#issues like she did with d*sney

[aqua-phantasy]

DANA TERRACE AND GLITCH??????

LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

[mxbitters]

remind me never to try talking to my white mom about indigenous issues again.  oh my god

[thechildofstark]

Sympathetic Villains and the Rise of Overt Apologism.

I’ve seen a lot of discourse recently about how being a fan of villainous characters has become polarized, and how the way people treat villainous characters (and people who support them) needs to change. The two main issues seems to be:

a) the classic “if you support this character you support their actions” bs. 

and 

b) “oh no, my character isn’t a villain, they’re just a misunderstood baby who would never hurt anyone”. This, I think is much more worrying, and almost certainly came into practice as a response to point a). 

As has been said many times before, appreciation of a character does not equal agreement with a character. Nobody is accusing fannibals of being actual cannibals ;).  This can often follow on with issues in the source material/with the actors. A great deal of the negative attention on the WandaVision storyline (racism/anti-Semitism/anti-Romanyism/anti-blackness/gaslighting/torture/O***n using slurs/etc.) means that anyone that supports Whitewashed-Wanda (Wendy) is automatically labelled as in agreement with her actions in the text. And to be fair, this version of her is a pretty terrible character. It’s just incredibly bad writing. But this feeds into the second point. Wendy-fans, faced with such strong hatred for their fav, go too far in the other direction, insisting that she did nothing wrong. And there in lies the issue. This is by no means limited to Wendy - so I might as well use another completely divisive example: Kylo Ren. 

Kylie Ron is an objectively terrible character. He is a badly written whingy asshole. (okay that’s mostly on the lack of coherency between films/creative teams - aka a post for another time.) The problem is that his fans behave like he never did anything wrong, ever - and is he is one of the ultimate good guys and was all along, actually. In doing so, they completely undermine his role within the text, and gloss over the fact that: 

He killed his dad

He joined a neo-N*zi organization

He took over leadership of said organization 

He completely screwed the First Order over. A story is only as good as its villain and he is a terrible leader with no core beliefs or alignment to the radicals he leads. 

Yes that last point was literally me being annoyed that he is bad a being a N*zi. I want the evil bad guys to be cool and competent. He is neither. 

He has awful relationship skills

He dies like a newb

He is literally a terrorist

This is a short, totally unbiased list of reasons that I think that saying Kyle is a ‘perfect lovely hero uwu’ just doesn’t work. If you want to be a fan of him, that’s fine and up to you, but if you want to be a fan of him and in the process erase all the bad things he did, you aren’t a fan of Kylo Ren. You are a fan of an aggressively altered and de-problematized oc insert played by Tall Brooding White Man #1785. 

The idea of being a fan of a character that does bad things has become quite heavily judged over the last few years, and I think that this is the response: making it so that all the beloved main characters are good and perfect beyond reproach. So that it is impossible to be judged for liking this character, because they’re such a good person. But in the process, many of the negative and positive aspects of the character are wiped away, leaving a blank slate insert with no culpability and no positive discussion of any of the potentially harmful things that they did in the text. 

Earlier I mentioned Hannibal. I consider Hannibal Lecter to be pretty much a textbook case of liking a character you disagree with. As someone who appreciates high art, good food, psychological discourse, angst, and fun murders, I love NBC’s Hannibal. But I don’t actually condone eating people in real life, and neither does the fandom.  But I can appreciate art as separate from myself because that’s how it works. 

The other classic is Darth Dad himself, Anakin Skywalker. Is he Evil™? Yes. Does he murder children? Yes. Is he also a member of a fascist dictatorship? Yes. Do I love him? YES. Because all of these things are part of his character. Without them, he wouldn’t be Darth Vader anymore. 

TL;DR: Villains are really cool, but once you deny all the aspects that make them villainous it automatically devalues the character and removes the opportunity to learn from their mistakes, and to discuss genuinely problematic things within the text.

also fuck d*sney :)

[katierosefun]

Wait you're writing your thesis on star wars?? What is your research about, that sounds so cool!

yeah anon!! i’m writing about why the sequel trilogy flopped…or more specifically, what happens when a corporation like d*sney uses diversity as a marketing front instead of decent and respectful storytelling. so like. we had a female jedi, a black stormtrooper, and a latino pilot as the protagonists (and an asian rebel as one of the side characters who, kind of like lando in the original trilogy, had some kind of storyline going). we should have been happy. we should have been excited with seeing different faces in the trilogy…but it flopped. for multiple reasons, like inconsistent storytelling, changes in directors, lack of planning…but the issue i want to touch on is how the sequel trilogy especially failed in how it marketed itself as New and Diverse but. trampled on ALL of that.

