stupid enough to try and pull something on either one of you, Vi is not above beating the shit out of someone to keep them from laying a hand on you

I have a feeling that she’d confess to you accidentally in the middle of a fight

Perhaps she had been disappearing for long periods of time, and coming back bloodied and injured, refusing to tell you anything of her adventures (mainly because she doesn’t want to worry you). And eventually you pester her for a bit too long and begin a full verbal fight, where she suddenly blurts that she loves you

Now as a lover?

The teasing banter still remains, her little playful nicknames too, if anything they get worse. But she gets more confident with her touches, more deliberate. A hand in your backpocket while you’re walking, an arm around your shoulder, pinching your ass when you’re waiting outside a store, this girl has no shame

! mdni content below !

Now, i have a feeling that Vi isn’t really uneducated when it comes to sex

If anything i feel like she’s a fast learner-

The first time you actually lie together, Vi is sure to take it at your own pace, eager to please beneath a taunting smile, even if you don’t know what you like at first, she’s likely to find it quickly 

I personally don’t see Vi as owning too many sex toys - if any at all - but i think she would 100% favour using her fingers to anything else

Just the way you clench down on them, how she can use the rough calluses on the pad of her thumb on your clit to her advantage, and how deep she can pry, anything to make you scream for her

To be honest? I also 10000% expect her to try and flip you over and put you in a chokehold with her forearm tight against your throat, just adding enough delicious pressure to hitch your breath, but never enough to hurt too much

9/10

Her oral game would be fucking good too, i can tell. But she’d probably prefer to finger you or use a strap-on so she can continue to tease you with all these sinful little things she can come up with while she fucks into you

I’d say more of a biter, but she can still eat you out like a starving woman

Oral game 7/10

Aftercare is important to her, always making sure that she wasn’t too rough with you, cleaning you up, running you a bath or just lying with you to cuddle. Wants to make sure you know that you’re more important to her than some casual fling, and that she wants to ensure your happiness above anything

(Also gives you some balm for the definite bruises on your thighs and throat :D)

↳˗ˏsevikaˎ˗ ↴

Sevika is… intense

In all honesty, probably started as enemies

She probably wouldn’t want anything to do with you unless you already worked with Silco, so we could say you started in the shimmer warehouses, helping to distribute it throughout Zaun

You get your work done effectively, so Sevika overall sees you as a valuable position in the business, and keeps you around without much complaint

At some point Silco requested you deliver a hefty batch of shimmer to a more dangerous part of the Undercity, and sent Sevika with you to ensure no messes were left behind

Safe to say, you were ambushed

Despite Sevika being there to ‘protect’ you, you’re still able to hold your own, displaying proficient skill with your weapons against bandits who thought they could steal some of the shimmer vials. In the carnage, Sevika decides begrudgingly that she has respect for you

From there, it’s less of a ‘friendship’ and more of a drinking buddy situation

She doesn’t often tolerate the presence of others in her private time, so you label it as a friendship initially

She’s slightly more soft-spoken when she’s alone with you, and shares her cigars with you while she’s gambling, which often earns a strange look from her opponents as you hover over her mechanical shoulder with her cigar hanging from between your lips to see her hand, a bit too close

But Sevika lets you be without anything more than a bit of a grumble

I don’t think she’d even particularly say outright that she loves you

What happens is - instead - that you both have a drinking binge at the pub one night, after a successful night of gambling, and you both get absolutely shit-faced

While drunk she drags you back to her house and the night is filled with hazy sex, enthusiastic makeouts and early-morning cigarette smoke

You try to sneak out the next morning, expecting it to only be a one-night thing

She catches you (i headcanon that she’s a pretty light sleeper, but i suppose that could be said for most Zaunites). I don’t think she’d even say it then, just drag your ass back to bed for a (consensual) round two

After that you go to the bar together as normal, go about your business, now with the added bonus of Sevika protectively snarling at a drunk guy hitting on you by saying ‘that’s my spouse, fuck off’

(And of course, with plenty of sneaky sex between your deliveries and hurried makeouts :D)

! mdni content below !

