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submalevolentgrace · 2 years ago

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Hi! I'm very interested in attempting to write a disabled character (not for this blog, I assure, for an book I'm writing) in which the story doesn't fetishize/objectify her prosthetic limb. I'm in many writing circles and have been for a long while, but I've never seen this issue brought to light which I realise is a very important one. I have much to change in my thought process, and thank you for bringing this issue to attention.

I'm curious, and I apologise if this has been asked before, but what sort of design could you see for a functional prosthetic that doesn't go for a plainly aesthetic appearance, or is soully to please others? I do note that you said prosthetics are generally... not that helpful. So is there a way that it could be? Or do you think it would always generally be better to not use a prosthetic, as its mostly for aesthetic purposes, as you said?

I apologise if this ask is too outright or anything, and I don't mean to intrude. Thank you for your time and have a beautiful day!

okay, i want to answer this as in depth as possible, because whenever i talk about having a prosthesis, someone will always tag some variation of "#writing reference" and i do wonder what message they're taking away, and i want to get as much of my experience out as possible to maybe help shape how this is all portrayed in the future. and yeah… this is gonna be one of those rambly smg posts that the expand feature was invented for, so i'll start with the very abridged TL;DR:

if you're writing a character with an upper limb prosthesis; don't. arm amputees are unicorn level rare even compared to leg amputees, and i've never interacted with or even heard of an upper limb amputee that regularly uses a prosthesis, let alone relies on one. fiction has lied to you for the sake of cool aesthetics, don't repeat the cycle. more in depth writing advice including nuance and "but i waaaant to" will follow.

that said, grab your donning parachute and let's get started...

context for everyone involved: i am an upper limb amputee that rants a lot about how prostheses suck, i lost my right hand roughly five years ago at roughly the age of 30 after a very rough decline in health… it was pretty rough. this question is being asked in the context of a previous rant post of mine, and i checked that the ask is about an upper limb prosthesis in particular.

the situation regarding the usefulness of lower limb prostheses is totally different; i am definitely no expert, but by all accounts, prosthetic legs are incredibly useful for many people. getting a good leg can be absolutely life changing and more or less necessary for day to day life for some; mostly because infrastructure and society is just so fucking hostile to wheelchair users. being able to walk - at the cost of pressure sores and rashes and increased residual limb pain - is a preferable option to many people than being unable to fit through a doorway or in a bathroom stall or find out that the key to unlock the only elevator is in the admin office up three flights of stairs (true story).

but upper limb prostheses… see, the thing is, hands are incredibly complex organs that rely on a lot of immediate haptic feedback to work at all. hand dexterity is all about control, you need fine granular movements of the digits yes, but you also need the subtle sensations of pressure and proprioception in order to adjust your movements on the fly. i speak from experience, in the years leading up to the full loss of my hand, i was slowly losing function of it, usually swinging between numbness that made it clumsy at best, or screaming overstimulation from moving it at all resulting in unpredictable spasms… and let me tell you, a half working hand is infuriating to try and deal with. you can never know if you have a good grip on something or if it's slipping because of the wrong amount of pressure, and there's only so many smashed bottles of pickles on the floor before you give up using it all together… so amputation wasn't a great loss there, i had time to adapt.

a prosthetic hand of any kind has all of those issues and more. they're heavy and bulky, the cosmetic faux fingers or gripping claw have crude movement at best, and there's zero feedback (put a pin in this). 100% of the time you're using a prosthetic hand you have to keep your eyes on the grip and visually guesstimate whether or not the thing you're carrying is held tight enough but not too tight, that is if your "heavy duty" prosthesis can even support the weight without the servos disengaging or the wrist attachment socket just busting loose. i dropped a whippersnipper on my foot last week when my socket couldn't take the weight and i think that was the final straw in me desperately trying to prove to myself that there is a single task my prosthesis actually helps with.

this is usually where fully two handed people start talking about bleeding edge DARPA tech, and how we just need to invest more,research more, develop more. better tech, more tech, neural integration, more more more. okay i promise the writing advice is coming! for starters on tech, my experience is already with a mid-to-high end ottobock terminal device: i've got a myoelectric nerve-signal operated proportional control heavy duty greifer; about the only upgrade left for me to get would be a rotating wrist joint if i could coflex. it's not military, it's not "rockclimber that owns a prosthetic company", but it's quality tech. it still fucking sucks. secondly, that high level military tech exists primary for PR purposes so they can say they treat their discarded casualties well, "we can rebuild him, we have the technology" style. every war vet i've read about or heard from that's been gifted that high level tech also abandons it for the same reasons; it's imprecise, there's no feedback (or the haptic interface has to be fully recalibrated every time they put it on), but mostly they're more capable without one.

okay, the transhumanist ableds say (i should know, i used to be one), what if we did more ~research and development~ and got that neural feedback working? then we could have fireproof superhumanly strong robot arms to fix up everyone! here's where i take out that pin we put up before and i tell you that a class of prosthetic arms/hands already exists that has perfect proportional control, fine motor control, and physics perfect pressure feedback piped directly into the patients' existing sensory systems! they're called body-powered prostheses, and they were invented in like the 1600s. you strap a whole bunch of stuff to your arm and shoulders shoulders, and control the operation of the terminal device and elbow through cable tension by flexing your shoulders. they do take a considerable amount of training to operate - though hell i spent 18 months training to use my myo - but based on everything i've read, body-powered prostheses are the best option if you're an upper limb amputee and absolutely need a second hand for some reason.

but they don't look cool and futuristic, and according to my prosthetist, most people give up on using them too. we all give up on our prostheses, no matter the type. my rehab OT was impressed i lasted the 18 months of my training. towards the end, they even asked if the clinic director could drop in to one of my sessions to see my progress; he expressed genuine amazement at me casually using my bulky robot claw to use a brush and dustpan, and made an offhanded (hah) comment about what someone can achieve "if they stick it out to the end", implying it was somewhat of a rarity for me to have done so. several years on, and yesterday i wedged the dustpan between my ankles to sweep up into it, awkward but exponentially less effort than putting my dusty robot arm on. which, by the way, is a whole thing. look up some videos, they're all awful to don. i don't actually know the official technical name of what my clinic calls a "parachute" but it's a bitch to use! have you ever tried to pull back with your arm whilst also pushing it forwards at the same time, and simultaneously lean in to and away from an external force pulling on you? that's how you get a myo socket on.

bare with me, i promise writing advice is coming, and i promise it's more than the tl;dr. but. remember when i said a half working hand is infuriating to deal with? any prosthesis, from fancy myo tech to pirate-era body powered, will only ever be half as good as a working hand, and being juuuust within capability to do something but not quite able to is maddening! but you know what works way better than a half working hand? no hand at all. using whatever residual/vestigial limb you have - whatever "stump" you have, i hate that word - is pretty much always better than trying to use a prosthesis. i can use the inside of my elbow to grip and carry things, i can use the nub of my arm to apply pressure to hold things, open doors, use a computer mouse, turn on taps and lights, if i put a glove over it i can use it to prep for cooking. i have full proprioception and pressure feedback with skin contact, i don't think i've ever dropped and broken anything from my elbow, unlike countless things slipped from my greifer - which, by the way, absolutely will start clenching as tight as it can if i get even slightly too sweaty around the electrodes, which has both broken things i'm holding and also injured me, because surprise surprise but servo operated robot claws have pinch points on them right near the "emergency disengage" lever for some reason!

but i am exponentially more capable without it on than with it. no, i'm not fully independent, i rely on housemates and loved ones to help me out with some tasks that simply just need two handed dexterity, but none of those tasks are things a prosthesis makes me able to do anyway. i used to imagine my prosthesis would be like a bra; a bit awkward and uncomfortable, but i'd wear it throughout the day because it's helpful and take it off in the evening to decompress. in reality it's actually exactly like a bra: an absolute bitch to put on one handed, unbearably uncomfortable because it never sits right, ugly af unless you're a millionaire, and absolutely useless except for the fact that i get gawked at and judged by strangers if i leave the house without it on.

and if you really want to discover how far "no hand is better than a half working hand" goes, brace yourself, and look up the patient's stories (not medical system stories) of people that have had hand transplants. the first man to receive one hated it, he was promised a return to normal function, and what he got was a nightmare worse than being one handed; he wanted it removed again but the doctors refused because it would undermine their grand achievement of the first hand transplant. the doctors and society wanted him to be fixed, they wanted him to be normal, they wanted him to be abled. they failed. they made him less able to do things, denied his autonomy, and left him with someone else's hand slowly rotting on him, prioritising the idea of "scientific progress" and "two hands good" over the physical health, mental health, and ability to function of this man.

he's not alone; every story from the patients' perspective about hand transplants that i've read goes this way, including a woman who was born quad limb different and was promised hands would improve her life, pressured into a double hand transplant, only to find herself after the surgery essentially experiencing disability for the first time ever, because she had lived her whole life getting by just fine with her 'underdeveloped' limbs, but half working hands are worse than useless. you can try to find these stories yourself, but i'm not going looking for sources on any of these cases, because if you look back through enough of my posts you'll get a glimpse of the horrors and abuses that i too was put through by doctors who prioritised trying to "fix" me at any cost, rather than providing me the best quality of life, and in turn traumatised me and left me more broken than any loss of limb on its own could. dear goddess, i promise the writing advice is coming.

so. why do upper limb prostheses exist at all? if they're so terrible and useless, what is their function? i want to borrow something someone else left in the tags of a previous rant here, from someone who i believe works in prosthetics and/or rehab, cleaned up and anonymised at their request:

"upper limb functions are wildly more complex than: 1) bear weight static, and 2) bear weight moving. but every single upper limb amputee i know has a fancy expensive prosthetic just gathering dust in the closet because there is literally nothing it can do like a few years of adjustment and if needed non-dominant hand retraining can't do. the existence of forquarter prosthetics to begin with is just kind of silly and useless and entirely to make OTHER people feel comfortable, especially considering they universally are UNcomfortable for the amputee. i hate the notion that as soon as you get the amputation the prosthetic is The Thing That Will Fix You And Make You Feel Normal again because it universally isn't! but every forequarter person i know had like this ideal of Being Fixed By Magic Prosthetic that they were then obviously wildly disappointed by and had to do yet another grieving process with, versus if the dominant narrative were just one of: yeah. it'll take time, there is no magic fix."

and i think that really nails down what the actual purpose of upper limb prostheses is: they're not for the user, they're for the sake of other people. and not just their comfort when looking at our bodies, although based on the pressure for both amputees and people born limb different to get functionless cosmetic plastic hands, there is a lot of that. but it's not just that.

i fully believe that the reason prosthetic hands exists is to comfort the fears of the two handed. "don't worry", they say, "we can fix you again. you don't have to fear becoming Disabled, you don't have to worry about adapting or your life changing. we can make you Normal™ again."

you would not believe the number of people that have approached me to shower me with pity, to tell me how horrific my life is, how they can't imagine it. people have told me, apropos of nothing, that they'd kill themselves if they lost a hand. indirectly, that my life isn't worth living. unless, of course, i happen to be wearing my cool as fuck looking robot prosthesis! then they tell me how wonderful it is, how lucky i am, how glad they are that we have the technology to fix me. that's what a prosthetic hand says, what all the happy fishing photos on limbs4life posters at the rehab clinic say: don't worry, we can fix you. that's what the bleeding edge DARPA flexi-whatever fully articulated neuro-feedback hands say: don't worry if you get IED'd while hunting civilians for us to drone bomb, if you get hurt, we will fix you, we will fix the fuck out of you, we will motherfucking adam jensen you into a cool as fuck cyborg that your son will idolise; come on boys, don't you wanna enlist just for the chance at being as cool as this? join the bomb squad for a ticket to the upgrade lottery.

and so we arrive at fiction. as much as his dialogue options protest, adam jensen loves his robot arms, they punch through walls, turn into fucking swords! they make him the most special man in the world. what would he do without them? learn to cope? grieve? practice acceptance? take up poetry? just, be disabled? there's no power fantasy for ableds in that.

in fact, can you think of a single fictional character that's an upper limb amputee that's, well, just an amputee? they all have robot arms. not realistic prostheses, not medical devices; robot arms. sleek or bulky, top of the line or broken down self built, steampunk or nanomachines or magitech automail; they're never without them. never just an amputee. never born limb different either! there's always that element of tragedy to overcome, always suffering and misery porn, always focus on the pain and the helplessness without the absolutely vital robot arm that makes them Normal and Whole. the closest amputee example i can think of is furiosa from mad max, who iirc fucking punches max in the face with her residual limb like a motherfucking badass! i can barely lean on mine wrong and she punches a guy! but she still apparently needs a dieselpunk robot hand to drive a truck, something you can do one handed so easily most drivers don't even notice they're doing it! please don't, by the way

and so many disabled fans love to point to robot armed characters as disability representation; the winter soldier, luke skywalker, edward elric, misty knight, that genderswapped furry girl from ratchet and clank, jet cowboybebop, finn the human, and yes, adam jensen…. these are all characters that someone disabled i know has told me they love because they "represent disabled bodies"…. and i know nobody wants to hear this, because i've been screamed at for saying it before, but… they do not. they are not disabled, functionally or within fiction. they are either perfectly able bodied Normal people with chrome paint on an arm, or tortured misery porn we are supposed to pity and feel lucky we're not them. sometimes both!

also you ever notice how it's basically always arms? lower limb amputations are orders of magnitude more common than upper, my prosthetist said i was probably only the 4th or 5th upper limb she'd worked with in her career, with literally hundreds of lower limb fits. but fiction doesn't seem to reflect that, huh? or any other part of the reality of disability. it's always cool as fuck robot arms, never cool as fuck wheelchairs or crutches or dialysis machines or colostomy bags. a fair few "i was blind but now i can see with Robot Eyes and also infrared and xray" around, which again, plays into that "we can fix you and make you cooler" propaganda.

by the way, up above when i was describing body powered arms, if you wondered to yourself why i went with a myoelectric one instead when i clearly believe body powered is better… yeah. i am not immune to propaganda! i too wanted to be cool as fuck. i spent years with deteriorating function in my hand for reasons that are still unknown, was misdiagnosed and medically neglected to the point that removing my hand seemed to be the only option left to offer some relief, and even that was a clusterfuck that left me worse than ever… of course i wanted to believe in the power and prestige of a cool robot arm that fiction promised me.

but fiction promises fantastical lies. and so.

we get to the writing advice portion of the novella that is this post. you asked for advice on how to write a disabled character with an upper limb prosthesis. you've read the tl;dr, you've read everything above i assume, you know i don't want you to do it. the obvious twist is that it's been writing advice all along, me trying to share my perspective on what it's like being an amp with a robot arm and how shitty it is, implying how almost any fully realised and realistic character that's missing an upper limb would give up on a prosthesis at all. you can already tell that every value judgement in me says "don't give her a prosthesis, no matter how functional or cool you make it. don't try to make the tech better to justify it, just let her be one armed, one handed. just let her be disabled, but not helpless. let her show off her elbow or underarm carry strength. let her love interest appreciate how soft and squishy her residual limb is in a moment of tenderness. let her natural disabled body be respected and valued."

but that's a personal value judgement from me, and you are the author of your own work. i know it's trite to say, but you are! even the act of deferring to someone with lived experience in the hope of doing a better job at representation is a value judgement, a good choice in my opinion, but one you needn't necessarily take. maybe you do want to write a character that has a cool as fuck unrealistic robot arm as a power fantasy, or a comfort blanket… i did.

i've been slowly writing my own probably terrible scifi epic for over a decade now, and when my arm was giving me hell back then, i'd take great comfort in this fantasy of my protagonist with her chunky robot arm, the terrible traumatic suffering of her loss, overcoming, the power and ability her advanced prosthesis gives her over others, that she alone has access to, because others are not willing to make the sacrifices required. inspiration porn. awful stuff to me now, but empowering to me then. as i grew and gained direct experience, i slowly reimagined her, rewrote her, ship of theseus'd her into an entirely new character; a reflection of me now, bitter at the whole thing, spiteful that her natural flesh arm evokes fear and distrust, but unwilling to suffer the pain and frustration of her unnatural prosthesis just to make others comfortable and respect her as "whole", however artificial that whole is. and as with the ship of theseus being two ships, once i realised the transformation, i re-added the old protagonist back in whole cloth as a separate character; proud of her robot arm and its power, but in new context, as a foil and antagonist, an in-universe military prosthesis propaganda figure to reflect how i now feel characters like her exist to us, the readers.