i’ll be going a little bit into tcw and swr and the mandalorian (and hey, now even the bad batch! i guess thanks bad batch for being such a hot mess, because now i can even FURTHER dissect this in my thesis lol), into what works, what doesn’t when it comes to diversity + authentic storytelling that respects characters from marginalized backgrounds. (ie. tcw is far from perfect, but it really did well with creating an authentic female protagonist like ahsoka, and i think part of that was that…there wasn’t a whole ton of emphasis on OoOooH She’s a Girl, but more so “hey. this is a kid who makes mistakes and grows and is therefore relatable to the audience. she is also a girl. cool!” / swr with the fact that. the whole cast is literally. not white (excluding kallus and zeb, but aliens are poc-coded most of the time in star wars anyways) and! have SOLID stories…and etc.)

lol i could ramble about this forever, but basically! that covers what my thesis is mostly working towards. what happens when storytelling goes intensely wrong. what happens when storytelling goes…right, and how beautiful that can be. or at least hopeful that can be. goodness knows i love star wars as much as the next gal, but! loving something also means that i want it to be better and also want to add something critical to the conversation, so lol that’s what i’m doing for my senior year undergrad!

[sharedshield]

So, I finished An Offer from A Gentleman this morning and while it was perfectly pleasant (not without faults of course, but I want to talk about something else here) and Benedict is still my fav male Bridgerton, I did not enjoy it as much as TVWLM.

This is not because it's basically Cinderella like many comments on A*azon bemoan, I mean that kind of story is popular and well loved for a reason, but it was a bit... bland? Character-wise? At some points, I had the feeling Julia Quinn took more time to flesh out Araminta and Posy than she did with Sophie and Benedict.

Sophie I get, you can draw a lot of who she is from Cinderella, although I might say she's a lot more resolute and a lot less of a maiden in need than the D*sney princess (I'd love for her to be more of an Aschenbrödl kind of gal if anyone knows that movie/story in the series).

But Benedict? No clue. Like, what's his character? What are his issues? What does he think about when he's not thinking about Sophie/the Lady in Silver? I know his conflict outside of his romantic arc is being the eternal second, trying to define himself outside his family, apart from the Bridgerton name and he does in the end with his drawing but we don't see anything of how this comes to be.

With Anthony and Kate, their arcs are circling around them trying to ensure the well-being of their families and you can see them struggling with it and around it. But everything Benedict is is a white man with a heavy purse, who never had to worry about the most basic things in life and he acts like it, which doesn't make him more likable but more realistic.

But what is his character beyond that? Who is he? Does anyone know? Can anyone help?

[roundmiidnight-blog]

BASICS  ! NAME:  Luciano Adriano Lombardi Louis Adriano Markell NICKNAME: Louie, Lou AGE: 27 SPECIES: Human.

PERSONAL  ! MORALITY: You know I would insert something ‘lawful’ here, but I think at the end of the day he’s just Neutral.  RELIGION: Something superstitious. Something agnostic. He just isn’t Christian. SINS: greed / gluttony / sloth / lust / pride / envy / wrath. VIRTUES: chastity / charity / diligence / humility / kindness / patience / justice. KNOWN LANGUAGES: English SECRETS: He is a v e r y secretive guy in regards to 

That strong self-hatred he feels around midnight.

The verbal abuse he suffered from his adoptive father. 

Money issues.

Being insecure in terms of fatherhood.

His sexuality.

Generally, it’s hard to for him to talk about real shit™.

PHYSICAL  ! BUILD: scrawny / bony / slender / fit / athletic / curvy / herculean / pudgy / average . HEIGHT: 6′0″. SCARS  /  BIRTHMARKS: Not applicable rn. ABILITIES: He can play the guitar as well as the trumpet. He’s a good song-writer and can hold a tune. Pasta making abilities are -- well they exist but it’s nothing mind-blowing.  RESTRICTIONS: He can’t hold onto money, his gambling addiction is real. He also drinks just a lil’ too much. Louis’ pride in general is a restriction, he would rather remain broke than accept money from those close to him.  

FAVORITES  ! FOOD: Spaghetti. Oysters. Seafood pasta is one of his favorite meals.  PIZZA TOPPING: Olives. COLOR: Jade. MUSIC GENRE: Rap, Jazz, R&B, Experimental. He loves oldies - classic blues is a obsession. MOVIE GENRE: Everything’s a remake of something these days, even D*sney got the fever. It’s boring. But another secret is!! He’s seen some lit independent ( and foreign ) films even if they have him go, ‘what the fuck is that ending.’  CURSE WORD: He has none, but cusses plenty when he’s in a bad mood all the same. SCENTS: There has never been in which a woman has walked past him with a scent that lingers for minutes. Her perfume, hell maybe whatever she puts in her hair is mixed in with it. Though the odor has some diversity, it never gets old.