BUCKLE YOUR SEATBELTS MFS, THIS SHIT IS KINKY

I would like to clarify, you will never top in this situation, Sevika would rather die than bottom to anyone, no matter how much she loves you

Spanking, spanking, spanking, spanking–

Hickeys, bruises, bite marks, the red tracks of her nails over your back, just anything that would leave even the most fleeting mark on your skin

That being said, would also 100% leave hickeys on places she knows you can’t hide easily

Definitely into sex toys (ball gags, bondage, strap ons and vibrators with little remotes she can keep in her pocket just in case, she especially likes to plant down one of those dildos with the suction cups and get you to ride it, all the while begging for her to just touch you, but she refuses, smoking as she watches you cry out for her)

She also likes crying-

I think she’d prefer to have you from behind, your back against her chest, ramming into you with one of her favourite straps, one hand pinching at your nipples, tweaking them between her fingers, and the other rolling tight circles on your clit, sometimes switching one out to wrap around the column of your throat

Definitely into edging on most days, and will resort to overstim if she’s happy with the work you’ve done in the day

Risky sex is definitely her thing, in her office in Silco’s base, in the warehouse on the crates of shimmer, under her desk, you on your knees to service her

She’s especially rough, and absolutely loves some degradation, and the way it makes you clench around her strap or her fingers, your eyes rolling back into your head while you scream for her

Aftercare is rarely over-the-top

She’ll cuddle you if you ask her explicitly but she prefers to share a cigar with you, or blowing smoke into your open mouth while you breathe against her bare chest

If she’s been unable to fuck you for some time, she’ll clean you up after about four or five rounds, mainly by eating you out until you end up giving her another two, but she’ll make sure you’re clean before you pass out anyway

Despite everything, Sevika will always make sure she doesn’t go to far

If anyone asks though, she will absolutely deny how she always makes sure you remember your safeword before you have sex after a makeout

thanks for the request anon!

if you have any more requests don't hesitate to ask :)

[halfusek]

Something inky this way comes! The Ink Demonth emerges once again!

The Ink Demonth is a 31-day event dedicated to the game Bendy and the Ink Machine (and other games associated with the Bendy universe). It’s based on daily themes. As long as your creation involves elements from the game along with any interpretation of the respective day’s theme – it counts!

You don’t have to create something for each day, make as many creations as you’d like. However, if you manage to do all 31 of them, you can submit a form to receive a little gift (drawing request)! In the form, you will have to provide a link to each of your posted event submissions (it doesn’t have to be Tumblr, just a site that’s publically accessible!).

Here is the link to the form (it will be opened from September 1st to September 30th 2024):

Tag your creations with #The Ink Demonth and #Bendy and the Ink Machine. It’s important if you want to have your entry reblogged by me, which I’m going to do to everything I’ll see in this tag. (So don’t @ me, just tag it with the event’s tag and the game’s name. It’s possible that your post may not show up in the tags, if you notice that I’m not reblogging your entries for a longer while, feel free to DM them directly to me on Tumblr. My focus will be mainly on Tumblr, I may interact with posts on other sites but it is going to be with whatever I run into, as this event is Tumblr-focused. Feel free to post on other sites too, though!)

(And, though I think it goes without saying, if I notice a post containing something I consider harmful content, I will not reblog it and will warn the creator of such content that, depending on the case, they cannot continue to take part in the event with content like this or perhaps even not at all.)

Remember to tag only the finished entries, so the tag isn’t clogged with WIPs!

You can create whatever you’d like! Draw a picture! Write a fic! Do a video edit! Take a cosplay photo! Anything you can come up with that is a creative interpretation of that day’s theme!

(Don’t try to „cheat the system”, though – don’t submit a, let’s say, straight line for each day, I will notice this kind of spam and remember: spamming is a terrible sin. You can make an entry that covers a few themes but as long as you don’t create 31 things, the gift will not be granted to you.)