i'm not just sharing that as egotistical self promotion, but to highlight that, even if i sit here begging you all up and down not to write characters with robot arms for how bad and unrealistic they are; there's still something genuine and true that their inclusion can say. the great thing about the story that you're writing is that only you can write it, as they say. but i whole heartedly believe that to write to your best, you have to be aware of what you're writing and why. as tempting as it is to feel these characters form naturally in us and therefore we're averse to changing traits about them that feel organic and self evident; as authors we have omnipotent control over the text, every trait and detail is a reflection on us, so we'd sure as hell better understand why we're choosing to write a character with this trait. because anything you write without being aware of intent will take on its own meaning in the space between.

and on that note, if i don't say this, i'm leaving it to be inferred: i definitely don't want to appear to come down on the side of saying "you cannot write an amputee unless you are one", because we are rarer than single young bisexual unicorns! and it would be a tragedy if anyone read through all this and then turned away in fear, deciding to never write an amputee character (with or without robot arm) because they feel they can't do it justice… believe me, no matter what anyone says, some hack writer somewhere is going to keep writing adam jensens and winter soldiers. don't let them be the only voices in fiction! just try to do your best.

so my ultimate advice on the topic of writing a character with a prosthetic limb is to ask yourself one question in two different frameworks, and meditate on what you feel the answer is:

why does she have a prosthesis?

from a doylelist perspective as the kids say, as an author with omnipotent control, why are you choosing to write about this topic? why are you choosing to give this trait to this character? what does it say about how you view ability and disability, what makes a person normal, and what our society values? will you let her be in her natural body? or will you give her a prosthesis, force her to wear it by authorial fiat, or author her a meaningful reason to choose to? if yes, be sure you know; why did you give her a prosthesis?

and from a wastonian perspective, diegetically, inside the story, why does she choose to wear a prosthesis? what does it say about her inner character, and how she interacts with the world? how does she feel about doing it, is she prideful and loves the attention she gets, or does she resent whatever necessitates its use? how do people in this world view ability and disability, what does this society value? and above all, whatever the answer to these questions, whether or not she uses a prosthesis or is badass without one, how does she deal with the eternal freezing cold that every amputee ever feels constantly in their residual limb and why does nobody make a heat pack that fits over a nub without drafty gaps???

i can't outright tell you how to write a good upper limb amputee, but if you at least know why you're writing one and for what purpose, you're on track to write the best character that you can. that's the best advice i can give… other than, like, this whole rambly mess.

and, as a reward for reading this far, please have a very blurry cryptid photo of my cat doing his old man sit:

#prosthesis #prosthetic #disability #ableism

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ohnoitstbskyen · 28 days ago

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Hi Skyen, hope you're well! I'm seeking some advice and since you used to work doing mainly art commissions I figured asking you was worth a shot.

I'm a furry artist and I'm looking into doing commission work as a side gig while I finish animation college, and hopefully acquire enough experience/clients/notoriety to turn it into a full time job once I graduate.

Do you have any advice for someone literally just starting out with fresh accounts and zero following? Especially when it comes to reaching people and getting your first clients, and anything that one should take into account when working with NSFW specifically. Also advice for pricing your work is always useful 😅

No need to answer obvs but I'd appreciate your viewpoint if you want to share!

Got 2 asks on this exact subject so I'll write up what advice I can. One big caveat: I haven't worked as a commission artist for like half a decade at this point, and this job has a tendency to change fast, do not take anything I say as gospel. This is advice from a limited perspective, be critical of what I say and trust your peers and the people you are in community with before you trust me.

building audience

Step one is getting people to notice the artwork you create. Literally nothing else can happen until you have eyeballs on your work, and the most consistent and reliable way to make that happen is fanart. Ideally you'd want to produce fanart in a fandom you are personally engaged with and passionate about and familiar with, and which also has a sizeable community whose attention can help you build recognition and a base of followers.

This isn't always possible, and there's many a working artist who creates work for fandoms not out of deep personal connection, but because the fandom is large and relevant and a good way to capture the goodwill of algorithms and content feeds.

This approach has some downsides. For one, genuine fans can usually tell when someone's engagement with Their Thing is shallow, and for another it can be deeply creatively exhausting to chase the algorithm. I don't recommend this approach, but it is a valid means of building a business.

Another important consideration, especially when you are early in your career, is that volume tends to trump quality. Every artist will eventually learn that their shitty joke-doodle they sh*t out in ten minutes on a whim will get a billion reposts, and their complex personal work that took eight weeks to finish gets 2 likes from their closest mutuals and a comment from a bot saying "wow!"

In the age of the algorithm, what machines and for you pages value is a consistent, high-volume of output that generates user engagement. You will generally get further, faster, by producing a lot of work than you will producing great work. Again, this can be rough on your mental state, and a fast way to burn the fuck out, so please be careful and mind your health before all else.

The best way to build something that will last is to build your audience in communities and around fandoms and themes and ideas you genuinely care about and enjoy exploring and interacting with. Being your authentic self and creating work from your authentic interest is generally both healthier and long-term better for your career than trend-chasing. Treat trend-chasing and volume > quality output as tools in your toolbox, as creative and business decisions you can make to achieve a specific purpose, never ever EVER let them become the center of your praxis or your philosophy. Never ever EVER allow the Numbers™ to be your source of validation and accomplishment.

building business

Ok, so you've got eyes on your work. You've got some followers. How the hell do you get them to commission you?

Well, again, by demonstrating a capacity to create kinds of art for which there is demand. In the furry community, there's brisk trade in things like ref sheets and character design, for example. For most fandoms, ship art is a product which tends to be in demand. Being able to do really good expression sheets is a marketable skill. Being able to create compelling and clear emotes for streamers and creators is a marketable skill.

Showing the capacity to work in a wide range of styles is valuable. Showing the capacity to work in a wide range of genres is valuable. If you can do both comedy and romance your appeal expands. If you can do shonen-like action and angst as well, it expands again.

Equally, being incredibly good at a specific niche is valuable as well. Focusing hard on an under-served niche of work can give you a lot of opportunities to be the Go To person for that specific kind of thing.

Perhaps the hardest part of all of this is marketing yourself. Not only showing that you have the skills, but actively informing your audience that you are available, eager and willing to practise your skill for a fee. You have to sell yourself. It sucks, but you have to do it. You have to advertise what you can do, and you have to suffer the rejection and annoyance that comes along with doing that.

You have to ask people to commission you. You have to raise your hand and demand attention. It's not fun, but it's business.

Walking the line between self-promotion and being a person is hard. I can't help you that much with it, it's a very personal balance to find. Stay in touch with your soul, but kill the part that cringes at yourself.

Ultimately, you best marketing asset is your portfolio. Every time you do work, show it off. Repost it, retweet it, spread it around. If someone is happy with what you've made for them, do your best to make sure that other people see that happiness. Ask your clients (politely) to tag you when they share your work.

Oh, and for the love of god, sign everything you create, slap watermarks on anything that's likely to get reposted, and make it impossible for someone not to find your business email on your profile.

building network

If you're a commission artist, you are in community with other commission artists. You share interests, you share experiences, you share needs.

Practise solidarity. Absolutely seek out professional peers to help your business, but equally seek out opportunities to help them with theirs. If someone comes to you for art and you don't have commission slots open, point them at a colleague who you know can do the work too. Gas up your peers and spread their work.

Be a symbiote, not a parasite. Respect the craft of your peers, and don't chase celebrities and big names in the hope of coasting on their coattails. It will fail.

smut

If you're a working artist, at some point you have to reckon with smut and r34.

These genres are excellent sources of income, and fertile ground to build a business and network of customers. BUT. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking that they are "the easy way" or a shortcut. Do not ever make the mistake of thinking you can simply offer to draw tiddies and rake in the cash.

It's work and graft same as literally any other form of labor, it's challenging on both a technical and creative level, and the audience can sense if you're looking down on them. If you approach this from a position of shame, of "eugh, I'm debasing myself by doing this for rent money," it will not work, and you will lose standing and respect in the eyes of every peer whose support you need to succeed.

Just as in all other forms of creativity, if you treat the audience as morons who will slurp up whatever slop you serve them, then you will attract clientele that agrees with you, and you will deserve the misery they will inflict upon you.

If you are going to work in smut, establish your boundaries and enforce them. Know that good clients will feel safer and more comfortable with an artist who clearly states their red lines and earnest interests than they will with someone who tries to attract more clients by pretending to be open to work that they are actually uncomfortable with.

Never, ever, EVER let a client push you to create work you are not comfortable creating. It scars your soul in both the short and long term.

Also, when working with this kind of content, know the rules of payment processors and know how to hide the nature of your business from them. PayPal should never, EVER know the details of the content you sell with their service. Frankly, neither should your bank, most likely.

Look to your peers for advice and best practises about this. And be meticulous about your bookkeeping.

money

I want to tell you to charge at least minimum wage for your time. I want to tell you to charge substantially more than that, because your labor is specialized and highly skilled.

But the economic reality of commission work is that there is a crushing downwards pressure on the labor price of art, which has only been made more devastating by the rise of generative AI, and especially when you are a young artist just starting out, you're going to find yourself in a position where charging even minimum wage for your time will turn away a huge proportion of your potential customers.

Again, your portfolio will be the greatest argument for the value of your work, but you have to build that portfolio first, and very often that means doing a f*kton of work for not remotely enough pay until the pressure of demand finally works in your favor.

I don't condone or justify this state of affairs. It is horrid and I hate it, but I don't know how to fix it either.

Making a living from content creation of any kind requires you to get lucky, on top of working obscene hours and foregoing rest and vacations. It's not a safe or sensible plan for a career or paying your bills.

My sensible advice is to get a "normal" job you can survive doing, and do your creative work on the side, and resign yourself to the possibility that the creative work may never actually pay your bills.

And that is soul-crushing, but I cannot stomach pretending that hard work and gumption will guarantee anyone a decent living if they just try hard enough.

There are people who are better at every aspect of my work than I am, and they struggle harder and work for longer, and they will never see half the success I have, because I happened to get lucky, and they happened not to. It's wretched.

I'm not telling you not to chase your dreams. I'm telling you to do it with your eyes open, and with compassion for yourself first before all else.

All of this to say: I can't tell you what to charge for your work. It depends on everything from your competition to your niche to your genre to your community to your economic situation. You have to figure it out on your own.

All I can tell you is never forget that your work is worth more than the market will let you charge, and to raise your prices as soon and as much as you can. Try to reach at least minimum wage for your time as fast as possible.

in conclusion

Again, I haven't been a commission artist full time for a long time, please do not take any of this as gospel. Listen to your peers before you listen to me.

But trust me about the solidarity. It will save you when all else fails.

#tb answers #Anonymous

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skylinesnsunshines · 1 month ago

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pac: what's your next significant partner like? -`♡´-

disclaimer: all for entertainment purposes only, free will exists and energies are subject to change. if it doesn't resonate then it might not be the pile or reading for you. remember that this is a general reading, so i'm channelling the energy of the majority, not a specific individual.

(italicised is the card on the bottom of the tarot deck which is meant to represent the subconscious/blind spot of the situation + rx means reversed)

PILE 1 -> PILE 2 -> PILE 3

photo cr: pinterest | dividers | personal readings | tips

pile 1 ~ queen of wands, the emperor, 8 of wands rx, page of wands rx, 9 of cups oracle cards ~ ceremony: invocation. seduction: attraction, flirting, dating, hooking up, temptation, third-party interference. candle: you will be shown the way, leg: stepping into a new experience.

hello my pile 1's! immediately HEAVY fire energy here, either you or your person could have fire sign placements (mainly feeling leo and aries). i see that this person could be your next romantic interest and that they can deviate from your usual type. this person seems to have a commanding energy and a certain charisma that they embody, and even physically they could be seen as quite conventionally attractive. i believe there is a difference between how people perceive them and who they are within, as their physical presence could impact people's perception of them. sometimes people might think they're "too good to be true" and people could find it difficult to keep their attention. their mind or attention might be sporadic, so this seems to be the person that's "difficult to pin down". they're giving the eldest child energy and may have been the type to carry a lot of burdens due to their family's expectations of them. they seem to have a silent confidence about them and keep their cards close to their chest. even though they're very fiery and express their thoughts easily, there's a conservative nature about them and they keep what they're truly thinking or feeling to themselves. people in their daily lives could idolise them and see them as the people they want to be or be with. this assertive presence often causes people to be intimidated and create an image of this person that is incongruous with who they truly are. just like fire, this person's energy keeps others warm but they can set themselves alight for their loved ones. to outsiders this person might seem shallow due to their demeanour, but they do this on purpose to weed out those that aren't able to see them for who they truly are. although they are quite fiery, i feel that they might struggle with expressing their anger at times which can cause them to implode. there's a deep layer of sensitivity within this person even sacrificial at times. i'm seeing that you help bring out their lively side and are even childlike at times. they could have had to grow up quickly which is why we have 2 cards tied with royalty here, but with you, they seem to feel more at ease with expressing their impulses.

you might meet this next person at an event or celebration or some kind as it could be a wedding, a party, a concert or something along those lines. i think when you meet them for the first time there's an immediate connection, once you lock eyes you both share the immediate feeling of being like "that's my person". there's this magnetism and instant pull that you feel from this person and you and/or them could feel a sense of flirtyness. i'm seeing your first interactions will have playful banter and a lot of lighthearted flirty energy, they could have other suitors vying for their attention but they don't seem fazed by it as their focus is on you. you had an extra oracle card fall out, which describes stepping into a new experience. this reiterates the idea that this person might not be your usual type, or their background could be different from what you've experienced. when it comes to the candle, again it reiterates the instant attraction that you both have and there's a sense of being drawn to each other with no explanation.

pile 2 ~ 2 of cups, 2 of swords rx, 3 of wands, knight of wands rx, 6 of pentacles rx oracle cards ~ spring equinox: rebirth. palm tree: stability, security, permanence, growth, endurance, flexibility. egg: success is assured with good plans and hard work.

hi there pile 2's! immediately 2 cards with the number 2 jumped out which tells me this person might have significant 2nd house (or taurus) placements. with the 2 of cups, they give me libra energy, as this card usually describes people who love hard and enjoy being in partnerships. tauruses are known to be quite stubborn or hardheaded which is totally the energy i pick up from this person, in my mind's eye i'm seeing "tunnel vision" which tells me that this person could struggle with multitasking and needs to feel like they've accomplished a goal to let it go. seems to be the type of person to not take "no" for an answer (respectfully of course). they seem to not be serial daters and only enter a connection if they feel a sense of stability and long-term potential. they have a clear vision of who they are and who they want to be which is why they don't tolerate anything less. they seem to be quite resourceful with big dreams, but they have a bigger drive which is why success seems assured in their future. i'm hearing that they prioritise working smarter, not harder, and will do anything to ensure success for themselves and their loved ones. i don't see them as opportunistic as their need for energy seems to stem from a lack of mindset that they've had growing up. they feel a sense of accomplishment when they can provide for their parents, partners, friends, etc. which ultimately is the fuel for their drive to success. they seem to only be able to enjoy their success if it's tangible and will do anything to ensure their family's long-term stability. they seem to struggle with staying put and stagnancy, which is why they feel the constant need to reinvent and improve themselves and their life. they always seem to think 2 steps ahead and their self-preservation lies in security for their family. they like to feel depended on, which is why they might struggle with feeling enough for themselves. they feel that their life's mission is for them to be able to provide and make other's proud, i'm unsure if this is due to external factors such as upbringing or if it's their innate nature. i do see your relationship teaching them to live in the present more and to appreciate the little moments.

in the northern hemisphere, the spring equinox usually falls on march 20th-21st whereas, in the southern hemisphere, it usually falls on september 22nd-23rd so these dates could be significant. i feel that this person doesn't like labels and doesn't let them define their identity. they hate to be put in a box and see themselves as an ever-evolving being that is always learning and improving. they could also have more of a provider mindset with the palm tree card, as this card describes an unshakeable figure and security. they pride themselves on their endurance and in their resilience. figuratively, they don't seem fussed if they are behind others because they know they'll eventually catch up or even surpass them anyways. i'm hearing the phrase "it's hard to make it to the top, but it's even harder to stay at the top" which could be a testament to your person's character. they're a planner and could be a very type a personality, they have a life plan and will do anything to achieve it. i do feel they aren't as rigid as you might think, but definitely resourceful. if they can't get to plan b from plan a in a straight line, they'll still get there even if it means that they'll take 20 left turns and 40 right turns.

pile 3 ~ 9 of cups, 5 of cups, knight of pentacles, king of swords, 3 of swords oracle cards ~ full moon: completion. heartbroken: deeply hurt, sad, separation, breakup, feeling lost, grieving, mourning. shield: you need to defend yourself.

