#in defense of fanworks

[s2pdoktopus]

Gintoki is here as Takasugi's vertical support, Zura is here as Gintoki's moral support!

Anyway, to answer Gintoki's question:

Takasugi used Pay Day!

It's super effective!

[sirmacintosh]

"The Horror will grow mild, this Darkness, light."

Idk I really love Sinner Adam, but also how Luci almost certainly has some complicated feelings towards him

Also I dont make comics or render like this I kind of enjoyed the challenge

[lokiinmediasideblog]

There's a certain kind of cutesiness and wholesomeness that will piss me off. I have to tell myself not to be a bitch. It's harmless.

[animecreator3000]

Every time I rewatch some episode of Boueibu HK I wonder again how the staff even planned this season. Like. Almost nothing meaningful happens with the characters

TLDR the characters with the most developement in HK are the monsters

Kyoutarou is there as a complete contrast to Yumoto while keeping the battle speeches so his characterization doesn't make much sense. Nanao is mere fujoshi bait. Taiju and Taishi have random bits of dialogue that hint at possible arcs for s2 but not enough to tell us what it really is. Maasa has an unfinished arc in his episode, where supposedly he's putting fatty butter in his cookies to make everyone else overweight because he resents Ichiro not defending him when they were little, but then his friends tell him it's fine and then he can move on??? This would work with Ichiro's theme of not wanting to be immature or dense anymore, except they only ever used this theme as a gag (misunderstanding the meaning of whatever the others have said) or to straight up humilliate him (ep4) and continue treating him like a stupid baby. At the end of the season Maasa and him have made peace somehow and that's it. Ata gets in my opinion the closest thing to a complete arc, even if it's just staring angrily at Kyoutarou for ten episodes, then explaining his problem while fighting him and finally getting his apology and reconcilliation. At least it's something. And poor Ryouma is just there to be the butt of a few jokes about how he lets Nanao and Kyoutarou use him, be in a couple of cute shippy scenes, and also for Ata to completely dismiss him from the flashbacks to the point where if they had first met in high school nothing would've changed.

The relationships barely have developement either. Love had anime episodes and manga chapters dedicated to the different close friendships solving their conflicts and becoming closer. There were also many instances of seeing how close the Hakone brothers-defense club and Beppu brothers' relationships were, and even though they didn't have any conflict between themselves, they made them strong sides for the final fight. Yumoto didn't get a character arc but through the entire anime he was revealed to be strong, considerate, forgiving and mature, willing to kindly befriend the Beppu twins for his brother but not let them walk all over him; contrary to how he was presented in the first episodes, like a stereotypical magical girl protagonist. Anyway in HK there's no meaningful conflict between any of them besides Kyoutarou and Ata. Taishi and Ichiro argue constantly but don't show to genuinely like each other after all like IoRyuu or EnAtsu did. Ichiro and Maasa never make any progress to be together again, Maasa hints once at liking Taishi and nothing comes from it, and Nanao and Taiju have the most artificial friendship in the cast that I just do not understand. They just ran an ice cream shop once with again unexplained success and make sassy remarks at each other ever since. And I guess Karurusu and Furanui had a bit of developement thanks to Kyou and Ata in ep12. Idk about the aliens, this time it's like they didn't do it completely well but also not as bad as with the rest of the cast. Maybe bc they didn't appear as much as the humans in most of the episodes

I'm realizing now that a few of these complaints are related to Nanao acting weird

Idk where to put this but I'd like to point out Kinshiro's principles of halting the fight with the Battle Lovers as soon as he finds out that the s1 conflict was set up for a reality show and actively defending them from an attack because they're Binan students, despite still not having received his apology from Atsushi. Ata might've done the same if the HK finale's events had gone in the same order (travelling to Honyalaland to fight Wao, then Kyoutarou apologizing to Ata), but he doesn't feel as a character as deep as Kinshiro in that sense bc they didn't really show him to be in other ways.