FUN STUFF  ! BOTTOM OR TOP: He tops. Even topped @conrobbery when he didn’t know what he was doin’ like that.  SINGS IN THE SHOWER: 50 / 50 chance.  LIKES PUNS: ‘How can you look at me and say what you did?’ is something he’ll reply. It’s not a stretch to say he’d subtly make you feel lame. 

tagged by: @armsdealing   tagging: @shifterting. 

[disownedbytiime]

Silver recounts a story his dad told him of a hero from the Eastern land who took his sick father’s place in a war, trained hard to shoot three arrows together, who saved the emperor with a lantern, who underwent an avalanche and defeated the bad guy, etc. Silver trained hard to become like this hero and that’s one of the reasons why he enrolled in the equestrian club. Also Jamil was surprised to find out that hero was actually a woman. (This is all about Mulan)

I think one of the main reasons why Silver looks up to her is because what she did for her father, but also yk, from one d*sney princess to another d*sney princess….

Jamil making the ghosts give them their mirror fragments and the ghosts, and Silver, getting surprised by it.

“Jamil… stealing from people is a bad thing to do. Let’s return the mirror fragments to the ghosts. Even if they are bad guys, that’s not a good reason for us to rob them.”

Silver is such a nice guy, this light magic user, he didn’t even want to steal the mirror fragments even tho they need them, and even tho nobody else had an issue with it.

Possessed Jack. Who uses ワタシ to refer to himself. Normal Jack thought that by using that it was clear he wasn’t himself.

[yukipri]

Hi! I hope you’re having a great day! I had a quick question, when you were setting up your stores or websites to sell your fanart, did you need to get legal permission to do so or not? I’m interested in setting up my own store/website but I’m worried that I might get into trouble with posting my fan art so I wanted to ask what did you do in order to be able to sell your work. Thank you and have a great day!

Hey there!

I’m probably not the best person to answer this question, as I do not have a store and have never had a store, nor have I sold any of my art yet, though I would like to in the future ^ ^; Patreon is a bit grayer than most as it’s technically “supporting the act of creating art,” rather than the purchase of art itself.

That being said, selling fanworks is always going to be a legal grayzone. There are different laws and cultures surrounding it in every country, and it’s best to check out what other sellers in your region are doing, or ask someone who actually has a store.

In general though, for big, licensed Japanese media, there’s a don’t ask, don’t tell type policy. All Japanese anime companies are of course AWARE of the creation and sale of unofficial fanworks (kinda hard to miss the massive doujin conventions that are held every weekend). Many official companies even have their own booths at these conventions in a different hall, and doujins are sold in Animate as well, the huge official anime merch chain store.

You should never directly ask these companies for permission, because they cannot grant it and will be forced to say no. I’ve seen a few Western fans go out of their way to contact reps about this, and it makes me cringe because it can be quite harmful to the doujin community as a whole, when you force a company to formally acknowledge and issue a statement regarding fanworks.

In Japan at least, fan communities and official companies are generally thought to function in separate but parallel spheres. Most fans have a non verbal good faith agreement that they are all encouraging a community that buys and purchases all official media, and that their fan content is not for profit but rather to encourage greater fandom community, which in turn should benefit official companies. You should never attempt to replicate official merchandise or use official graphics, but create something unique that features your own art, and never for the sole purpose of profit but rather to share and spread love for the original content.

(also, don’t tag and bother official creators/companies with your fanworks unless they specifically request it. Kubo-sensei recently updated her instagram and specifically wrote in her bio to not tag her in unauthorized reproductions, that’s fanart, especially if you’re selling it. Don’t tell her or other creators that you’re doing illegal stuff with her work. She can look the other way only so long as you don’t force her to look, and self validation isn’t worth stressing her or other creators out and putting them in a legal pinch)

Some bigger companies though, such as D*sney and Pok*mon have been known to crack down on people though, and you are always taking a risk when selling fanworks.

There are also different cultures regarding what you can sell. For example, I’m aware that selling fanfiction in the U.S. is generally considered a no, but it’s relatively common in Japan.

When it comes to original content that is more private owned and indie that isn’t a big licensed company, you should exercise more caution though, and asking before creating your own content is respectful. An example that immediately comes to mind is Hom*stuck, which I believe the creator doesn’t want people to sell merch of.

Anyway, exercise caution, be respectful, do your research, and be aware of your particular environment. Know that you’re never going to get an official completely safe legal route to sell fanworks and that’s a risk you have to be willing to take, and then decide what you personally feel comfortable doing, is my advice. Hope it helped! ^ ^;