hi pile 3's! i definitely pick up a strong masculine energy from this pile, they don't have to exclusively identify as a male but their energy just seems more dominant than most. i think this person is on a journey to find self-fulfilment as they've experienced heartbreaks and difficulties throughout their life. they might come off as a brooding character sometimes, or someone who's more reluctant to share their vulnerabilities. they seem to be a person who has it all, for example, they could be quite intelligent, they have a stable job, or they grew up comfortably, but there is a part of themselves that is missing which they are yearning to find. i think their biggest difficulties lie in their relationships, as i can see someone who has such a tender heart but experiences difficult individuals who aren't able to reciprocate the depth that they can. they have a strong sense of self but have feelings of insecurity when it comes to their relationships, as i'm feeling more romantic connections but it could be platonic as well. due to their heartbreaks, they could come off as standoffish or uninterested, but this is mainly a defence mechanism because they don't want to trust the wrong person. these people might like being approached rather than approaching, as i feel like their hurt stems from their unresolved fear of trusting others. they take a while to open up or pursue any connections, but that's because they want to be 100% sure and don't want to provide you with anything less than their worth. they seem incredibly self-aware but need more time to heal their wounds than you do. i'm seeing you being incredibly kind and encouraging for them, which greatly helps build the foundation of trust between you two. they might be someone who often looks to the past as well, and is hypercritical of their mistakes. i do feel that your relationship will help this wound for them and helps them to trust again. they will really try to improve their boundaries and engage in conversations that stimulate you both intellectually. i'm getting that their love language could be words of affirmation and gift-giving. they will learn to be more able to put their feelings into words and work through their traumas to be the best for you and your relationship.

now they might be born under a full moon or you might meet them during a full moon, or even during a time when you are towards the tail end of a chapter of your life. i'm envisioning that you might meet this person towards the end of a chapter so you both can go through the next chapter together. i feel like you could meet them not long after they've had a heartbreak or are in a period of mourning. this energy isn't full of doom and gloom though, as i feel that you were meant to be in this person's life at that specific time to teach them a lesson about resilience. you seem to be this person's endgame and help heal their wounds regarding relationships, they seem to feel like you are their shield and safe space. although they are extremely capable of defending themselves physically, i'm getting the vibe that you are such a fierce protector of their heart and energy which is rare for them. i feel that you will also teach them a lot about self-worth as i'm hearing someone say "why me?", cause they sometimes feel that you are a godsend and that you're too good to be true. you seem to be the last footnote in their chapter and you revitalise their feelings of romance.

that is all! if you have any feedback, comments, queries or requests please don’t hesitate to reach out to me my ask box is always open. sending you all love, light, positivity and abundance <3 much love

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comical-wheelchairs · 1 month ago

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How I Work with Pre-K Kids as a Wheelchair User

I've given these tips to enough other wheelchair users that I figured I could make a post about it, and this blog is aligned enough with it that I figured I could post it here.

I've spent time as an administrator for a pre-K and school age programs, and I am also in my final year to be dual certified as a special education/general education elementary school teacher in America. I am also an ambulatory wheelchair user, but cannot safely move without a mobility aid, even when I am standing/walking. SO. Here's a guide/rundown of how I personally talk about disability with the kids I work with!

When First Meeting a Class

You do not need to explain/justify your wheelchair, and any adult who believes you do is probably doing it for their own curiosity and not an interest in the kids.

My personal recommendation is to say you are always happy to answer questions about yourself, and leave it open ended.

If the class had to be rearranged for your wheelchair and you feel comfortable saying so, I will sometimes say "I'm really grateful that you moved the furniture so I could get around. I can't wait to meet everyone!" It makes it clear why the need is there, and if a kid accidentally blocks you you can always ask them to move so you can get through and remind them.

When They Ask Questions

"Why do you use that?"

I respond by asking them what is 'that' - being careful to speak with a curious tone. For young kids, they might not know the word, and will probably point. From there you can say "oh! this is my wheelchair! have you heard that word before? i use it to get around since walking is [very hard/impossible/not something my body does]."

"Why don't you walk?"

I respond by telling them walking is something I can do for a little while, but it really hurts. Link it to a concrete example. "Have you ever gone into a super hot car, and you could do it for a little, but you wouldn't want to be in there all day?" "Have you ever tried to hold snow (or an ice cube) without gloves, and you could do it for a little but then it started to hurt your hands because it was so cold?" Make it personal, specific, and simple - developmentally they may still need support understanding that other people have different experiences (or might be totally unable to yet).

"How'd you get into that?"

I typically respond silly - "Well, I sat down!" If you want to, and you do not need to, you can make this into a (short, keep it short, their brains are so interested in everything and switch very quickly) lesson on transfers/how people get in/around with their wheelchairs.

"What happened?"

I respond by asking them what they mean. This typically leads to another question which I mentioned above. Alternatively I sometimes say "I realize a wheelchair helps me get around safely!"

"How do you use the bathroom?"

My strategy that's worked best is being calm and friendly while saying "I don't like talking about how I use the bathroom." If you can redirect after that (point out something for them to do, change the subject to something they'll find more interesting) it'll make it easier. If they ask why, you can say that everyone has stuff they don't like talking about and for you it's the bathroom.

Physical Interactions With Your Chair

They touch your chair

We had a big thing about this in my pre-K rooms - what we would do is if a kid tried to touch my chair (or did) I would tell them "It's so cool that you want to explore my wheelchair, but I want to make sure you're safe, because there's a lot of moving parts that can pinch you! Can I give you words for when you want to touch my wheelchair?" If no, then let them know you can't let people who can't be safe touch your wheelchair. If yes, give them a script to ask for permission - you will have to repeat it. A lot. Gentle repetition is your friend and within two months my kiddos were asking everyone permission to touch them at school. My script went "Teacher Pecan, can I touch your wheelchair?" "No, now it's a safe time, because [I am moving a lot/I am tired/I need a break/you have a task to do]. We can check in again [when it is a break time/when I feel better/when you finish your task." "Yes, it is safe to touch my wheelchair right now. Can you point to where you want to touch?"

They kick your chair

Every time a kid kicks/hurts your chair, say "ouch! that hurt! my wheelchair is part of my body, it helps me get around!" Repetition and speaking clearly are your friends. If a kid keeps kicking your chair, finding another thing for them to kick (for example, a ball) can help divert the kicking need into something safer for everyone :)

They (try to) sit in your lap

Gently use your hands to get them off or keep them off. Calmly say "Oops! My wheelchair isn't big enough for the two of us!" If they complain/protest, validate and then explain. My script is "I know it looks like a cool place to sit, but my wheelchair is just for me."

They (try to) push your wheelchair.

My last two chairs had no push handles, but my second one did! It can make sense to panic when I kiddo pushes you - I've had them try to push me into walls (by accident). Here's what I did that worked great: Immediately lock my breaks/grab my pushrims, and calmly say "oops! We don't push wheelchairs without permission!" If they stuck around/didn't immediately run away, I would ask them if they remember a time an adult picked them up and took them somewhere they didn't want to go (typically a car). If they say yes, and even if they say no, I explained that pushing my wheelchair feels just like that, and makes me scared. Most children never pushed it again, and everyone stopped after the second try.

Miscellaneous Tips

"Isn't that cool?" is your friend. Any time a kid is first learning about your wheelchair, end the sentence with it. Any time a kid is nervous about your wheelchair and you explain something, end the explanation with it. "It helps me get around, isn't that cool?" "These are called spokes. Aren't they cool?"

Wheelchairs can be grounding tools when you have a good handle on the class and boundaries! Only if you would like to. My spokes on my last chair were rainbow, and I would use my chair to physically get between them and the emotional trigger, and ask them questions about my spokes. "What colors are next to green?" "Can you point to which one is your favorite?" "Hmmm which color do I get if I mix red with blue?"

"Why doesn't [limb(s)] work?" My left foot is (mostly) paralyzed due to nerve damage, and my script is "My brain can't talk to my foot and tell it to move." You can say whatever you'd like, just try and keep it to basic body parts unless the kiddo is super into anatomy.

If they imply/say wheelchairs are bad, or you might be sad for being in one, you can correct them by telling them how cool your wheelchair is! Get them to compliment it too, if their attention span allows. "I don't feel sad about my wheelchair, I love it! I love the color! Do you? What color do you think I should get next?"

In conclusion - talking calmly, positively, and using repetition of the same words/scripts is a great way to not just exist in a classroom hassle free, but to get kids comfortable with disability/mobility aids at a young age. I have had kids get pinched by my chair (he grabbed my axle from behind), and luckily I had my higher ups on my side and they agreed that I made every effort to keep the kids safe (plus he learned his lesson lol, he always asked permission after that). Your mileage may vary based on admin and their attitudes, so play it by ear, and change any of my tips as needed. Feel free to send questions to this blog too. :)

#wheelchair user #mobility aid user #physically disabled #actually disabled #wheelchair tips #wheelchair meta #not comics

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felassan · 4 months ago

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New today on DA:TV from Game Informer:

"How Romance And Relationships Work In Dragon Age: The Veilguard by Wesley LeBlanc on Jul 08, 2024 at 02:00 PM Dragon Age: The Veilguard is a BioWare RPG, which means a lot of things, including the fact that the game will feature romance. Based on what I learned during a recent trip to BioWare's Edmonton office for the current Game Informer cover story, Veilguard will be the team's most romantic game yet. Relationship Level"

"Every companion in the game has a Relationship Level related to Rook, and the choices you make (and not even specifically about the companion, but in the world in general), what you say to companions, how you help or don't help them, and more all play into it. Every time you rank up a companion's Relationship Level, you unlock a skill point to spend specifically on that companion. Though companion skill trees pale in comparison to Rook's expansive tree, which features passive abilities, combat abilities, and more, as well as paths to three unique class specializations, there's still some customization here. Each companion has access to five abilities, but you can only take three into combat. Thus, it's important to strategize which abilities to spend a skill point on and how those abilities can synergize with your current build on the battlefield. Though I couldn't confirm, Dragon Age series art director Matt Rhodes hints that companion issues, problems, and personal quests will play into this Relationship Level and how a companion interacts with Rook. "[Bellara Lutara, for example] has her own story arc that runs parallel to and informs the story path you're on," Rhodes tells me while I watch game director Corinne Busche play through a linear, story-driven mission in Arlathan Forest where Rook is searching for Bellara. Busche adds that "relationships are key, not only romance but friendships. We wanted to lean into not just the relationships the characters have with you but the relationships they have with each other. It's a found family, and at the end of the day, they need to trust they all have each other's back." Romance"

"However, fret not, BioWare fans – romance is a key part of relationships in the game, Busche says, noting some of the romances will get quite spicy. However, not all of them will, as "each romance has a very different flavor," according to Busche. Some characters are straight to the point, while others are more awkward, having never been in a relationship before. "You learn who these characters are in how their romances unfold," she says. She likens romantic and platonic relationships to another way to "level up" your companions. It's not just experience and skill points that determine Rook's standing with companions, but diegetic conversations, too. BioWare has already revealed that every companion in Veilguard is pansexual, notably different from the community-dubbed "playersexual" approach in some games, which sees NPCs adjust romantic and sexual interests based on the player rather than their own sense of sexuality. As pansexual companions, they are attracted to people of any gender (or regardless of gender). That's a critical distinction because, in Veilguard, your companions aren't just going to vie for your affection – they might take attraction to other companions in the titular Veilguard. Giving one companion the cold shoulder might nudge them into the warm shoulder of someone else on the team. Busche says companions can form romances with each other, although I'm unable to confirm if that means locking Rook out of forming a romance with them. I saw nothing resembling romance in my very early hours with the game. However, I did see the romantically inclined "emotional" response in Rook's dialogue choices at times, which led to my Rook flirting with ice mage and private detective companion Neve Gallus. Busche says this is the option to flirt and push platonic relationships into romantic territory, though Rook's flirtatious efforts aren't always reciprocated. But that's not to say you should ignore the other options – I saw dialogue choices resembling friendly, snarky, and direct, too, and I can see how these different flavors of dialogue likely mix and mingle into Rook's relationships with companions. It's still a mostly mysterious system to me, but as Veilguard is due out this fall, I don't have to wait too long to learn more and neither do you. For more about the game, including exclusive details, interviews, video features, and more, click the Dragon Age: The Veilguard hub button below."

[source]

#dragon age: the veilguard #dragon age the veilguard spoilers #dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #lgbtq #long post #longpost

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twistmusings · 3 months ago

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florid and (arguably) azujade are feasting this chapter update. congrats us

Honestly Anon, you're so right.

Chapter 7 is so interesting for Octavinelle - largely because we do get to see so much of how they think of each other and themselves, and we get to see so much of their relationship with each other. Honestly the shippers are thriving, but so are so many Jade and Floyd fans.

CW: Spoilers, Twisted Wonderland Character Shipping and mentions of Neurodivergence under the cut in case that isn't your cup of tea. It's very long and examines Floyd and Riddle's and Jade and Azul's dynamics throughout TWST and is sort of Character Analysis as well. Special note that there are Visual spoilers under the cut that will spoil some of the jokes from this chapter, so proceed with caution.

First, Floyd, who we see is outright distraught when everything goes right. Honestly at this point it makes me, as an ADHD person, struggle to not view Floyd as also having ADHD. I tend to not actually assign the characters neurodivergence or diagnose them, but honestly his characteristics really point to him being understimulated and just generally miserable because he's not doing anything and that's boring him. I have heard this from so many other folks with ADHD and have experienced it myself. I think, truth be told, that Floyd is a really good picture of a young person with ADHD. Especially as someone who was just properly diagnosed later in life - I would get these random, massive intense moods and would never be able to explain them until I began to suspect I had ADHD. If we consider Floyd's general characterization - he hates to be 'bored', he hates to force himself to do things that he doesn't want to do, he had random, intense moods, randomly struggling with some academics while really excelling in the things that interest him, comparing himself to other people and not understanding why he's different ... like, yeah, as a person with ADHD I relate to him so much. It's so interesting to me because Japan in general has a lot of medical bias against diagnosing and managing neurodiversity, so I think generally speaking, he's honestly a really well written example of someone who is struggling. I think his portrayal is probably so important for young people who play the game because it makes them feel normal and accepted, and I can't deny that.

And then Floyd and Riddle... these two are so funny. Like, if you had to ask me any character that shows having a crush on someone else canonically, I would probably point to Floyd and how he acts with Riddle. Considering that they're teenagers and we know neither he nor Riddle have any experience dating (none of the characters except Ace really do), I think it's really charming because like... are they annoying the fuck out of each other? Yeah, and I think that's pretty realistic for people who are 17 who have crushes on each other. Of course, I don't want to say I support people annoying or antagonizing their partners, but they are young people who are still learning how life works. I realize that teasing =/= having a crush on someone, but like...

In the recent stitch event they had this dialogue

Riddle gets so genuinely happy when Floyd praises him. Even Jack takes note of it. And then in Floyd's Labwear...

This interaction is so telling of the sort of relationship that they have with one another - first Floyd interprets their interactions as playing. Second, Riddle takes note that Floyd is in a bad mood which means that Riddle pays enough attention to him to notice when he's having a bad day. And then you have Jade over there just like 👀. It's so goofy but it's kind of wholesome also because it shows that in spite of everything, Riddle still shows concern for Floyd and Jade is a nosy sibling.

I don't know how many people have actually read the comic anthology, but there's a side story with Floyd and Riddle where Riddle is trying to study how to control himself better following his OB and Floyd, of course, comes to bother him and notices him reading advanced books and that ends in this interaction.

Like, is Floyd being a shit? Yes, of course, but he also doesn't take it back when he says that he thinks that it's admirable that Riddle works hard.

They really are the duality. Please enjoy this too-high effort shitpost I made.

And then add the fact that in the most recent story chapters the thing that gets Floyd to wake up is Silver and Jamil reminding him of the entrance ceremony where Riddle threw him through the air, and Floyd essentially being like "Yeah goldfishie is fun that was fun" and that being what snaps him out of it? Like these two are fated to irritate the hell out of each other by the story itself.

Also I think it's such a funny cute touch that the reason Floyd even started irritating Riddle is because Riddle couldn't control his temper and flung him. Floyd was just being curious, and while, yeah he probably should have asked before he touched Riddle's hair because he was curious if it would feel hot, Riddle immediately rose to meet his energy, and generally speaking we know that Floyd is a physically motivated person. He likes to fight, and he likes to test his strength. No one else caused a scene at the Sophomore orientation except Riddle. You know, the character that is almost entirely focused on not breaking rules? Riddle painted a massive target on his own back with his temper. And honestly, what I think does make it work is that even though Floyd teases Riddle literally all the time, he does respect Riddle. Riddle is interesting to him because he's strong and reacts when Floyd irritates him. As I said before, on Floyd's end at least, the antagonism is playful, and considering Floyd's relationship with Jade and Azul it's easy to see why. It's how he was raised to view affection from friends and peers.