Love feels more like an actual group of people while HK feels like they were filling in friendship group roles or something

[fandomtrumpshate]

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Signups are open!

[brokenorbornthatway]

🔥

I've got something to say to antis:

I have seen with my own two eyes some of y'all saying that it's wrong to "abuse" characters in fanworks. I've seen y'all saying "this character would NEVER do that!", "This character doesn't deserve to be shipped in this way!"

Y'all realize that not only are there no real people being hurt in fiction, but none of your precious characters are being hurt in fanworks either? (I mean of course you don't, otherwise you'd all shut the fuck up forever.)

But seriously fanfiction and fanart are transformative, as in they are distinctly NOT the originals. As in when someone writes or draws a character, it is no longer the original character. They are inspired by, modeled after, and share the name of the original characters, but they are not and never will be the original by definition. They are the artists' interpretation/depiction of the character, not the original characters themselves. They are separate entities from the original characters.

The original characters you care so much about don't need your defenses. A) they aren't fucking real oh my god please stop treating fictional characters like real people with real feelings. B) fanworks depicting whatever you'd consider abusing your favorite character don't affect the original in anyway whatsoever because THEY'RE TRANSFORMATIVE.

Only the original artist has the power to put the original character in abusive situations, so stop getting so butthurt over artists depicting characters in ways you find "icky".

[somerunner]

[Image ID: An online news headline, which reads as follows:

The Internet Archive Loses Its Appeal of a Major Copyright Case

Hachette v. Internet Archive was brought by book publishers objecting to the archive's digital lending library.

/End ID]

I'd also add that fanworks are possibly a big part of how a fandom maintains interest in an IP between new releases, how they get other people to become interested in the IP, and overall are a massive driving force behind the demand for an ongoing (or completed) IP. I think it's pretty rare that fanworks have ever reduced demand of an IP; even piracy can be very beneficial for an IP (only when the IP is mostly or entirely unreachable without it, though).

That's all my own opinion and completely unsourced. Take what I said here with a big grain of salt until you see a real study backing it up, and even then retain some doubt.

i am pro-copyright infringement. anybody who does fanfiction or fanart or anything should be pro-copyright infringement and obviously we are on the Fanart Website. why this is not a more popular stance among people who spend all their time doing transformative works is beyond me

[nighthaunting]

This deserves a more in-depth post but I’ve been thinking about Morgott again and just off the cuff it IS very funny in terms of symmetry that Marika imprisoned Morgott in the Shunning Grounds to the point that he was shackled to keep him there and now Morgott is doing such a good job defending the Erdtree to keep the Tarnished from burning his city down that he’s incidentally keeping Marika imprisoned in her Elden Ring Breaker’s Time Out Crucifixion Evergaol

How the turn tables type situation honestly

Morgott’s devotion to the Erdtree is continually framed as him being overly invested in the Golden Order’s dogma by fandom which is I think a misread of his situation, as I’ve said before, but Morgott’s devotion to defending the Erdtree has also kept Marika imprisoned for ???? years so he’s also honestly doing more than any other demigod to directly pay her back for his terrible childhood, and its entirely unwitting which is the funniest part

I have seen a lot of fanworks belaboring Morgott’s imagined mommy issues and religious issues but I think we need to lean in more on the fact that Morgott was also directly keeping anyone from breaking the Erdtree open like a piñata to find out what happened to Marika for the length of An Age

The Veiled Monarch running Leyndell like its the fucking Navy and whenever anyone asks him what happened to the God Queen he’s like ‘its fine don’t worry about it also under no circumstances should anyone approach the Erdtree Sanctuary no reason she just needs her privacy’

Did he occasionally hear muffled clanging coming from inside as Radagon tried to fix the Elden Ring and ignore it because it’s none of his business?