The event starts on the 1st of August and ends on the 31st. Although, don’t worry if you’re too busy in August, late entries are always welcome! (…for reblogging, as for drawing gifts I’m going to give all of you an extra month, so if you’re aiming for that, the end of September is your deadline.)

Why in August? I figured that since August is the month on Joey’s calendar in his apartment and August is the month during which BatIM takes place, it should be the one! 

Please, make sure to tag appropriate trigger/content warnings!

Thank you for taking your time to read this. Reblogs are appreciated in order to get the word out.

Have fun everyone! 💛🖤

The themes this year have been thought out with the contribution of @sillyarchliker @insane-control-room @nayialovecat @skxllbxnny @doodle17 @ashciz @twinscovercorner @yellowmellow182 @lil-artist-blog-fandoms-ocs @a-vast-horizon @archer-kacey and from Twitter whom I can't tag here @AnaXisca @Josie57943943 @SirKeophimanh @BeyzaTheArtis @MadHatterison1 @GammaRoomba20

Thank you all for the theme suggestions! <3

You can view this year's themes in text under the cut~

Nostalgia

Tea

Hoax

Umbrella

Secret

Drop

Projection

Line

Record

Exhibit

Melody

Copy

Bow

Steam

Draft

Erase

Sailor

Rival

Hide

Gossip

Sillyvision

Heartbeat

Stairs

Obsession

Offering

Mask

Revenge

Regret

Queer

Cage

The End

[under-loch-n-key]

I know it’s been a while since I post so here’s some Hazbin art. I may upload some more Lucifer and Alastor stuff in the future. I honestly gave up on this because my app kept crashing so it’s kinda messy in some places and a bit all over the place.

This takes place after season 1. Lucifer is trying to heal Alastor’s wound and senses a foreign energy in him. Then a bunch of arguing later, he finds out that it’s Lilith. So, then it clicks for him as to why Alastor was/is at the hotel.

I’m currently working on a fic of it so if you’re interested in reading it, maybe I’ll continue it. I’ll just have to see how my motivation is. [,:

—

I do make ship art of them but as an aroace person, I don’t think I’ll be making any NSFW stuff of them because idk if I feel comfy about that. I’ll just see what I’m personally comfortable with in the future though! If I do, I will NOT be anything too graphic or intense because yeah, no.. the art that will be uploaded of them will mainly just be crack/chaotic art and fluffy, domestic stuff of them. Lol.

Soooo, anyways, enjoy my phone doodle! I cramped my fingers drawing this and wanted to chuck my phone across my room because I had to restart this drawing multiple times because my sketchbook app would crash and wouldn’t save anything. QvQ 💛

(This is also gonna be a mini-comic so this is just the first panel of a very short comic thingy. Lmao.)

—

(Also, side note, if you don’t ship it, that’s fine. However, please do NOT attack me or any other shippers in reblogs or comments with the statement of us betraying the aroace community or something like that. I am Aroace myself and it’s hurtful to be told that by people who I share a fandom with. I am on a similar spectrum as Alastor and it’s very hard for me to develop those kind of genuine attractions but that doesn’t mean that myself or other aroace people are not capable of those things. I feel infantilised when I see non-aro and non-ace folk speaking up on our behalf. I don’t mind it, per se, but when they act like they are the final say of our community, that’s where I personally take issue. If I am offended by something, I will speak up, I feel like I’m being treated like a child when people do stuff like that.

I do not personally need a non-aroace person speaking up on my behalf. I’m not offended when I see ship art regarding the character of Alastor. I DO get offended when people completely erase his asexuality, act like he has no idea has his anatomy works/infantilise him, erase his boundaries, etc. if you’re making art and fics with care and consideration toward his identity then I’m completely okay. Just be respectful.

I have seen/read some NSFW stuff regarding that character where the artist does handle it with care and respect. I have seen others that.. well.. don’t do that. Lol.