Now, how about Riddle's side of things? Well, while we don't get a ton of canon crumbs from Riddle, there's at least a few things that we do get. We know that Riddle sort of resents that Floyd teases him, but he has been told multiple times by other people that Floyd is just trying to get a rise out of him. And yet, every time Floyd compliments Riddle and then immediately starts teasing him, Riddle falls for it. On some level, I'm sure it's because Riddle likes the attention just as much as Floyd, even if for a different reason. Riddle gets put down a lot - from his dorm and from his own mother. But even if Floyd teases him, Floyd also gasses him up because, like I said, Floyd genuinely thinks highly of Riddle. Riddle gets complimented and he gets smug about it because he thinks highly of himself, and it probably feels good to have that recognized.

Compare Riddle's interactions with Floyd to the ones he has with Jade, for example.

From the Spectral Soiree event.

There are a couple reasons why I feel like this is important to note. First, Riddle recognizes that Jade is making fun of him immediately. Riddle also misses Jade's sarcasm. Riddle isn't good at reading Jade - he finds Jade unpredictable and malicious, and interprets this as Jade making fun of him. In contrast, you don't see Riddle outright refuse a compliment from Floyd - he knows that Floyd is being upfront about how he feels when he says the things he does, but he doesn't know that about Jade. Riddle is also the butt of the joke here, whereas if we compare it to the similar situation that he went through with Floyd during the Tropical Turbulence event.

Floyd is teasing Riddle, yes, but in this situation he isn't making Riddle the butt of the joke, he's just causing a little bit of chaos. Floyd already has a plan in place, but Riddle the two aren't arguing with each other. It's also important to note that Floyd is one of the few characters outside of his dorm that Riddle really banters with comfortably.

The other thing is that though they compete with and annoy each other, Floyd and Riddle are actually genuinely pretty nice to each other otherwise. They both compliment each other pretty frequently even if they usually pepper in barbs as they do.

Floyd and Riddle are also pretty similar people, too:

At any rate, that's a lot of screenshots to basically say, yes they do make fun of each other and tease each other, but when they do get onto the same page, they work very well together and seem to have a mutual respect for each other even if they criticize each other. They can identify the aspects in each other that they can't identify in themselves and it makes their chemistry interesting because every time they share screentime it seems like they learn from each other.

Anyway, Florid fans eat well literally any time these two share screen time.

And then Jade and Azul... honestly those two cracked me up the entire time.

First you have Jade's dream with his god awful imagination. Jade literally gets the knockoff versions of Azul and Floyd as I said in the first post about it, but I think it's interesting to see how he perceives both of them. I'll be including images this time.

I'll start with Floyd because HOO buddy if I was Floyd and had to endure this shit.

This is an actual crime.

That being said, Floyd is noticeably more childish in Jade's dream than the actual Floyd is in reality, both in his rather immature visage as well as a more child-like way of speaking.

It's worth noting, in Floyd's dream, Floyd doesn't really pay much attention to where Jade is, and he doesn't really pay any attention to where Azul is either. He says "Eh, Jade's probably with Azul on land because the Mostro Lounge was succeeding." Floyd also makes a point of saying that it's a rule between the three of them - they don't have to stick together - if they don't want to do something, then they won't stick together and whoever wants to do it can do it on their own, or if they don't want to involve someone in something, they don't involve them in it. (Ironically, I would argue that this is one of the healthier dynamics for friendship in TWST that we see. All three of them have discussed and come to understand that if they need to separate ways, they will, they don't want to hold each other back from the things they enjoy.)

Jade on the other hand, and whether Floyd likes it or not, seems to view Floyd as a younger brother. We don't get confirmation as to whether or not Jade hatched first or if Floyd hatched first, but regardless of whichever it is, it seems like Jade views Floyd as his younger brother, and seems to have an instinct to coddle him, even if this portrayal of Floyd is deeply unflattering to Floyd and starts a whole fight.

It's also of note: Floyd didn't expect to be in Jade's dream at all. Floyd talks about how he figures that Jade has just dreamed about him in a similar way that Floyd had dreamed of Jade - off doing whatever he wanted to do. That's not true - Floyd is there, with Jade, and engaging in Jade's interests.

In Jade's official EN school uniform home tap he says:

Though some translations tend to interpret this line differently, and essentially instead say that Floyd is clingier than he seems.

The reason I'm pointing this out is because Jade is the only one of the three who's primary dream features all three of them together. This would seem to point toward Jade actually being the one who's clingier, and to being the one who's most attached to both of them. I can't really say for certain, but I almost wonder if Jade has a bit of a fear of abandonment with regard to Azul and Floyd and that's why his ideal dream world is one where they're both so reliant on him.

And then Azul...

Is Giorno Giovanna in the room with us?

Seriously though, I think it's kind of interesting to see how Azul is portrayed in Jade's imagination.

For reference, here's what Azul actually looks like in his mer form in the same pose.

The thing I immediately noticed is Azul's eyes. Sure, the image Jade has of Azul is a JJBA joke, but there's something else I want to point out about them in particular.

Azul's eyes are an entirely different, brighter color. In fact, it's also a different color from Azul's overblot eye color as well.

We know that Jade's limited imagination means he's working on his own impressions of Floyd and Azul and you're telling me that Jade's impression of Azul is that he looks like a character from a manga known for being about handsome, fabulous men and that he has ginormous, bright, shiny blue eyes that look like sapphires? Hello?????? Jade???

I think this is fascinating because had they just drawn Azul as like a normal old JJBA reference but kept his color palette the same, I could see it just being explained as "oh, neat, Jade thinks Azul is handsome when Azul doesn't" but follow me with this: Jade's imagination is painting them in broad strokes the way that Epel's imagination was doing in his dream. These are Jade's impressions of Floyd and Azul.

Floyd tracks - he sees Floyd as a younger brother and someone he inherently wants to take care of, even if it's not realistic. Floyd is a childish younger brother in a cartoonish way. Azul is motivated by money in a cartoonish way. These are the traits that stick out the most about the both of them to Jade.

So when Jade imagines Azul physically what he sees is Azul being handsome AND that he has these shiny bright blue eyes even if his memory gets the shade of blue wrong. Jade....... honey................ I need you to sit down when I tell you this..........

And then after he and Floyd fight, because Jade is too stubborn to wake up because he can't grasp that what he's seeing is wrong, the thing that finally triggers him to realize something is off is this version of dream Azul checking on him after the fight and being relieved he's okay and then saying that he's afraid he would have lost his "かわいい部下".

The thing that triggers Jade to start waking up is Azul calling Jade his cute subordinate (essentially his cute assistant). I am not exaggerating this. That is literally the phrase that triggers Jade. Jade even repeats it.

AND HE FUCKING PANICS

JADE. I AM BEGGING THE SECONDHAND CRINGE THIS MADE ME FEEL.

From there the dream Floyd of course says he's going to cry if Jade left him and like that just seals the deal. And everyone is super impressed because Jade realized it was wrong by himself and woke himself up.

I don't tend to insert my opinions much in my post but there is not a single person on this planet that is not going to make me believe that Jade did not just gay panic himself awake. I feel like most queer people have experienced something just like this. Jade literally wakes himself up because he's like "no, wait, hold on, Azul wouldn't say that, right?" and then Floyd saying he's going to cry sells it. Dream Azul essentially just fucking "baby girl"ed him and Jade was like "no, actually, that's too cringe for me to even dream about".

Then you have Azul's dream. Honestly there aren't a lot of crumbs there for Jade, but I think it's sort of sweet how even if they're sort of forced to, Jade and Floyd don't want to force Azul to do anything. They have a lot of respect for each other's personal boundaries, and they were fully prepared to let Azul stay asleep and allow him to work it out himself if he wanted to wake up. It doesn't end up working out that way, but it's not hard to tell that both the twins and Azul had respect for each other as individuals.

Another neat thing is that Azul is one of the few people who's dreams aren't inherently things he really wants. They're more of "what-if" scenarios. What if Azul was good at sports and ended up being a high school athlete? What if Azul actually got to follow through on burning that picture of his younger self and then opened a Mostro Lounge branch? I think it's interesting that Azul seems to be kept in these dreams because his imagination is vivid, and not because they're an ideal world perse. In a sense they are - but Azul himself admits that he doesn't really want either of them.

Azul gets so much growth shown in this chapter. He ends up wanting to wake up because he wants to live for himself, and not live for what other people think of him or having to rely on them. Azul still wants to succeed, but he wants to succeed for himself and not because he feels a need to one up the people that bullied him, and he wants to be fulfilled in himself. He's actually working on his mental health, I love that for him.

And, one more thing of note, I think it's so fucking cool that at the end of the book, Azul doesn't freak out about other people seeing him in his true form. In fact, he doesn't freak out about seeing himself in his true form when Idia makes a proxy version of him - he's just thinking about how cool it would be to have a second version of himself. I feel like most people have gotten the sense that Azul has a sense of self-loathing regarding his mer-form, but it seems like if he did at some point, he's made peace with it.

Anyway that's an unnecessarily long infodump about my feelings about the character relationships that we've got in the new update. Like obnoxiously long. So, uh... I'll just end the post with Azul's smiling sprite because I just think it's fucking adorable.

#answered;;#Anonymous #florid #jeiazu #twst #twisted wonderland #spoilers #twst spoilers #character analysis;;#Octavinelle is the dormitory where all of the queer folk go #I mean all of the dorms are but these three have a certain je ne sais quoi #In basically every test I've ever taken that sorts you into a dorm I've also ended up in Octavinelle so.... that tracks #welcome to Octavinelle we had good food and gay fish #twst shipping;;

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taffywabbit · 1 year ago

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idk if i'm way off the mark on this, but the way some people are responding to that Guillermo del Toro interview about the decline of studio animation is a bit frustrating to me. specifically the bit where he talks about "emoji animation" and how everything is over-animated and pushed too far and things are rarely allowed to not be ultra-cartoony (y'know, because animation always needs to be marketable to children who are never trusted to have attention spans, right?). like, i think he's generally correct about it! but some folks are taking the wrong message away from that.

i've seen people going off about how "soulless" and "corporate" various recent examples are, and talking about these pieces of media as though they're the result of some kind of personal failing or lack of skill/range on the part of the animators, and it's just like. do people realize that's the only animation you're usually allowed to DO in the industry, unless you get incredibly lucky and land yourself on a project/studio that's unusually cool?

when i was in college for animation it was literally drilled into us nonstop that everything had to be pushed more, that exaggeration was not a guideline or a sometimes-treat but a hard rule that always had to be applied regardless of what was going on, because the viewer couldn't be trusted to pick up on subtlety and we sure as hell couldn't be trusted to convey it. you ever wonder why there's such a specific vibe to a lot of self-directed student films, particularly ones that are focused on character acting/interaction or deep emotions and introspection (especially when there's minimal/no dialogue)? it's because for a lot of young animators, they haven't had the freedom to experiment with realism and subtlety up to that point and they're likely not going to have it again for a while (or at all, unless their career path leads to higher positions where they might have more creative direction over the things they work on. which also becomes a lot less likely if they're anything other than a cishet white dude, for what it's worth).

i would LOVE to see more nuanced, realistic, understated motion and acting in animation. i WANT more characters to be able to express what they're feeling through natural body language and facial cues and for scenes to allow me to breathe instead of spelling everything out in giant bold flashing text all the time. what del Toro wants to see changed in the animation industry sounds great, and i hope others join him in seeking to revamp what modern animation is allowed to be.

but as things currently stand, and as they've stood for a long while now, most artists doing the grunt work on the shows and movies you see are completely at the mercy of corporations and networks who have a vested interest in producing a very specific kind of marketable and cost-efficient media all the time. (and by extension that style is ALSO what's taught in most animation schools, because their job more than anything is to grind you down into a perfect little sweatshop worker who will bend over backwards to meet quotas and get your work approved and not question the higher-ups, even if you have little to no personal investment in the projects you're working on, so that the studios who employ you can maintain their good reputations or whatever)

anyways idk what my point was here, this really just sorta became a rant and my views have undoubtedly been coloured by my own personal experiences (this kinda shit is largely why i dropped out before my last year of animation school, for the record).

i guess just be kind to folks in the animation industry? they've had it fucking rough nonstop for well over a century (the majority of them are still not unionized and there's HUGE pushback against doing so in many places). i assure you they are doing their best to infuse the latest uninspired illumination flick or weird spinoff kids' show with literally any amount of soul they can. you don't have to like the stuff that gets produced by any means! be a hater! i'm certainly not gonna stop you. just remember where these creative decisions come from and why these conditions exist, and consider that when YOU watched something and thought "hmm that could've been done better", you can bet your ass someone actually working on it probably thought the same thing but couldn't do anything about it. these things WILL change as the industry itself improves, but in the meantime folks have to pay their rent, and that usually means doing what they're told and working in a way that will minimize revisions and meet quotas so they can keep their jobs. it sucks, but it is what it is.

#buny text #long post #animation #i don't have a rant tag because i don't necessarily want to encourage myself to make posts like this frequently #but this is obviously a touchy subject that's close to home for me and it felt important to get it out #i realize i am on the Getting Super Mad At People Who Make Popular Media website so hopefully this does not bite me in the ass

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snapscube · 4 months ago

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In Dawntrail did you enjoy a different character playing the main role, or do you prefer when the player character is leading the narrative?

this is definitely a major point of contention in the fanbase rn and i can generally see valid feelings/criticism on both ends of the spectrum. i myself do fall somewhere in between the most extreme takes on this. i won't go into too much detail about actual events but ill tag this as spoilers anyway just in case. ok so my thoughts are:

firstly, i like Wuk Lamat a lot. i don't think she deserves even half of the pure unfiltered ire that she is receiving from a large subset of the community rn. the amount of people who have already turned being a wuk lamat hater into an advertised personality trait really frustrates me. i really enjoyed seeing her personal journey through the story and i was overall very satisfied by her inclusion. however, i do not think the story was perfectly paced or balanced, and i definitely do understand where people are coming from when they say that they could have used a little less of her in the forefront. honestly it did kind of ultimately disappoint me that we missed out on a lot of potential interaction/development with someone like Krile, who in spite of being promised a big breakout role in this expansion still somewhat felt like a SLIGHT (i have to stress slight) afterthought. she did get some notable moments of development and emotion, but i feel like there could have been more.

okay but, your question is about our role as a player in the narrative. i hold the opinion that for THIS EXPANSION SPECIFICALLY, the warrior of light taking somewhat of a narrative backseat actually made a ton of sense and fit the themes of the narrative as well as the promise of a somewhat breezy summer vacation for our heroes. now, i will say this: i really do not agree with the idea that the WoL should be in a mentor role indefinitely because our story is done developing and we need to give the spotlight to "the next generation" of heroes in the world. i appreciate the SENTIMENT of this, but like for me personally.... i don't want Pella's story to be done, yknow? i definitely would be disappointed if this was the DE FACTO role she played in every expansion past this. but i don't even think that is factually what's going to happen. we're currently in a setup phase! and, again, bringing it back to this narrative and the themes within, a lot of Dawntrail about the experience of entering unfamiliar places and learning about the customs and the traditions of people already within it to best help them without unwelcomely trampling on their culture in the process. i think a story like that is the PERFECT time for the WoL to take a bit of a backseat. wuk lamat is also somewhat unfamilar like us yes, but Tural is still her home and she is about to be tasked with leading it. i feel like centering our character in that equation would feel.... really disingenuous? it was kinda frustrating sometimes when it felt like hey.... there's a situation happening right now that can be solved by skilled combat and you have a literally god killer standing right here doing a frown emote, but at a certain point i could chalk it up to growing pains or necessary suspension of disbelief in the interest of the overall emotional hook of the narrative. a lot of those moments could be explained away with enough thought about the character motivations and culture at play, though sometimes it does feel like a stretch. again, far from a perfectly written MSQ. it starts slow and it's messy and it throws a LOT of stuff at you that doesn't always pay off like you expect or want. but i dunno! i think we're gonna see some really interesting stuff come to the forefront in the future, and i think especially now knowing that much of the playerbase thought we took TOO much of a backseat here CS3 will probably adjust their focus accordingly next time. so i can't be too upset really about the stuff i wasn't into. the rest of it was great imo!