IDK I just think this is very funny Morgott successfully jailed his Godly parent for like a thousand years by accident by being extremely good at siege defense strategy and also hunting Tarnished for sport

[beesmygod]

i found the era of fanwork lionization to be extremely annoying to navigate as a young artist. almost all art work has at least some intrinsic value, whether its valuable to all of society or just for an individual for reasons as vast and varied as the sea, but the argument that all art work is inherently equal by virtue of simply coming into being feels like an extremely reductive and inauthentic way of interfacing with something built on a foundation of thousands of years of critique and arguments/defenses of the merit of individual pieces. i yearn for authenticity in people's reactions, not glib reassurances that everything is good and nothing is bad

[destinationtoast]

I know this is the least of our problems right now but do you think the US election results will impact ao3?

I am not a lawyer, nor a founder of AO3, nor a volunteer there, nor a fandom journalist or historian, so I'm pretty far from the best person to ask. I encourage any and all of the above to please chime in with more knowledgeable answers.

That said, I don't think the next few years will probably directly limit AO3 or its umbrella org, the OTW.* But that depends in part on members voting for board members who will uphold the organization's current principles. (Vote! Become a member if you're not already, and vote! Vote in ALL the elections you are eligible for and will be affected by!) And that doesn't mean a bunch of works won't become private, orphaned, or deleted.**

*A couple reasons for my cautious optimism: The OTW was formed with the preservation and maximalist defense of fanworks in mind. So the shifting US cultural norms and increasing purity culture can't easily change the OTW from within (as we've already been seeing in past years when some fans have disliked some content). And in spite of everything scary happening externally (and there is a whole fucking lot), the US still has far more constitutionally enshrined freedom of speech protections than most places in the world. It will take a long time to tear all that down. Some states and locales are doing a lot to try to challenge free speech, especially queer content and sexual content, and there will be more challenges. But many of those challenges will be defeated because of the First Amendment, and it'll take a lot of time and effort to push through any constitutional changes. You can donate to organizations like the ACLU and the EFF to help protect against the erosions of rights, in addition to supporting the OTW and the Internet Archive who work to preserve free speech rights and online rights. (Other suggestions of where to donate or volunteer are welcome in the notes!) Also, perhaps best of all, the OTW is a non-profit who owns their own servers, which makes it MUCH harder to change what they choose to host than if they relied on any external hosting services and/or had advertisers.

**The archive already has had a whole lot of fanworks shift from public to private due to external events, including the AO3 ban in China, and recent AI scraping of web content. I'm sure more AO3 users will choose to make their content private over the next few years out of a fear of potential personal risks of them being found, and/or due to new attempts to ban content. (Some users will also delete their works for similar reasons, though I urge people to consider orphaning them instead!) Downloading for personal use any fanworks you love is always a good idea, and even moreso at a time of great heartbreak and panic, like now.

*hugs* Hang in there, all, and continue to take comfort from AO3 & OTW as you survive the upcoming hard times.

[tippenfunkaport]

FYI, I have also locked all my fanfics down to registered users only because of the AI scraping on AO3. I'm one of many fan creators doing this right now and I know it stinks for users without an AO3 account, but it's the only option writers have available to us at the moment to stop our work from being scraped and stolen.

If this makes you mad, the Federal Register is currently open to comments on AI accountability until June 12th, 2023.

It only takes a second to leave a comment to ask for legislation that works used in AI creations or training MUST secure the express consent of the original creator before they can be used. If we can get protections for artists, writers, musicians and everyone who creates that their work cannot be used in AI without their permission, we can go back to making fanworks freely available without fear of them being misused. Until then, we're stuck playing defense until the courts catch up.

(If you're a fan creator looking to do this as well, AO3 has a tool to let you do all your fics at the same time in seconds. On your dashboard, go to Edit Works and you'll be able to change the status on everything at once.)

If you missed the context, AO3 recently found that the archive was scraped for use in AI services like ChatGPT and Sudowrite. While they put in protections in December 2022 to try to stop it from happening in the future, it's not foolproof and there is nothing they can do about works already swiped prior to that date. The archive is recommending fan creators restrict their works to registered users only to prevent against additional large scale scraping in the future.