If someone is being genuinely disrespectful toward my community then please say something but DO NOT harass people over simple domestic SFW fanart. Just be nice to people please!!!! I will turn off comments or remove the comments if you attack people over a ship. Know that I am NOT the final say either. This is my personal input and opinion and do not take this as gospel!)

Art is meant to be loved and enjoyed. So, just enjoy and be kind to people please! 💛💛

[neuroticbookworm]

Engagement of QL Fandom in Indian Queer Media

I was tagged by @lurkingshan and invited to respond to an ask she received from @impala124 that noted the absence of India in the Asian queer media spaces and discussions, and questioned the reasons behind it. @starryalpacasstuff has also responded to it in a great post (check out the reblog additions for a treasure trove of Indian queer media recs), discussing, among many things, Korea’s culture export aiding their queer media ventures, access to Indian queer media, and the quality of Indian queer media. @twig-tea’s addition discussed the ease of access of Thai BLs via YouTube and how it prompted Korea and Japan to re-enter the genre.

My thoughts on Indian queer media are complicated and involve several detours to understand Indian media culture, its economic power, and how it navigates international viewership. For context, I am an Indian cinephile who grew up watching a wide variety of Indian media in terms of both language and genre. I naturally transitioned into watching Western content as globalization of the 2010s brought HBO and Comedy Central to Indian screens, and later sought out queer media, Asian media and Asian queer media on the internet.

Indian Media Industry - A Primer

I know there are a lot of countries right now that produce QL media, so I am gonna mainly consider Thailand, Japan, and Korea, the three countries most prolific with ql, for the purpose of this discussion. All of these countries, while regionally diverse, have managed to considerably homogenize in language and culture over the course of history and colonization. India, on the other hand, is still significantly and distinctly diverse in language, culture, religion, food, media styles, social norms, and on and on. India has 22 official languages and thousands of regional ones that are used in various capacities everyday. This diversity is then reflected in the media produced by India, with multiple powerhouse film industries dominating box offices simultaneously. Bollywood is the biggest one and obviously well known internationally, but Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Punjabi, Bengali-language film industries are successful in their own right and consistently produce box office hits and self-sustain in the larger Indian media landscape. This makes domestic media highly regional in India. Even today, in the age of social media, it takes a box office success to the tune of hundreds of millions of rupees for a film to break out of its domestic audience and cross over into other Indian states.

This diversity has also led to the different industries developing media styles unique to them. I watched this video a while ago of a creator documenting his experience of dipping toes into Indian Cinema for the first time, and he ends up covering three movies from three different industries, because the pathos of each of them is so fundamentally different yet effective in their own ways. This diversity also applies to the television industry, both traditional cable TV soaps, and the modern shows made for streaming sites. And all of this, *waves hands*, presents a set of challenges like no other country faces for both Indian queer creators and Indian queer media audiences.

The Challenges for Creators

Since the Indian media industry is not a big monolith and is made up of multiple film industries, queer creators who are trying to get their foot in the door will face a unique uphill battle in whichever regional industry they’re trying to break into. And trying to research, learn, and understand each and every single one of them will take me and my non-existent research team years, so the simpler thing to do would be listing the factors that have worked for other countries to foster their media industries to produce QL content, and discuss if India could replicate them. The list goes like this:

Japan’s rich history in yaoi

Thailand’s use of BL as a soft power to promote tourism

Korea’s culture export via kpop and other media

While India does have religious mythology that discusses sex, gender and queerness, it is often subtext with a lot of intersectionality. Does Ardhanarishvara represent fluid gender, or a symbol of harmony, or both? The debates are endless. Japan’s yaoi roots are as deep as they are explicit. And this rich history could be why the Japanese domestic audience is open to queer media even when the country is still conservative.

Thailand’s rise as a major player in the QL industry is remarkable, but there is a case to be made that the country’s media industry was directly and indirectly boosted by the government’s interest in establishing revenue from tourism, and exporting culture to international audiences via food and media. While the revenue from tourism in India is substantial, the Indian economy is not built on it. And the Indian media industry is thriving and regularly makes bank with their already established content models, so the producers have a pretty low incentive to deviate and fund queer media.