#hi ian :)#ffxiv #dawntrail #dawntrail spoilers

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hunny-pp · 8 months ago

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PENACONY 2.1 SPOILERS /

[basically a more elaborate version of my twt thread on this]

I don't think I'm the first or only person to say this, but I do think Gallagher is v likely a memory zone meme

EDIT: heres pt 1.2 with additional evidence

Sunday deduces that Gallagher is an amalgamation of fifty-one Family members, who he's inherited physical traits from to create the appearance he has now.

Gallagher alludes in his own story that he may not be human

In short, Memory Zone Memes are amalgamations of multiple fragments of the Memory Zone, all have reflections of different memories, cognitions and emotions.

A meme in definition is when something, usually ideas, culture or behaviour is passed to another person through imitation or non-genetic means.

It makes sense for Gallagher, as he mimicked the physical traits of Family members without taking them or that trait away - these NPCs are very much fine and you can interact with them. It's more like a copy-paste onto himself.

Other little details include: -This could change in the future depending on if we get any fire units, but for Gallagher specifically, he takes the Raging Heart materials - which is harvested from a Memory Zone Meme-type enemy. This one's a bit of a stretch but it fits nonetheless

-His signature colour is magenta - shown in his clothing, his marketing materials and in the VFX of his attacks, his claw and his brew. This colour is specifically his and not something he had inherited from someone else.

Memory Zone Memes, especially "Something Upon Death" have stark magenta/purple/pink eyes and cores. When seen from afar or at least in a general sense, the shades are similar enough

-The writing style of Gallagher's stories feel strange, like different aspects of Gallagher's personality and life are on the outside looking in. Akin to a reflective surface giving off different reflections from different angles of the same subject. It adds to the idea that there are multiple aspects and fragments within Gallagher all looking within each other.

Mixology and The Dreamjolt Hostelry:

Gallagher's main interest outside of work is mixology. Like any culinary craft, there's an inherent science behind it, and it takes a lot of work and knowledge to craft well constructed cocktails and drinks. Symbolically, mixology complements Gallagher, as he himself is a combination of a diverse range of people. When you view these inherited traits isolated, you know they come from someone real - but when put together, they form One Complete Gallagher - cohesive and seamless.

While you can say the same for different branches of culinary arts, mixology in particular symbolically represents Gallagher the most. This is just from a layman's perspective but when I view the same with cocktails - from a general inspection it's one cohesive drink even if from taste or watching the process, I know it's all made with different components.

Notably, when Gallagher talks about mixing drinks, he describes it as akin to combining different emotions, experiences and memories into a singular cocktail and it's reflective of both customer and bartender's own current state of being.

His philosophy on mixology links back to the concept of Memory Zone Memes, manifestations of fragmented memories, emotions and cognitions nestled into a vessel.

The reason why I bring up the Dreamjolt Hostelry is because of the Vignettes in a Cup event (spoilers for it). It's not explicit in his stories or voicelines, but going by the Trailblaze quest, it's implied that the Dreamjolt Hostelry is the lounge/bar he regulars for a drink or to hone his craft as he's v friendly and familiar to Siobhan and is seen in the 2.1 trailer to be serving a Dreamjolt Domescreen (whether it's Lady or not doesn't matter).

Dreamjolt Hostelry is in the sealed off dreamscape Reverie, where the corrupted Dreamjolt Troupe monsters and Memory Zone Memes reside. Notably, where you encounter Something Unto Death in key moments of the story.

I'd like to believe Gallagher is very comfortable with the company of monsters, going by the fact that he himself is non-human.

In Vignettes in a Cup, Siobhan explains that the reason why she mixes drinks for the Dreamjolt Troupe monsters is that it helps regulate their emotions - since the dreamscape is falling apart and in turn they have become unstable.

Gallagher himself in one of his idle animations drinks an unknown concoction from his hipflask once his scar starts acting up - in which it settles back down. It's hard to discern in this point in time how long this has been going for, but as a non-human entity (meme or not), the dreamscape's decay is also likely affecting Gallagher and thus he has to regulate himself.

Why Do The Heathen Rage?: In the mission "Why Do The Heathen Rage?" we learn a lot of the Watchmaker's secret history as well as a general run through of Gallagher's own personal story.

First off, a lot of Penacony's trailblaze mission titles are references to songs, literature and media relevant to the themes of Penacony and/or by American classical authors or poets (ie Heaven is a Place on Earth, Cat Among Pigeons, The Tell-Tale Heart).

Why Do The Heathen Rage is both based on Psalm 2.1 Old Testament, but also it's a fragment of an unfinished novel by Flannery O'Connor. Fragment of a novel -> Gallagher is made of fragments of different people -> Memory Zone Memes are fragments of (I'm booed off the stage for being a broken record).

The story tells of a man called Walter Tilman who lives on his family's farm. There he starts to write letters to different people - particularly to Oona Gibbs, a black civil rights activist. However, he writes to her under the guise of a black man, and writes with the intention of testing the commitment and integrity of her beliefs.

Going with what we know in hindsight, Gallagher is masquerading around as a human, likely as a Memory Zone Meme as we've realised hopefully by now that they're the monsters most likely to pull something of Gallagher's calibre off.

This is all I'm gonna talk about from "Why Do The Heathen Rage" mainly because my additional theories are based off leaks and are more speculative.

Bonus section: "Something Unto Death" When it comes to Gallagher's connection to the Memory Zone Meme "Something Unto Death", a lot comes from his many symbols of death. This is just a bit of a bonus since we're talking about Gallagher likely being a Memory Zone Meme, we might as well address the elephant in the room as well.

For brevity, we'll call the little guy "Death Meme". Death Meme is a Memory Zone Meme created from the Dreamscape's fear of death and murder as "death" shouldn't be something that can happen in the dreamscape.

Gallagher has a FUCK ton of symbolism and nods to death. The most striking is that Gallagher's iconic "I'm Thirteen", which is the number for the Major Arcana "Death". (For additional reference I also think Thirteen could be the amount of Amber Eras he's lived in, or that he's at least 1300 years old. Also since he has a lot of dog theming, 13 dog years in human years is around 60-80 depending on the dog's size).

Additionally, thirteen is a common number to represent bad omens and misfortune - namely the well known Friday the 13th superstition, amongst other things.

When Gallagher makes you a drink, no matter what choices you make - the cocktail will have a memento mori/death/morbidly themed name and he will accompany most of them with a sardonic toast.

Gallagher's eidolons are names of different cocktails which fit his mixology theme. However, Corpse Reviver, Last Word, Death in the Afternoon and Blood and Sand are all death centric names, as if he couldn't get edgier enough.

There's also the call into question his playstyle, where he's a much more aggressive battle healer than the likes of Luocha and is the first abundance character to provide debuffs on the enemy, and derives healing through damaging opponents.

Conclusion: If you've read this far then I'm assuming you're as normal about Gallagher as I am. But yeah, there is so much to him I haven't touched on, his connections to the Enigmata, my continuation on this theory based on leaks and his shared past with Mikhail, what I think he'll do in the plot moving forward. This patch and its characters are themed around hiding secrets and that there's more than meets the eye. Gallagher in particular has proved to be the most mysterious of the trio, as while we've gotten a clear enough picture of both Acheron and Aventurine but there's still enough intrigue to keep them going, Gallagher's just given me more questions than answers man.

#honkai star rail #hsr gallagher #gallagher #honkai star rail theory #hsr theory #hsr spoilers #penacony spoilers #im normal about him (smile)

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prettyboykatsuki · 10 months ago

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wyll, in my opinion, gets the standard fare treatment for characters that are unequivocally good. i.e. people think he's boring and uninteresting. standard fare might be kind actually given the level of racism and unexplained slander (which is often just more thinly veiled racism). his reputation about being boring is not helped by the very blatant neglect of his storyline post his rewrite and release. as a wyll enjoyer i am hyperaware of the sorry state of his current story in all three acts

despite all of that and the glaring flaws - i still believe that wylls storyline is worth of being engaged with and explored.

one of the reasons (not the most major one, but one) i think wyll experiences so much neglect as a companion stems from a wider idea that "goodness" is always the uncomplicated, easy choice.

it's something i see a lot. wyll is boring because of his archetype as a princely and universally righteous guy. and this is interesting, because it always seems to functions under the assumption that wylls moral character is innate. that his heroic and righteous actions are in some capacity, uncomplicated.

uniquely among the male origin companions, through the course of wylls story - there is never a point in which he is at risk of making a truly 'bad' choice. both gale and astarions story have them at risk of making choices that are ultimately bad for them and others (especially tav when each character is romanced). gales godhood and astarions ascension are their in game moral failings. they are the result of having not broke the cycle and are 'bad' choices for the individual character.

wylls main choice is however his pact and the choice to break that pact. notably - wyll is never at risk of making a bad choice, only a selfish one.

from the critique i see of wyll - it seems like this is the element of him people find most egregious. he's too smooth, not rugged enough, not gritty enough. but i don't think wyll's character needs grit, necessarily.

if you take any time to dissect wyll at all, based on dialogue and character interaction, many of his choices put himself at the forefront of sacrifice. the game strips wyll of a lot of agency, but wyll also always abides by and sticks to his core belief. so often towards his own detriment.

not only does wyll bear the consequence of being turned into a devil (stripping him of the last remaining shred of identity he's ever had and one of the most important things in his life), he bore the burden of being banished when he made his pact, and was willing to do the same for the sake of his father when he is taken to moonrise.

and unlike gale (who i adore, to be clear) who's concept of self-sacrifice stems mostly from a low self-worth - the belief that dying is the best he can do - wyll truly views that it's better him than them.

wyll does not think twice about allowing himself to be the one to take the fall. he can play any part, take any role, even when these choices haunt him so obviously. wyll claims that he forgives his father, but opens up to you about fearing his feelings of missing him are one-sided. he believes that making his pact was the right choice, the one he would make again - but doesn't deny the obvious pain and solace that came along with being a wandering traveler and banished son.

wylls goodness is so deliberate. he is so staunch in upholding and acting on his beliefs that it is always narrative to his own detriment. when you view wyll like this , and view his choices with regards this character attribute, it is imo very hard to hate him.

wyll's goodness is his double edged sword. it makes him heroic, brave, fearless. and it makes him scared, uncertain and lonely. again, the story itself is bare bones and i understand that - but it is so very beautiful to me thinking of him and tav or just his general romance.

as wylls romance partner, encouraging wyll to break his pact is as tragic as it very beautiful. tav is wylls one selfish thing. one of the only reasons that would move him to not give himself up. one of the only reasons he is okay with forgoing his beliefs. he loves tav enough to break his own oaths, and make choices for himself and no one else. not as the blade, or as a ravengard - but just as wyll.

and that aspect of him is in my opinion, enforced, by the mindflayer tav ending. in which wylls monster-hunting and morals are made exceptions with / for tav. my enjoyment of hero corruption might be speaking for me, but i digress.

in every way though - i truly love wyll as a character. and while im well aware of the critical flaws in his in game story state, i think it's both unfortunate and unfair that people call him boring. to me he is anything but

#aristotle.txt #wyll ravengard #bg3 #wyll meta #bg3 wyll #wyll x tav #he is so love of my life coded #this is my experience as a deku defending and lover speaking for me i fear

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caligvlasaqvarivm · 7 months ago

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ik you mentioned interest in writing out how you'd prefer homestuck ended (though obviously time and money makes that impossible lol), and you touched on it in your big eridan essay at the end, but would you ever consider maybe a more detailed outline? i really enjoy your thoughts on the characters and the abandoned plotlines, i'd love to get a little more of an in depth look at how you wish it went down.

Yeah sure!

For those who aren't sure what the hell I'm talking 'bout, please check out my blog and the various essays I've been writing.

Some of it is contingent on stuff I kind of still need to reread so I'm really sorry to the alpha kid likers but I'm still not totally 100% sure where I want to take them. I'm also going to include quite a few personal preference ships; I'm not interested in arguing what other people should ship or about arguing about the course of action for my dumb fanfic in general. I also tend to discover the plot I want while I'm writing it, which I don't have the luxury of here, so... some of it is going to be kind of sloppy. I'm also a big troll stan so unfortunately the kids are a little bit neglected (sorry!!!!). That said.

So the changes would take place directly after GAME OVER, which is personally the point at which I think the truncation/turning on the fanbase really starts - ships start to get turbo-sped at that point. I'm not even saying I dislike JohnRoxy or JohnRezi, but they just feel oddly rushed the way they're handled in the comic itself. IMO, anyway.

There's not too much I would rearrange during this interstitial segment; I think it's important for Jade to have the experience of loneliness, for Terezi to kick off the retcons by only feeling comfortable fixing her own mistakes. Moreover, there's no reason why other characters can't use her mind beacon abilities to ask John to rearrange the timeline, though their attempts, because they aren't backed by Seer of Mind abilities, are a lot sloppier and come with a lot more unforseen consequences.

But something I would change is that Roxy's deal with Nyx is not to just kind of... sit back and chill in non-space while John does all the work; instead, like Rose in Davesprite's timeline, Nyx puts her to sleep, and when the timeline ceases to be, GameOver!Roxy's memories get transferred to Past!Roxy via her dreamself (which wakes up early), fulfilling a "stealing from void for others" aspect of her abilities, and leads to some important interactions later on down the line.

Also, this timeline's ARquiussprite and Gamzee's corpse (heretofore referred to as (ARquiussprite) and (Gamzee)) need to come along for the ride somehow. Maybe they fall through the sky after LOLAR crashes into LOFAF.

This kicks off a series of retcons, as each troll that gets brought back successively asks for another troll/set of trolls to be brought back. This absolutely RIDDLES Act 5 with password pages, can't go two steps without running into a password page, there are password pages within password pages (which IMO is very funny and very Homestuck).

Meanwhile, a couple other plots are running concurrently - the GameOver!crew (heretofore referred to as (Name)) are now in the dream bubbles, completing their character arcs and preparing to defeat LE. Because time and space are weird in the Furthest Ring, every successive meteor trip that occurs as a result of John's retcons is the first time from the point of view of the meteor, but is a repeating event from the point of view of the people in the bubbles - eg those dead god tier Eridan and Feferi wind up healing the Mayor like seven times from their perspective.

(Aradia) is fluttering her ASS off to make sure everyone is in the right "place" at the right "time" for this, lmfao.

Roxy gaining future memories also means that the Alpha kids get to complete their arcs in a way they weren't able to prior to Game Over. Because what John's retcons are doing are functionally whiting out and redrawing the past, the Alpha kids are also only seeing a single linear timeline.

One last arc, which is running concurrent to the retconned!trolls and their new meteor trips, is that bringing back each successive character allows them ALL to grow a little more. So it is NOT like they bring back Vriska, and now everyone's problem are fixed and everything is fine; Vriska's still kind of awful, but she gets better after Tavros gets brought back and they have to character develop alongside each other, and same when Aradia and Sollux get brought back, so on and so on. Because it's about BEING FRIENDS and BEING A TEAM. They're all still having interpersonal problems right up until ALL of them get brought back.

But as a side effect of this and the questing done by the GameOver!crew, the Dancestors get more fully utilized as foils, and get their problems addressed. As the retcon!team goes through their character development, they start to tear the Dancestors apart, because the Dancestors represent shitty parents who force their kids to clean up after their messes, and refuting them works both literally and symbolically as rejecting their irresponsible way of being in lieu of responsibility, accountability, empathy, and compassion.

So here's the series of retcons, and the absolute bullshit that accompanies each decision:

Terezi asks John to save Vriska, and prevent herself from getting too spades with Gamzee, as these are her two greatest regrets.

Pretty much just what her canon iteration asked for; I don't see any problems with the actions she asks John to do for her.

HOWEVER, we'd get more than just a montage of Vriska's time on the meteor, because in this version of events, we're taking our time and letting plot points breathe. Neither does she magically fix everything just by being around when she's very much herself still going thru it by the time the Meteor trip pops off. In any case, she brings with her some new complications:

Karkat still winds up having to play moirail and keep Gamzee calm. This still ends up breaking down by the halfway point of the comic, because they're kind of just not good for each other, but Karkat's personal shitty relationships are going to become A Theme, so it's important to make note of it here.

Vriska and Terezi don't fully make up on this iteration of the trip, since from Terezi's point of view, she was still actively about to kill Vriska before John intervened; however, we get more hints, now that they have to spend three years together, that not only does Vriska really miss Terezi (which is pretty well-established, given how she can't seem to leave Terezi alone), but Terezi actually misses Vriska, too - she's just really bad at separating her own feelings and desires from her instinctive grasp of karma and justice, a very Mind player-type problem to have.