[beatleskinkmeme]

Summer of Love Fanworks-a-thon Master Post

Please check out these fanworks and leave a comment!

Grateful for him by @johangeorghohman

5 + 1 things, 5 times George wished that Paul never met John (because George has a big fat schoolboy crush on Paul) + 1 time he was grateful that they did met

everything to be discovered by @backbenttulips

John and Paul exploring a romantic relationship with each other during the 2000s-2010s, and navigating life as famous old people and grandparents.

the size of a loneliness by @backbenttulips

Brian survives his overdose in 1967. John and Paul come stay to make sure he gets better, taking care of him in their own emotionally inept way.

Knocking at Your Door by @eveepe

5+1 fic. When they’re kids George learns that an easy way to calm Paul down when he’s getting the horrors is to give him a quick little kiss on the mouth. It becomes his go to method to soothe Paul when he needs to.

I Fancy Me Chances With You by @hootiepgh

Paul participates in a charity auction during the 70s. “Bid on a date with Paul McCartney” John pays an absurd amount of money to win. Paul is shocked. They go on the date and they’re both very awkward, neither are sure why John paid so much and what it entails.

I'll Never Do You No Harm by @hootiepgh

Aftermath of the "I want a divorce meeting," when Mal drives Paul home. Paul is broken and crying. Mal calls John and tells him how upset Paul is. John comes over. All the angst please!

But as the words are leaving his lips, a noise comes from behind by @hootiepgh

Mid-1969, Allen Klein and the Beatles are having a private meeting with Allen still trying to convince them to have him be their manager. He gets really frustrated and lashes out at one or all of them, and in an act of self defense Paul, Ringo, George, and John end up accidentally killing him. Afraid of what might happen if anyone finds out, they all agree to cover up their involvement in the crime. Their personal lives/ marriages start to crumble as they're forced to rely on each other as the only people they trust. Would like the inclusion of McLennon and George X Ringo

If I Needed Someone by @hootiepgh

Paul gets shot during the 1966 Memphis concert. John (doesn't) deals with the angst and the guilt.

Taking Trophies by @m1ssunderstanding

AU where John and Paul see each other sooner, forced into confrontation around 1971 when things were at their worst with John spewing his anger to the public and Paul taken aback by it. Of course this leads to some post-breakup, angsty, possessive sex.

Everybody Loves Somebody by @bewareofdarkness

Soulmark AU, the four of them are soulmates

invisible string by @scurator

McHarrison boat vibes on the Queen Mary for the Venus and Mars release party. Um, bonus points for George showing off that he won Bob Dylan in the divorce

deeper than oceans you run by @timrothencrantz

AU where they went through with doing Beatle island and establish their commune (?) or whatever the plan was. Polyamory ensues. This either fixes everything or makes everything worse (or somehow both)

yellow, orange, and blue, i love you by @menlove

Soulmates au where one sees colour for the first time when you touch your soulmate. I believe it would be fun to see how this would play out. This one could be a fic, a comic page or even an illustration where the boys realise what happened when they introduce themselves, whatever the artist prefers!

take it away by @monkberryfields

Younger John meets an older Paul at a record shop. Paul offers to teach John how to tune his guitar and play a few chords but at a price...

Posy by @ohjohnnysblog

Mclennon does a roleplay where they pretend John is a shy virgin groupie. Bottom! John

Banana Milkshakes and Armpit Hair by @crepesuzette2023

Will someone finally come on Paul's eyelashes?

I ain't no fool, and I don't take what I don't want by @crepesuzette2023

Mal and Paul make love al fresco during one of their trips. Paul wears nothing but the flimsy scarf he's seen wearing here.

all by design by @forthlin

the classic “john and paul do increasingly sexual things with each other while coming up with increasingly elaborate justifications for why it’s not gay” scenario, except they both DO know that it’s gay, they just each think they’re pulling a fast one by convincing the other one that this is normal guys-being-dudes behavior.