I bet every coin I own that not a single one of us on this hellsite have successfully eluded the allure of Korean media in our lives. The Korean media industry is a well-calibrated machine that shall and will target every single human into funneling their time, attention and money into the Korean culture and economy. And I think queer creators looking to make queer content in Korea would’ve had good incubation in an industry that was looking to make as much content as possible. And once again, while Indian movies have significant international box office collections, that is not where the Indian media industry, and just India in general, makes its money. The priorities are just not the same. And to be perfectly honest, India is nowhere near the level of Korea at producing and exporting television shows to international audiences.

All of this is a long winded way of saying that the conditions required to foster a QL industry in India are not the same as what we have seen work so far from the other major players. And sadly no one has really figured out the winning formula yet.

These are just a few reasons, and I haven’t even discussed nepotism and how painful class mobility is in India, making it even harder for new queer creators to break into the industry. There’s a reason why movies with queer representation like Badhaai Do, Shubh Mangal Zyada Saavdhan, Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga, and Kapoor & Sons all feature characters in the upper middle class or above. Hell, they’re even played by actors whose portfolio is already filled with daring and experimental roles, or by first- or second-gen nepo babies who would literally have nothing to lose from the potential backlash for playing a queer character. Poor, queer characters in Indian media have never been a part of a fluffy romance as far as I know. They are reserved for the gritty dramas where intersectionality of queerness, poverty, class and caste could be examined.

The Challenges for the Audience

And once again, all of this, *aggressively waves hands*, makes things harder for even the domestic audience to engage with Indian queer media, let alone international audiences. Kathaal - The Core, a 2023 Malayalam movie about a queer man in his fifties coming out of the closet and contesting in his village body elections, was a box office success in Kerala, and I can tell y’all with complete certainty that not many people outside of Kerala would’ve even heard of it. And this was not some small indie venture – in fact, the lead characters were played by Mammootty and Jyothika, who are both absolute legends in their own right in the South Indian film industry.

Super Deluxe was a 2019 Tamil-language black comedy film that tells four interwoven stories that run in parallel, and one of the stories is about a trans woman who, pre-transition, was married and had a son. She returns to her family as her post-transition self after years of disappearance, and the film engages in conversation around sex and gender, through the innocent questions of her young son. The movie is gorgeously made, and outrageously sharp and witty in its commentary on society’s views on sex, morality, religion and family. And once again, I don’t think it is well-known outside of the domestic and international award-circuit audiences it was promoted to (last I checked, it was available to domestic audiences on Netflix).

Sometimes, even the domestic audience might miss the queer representation in their regional media when it is indie enough to not get aggressively promoted. The Hindi-language anthology movie from Netflix, Ajeeb Daastaans (2021), featured a story where two women from different caste and social class meet at the workplace (the sapphic story, Geeli Pucchi, starts at 1:17:05, if anyone wants to check it out). It served biting commentary on the intersectionality of queerness, misogyny, caste and class. And once again, I’ve never found a person with whom I could discuss it with (other than my mom, with whom I watched it).

And sometimes, even when a massive show with queer representation is well promoted and well received by critics, it still manages to fly under the radar in Indian queer fandom spaces. Amazon Prime India spent a lot of coin on the show Made in Heaven (2019) – and it was worth it. The show follows the lives of two wedding planners, Tara and Karan. Karan is closeted (except to his close friends) for most of the show, but after he makes some powerful enemies in his line of work, he gets publicly outed, which puts him on the path of dealing with his family’s shades of acceptance, queer rights activism, and reconciling with an old friend. The car scene in episode 9 made me cry, and yet I’ve never read a word about this show from Indian QL fan blogs here on Tumblr.