At least with Vriska around, Terezi's able to nip her Gamzee habit in the bud, but this kind of leads to Gamzee feeling worse and more alone.

Something Really Messy happens between Vriska, Rose, and Kanaya when Rose starts her drinking habit, and it's pretty toxic for all involved, and Karkat is kind of stuck playing auspice. Vriska already expresses not liking Rose much and develops some flushed feelings for Kanaya after being watching her murder Eridan, so "It's Really Messy" is kind of all I can say on the matter. The girls are fightiiinnnnggggg

Dave and Terezi get close again, but given the weirdo vibes he notices between her and Vriska, and the fact that he's really not down with quadrants (YET.), means they still end up not getting together.

Sorry DaveKat likers but I am not one. They do not ever get together, so if you are hoping for that, I am sorry and you don't have to keep reading if you don't want to, it's OK.

On a note about Vriska and Terezi - personally, I do think their moirallegiance is endgame; Vriska clearly misses her terribly, constantly trying to bug her into making the Scourge Sisters a Thing again, and she even expresses feeling really bad about the Team Charge Debacle to Terezi explicitly, before directly foreshadowing how awful Terezi will feel after killing Vriska:

AG: Cause even though you got all these highfalutin morals and fancy reserv8tions, you know as well as me that a killer is a killer is a killer! AG: There 8n't no ch8nging your ways for good, and one d8y you're going to flail that silly l8ttle cane of yours and not find n8thin to 8ump into, and fall f8ce first into the shit ag8in. AG: And you're going to do something t8rri8le to some8ody and wish you could t8ke it 8ack 8ut you c8n't!!!!!!!! AG: And then you'll work hard to win 8ack their trust, and you'll try and try and tr8, and you'll see how hard it is! AG: You'll seeeeeeee!

We know that she starts using 8's where they don't make sense phonetically when she gets really agitated, so it's pretty safe to say that she's displaying genuine emotional distress here. When combined with the way she tells John about feeling absolutely horri8le about killing Tavros, it's pretty clear she's genuine about feeling really bad about the Team Charge debacle, and sincere about wanting to somehow make amends and get back into Terezi's good graces, at times trying rivalry, at times trying to prove that she's trying to fix her mistakes.

Terezi also vehemently denies them having a kismesistude and directly mirrors Vriska's hesitance about all the murder:

GC: W3 4R3 SUPPOS3D TO R3V3L 1N BLOODSH3D 4S W3 GROW UP GC: 4ND SH3 S33MS TO B3 3MBR4C1NG H3R R1T3 OF P4SS4G3 W1TH R3CKL3SS 4B4NDON, 4S 1 WOULD 3XP3CT GC: GR4BB1NG TH3 BULL BY TH3 HORNS, SO TO SP34K GC: 1TS 4 L1TTL3 1NT1M1D4T1NG GC: B3C4US3 1M NOT SUR3 1F 1M R34DY FOR TH4T

AG: On my world, I would 8e completely vindic8ed for killing him! He is far lower on the hemospectrum than me. He managed to disrespect me time and time again, 8ut I kept letting him live! In fact, the amount of slack I cut him would 8e considered scandalous 8y those in my class. AG: I had every reason to kill him. And yet... AG: I feel 8ad a8out it like a lame weak fudge8lood, just like he was. AG: And the fact that I feel 8ad is why I'm sort of freaking out right now!

They're basically two toxic girls who CANNOT be honest with their real feelings, and wind up hurting each other. They need therapy badly, but given the fact that they also mirror each other positively - Terezi feels grateful to Vriska for blinding her, and Vriska mentions she ought to thank Terezi for killing her, which set her up on a date with the dead John Terezi also killed - I think they have a lot of potential to be genuinely kind to each other once they work through their individual issues.

Anyway. We're keeping the Roxy stuff under wraps for now - last we saw of her, she went to go see her denizen, and her planet exploded, and John was really bummed about it. HOWEVER, we are going to check in with our GameOver!crew, although only lightly for now:

Meenah and (Vriska) have fully disappeared, and (Tavros), (Nepeta), and (Feferi) are looking for them because they've got the FUCKING TREASURE???

Everyone else from the Game Over timeline has landed in the afterlife, to varying degrees.

Shortly after entering the afterlife, (Eridan) fucked off somewhere to be alone. Last anyone heard from him was (ghost!Sollux) and him being Erisolsprite, but neither (ghost!Sollux) nor (alive!Sollux) have seen him since Erisolsprite died in Game Over.

(Karkat) is also brooding off on his own, feeling really shitty and sorry for himself. He's always felt personally responsible for everything going wrong for his team, and now that his team is basically entirely dead, he feels extra shitty.

Mostly just setting up that these guys are still relevant to the story, despite now being (irrelevant).

That brings us to the second retcon. Vriska obviously had great regrets about killing Tavros, both pre- and post-retcon, so she asks for his death to be prevented.

Tavros is back.

Vriska's requested fix is a very simple one - after all, Karkat makes mention about how Vriska's always had a competitive streak with Terezi, admiring/being jealous of her ability to manipul8 people; I think an ultimate culmination of that is her insisting that insisting to John that he do a retcon to stop her from killing Tavros - which, as covered above, she regrets greatly - but to do a much sloppier job of it, simply having John pop into [S] Wake and knock Tavros the fuck out.

Vriska herself doesn't believe this will have any unintended side effects, because her opinion of Tavros is still really low despite her genuine desire to make amends, and she's wrong.

Tavros's stay on the meteor has a major effect on Gamzee. I'm not entirely sure how it would pan out exactly, but I think Gamzee would step in between Dave and Tavros, into a situation none of them are happy with. This starts Tavros on a path of realizing that his inability to stand up for himself not only hurts him, but people he cares about (Gamzee, whom he ghosted).

Vriska is mostly uninterested in Tavros now, as the moment has kind of passed, and Terezi keeps getting on her ass about going after him (which brings the two of them closer).

Previous Messy romantic situations are still active. Karkat is going thru it.

Dave feels bad about tormenting Tavros but he kind of can't help himself, especially because Tavros keeps going up to him for some reason. The fact that he gets trapped in an auspice with Tavros and Gamzee kind of reinforces that he does NOT vibe with troll quadrants. Dave becomes MORE xenophobic.

On a note regarding Gamzee and Tavros: while I generally try to avoid relying on Hussie's commentary too much, as he likes to play his cards close to his chest, his note about Gamzee in the Act 5 book is actually significant enough to me to include:

The best explanation for why Gamzee says he's scared of Vriska, in my opinion, is this: he's flat-out lying. It's a good way for him to maintain his cover as 'Soft Gamzee.' It also provides some ammunition for those who, against all sense of good taste and judgment, want to continue to believe and assert that Gamzee is a decent guy with sensitive emotions and vulnerabilities before he undergoes his Muderstuck awakening. He was none of those things, ever.

Hussie likes to play coy, and you can't really trust anything he says after Act 6 because he's fed up with the fandom, but I think this comment comes early enough, and is made assertively enough, that it can be taken at face value. I know that "Soft Gamzee" is actually extremely popular in the fandom, so this may be controversial, but I do think there's more evidence for him being kind of nasty and manipulative than not, and having that always be a part of him brings more cohesiveness to his character. For example, he seems to have a pale crush on Karkat, trying to assert that Karkat is his best friend and changing the topic when Sollux gets brought up and he recognizes Karkat is closer to Sollux than him, and if you read his first log with Terezi as if he's hiding being nasty under a soft veneer, then his comments do read as pretty passive-aggressive.

TC: yOu KnOw HoW iT iS wItH fAmIlY. GC: NO, NOT R34LLY! GC: 4DURRRR DURR DURP TC: Oh YeAh... ... TC: I sPaCeD oUt, DiD yOu KnOw HoW bEaTuFuL tHe SoUnD oF tHe OcEaN iS? TC: hAvE yOu EvEr EvEn SeEn ThE oCeAn? TC: oR i MeAn SmElLeD iT... TC: SoRrY. GC: >:[

Maybe most damningly, his narration calls dealing with Eridan's genuine emotional distress "indulge emotional theatrics," an implication of his true feelings. Karkat and Eridan are heavily foreshadowed to be moirails, and Gamzee seems to have a pale crush on Karkat. What does Gamzee do in this conversation? He chases Eridan away from comforting Karkat - using the same excuse as he uses to avoid dealing with Vriska.

CA: put kar on TC: UuUuH, i cAn't rEaLlY ThInK AbOuT InTeRvEnInG, tHe bLaCk fRoWnInG MoThErFuCkEr kInDa sCaReS Me

Moreover, he does NOT seem to like Jack comforting Karkat instead, either.

THIS IS NOT TO SAY I DON'T THINK GAMZEE ALSO DESERVES A SHOT AT KINDNESS AND REDEMPTION. Gamzee is clearly a very troubled youth, between his absentee lusus, his indoctrination into a fundie doomsday cult, and his sopor usage. The fact that having his faith shattered by Dave makes him snap implies that, one, he was already unstable and teetering on the edge, and having his faith fucked with was the last straw, and two, that until he lost that last shred of hope, he was still pretending to be nicer than he was for a reason, and given that his LE worship doesn't start up until after the snappage, I think it can be extrapolated that that reason is that he genuinely wants to get along with his friends.

Given that Gamzee's issues largely stem from his neglectful lusus, it's not a stretch to say that Gamzee does not take well to abandonment and isolation. So here's kind of where Tavros comes in:

Gamzee mentions that he feels "So aT ChIlL WiTh yOu" while talking to Tavros, and Tavros reciprocates the friendship and also - interestingly - acknowledges Gamzee's religion, calling it beautiful even if he doesn't necessarily believe in it. I call it interesting because Karkat's inability to do so is explicitly one of the reasons their moirallegiance broke down. Moreover, in their first conversation together, Gamzee explicitly praises Tavros for his "gumption" for stealing his clown nose, when Tavros's avoidance of his problems is one of his biggest personal issues. So yeah, personally, I'm all for moirallegiance.

But Tavros started ghosting him after Gamzee offered to make out a little, another symptom of his avoidance issues. I'm sure that, even in this meteor trip, the fact that Gamzee killed Equius and Nepeta really scares him. In his conversation with Terezi, Terezi outright says "NO WOND3R V4NT4S C4NT ST4ND YOU"; Equius is constantly yelling at him; lots of people on their team seem to genuinely just sort of dislike him.

CG: MIRACLES ARE LIKE POOP STAINS ON GOD'S UNDERWEAR. TA: eheheh makiing fun of people2 reliigiion2 i2 the be2t thiing two do.

So having one of the few people he does really like also ghost him probably did... bad things to his mental health. Especially so when said person wound up dead. But now that he isn't dead, I think they have a shot - they just need to address their personal problems. Tavros with his avoidance, and Gamzee with his resentment toward the world, and reliance on substances and religion to take the edge off. In this meteor iteration, that doesn't quite happen - their toxic auspicetism succeeds in letting them air out their dirty laundry to the audience, but doesn't bring full reconciliation.

In any case, this meteor trip is fairly short, and uneventful from the dream bubbles side, although I do think Tavros should get a talking-to from (Tavros) about real self-esteem and self-worth.

Still, being back in contact with Tavros again, even if in kind of a messed-up way, does make Gamzee start to reconsider some of his past actions. This brings us to:

Gamzee Asks for Equius and Nepeta back.

Gamzee's not as nice as he lets on, but he does genuinely care about his teammates, and for the people he really cares about, like Karkat or Tavros, I think he's willing to stick his neck out. Bringing back Nepeta and Equius is more for Tavros than himself, really, because Tavros is scared of him for doing that, and he motherfuckin' misses Tavros, okay? John mostly agrees because he's kind of scared of Gamzee.

Some really fun stuff starts happening this go around.

The Gamzee-Tavros situation becomes resolved because this time, Equius steps in as an auspice between Tavros and Dave, and this auspicetism is COMPLETELY HEALTHY (with the bonus of being extremely funny, and what is the point of a Homestuck ship if it is not deeply funny).

Gamzee and Tavros are able to enter into a totally healthy moirallegiance once the auspicetism builds up Tavros's self-confidence, much to Karkat's relief.

Being stuck in the auspicetism makes Dave go crawling back to Terezi on his hands and knees. I'm sorry, Terezi. I'll do anything if you take me back. Just don't let me die as the guy stuck in a threesome with the two worst trolls. Dave has overcome his xenophobia.

Dave and Terezi becoming official does make Karkat sad, however, so when Nepeta finally works up the courage to confess to him, he accepts the offer to date her, thus fulfilling Jaspersprite's musing that she might only be able to date him after she dies.

They also break up. We're keeping up this trend of Karkat and his disastrous relationships. He's still involved in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska drama, too.

With GamTav and Dave/Tavros/Equius cinched, Tavros and Vriska reach a sort of truce with each other. Not really friends, since they kind of still dislike each other, but Vriska would genuinely be glad to see Tavros getting more actually confident, and muster up the energy to genuinely apologize for almost killing him, so there's a sort of mutual respect there now. Vriska and Terezi are even closer because of this, but still not fully over their problems.

On the topic of the Dave/Tavros/Equius auspicetism: Dave still can't stop bothering Tavros, but the lewdness of it sets Equius off, so he feels like he has to intervene. Dave also can't stop himself from bothering Equius, which ALWAYS BACKFIRES, and since Tavros has a weird fondness/rivalry with Dave, he'd find it within himself to ask Equius to back off (which would work, because of Equius's... Equius). And every time Equius gets too overbearing toward Tavros, Dave feels COMPELLED to intervene, because he's like, my fucking god, you are the two worst trolls, why must weirdos fight. Dave desperately wants out, but he can't stop staring at these two.

And weirdly enough, it's beneficial for all of them. With two people to yell at him for being weird, Equius becomes less weird. With a rival in Dave and more contact with Equius, Tavros becomes more confident. And Dave has two people to rap against and feel good about his art with, something he more or less had to deal with alone during previous trips.

On the topic of Karkat and Nepeta, there are quite a few implications that they wouldn't necessarily work out. For citations, let me just link my Nepeta essay, where I go over what the comic says about their relationship from a storytelling perspective; here, I'll talk about their relationship from a more interpersonal perspective.

Karkat's signals are mixed as fuuuuuuck. While I don't necessarily think this will be an issue for Nepeta, as - as a Heart player - she's preternatually gifted at understanding motivations, the thing is... I think Nepeta can do better, and deserves better, a sentiment echoed by Jasprosesprite^2. She certainly deserves better than being second to Terezi, at the very least, even if she states she likes his outbursts.

And the thing is, Karkat is pretty explicit about saying that he doesn't return her feelings; in a world where they date, there's always going to be a sense that she's his second choice. And, just... my girl deserves better, okay? Moreover, while he respects her personhood, he's also pretty nasty to her when he DOES talk to her, implying he doesn't necessarily respect her choices. And also, she's actually really bad at shipping, so there will be this extremely weird tension of like... a hobbyist vs. a professional. I don't think Karkat would be able to stop himself from mocking some of her shipping choices if she ever opened up to him about that.

But I think them getting together is important for Nepeta, developmentally - I talk about this in my essay for her, but shipping is something I think she does need to outgrow, since it's kind of a replacement she's using for her loneliness. Moreover, I say in that essay that the issues she has in her moirallegiance with Equius warrant relationship counselling - and that's what Karkat is uniquely qualified to dispense, as the team's Blood player. Although they end up not working out, Nepeta would take several valuable lessons from this relationship - that she's kind of bad at shipping, that Equius is being kind of a shithead to her, and that she needs to start making friends with other people.

Now then. We're finally getting into some drama in the bubbles.

Please imagine for me Equius and Horuss talking, and Equius being aghast at the way Horuss is so derisive towards his matesprit and moirail. Now imagine him pulling a mic out of nowhere and rapping at him about how his problem is that he does not respect his partners. Now imagine Tavros and Dave joining in, also out of nowhere, with Tavros adding bars about how the hemospectrum is, not a good thing, he thinks. And Dave adding bars about how he does not have a fucking dog in this race. He's not even a troll. He doesn't understand their hemospectrum. Let him out of here. The fine fucking art of Alternian slam poetry. I think Horuss would start crying. So would I if three people including my grandkid started rapping at me.

Nepeta's uncanny emotional acumen leads to her wanting to befriend Damara, but being unable to speak her language.

GameOver!crew is up to something, IDK, probably showing (Tavros) inspiring people and rebuilding the ghost army, to tell a parallel story to Tavros becoming more genuinely self-confident.

We check in with the Alpha kids, too, who have some group therapy sessions led by Roxy.