I've Just Seen a Face by @javelinbk

when John met Paul

Meeting on the Turret Stairs by @sleeper9

a John/Paul moment backstage (Hamburg/touring years/rooftop/artist's choice) based on the piece, Hellelil and Hildebrand, the Meeting on the Turret Stairs by Frederic William Burton.

Oh no, he's beautiful by @sleeper9

The first time John wears his glasses around Paul he finally gets to actually see Paul's face and oh no, he's beautiful

Run For Your Life by @pie-of-flames

A recut of any footage into some kind of Beatles horror movie trailer (maybe Paul is dead?)

**This will be updated as we get more fanworks!!

[toytle]

it effing sucks you had to turn off the comments on that jayce post bc i distinctly remember back in 2022 your art turned me into a jayce-truther

the greatest compliment i can get as a fanartist is when ppl tell me that my art converted them to the character/fandom i’ve drawn T__T

this goes double, TRIPLE for jayce, bc there was absolutely no reason for the fandom to unanimously single him out. to this day, it’s the most undeserved hate i’ve ever seen a character receive. and for what!

but ever since s2 dropped, i’ve been seeing a surge of jayce love,,, back in my day, most ppl would only bring him up to talk shit. i used to get told that liking him was a “red flag.” even ppl that enjoyed my art would leave backhanded compliments abt how my talent was being wasted on him (mind you, my comments were already restricted before this! this is what slipped thru!)

now look at us. fanworks and pfps and defenders galore. ppl are leaving the sweetest comments on my 3 year old posts, coming back to reminisce or to share how they’ve had a change of heart. i’ve gotten such a demand for my jayce prints that i’ve since revived and even restocked one of them! friends and strangers alike have said that they cite me in jayce’s defense!! hell, the fact that there’s discourse now where there used to be the single general consensus is more than i could’ve hoped for. all this other stuff is borderline fantasy 😭

i used to bargain for crumbs. never in my LIFE did i expect to be the one feasting. we did it, jayce enjoyers, we lost the battle but we won the war \o/

[ghost-husbands]

In Defense of Charles Rowland

Under the cut because this is gonna be a long one, folks.

I'm going to begin this by saying that I have recently joined this fandom and to be fair, don't have as much experience with writing meta and all that. However, I love reading and given that meta is

discussion of fanworks of all kinds, fan work in relation to the source text, fanfiction characters and their motivation and psychology, fan behavior, or fandom itself.

I have always thoroughly enjoyed reading and attempting to write it. Now I have finished watching all the episodes of the season we currently have, and when I finished watching 1x04, I had some pretty strong emotions about what happened in there.

What happened exactly?

Well before we get into that, I want to say that I was inspired to write this because of the original writing of @pippin-katz on the same subject.

So as we know, in 1x04, the ghost husbands have a confrontation with the Night Nurse--an immortal (I think she's immortal, no?) being in charge of the Afterlife's Lost and Found Department. Why is she after them? Because Charles and Edwin are two unaccounted for spirits who are wandering the world and not where they belong. They're both technically special cases. Edwin was dragged to hell by pure accident, the victim of a demon summoning. It says something that even the demon itself apologizes to him for the technicality before he's taken down to the inferno | Charles died after an attack, of hypothermia and his own injuries. He discovers he's dead when he sees his own body and once it hits him that Edwin's going to leave, he doesn't want to stay behind to wait for Death. Frankly, he isn't ready for Death, so he says. So he decides to flee Death, just as Edwin has been since his escape from Hell.

Aside from staying with Edwin for their foreseeable eternity, Charles' motivation for staying is, according to him, the purpose he still serves...the face that he is a Dead Boy Detective who's dedicated himself to helping spirits who still have unfinished business. He's doing good here with Edwin. They are helping people. Ah, let's not forget, I almost missed the fact that when the Night Nurse arrives, Charles almost immediately puts himself between the Night Nurse and Edwin.