Following every film and TV show that releases in one language, across all modes and platforms, and keeping an eye out for queer representation is hard enough. Doing it in multiple languages is downright impossible. And then personal preferences come into play. Personally, I enjoy nearly all genres of media, but I am primarily an angst monster, so I seek out and watch sad shit on the regular. All four examples I’ve listed in this section are good queer representations, but they are deeply sad, rage-inducing, heartbreaking and realistic. If one wanted to watch an Indian queer romance that’s inside the bubble, I’m not sure if they can even find one – I have certainly not come across any. Even the queer Bollywood movies designed for a box office run, paying homage to iconic Bollywood romance sequences, were still outside the bubble. When a niche audience like the QL fandom collides with a complex media-churning machine like the Indian media industry that is fundamentally not designed to cater to them, all we get is a lot of puzzled looks and question marks.

A Thought Experiment On The Future Of Indian QLs

Now that I have established the challenges, I want to engage in a little thought experiment – if we were to receive a steady stream of Indian QL content, what would it look like, and how can the fandom engage with it?

If we are looking for content from a stable production entity for Indian queer media, like Thailand’s GMMTV, Japan’s MBS Drama Shower, and Korea’s Strongberry, we would be waiting for a long time, at the very least a decade or two. What we could get are small indie queer shows like Romil and Jugal, squirreled away in a streaming platform exclusive to India and only accessible internationally via VPN. Another example is the list of sapphic shows @twig-tea shared with us a while ago, here. These are gonna be low budget, probably-not-great-quality shows reminiscent of early GMMTV.

Another variety of QL content we could get are the Bollywood queer romance films and TV shows. They will be cheesy and tropey and romantic, and might interact with the bubble, but probably mostly from the safety of an upper middle class setting. This means they would eventually run out of fresh perspectives they could tune into in their limited scope and the stories might turn stale and repetitive (I’m deriving this from the general state of things in the Indian media landscape over the last couple years). International access might be a little easier than the previous case, but not as easy as going to YouTube and hitting play.

The third and final variety are the gritty dramas with heavy social, cultural, religious, gender and class commentary that Indian cinema industry has always made, and has upgraded in the recent years to include queerness. Once again, the access will be hard, but if we are looking for queer stories that also show the audience what it is like being queer in India, beyond the glitz, the glam and the colors of pre-packaged Indian experience often sold to the West, this is where we will find it. Most of it will be sad, but we are a sad bunch who constantly make sad shit, so it will be on brand for us.

And all of these different varieties of content are gonna need to be picked up and promoted by the Indian folks in the QL fandom who are tuned into these regional industries. India not being a cultural monolith that is easy to package and ship is precisely why we have all these beautiful and crazy and sometimes even contradictory styles of media that are offered for us to explore. And therefore, the fandom engagement on Indian QL content would also vastly differ from the fandom engagement for Japan, Thailand and Korea. A dedicated fandom captain might not emerge, but rather, a collective group of folks tuning into and promoting finds from their regional industries would be the way to go. In addition, if this content is not available in English, we would need fan subbers to provide translation expertise to even make it accessible, something we see often for Japanese media on Tumblr.

I know from observation that watching media in a different regional language could sometimes be as foreign to Indian audiences as watching media from other countries. The language, traditions, mannerisms, social mores and food would all be different from region to region, but I guess it would be a good litmus test to observe how well the fandom acclimates to a culture that is so eye-wateringly diverse and not as constantly promoted to them.

When I was texting @waitmyturtles discussing how we can approach answering this question (remember when this all started with a question, some two thousand-ish words ago? Yes, that question), at a point in our conversation I exclaimed "Ugh, everything in India is too complicated!" This long-ass post of mine is in no way the complete account of why things are the way they are in the Indian queer media landscape. But all I know for sure is that it’s not simple. And I really do not want anything related to India to be simple, because being unbearably frustrating and complicated is not a bug, but a feature of India. The road to Indian QLs is unique, but I will do my best to check the paths and share and recommend them to my friends whenever possible. And I invite my fellow Indian QL fans to do the same.