Vriska and Tavros confront Rufioh together, a final culmination of their no-longer-enemiesship, and together, they steal Rufioh's ones. Like, Tavros starts speak1ng w1th ones, something he always had in him, and they also roast Rufioh so badly that he stops speaking in ones. But the way it's presented to the audience, Vriska outright just says that Tavros should steal his ones. And Tavros does. This carries over to successive retcons, as it's implied that Tavros just kind of starts naturally being more confident as healthy relationships are established sooner and sooner.

Anyway, a final note about Equius - his problems are mostly due to being sheltered. Although he is probably the most casteist highblood, he's not really that casteist, as what's really going on is just that he's got a BDSM kink. But because he's sheltered, he does not realize that it's a kink. And a fetishist who does not realize that they're a fetishist has more power than God.

His protectiveness of Nepeta does come from a good place; preventing her from playing FLARP was actually in her best interest, given what happens to people who play FLARP. But he's very much going overboard with it, likely an extension of his own lack of understanding of how much sheltering is good and how much becomes detrimental. What he really needs is for someone to point it out to him, which I think he gets via Nepeta or via Karkat, and then have a reaaaaally long think about it. He's genuinely a polite and helpful soul, who doesn't WANT to make people uncomfortable. The auspicetism is very good for him in this regard, as is his moirallegiance once Karkat talks him and Nepeta through their issues.

The point is, once he's forced to reckon with the fact that the degeneracy is coming from inside the house, I think he'd have a LOT of regrets about the way he treated Aradia. Which leads us to:

Whoops That Robot Thing Was Really Inappropriate Huh

Equius approaches John to ask him to make Past!Equius reconsider the Aradiabot Thing. John's getting kind of impatient with all these trolls who keep asking him to go back through time, but given that everyone seems a little happier each time, he can't help but agree.

So he goes back to the past, before Equius can give Aradia her robot body with the love chip in it, and something really fun gets to happen here: first of all, Equius's Void status makes him really hard to place, so John winds up missing by a bit, time-wise, so Aradia's already in the body. This is the first time that retconning!John and Aradia have been in the same place together, and when she meets him and finds out that he can time travel without causing paradoxes, she demands (with her Aradiabot deathmurderkill intensity) to be taken back in time to before she died.

John's retcon powers explicitly ignore the usual rules of paradox space - he describes it as a "fresh start". Given that Breath is associated with choices and freedom, his retcon powers are kind of the ultimate culmination of his abilities as a breath player. Although doomed timelines can and will still result from paradoxes caused by players when John isn't there, anything he directly interferes with is totally a-okay.

So all Aradiabot asks him for is passage back in time, in order to sanction her interference in the past. After she dismisses him, she still more or less has to adhere to events in the original timeline, for two reasons - the first being that she doesn't want to risk a new doomed timeline, and the second so she can keep the timeline predictable.

So even though she's basically asked for passage to the time period before SGRUB, it's basically outright stated that the progression of events has to be more or less the same, up until the point where John's other retcons take place. So here are the cascading effects of Aradiabot preventing her own death:

Aradiabot takes Aradia's place in the Team Charge debacle, being blown up/"killed" (as a sprite) by Sollux's eye beams, so that she can take Aradia's place as Doc Scratch/the Handmaiden's servant and "carry out" their orders.

Meanwhile, Aradia seeks refuge with Equius, whose void powers keep her hidden from Doc Scratch's omnipotence.

Because Sollux never actually killed Aradia, and Aradia communicates with him via Equius's account, Sollux is less depressed and self-loathing. He no longer predicts a future where all of them die and he has to be blinded. It's left deliberately vague whether this future comes to pass because he's less pessimistic, so his Mage powers are calling a happier future into being, or if his future changed, so his Mage powers are prophesying something new.

Nepeta starts regaining memories of alternate timelines and past retcons, as an extension of her Rogue of Heart powers. This includes the relationship counselling she received from Karkat.

Between Nepeta and Aradia yelling at him, Equius's character development starts sooner, so he's squared away for future events, and ends up not making the creepy Aradiabot, making a non-creepy one instead.

Aradia and Equius do not strike up a relationship, and become uneasy enemies/friends.

Aradia secretly god tiers well in advance of Jack's arrival, and meets him at Derse rather than awakening on her crypt there.

Aradia and Sollux continue a loving matespritship, leading to Sollux settling into a moirallegiance with Feferi. He's devastated when she dies, which still happens along with the rest of Eridan's freakout; Aradiabot doesn't intervene because she's needed for:

Aradiabot winds up being the one to sacrifice herself piloting the meteor, allowing Sollux to stay with the rest of the team when he meets up with Aradia, (Aradia), and (Sollux) at the Green Sun. Aradiabot winds up with the GameOver!crew.

With the 1337 hackers back in commission, Sollux and Roxy are able to establish a server connection with each other, allowing them to communicate during the 3-year meteor trip.

Aradia involves herself in the Rose/Kanaya/Vriska Mess, and I kind of can't decide what I like better - a vascillatory pitch/flush threeway between Rose, Kanaya, and Vriska, now that Vriska's near the end of her character development, with Aradia serving as a stabilizing force as Kanaya's on-again off-again moirail, or Aradia stepping in as an auspice. Either way, it's out of Karkat's hands.

This has a knock-on effect of finally giving Vriska the chance to fully make amends with Aradia, which winds up cinching the Vriska/Terezi moirallegiance. The scourge sisters are back baybee. And between a healthy moirallegiance for Terezi and a healthy moirallegiance for Gamzee, I think pitch Terezi/Gamzee could work as a healthy ship this time around. I'm not married to it, but they did always seem to hate each other well before SGRUB.

Nepeta has LEARNED HER LESSON regarding dating Karkat, so that does not happen.

Karkat now has no quadrants. He winds up desperately throwing himself at Sadstuck Sollux to try and help him get over his breakup. It's not a good look. Sadkat. He also takes up talking to the alpha kids for emotional support, which puts them off, too. Still gives really good relationship advice. He's clearly one of the more unstable members of the retcon!crew at this point.

We're light on the dream bubble drama this time around because of how MUCH is happening for the retcon!crew, but there's going to be a reference in there of Nepeta learning East Beforan.

SO. NOTES TIME.

Aradia expresses outright that she hated the feeling that she was set up and that she wishes someone would have stopped her from being so reckless. And although she seems to find some satisfaction in being the stewardess of the afterlife, there's clearly some resentment there that she's been forced into that role, as she expresses that what she's really looking forward to is watching it all break apart. There's also kind of an orphaned plot thread where Aradia is spending a lot of time in the afterlife putting knowledge together, which never really directly pays off except to the audience, and I think a really good way to bring that back in would be for her to be communing with (Aradia) in the dream bubbles in order to make sure the timeline flows as smoothly as possible.

As for Aradia/Kanaya - they're actually really good friends, and Aradia expresses that she's flattered that Kanaya wants to talk to her so much. There is a tone here that matches the way Vriska thinks about Kanaya when Kanaya is still ostensibly Vriska's moirail, and Kanaya herself admits to being attracted to people who are reckless. In fact...

AA: i just wish AA: back when i was behaving recklessly AA: i had s0me0ne t0 tell me t0 st0p listening AA: even if i ended up ign0ring their advice AA: it w0uld have been nice

GA: It Must Be A Certain Madness Im Afflicted By GA: To Orbit Those More Reckless And Dangerous Than I And More Daring For It GA: I Guess I Want To Help Them But They Never Can Be Helped It Seems

So I'm just kind of saying... Aradia and Kanaya moirallegiance... is not entirely unfounded. And a moirail stabilizes a troll's other relationships; if we have a moirail for Kanaya and a moirail for Vriska, then the Mess that is whatever's going on with Kanaya, Vriska, and Rose would probably resolve itself, I think. Either way, Rose is surrounded by SUCH a girl's night of emotional support to help her with sobriety now.

As for whatever's going on between her and Equius, I tend to believe the comic when it tells me relationships don't work out, and Aradia expresses regret for kissing him during the Ministrife. I think they could be good vitriolic frenemies, though.

Okay, onto Sollux.

In the same panel where Eridan and Karkat are implied to be "hatched for each other" pale-wise, Feferi and Sollux are foreshadowed in the same way:

They also spend a LOT OF TIME curled up in a pile together talking about their feelings, which we don't see with matesprits, but we DO see with moirails. Nepeta and Equius do the same thing, and they are kind of THE moirails. So I think Sollux and Feferi were always meant to be pale, but because Aradia died, Sollux wound up taking Feferi on as a matesprit instead. Between EriFef, SolFef, and GamTav, people getting flushed and pale feelings entangled is like, a Running Thing, so it's not really surprising to me.

Now, here's the thing. We already know that Sollux likes to cope with a rebound, since he went flushed with Feferi after Aradiabot exploded and was presumed dead. And Karkat cares very fucking much about Sollux, to the point where Gamzee speculates that he's actually Karkat's best friend, and Karkat even calls him that (although Karkat also kind of just calls anyone his best friend, lol).

CG: GAMZEE WAS MY VERY GOOD FRIEND, WHO WAS THIS GOOFY LOVEABLE BULLSHIT CLOWN UNTIL HE WENT PSYCHO AND KILLED SOME PEOPLE. I LIKED HIM A LOT. CG: I DON'T KNOW, I GUESS MY BEST FRIEND IS REALLY JUST THE GUY WHO I HAPPEN TO BE FEELING MOST SENTIMENTAL TO AT THE MOMENT, IS THAT A FUCKING CRIME.

This crab's got so much love in him. In any case, I mostly just want to keep sticking Karkat in these extremely unhealthy relationships for a while. It makes it sweeter when he finally winds up with Eridan LIKE HE WAS ALWAYS MEANT TO... but yeah.

Cross-session communication is also entirely possible, as Sollux set up chat clients between the trolls and the kids in the first place, and even without that, Kanaya found Rose's old GameFAQs on a server in the Furthest Ring. With both Sollux and Roxy on the case, there's no way they can't somehow establish communications way sooner.

Regarding Nepeta regaining her memories, let me once more point you towards the Nepeta essay. She's on track to become the one who attains Ultimate Selfhood, and comforts people like Jade and John about not really knowing their friends or being lonely.

But yeah, obviously Sollux asks for Feferi to be brought back.

F-EF-ERI!!!! 38D

Mostly Sollux just asks to be prevented from provoking Eridan so harshly. Eridan still winds up blowing up the matriorb, and thus, still getting killed by Kanaya in retribution, but this means that Eridan is now the only member of the team left dead.

PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP. PITCH FEFNEP

Pitch FefNep leads to Feferi letting slip something casteist where Sollux can hear; he doesn't personally care because he's heard much worse, but puts them on a break while she sorts herself out. They get back together after that.

Karkat alone :'( he's mostly just talking to the alpha kids at this point, trying to hide from all the happy fucking relationships happening all around him.

If the last retcon was really heavy on the retcon!crew, then this one is much more about what's happening in the bubbles. We get most of our dancestor development this go around. Do not read if you like the dancestors! I go very in-depth about how most of them are horrible people on purpose here, so their arcs are mostly about them being pulled up on their abject awfulness.

Nepeta, who has learned East Beforan, is able to talk to Damara and have an earnest heart-to-heart with her about how awfully she was treated. They hug and cry. Damara, finally validated, gives everyone a big middle finger.

Feferi heals Mituna's brain injury, because literally why the FUCK has nobody else done that. Now once more in control of his faculties, he breaks up with Latula, pissed off that she took advantage of him all those eons to boost her own ego. He also gives everyone a big middle finger. Damara steals her skateboard and high fives Mituna.

Porrim's basically the only dancestor who grew as a person so I think she mostly escapes unscathed.

Latula gets chased around by Sollux and Aradia, who basically just bully her for being bad at games. This is a date to them.

Gamzee completely refutes Kurloz, with his newfound clarity about the real miracle being friendship and the real dark carnival being the world he and his friends will build, not that LE noise.

In a double team between Terezi and Rose, Meulin gets eviscerated for the way her own Issues have made her ships deliberately awful, that she could have simply Not, and she has a bit of a breakdown.

As Feferi is grappling with her privilege and internalized casteism, Cronus wanders up to try and hit on her, and she goes "oh my god... when people look at me, are you what they see? A friendless loser that nobody likes? A total waste of seawater who's only pretending to be cool with the lower castes? A totally fake poser? 38(" Cronus just goes "..." and starts crying and Feferi ends the convo oblivious to that, just going "wow... thanks for talking with me! really gave me a lot to think about" imagine how funny it would be -

Karkat finds and talks to (Eridan), where he fully admits to missing the guy. His mopiness is so extreme that (Eridan) takes issue with it and punches him, before basically yelling at him to get his shit together. Karkat then yells at HIM for him to get HIS shit together, and they both leave, intent on getting their shit together.

We also get an update on Vriska and Meenah at this point, where Meenah is starting to seem more into how they totally ditched their responsibilities than Vriska is.

So the thing with this update is that most of the trolls have sorted their shit out; even Karkat has had a lot of introspection about how he really just fucking loves his friends and should have been more honest about it, not worried so much about appearing weak or lame. With the double Aradias in play to kind of handwave that the timeline will be stable because they're ensuring all loops get completed and all necessary conversations happen, and with everyone's successful relationships on display, we can kind of truncate the next leg of the journey:

Karkat Fixes Everything

Karkat is the Friendship Troll. Karkat is the Romance Troll. Karkat is the Bonds troll. He is their team's Blood player, and as the Blood player, he's been shown to deeply love all of his fucking friends - yes, even the assholes. Maybe even especially them.

As such, it's vitally important for the last push - last leg of the journey - to belong to Karkat. Where would our Blood player be without his bonds? Well, we actually have the answer to that. It's knocked out and prevented from joining in any of the important boss battles. LAME!

So in the last retcon, Karkat hears from Nepeta about the retcons that have been happening, and he really starts digging through his own past. If every retcon so far has been each troll only feeling comfortable undoing their own personal mistakes, then what of the guy who feels personally responsible for everything, all the time, forever?

Look, I'm not saying that a shipping chart saves Homestuck, but... by the time this last retcon is through, every Alternian troll is alive and god tiered. And he is dating Eridan.

If you have any questions about him dating Eridan, please refer to the link above. That essay is nearly as long as this one. There's SO MUCH FUCKING FORESHADOWING.

I don't think the god tiering needs to be explained, because if we hear that Karkat basically made his past self a shipping chart, and we've seen everybody's character development as they've gone through this journey, and we have Aradias on timeline duty and Nepeta with memories of past retcons and her alternate selves, I think we can more or less gloss over exactly how they go about earning their wings while maintaining timeline integrity. The important thing is that Karkat is dating Eridan now.

Because that leads to the last few bits of dream bubble stuff, but before we get into that...

Miscellaneous Plot Things That Need To Happen But I Don't Know Where To Put Them

Yeah there's just some ideas that I have floating around that need to be placed somewhere but IDK exactly where, or exactly how they shake out.

Hal becomes a real boy. And by that I mean as part of their character development, Jake makes Hal "real" a la brain ghost Dirk, and then the rest of them have to scramble against the clock (Jake's ability to maintain Hal's realness) to god tier him and make his existence permanent. He's a Sylph of Mind, which allows him to negate Condy's mind control. And maybe a GCATboy?

(Tavros) becomes the new leader of the ghost army.

Davesprite winds up dead at some point in the bubbles and doesn't explain how he died, but he and (Dave) get to fight each other and hash out their Realness and Relevance issues, before facing their final boss fight as bros once more.

Jade and Nepeta get to talk, and Nepeta gives Jade the reassuring speech about Ultimate Selfhood and how she won't be lonely forever. Maybe it's flushed. Might leave it ambiguous.

Somebody needs to auspicetize Dirk and Jake holy shit. Dunno who. Maybe Karkat, but I kind of like him pitch with Dirk, so IDK really.

Dad needs to die. Sorry Dad. If I can find a way to kill off all of the sprites besides ARquiusprite, I will. It's explicitly stated that sprites are drawn to the battlefield during the Reckoning, presumably to die, as part of the coming-of-age themes - losing one's guardians. It's sad but it's gotta happen.

All the Godtier!Calliope stuff basically happens as-is.

Can you tell I need to do more research on the alpha kids...

Ok Back To Karkat And Eridan

I think I'm going to leave their moirallegiance fairly ambiguous, but when Eridan is brought back, he and Karkat are basically together all the time. Karkat's signals are mixed even on the best of days, so I don't know how easy it'll be to tell that these two assholes slinging death threats at each other are pale, but *I* will know, and that's what matters.

This leads to the last two dancestor takedowns:

Karkat and Eridan (mostly Eridan) round on Kankri. Eridan calls him SO MANY SLURS. The fact that Karkat not only condones this, but is DATING ERIDAN, kind of makes Kankri lose it a bit.