He's protecting Edwin as he always has and always will. He's almost bristling with fury and you can see the strength of his will in the way he's standing there, refusing to go quietly. He will fight for his purpose here, he will fight for Edwin, and he will fight for his newly found friends (Niko and Crystal watching from the sidelines now).

The Night Nurse has her job, and she's convinced that it shouldn't be a problem to simply apprehend the boys and pop off. Perhaps if she had only just, then truly, there wouldn't have been a problem. The show would have ended there and that would have been a pretty fucking pathetic end, I'd say. But she resorted to force, and I here want to begin to make my point. The exact kind of force she used and how she used it was cruel, a low blow and makes her, to a certain degree at fault for what befalls her.

What did the Night Nurse do?

Put simply, as pippin-katz points out, she made Charles relive some of his worst memories.

That's being beaten by his father.

That's being stoned by his friends and pushed into the lake where he caught hypothermia.

That's dying freezing and miserable in the attic until Edwin shows up.

If you want a thorough analysis of her actions, go look at what pippin-katz wrote, I'm going to focus on Charles here.

She twisted the knife (and we know that it is a very, very deep wound in Charles, the anger and abuse of his father--he's emotional enough over it to get caught in the murder loop at the Devlin House and it's one of the points of his breakdown in 1x04) when she showed him these moments and basically asks him, "What's the point of staying here, this is what happened to you. That's what people here do to you. You wanted to stay for this? You can't make things better (this was during his father's beating)..It didn't get better, you died. That's the point."

Please, let's not forget how much this affects Charles, the fact that his father beat him and so we might suppose, was always disappointed in him. With Crystal, Charles admits that he looks in on his parents every now and then because yes, he misses them (this coming from a 16 year old boy who despite suffering at his own father's hand obviously had, at least before he died, still the desire to please that man, and perhaps some degree of love for him) but also to be sure that his father will not hurt his mother the way the old man hurt him. He wants to protect his mother. So all of that, reliving that, is going to be very painful.

What did Charles do in this moment?

He's angry. We know that he's very physical, and we can see the way that he puts himself between Edwin and the NN as he refuses to 'come quietly' to the Afterlife. He's visibly shaken by the ordeal and rattled after he recovers from whatever the NN did to him when she made him relive his memories. She flicks her hand and basically does something that makes him collapse, and he's trying to pull himself to his feet after that.

He's so very angry, hurt.

"If you wanted me crushed, devastated, I am. I'm also bloody angry."

Looking around a bit, I asked around to get an idea of how exactly what he did could be taken in a shocking, jarring way. I'm not here to disprove anything or knock other's opinions, I just wanted to compare both sides of it. That being said, two points.

He hit a woman with that big metal device.

It's not like him to be so violent.

Those, in a nutshell, are a very brief, concise idea of why people might look at what Charles did and think, "Hm that was a bit too much. Maybe he shouldn't have done that, not in that way."

I answer with the fact that, as pippin-katz also pointed out, the Night Nurse looks like a small, older woman, otherwise defenseless (Granted, she didn't have anything to defend herself when Charles attacked). Apparently in Doom Patrol (I've never seen it and don't plan to) she looks a little less like a woman and a little more monstrous. So she's not entirely innocent here. I personally disapprove of what she chose to use against Charles (and Edwin, given that she threatened to bring up the same painful memories in Edwin's mind). I don't condone the idea of violence against a woman, that's not okay, and it was a little jarring to see. I guess I'm trying to say....I believe that Charles was right to defend against the attack initiated by the Night Nurse.

Was it laudable that he reacted so violently to her? Perhaps not, I don't think so.

Was he to blame for choosing to fight? I certainly think not.