(Karkat) and (Eridan), who have reconciled in the bubbles, finally find (Vriska) and Meenah. (Karkat) gives the two of them the speech that retcon!Vriska gave (Vriska) in the comic's original ending, but this time around, (Vriska) actually agrees with him. This serves as a conclusion to (Karkat) and Meenah's arc, and causes Meenah to feel so bad that she walks back to the other dancestors in shame, as (Vriska) leaves with him with the treasure to finally fight LE.

When Meenah returns to the dancestors, the first one she finds is Aranea, who's really sad about her own little escapade, blaming herself for the way Game Over went. This prompts Meenah to go, no, it was probably my fault, shouldn't have let you run off like that. And this would, from all the sobbing dancestors, prompt a string of "no, I'm the reason we failed"s, eventually culminating in Meenah rallying them together to do one last good thing before everyone gets sucked into the black hole and go join the fight against LE. Everyone agrees.

(Gamzee) is revived by the life players and cursed with immortality, so he can go on to become LE and complete that time loop. He is immediately locked in the fridge. This is also why he can't fucking die no matter what you do to him.

This also leads us into the final boss fights.

VS. CONDY

The twelve trolls. The Condesce represents tyranny, the worst aspects of the trolls' old society, and as such, is most thematically taken down by them. While she did fuck up the alpha kids' lives, too, I just personally think it's so much more thematic and satisfying to watch her be beaten down by the trolls.

VS. THE THREE JACKS

The eight kids plus Hal plus Davesprite. With Bec Noir specifically, it's fucking PERSONAL, as this guy killed their parents. This is where Dave fulfils his destiny of killing an iteration of English with his sword, when he decapitates Jack English; the person in the middle of that sandwich is Davesprite, which is how he dies and winds up in the bubbles. The iteration of Jack that survives to date Ms. Paint is Spades Slick, as he's the most sympathetic out of all of them and didn't kill anybody's parents.

At some point during this fight, I like the idea that they get zapped away by Jack English, John zaps them to the Godtier!Caliborn fight where he gets sealed in the juju, and then we cut back to the fight with Jack English, where, inexplicably, they all zap right back in.

VS. THE FELT

The spares - ARquiussprite, (Gamzee) in the fridge (who has since been revived by the life players and blessed/cursed with eternal life so he can go on to fulfill his role in the timelines and become part of LE), Dad, and the other sprites (if any of them are left alive).

VS. LORD ENGLISH

The GameOver!crew, the ghost army, the dancestors (they have a Big Damn Heroes moment right near the end, buying Jake time to deploy the Weapon), Aradiabot, and Davesprite.

Jake fulfills his destiny to defeat the Lord of all Angels by being the one to deploy the weapon, which deposits the beta kids, who knock LE in to the black hole. They then zap out of there, collecting the alpha kids from after the Caliborn fight, and zap back to the fight with the Jacks.

This specific configuration of boss battles winds up leaving Lord English entirely up to dead characters, who are then implied to all eventually get sucked into the black hole - their memories to live on through the living characters via Ultimate Selfhood, which only Nepeta achieves on screen, but implies that they will all achieve eventually.

It's important to me that the GameOver!crew is the one leading the fight against Lord English, as they're the ones who were the most screwed over by LE and his machinations - manipulated into killing each other, used as servants of his will, dying ignobly in a doomed timeline filled with special stardust. Meanwhile, the retcon!kids and trolls prove what they've learned - about compassion, kindness, equality, and forgiveness - by beating the shit out of the Condesce, who represents the horrors of Alternia, and the Jacks, especially Bec Noir and Jack English - the latter of which is a shadow of what Lord English represents - immaturity, cruelty, hatred - and the former of which is a culmination of all the failures they committed to get to this point, a symptom of their universal cancer.

I wrote a little snippet of Aradia once, and I think I'll use that to end this essay:

(ARADIA): ok now that we are all done being stupid (ARADIA): im sure enough people here remember the plan that i dont need to explain it again (ARADIA): so instead i just wanted to say (ARADIA): leave your backs to us and face forward without fear (ARADIA): the dead and irrelevant will slay the demon of double death while you unmake the threats of the living (ARADIA): and personally i think it's very fitting that he will perish here as nothing more than a bad dream (ARADIA): this will be the last time we see each other (ARADIA): so on behalf of everyone that you are going to be leaving behind (ARADIA): live (ARADIA): and be happy!

#homestuck #eridan ampora #karkat vantas #nepeta leijon #feferi peixes #kanaya maryam #gamzee makara #vriska serket #sollux captor #aradia megido #equius zahhak #tavros nitram #terezi pyrope #unfortunately i was not able to get my actual project done so i'll save that for 6/12 hahaha #but have this meager offering instead

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shepherds-of-haven · 26 days ago

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Hello! You’ve talked before about having experience with professional writing/publishing, so you seem like a good person to ask. I’ve seen authors say that they avoid reading/interacting with fanfiction of their work due to “possible legal issues,” but I’m not actually sure what law they’re referring to. Is this something that you’re familiar with, or advice you’ve come across before? Why would fanfiction be an issue if something like fanart isn’t? Thank you in advance if you have the time to answer!

Hi there, thanks for your question! This is actually something I've had a lot of interest in over the years, partly because I (at one point) was planning on going to law school to potentially become a copyright/intellectual property lawyer, and partially because I have some personal connections to things that happened in this arena (my agent was the agent of an affected author at some point in the past, my publisher or senior editors knew so-and-so), and also, I grew up reading fanfiction, so I've heard concerns on both sides of this issue.

To boil it down succinctly, there is no outright law that prevents authors from reading fanfiction of their own work. However, doing so can become messy in ways that many authors would rather avoid, and there is one famous example of where this went awry and scared authors off of reading fanworks of their own work.

In the US, all authors automatically gain copyright and intellectual ownership over their writing/original content, from the moment they put it into physical form (writing it or typing it). They don't have to do anything to register this right: it just automatically exists, and with it comes a few special rights.

Authors have the right to:

Reproduce or make copies of their work

Distribute copies of their work to the public, in whichever manner they choose (sell, rent, etc.)

Publicly display or perform the work (post, print, act, etc.)

Create derivative works from that work (sequels, adaptations, spin-offs)

License or sell any of these rights to others.

(It should be noted that copyright applies to specific expressions, not ideas. The specific details of your work, including the plot, characters, worldbuilding, text, and other unique aspects are protected. General ideas, tropes, themes, or concepts are not. A story about a magical school, a "chosen one" protagonist who discovers hidden powers as he gets older, or a bearded mentor who's killed at some point in the story are tropes that can't be copyrighted. However, a magical school with a specific personality-based house system, or a bespectacled dark-haired boy with a lightning-shaped scar, can. This isn't just a name thing, either, but covers features like personalities, unique characteristics, and character arcs. Hence "expression" versus "idea." Universal Studios even has a trademark on their specific expression of Frankenstein's monster (flat-top head, bolts in his neck, lumbering walk) - but that's only because the original copyright on Frankenstein itself has lapsed.)

Anyway, so authors have rights over their intellectual property. Pretty simple, right? Except, under this field of law, that means other people--including people who make fanworks--don't have the technical rights to this intellectual property. (They definitely don't have the right to make money off of it, unless they receive permission.) Because fanworks like fanfiction use protected elements like characters, worlds, and terms, they're derivative works, which technically only the author of the work has the right to create.

(Since I'm trying to keep my answer brief, you can read more about derivative works below the cut.) [1]

Many authors explicitly allow fan-made derivative works (aka fanfiction and fanart) of their fiction to be made anyway, with some obvious disclaimers (don't make money off of it, don't claim the original author wrote it, etc.). However, others are under the impression (or have been advised legally) that granting this permission could hurt them in the long run. They've been led to believe that if they don't "vigorously defend their own copyright," they will lose that copyright and all the rights that go with it (including say over how their work is used, where the profit goes, etc.). They believe they could lose in court if someone else plagiarizes them or steals their work and profits from it or uses their work in a way that they don't agree with (like depicting their popular character as homophobic); they will have no legal recourse, because they gave others permission to make derivative works of their story. I don't know how well-founded this fear is in a historical precedent sense, but I know it's rampant especially among older authors in the industry (for reasons I'll get into below), and I also know that legal battles do get really messy if it's not just "I said no, unequivocally, but you did it anyway." Granting permission in some cases (fanfiction) but not others (fanfiction that upsets you, or conflicts with your moral convictions, or hurts your product or its sales, or unfairly makes money off of your property) creates a really gray area in court, so some authors prefer just not to take chances and will blanket-ban derivative works of their stuff unequivocally.

(For a useful page on which authors explicitly encourage fanworks and which ones outright ban it, click here.)

Now, even for the authors who allow fan-made derivative works of their writing (which includes me!), there are many who are leery of actually reading it. Why? Long story short, this is referred to in the industry as the MZB incident.

I've heard different accounts of this story, but I'll boil it down to the bullet points that I know of:

In the 1980s, an author named Marion Zimmer Bradley (who is coincidentally (?) a horrid, awful criminal for other reasons) was a popular fantasy author who was extremely involved in her own fanfiction community. She actively encouraged fanfiction of her world and stories, and even edited a fanzine based off of this world, and was an overall enthusiastic and friendly collaborator and mentor to burgeoning fic writers, whom she invited to play in her setting as a sandbox. She was considered to be one of the biggest public champions of fanfiction at the time.

In one version of the story, a fan, Jean Lamb, sent one of her fanfics (published in a fanzine) to MZB. Some time later, the fan noticed that MZB was writing a new novel that had thematic and plot similarities to her own fanfic. The fan alleged that MZB had plagiarized her ideas, and fearing a potential legal battle, MZB stopped writing that book, developed writer's block, and never did work on that series ever again. This was a horrifying cautionary tale to all authors who witnessed it and essentially spelled the end of that fictional world (Darkover) for good.

In another version of the story, MZB received a copy of the fanzine from Jean Lamb, saw that Jean's story coincidentally focused on a character and time period that MZB herself was focusing on for her upcoming sequel, and she was stopped from continuing on the book by her publisher, who feared legal troubles. (This one is the one that makes the least sense to me, and I've personally heard it from others that this was not how things went down.)

In the last version of the story, MZB received a copy of the fanzine from Jean Lamb, really liked the ideas or interpretations she saw in it, and wanted to incorporate elements into the series' official canon, writing back to ask for permission to do this, like, "Hey, I really liked your take on so-and-so, can I put that in the new book with credit to you in the dedication and 500$?" She had apparently done this with other willing fans before. However, rather than the honored response she was expecting, Jean Lamb wrote back asking for more money and co-authorship on the cover, and MZB apparently got leery that if any similarities to the idea cropped up in her writing in the future, the whole thing would tailspin legally and she'd be accused of plagiarism. In short, the well had been tainted, and you can't just "forget" you saw a cool idea, and the fan knows you saw it, so if they get a whiff that the cool idea influenced you even in subconscious ways, they could be entitled to compensation. Or maybe just being "banned" from writing something in her own world because someone else claimed ownership to it soured MZB on the whole thing. Either way, she quit writing the series and banned all fanfiction of her work soon after.

The MZB was a big hullabaloo in both the professional author world and the fanfiction community at the time, and it's principally cited as the main reason why authors shouldn't read fanfiction of their own work. (You can read George R.R. Martin's summation of the story and why he doesn't allow fanfiction because of it below the cut.) There's a fear that if you accidentally get exposed to something--an interpretation, an idea, a take on your character or world--it becomes really unclear whose idea is whose, and the copyrights could overlap, and then you'll lose ownership over your own world, story, and characters. Even if you don't officially "incorporate" a fan's idea into the work like MZB allegedly wanted to, but instead come up with something on your own or were planning it all along, but it's known you also read fanfiction of your own work, there is no way of proving that you were already planning on doing the thing or were inspired by something totally different; a bad actor could claim you read their fanfic at some point and plagiarized it, so many authors choose to avoid the whole headache and protect themselves by just not reading fanfiction of their work at all, so as to not muddy the waters. [3]

I hope that all makes sense! This is already getting long, but I'll just wrap up by adding that I wrote all of this to answer your question--why some authors prefer not to read fanfiction of their own work--but I will add that I'm personally on the side of authors who support fanfiction and fanart (so long as no one's out to harm the original creator), and that I hope never to be proven wrong! :D

[1] Derivative works can in turn be protected under something called "fair use law." "Fair use" is generally broken down into four considerations:

Purpose and character of the derivative work. Things like parody, scholarship, commentary, and critique are protected are under fair use law. Also, things like whether the derivative work is non-commercial or transformative are also taken into consideration. A transformative work that significantly alters the characters and world of the original work (so how 50 Shades of Grey was ultimately totally different from Twilight, even though it started off as Twilight fanfiction) could be considered fair use. Likewise, if someone posts a free fanfic on, like, their Livejournal somewhere, it clearly isn't intending to hurt anyone or make a profit off of someone else's work, so it might be protected. This first consideration is generally the largest "protection" fanfiction has in the area of fair use, though it's hugely subjective and a matter of great debate: fanworks are by no means something that's unilaterally protected. But in short, if the purpose of a derivative work is not to profit from something, but to add new insight or transform it in some way instead of just ripping it off word-for-word for profit, it may be allowed under fair use.

Nature of the original work. A highly creative original work (like a novel or a film) is due more copyright protection than something like a newspaper article.

Amount and substantiality. If fanfiction uses substantial portions of the original work, especially the "heart" of it (such as key characters or plotlines), it is less likely to be considered fair use. If 30% of your work is just original text from the copyrighted work, your derivative fanwork may not be considered fair use.

Effect upon market's value. If a fanwork or fanfiction becomes competitive or harmful with the original work in any way, especially in a commercial sense (for example, fans are less likely to buy official sequels or licensed works because the niche is being filled by a fanfic), it probably won't be protected under fair use.

Even with all of this, there has been no case law that squarely addresses fanfiction in relation to fair use: it's all been judged by a case-by-case basis only. From this article: "works of fanfiction are more likely to constitute fair use if they are "transformative" with respect to the original work, if they are non-commercial, if they appropriate relatively little of the original work, and/or if they do not tend to detract from the potential market for or value of the original work."

Want some more interesting ways about the whacky ways fiction and fanfiction have intersected with the gray areas of fair use? Check out:

The My Immortal Memoir

The Larry Niven incident (and other legal issues with fanfiction)

Ship It, a fictional novel based on a real-life incident in the Supernatural fandom where a fanfic writer/shipper got shut down by one of the Supernatural actors when she asked him about homoerotic subtext in Supernatural... it's Ficception!

[2] GRRM's summary of the MZB incident in 2010:

Myself, I think the writers who allow fan fiction are making a mistake. I am not saying here that the people who write fan fiction are evil or immoral or untrustworthy. The vast majority of them are honest and sincere and passionate about whatever work they chose to base their fictions on, and have only the best of intentions for the original author. But (1) there are always a few, in any group, who are perhaps less wonderful, and (2) this door, once opened, can be very difficult to close again.

Most of us laboring in the genres of science fiction and fantasy (but perhaps not Diana Gabaldon, who comes from outside SF and thus may not be familiar with the case I am about to cite) had a lesson in the dangers of permitting fan fiction a couple of decades back, courtesy of Marion Zimmer Bradley. MZB had been an author who not only allowed fan fiction based on her Darkover series, but actively encouraged it... even read and critiqued the stories of her fans. All was happiness and joy, until one day she encountered in one such fan story an idea similar to one she was using in her current Darkover novel-in-progress. MZB wrote to the fan, explained the situation, even offered a token payment and an acknowledgement in the book. The fan replied that she wanted full co-authorship of said book, and half the money, or she would sue. MZB scrapped the novel instead, rather than risk a lawsuit. She also stopped encouraging and reading fan fiction, and wrote an account of this incident for the SFWA FORUM to warn other writers of the potential pitfalls of same.

That was twenty years ago or thereabouts, but that episode had a profound effect on me and, I suspect, on many other SF and fantasy writers of my generation.

[3] It would be like if a fan sent the Hunger Games author a fanfic that involved Katniss and Peeta's kids, Suzanne Collins was already in the midst of writing or was planning to write a sequel with Katniss and Peeta's kids, the two stories had significant overlap, and now Suzanne Collins feels like she can't publish the sequel as-is without either significantly redoing things just for the sake of being different from the fanfiction, or being accused of plagiarism by the fan. Better, in Suzanne Collins' mind, to never come into contact with fanfiction at all, and have both plausible deniability and an untainted well.

#writing #writing tips #copyright #fanfiction #writing advice

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