To the second point, I can't say very much because I haven't read the comics nor do I know extensively his personality and what he would or wouldn't do. But I've gathered that, from seeing the series, he's never quite been the one to attack first, or to strike just for the hell of it. I've only ever seen him react, not initiate. I think it's understandable that he would react strongly to what has happened, and I hold that he isn't to blame for wanting to protect Edwin and their loved ones.

How did his friends react to all of this?

Edwin

Charles reels from what happened, and you can hear that he's shaken by it. You can hear it in his voice when he asks Edwin and the girls, "Why are you all looking at me like that?" Edwin steps forward and tells him it was extreme. That kind of tipped it for Charles, then, I think.

"Was it too extreme, Edwin? So was me dying at 16, mate! I don't wanna be dead. I hate it. Yet every day I'm fucking smiling 'cause who else is going to be the one holding it together, keeping spirits up? You? Are you gonna do that, huh? And for what? What good am I even doing? I couldn't stop Devlin from murdering his family over and over. I can't stop Crystal from hurting. I can't stop whatever it is that's going on with you. I can't stop anything. I sure as hell couldn't stop my dad from beating the shit out of me. No matter how good I was."

Honestly, this part broke my heart. Because Charles, earlier, said that he did this for them, to protect them. He's admitting here that he IS the one trying to hold everyone together but that (wake up call everyone) he's actually hurting too underneath all of it. But as someone pointed out to me, Charles never brought that up to Edwin because he might have considered that Edwin has spent 70 years in hell and would not have wanted to burden his friend with his own problems.

We see that Charles is falling apart here. He's questioning the good that he does, because in his eyes he sees only how he's failed "to stop" all those things, and you can note how his voice rises and breaks towards the end.

Niko and Crystal say nothing in this moment, but either later that episode or in the next one, Crystal snaps at Charles.

"You’re a sweet guy with a rage problem. You walk around acting like the sun always shines, and then you lost your shit while beating the Night Nurse. Edwin and I are walking on eggshells around you instead of just saying 'what the actual fuck?'”

That was definitely something that caught my attention because didn't she hear what Charles said up above? It just popped out at me because Charles explained why he's the one acting like the sun always shines (he needs to try and keep everyone's spirits up because if he breaks down, and Edwin were to break down because of all the shit he's been through, that coupled with Crystal's own problems with David and her personal struggles...there would be no one to pull everyone out of their darkness)

Anyway, I'm not here to bash anyone either. Back to Charles.

So in the end, he breaks down and we can see that the catalyst here (probably) is not only reliving those memories and dragging up the pain he's been carrying from all of that but also the reaction of his friends. In his mind, he did it for them. He immediately steps between the NN and Edwin, to defend Edwin. He's left questioning the good that he's doing here, the point of all of that.

To the final question of was it wrong for Charles to do what he did?

I believe he wasn't wrong. He was defending against an attack. He might have responded with too much violence but he's reacting to something that wounded him just as deeply.

So this ended up being more of an exposition of Charles and his emotional state, but I tried to make a defense of his actions. It's not perfect, and I'm not out to prove any sort of point, just expressing thoughts because I too had a strong reaction to that episode.

Nonetheless Charles remains my favorite.

[thebroccolination]

STOLAS AND BLITZ'S CURRENT RELATIONSHIP IS A TREASURE TROVE

Helluva Boss is the ideal source material for fanworks in so many ways. Especially because of where Blitz and Stolas's relationship is right now.

One of the show's more obvious issues is the pacing, and while I don't know a ton about animated productions, it's always seemed to me like they're creating an enormously ambitious production on a pretty limited budget, so they kind of have to power through these episodes at a hundred miles an hour without the luxury of going at the slower, more nuanced pace they deserve. But that's where fanfiction and fanart can really elevate what canon gives us, because the show is creating so much potential to explore, and we have time in between episodes to play!

Basically: I love it here and this episode was a buffet of goodness.

Following Mastermind, Stolas and Blitz are discovering that despite their physically intimate relationship and their feelings for each other, they don't actually know each other.

In Sinsmas, we see Stolas and Blitz discovering so many new things about each other, to the point where you wonder what they ever talked about until you remember: sex. When they reunited as adults, they never re-learned who each other is now. Instead, they jumped past personal intimacy to physical intimacy.

And now that they're working on their personal intimacy, I love that Blitz has flipped completely from acting cold to Stolas out of uncertainty and self-defense to committing to him, unrelentingly loyal and affectionate. The way he is with Loona.

So we have them learning each other in doses:

• Blitz's horse thing

• Stolas's secret medication

• What Stolas eats

• Social norms Stolas didn't have to know when he was part of the wealthy ruling class

• Hellborn culture

• Blitz's genuine love for the company he built, not just pride

• Just how different Blitz's way of life is from the one Stolas is accustomed to

• And the real Blitz as opposed to the idealized version Stolas invented in his fantasies

In Mastermind, Stolas has that line, "Why am I throwing my freedom away for this idiot?" in part because he was still mad at Blitz, but also because Blitz has been knocked off his pedestal, and Stolas has to relearn him from nothing.

But the thing is: this idiot loves Stolas.

He's not ashamed to eat with Stolas in public, not ashamed to protect him from the other Hellborn who hate Stolas because of the trial.

He's genuinely delighted spending his time with Stolas.

He'll hunt rats in an alley just to make sure Stolas is eating what he likes.

And he champions Stolas's very first secretarial attempt in very characteristically giddy flavor.

He risks his life to save Stolas's, a flip from Mastermind.

He wraps Stolas in his own jacket to keep him warm, even though Blitz just complained about Earth's winter topside.

And he wraps Stolas in a blanket, then eats hot coals/brimstone(/whatever those rocks were) to become a hot water bottle for Stolas.

Because ultimately, what Blitz wants and perhaps realizes he wants in this episode is that he wants to be a complete family with Stolas and their daughters.

And they'll get there in part by talking to each other about what matters.

Not fighting, not yelling, not walking away, just talking to each other. About their vulnerabilities and their fears and what hurts. About their past hurts and their worries for the future.

And they've never done that at length before.

The trial gave Blitz the wakeup call he needed, and now the season is ending with Blitz completing another curve of his character arc. Does he believe he deserves Stolas? No. Does he have the family he wants? Nope! But to get there he has to make things right with Stolas, and he's (mostly) done that.

What comes next for them in season three will be up to Stolas.

Blitz has embraced Stolas, but it's not quite reciprocal yet.

So I look forward to aaaaaaalllllllllI the fic and fanart along the way. :>

[ofstormsandfire]

this is a PSA because I am getting real tired of stumbling across works on AO3 that say they were commissioned in the summary.

mentioning commercial activities of any kind (including but not limited to fanzine preorders if money is involved, patreon/ko-fi, or - y'know - writing commissions) is NOT PERMITTED ON AO3. they are fine with you linking to a different site that then links to something with real money involved, like for instance linking to your tumblr that has a patreon or info about commissions in the pinned post, but you cannot link directly to anything with real money involved.

"but that's unfair!" I know. I know, I get it, as a writer it pisses me off all the damn time, but that's the state copyright law is in and that's pretty unlikely to change anytime soon. the reason AO3 is so strict about this is so that they can claim, accurately, that the fanworks hosted there are noncommercial activity, which to my understanding makes for a stronger legal defense against people who would rather you not write fanfic at all.

please. for the love of god. if you're going to tempt fate/copyright law by taking writing commissions (which is, unfortunately, in significantly more of a legal gray area than art commissions, I desperately wish this wasn't the case but it is).

DON'T SAY THAT YOU ARE/HAVE IN THE PAST/WILL IN THE FUTURE ON ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN DOT ORG.

this is for YOUR protection, this is for OTHERS' protection, this is for the protection of the WHOLE DANG ARCHIVE.

signed, a very tired writer who doesn't want you to ruin it for everyone, thank you very much.