#me? draw fancontent? its more likely than you think

[wigglesforsquiggles]

hello... look.. art i drew.... of jgy.... wow..

inspo pic and hat ver. under the cut

he looked naked w/o the hat to be honest .

[jascurka]

Hey, I gotta say i've been a fan of yours for a few years, and you're an extremely talented artist! Your expressions and the soft way you color makes everything seem almost comforting in most of your work, and it's really cool to see!!

I guess i haven't been caught up in a while cause i haven't watched mob psycho in a bit but i noticed you've gotten into mobrei

I'm not here to harass you or yell at you and i am not expecting a response, but i gotta say i understand, when you age up characters it makes the power dynamic seem balanced and ok, i understand these are characters you love a lot and fanart and fancontent is probably a big source of comfort

But encouraging such an unhealthy power dynamics especially as someone with a larger audience you gotta understand is not ok It's not about the characters and it's not about how you view it, it's about us as people needing to show that these unhealthy dynamics are not ok

if you found out your minor little brother was dating an adult you would be worried about him, if you found out your little brother who is now of age was dating an adult who was very close to him when he was a minor you would be worried about him

I'm not upset because it's mob psycho or if it was any other characters i'm upset because you're portraying something borderline pedophilic as ok

I'm honestly a little dissapointed to see that you've sort of adapted proshipping beliefs, yk at least what i can say about myself is that i'm not against proshippers because i hate shipping and i don't believe love is love

I'm against proshipping because incest, pedophilia, and other dynamics that lead to assault and imbalanced power are not ok and we shouldn't be teaching people especially minors that they are

The more content there is normalizing abusive power dynamics the more people think thats ok, the more minors can normalize it, the more minors can think its ok to date a family member or an adult or just anybody who may hurt them because they were taught that love conquers all differences even when that love is between a 14 year old and a 25 year old or even 18 and 29

Again i'm not trying to hate on you i'm not trying to yell or anything like that i just really hope that you'll read through this and just think about it at least a little bit again this isn't about characters this is about real life

Here are some things you need to realize:

The main purpose of my art isn't to be educational about healthy relationships and it's not focused on portraying "the right thing" all the time.

I assume enough emotional intelligence in my audience to recognise that the ships that I in fact label as problematic already - are flawed and are not healthy to happen in real life.

I want to explore nuanced or taboo things in my art but I'm also a sucker for lovey-dovey feel-good stories and it's not your business to convince me to draw ships more how you want them just so kids on tumblr can have a good example of what abuse looks like.

I am not encouraging anyone to pursue relationships like these! Real life is much more complex than what a scribble on tumblr can reflect on anyway. The content I make of these ships is purely fictional and isn't safe to enact in the real world.

I don't appreciate you trying to bring my relatives into this argument, you're being insensitive bringing them up at all. Of course I don't want anyone, not just my family, to stay in an unhealthy relationship. I think most sane people on earth would be against that, no? Do you just assume I'm okay with horrible things happening to people around me because I like to draw unhealthy and toxic ships?

I didn't "adapt" proship beliefs recently. Not harassing people for their fictional ships and stories has always been very easy for me, even if their content makes me uncomfortable. I prefer to block things I don't want to see over acting entitled about what someone draws or writes.

I already state on my page that my blog has sensitive and mature topics and viewer discretion is advised. I could always draw the "worse" aspects of the relationship or more "abusive" side of the ship so you won't have to reach far below the surface to find the problematic side of it, but I get the feeling you don't want me to do that - you just want me to stop drawing a pairing you find icky. I can add an additional disclaimer in my profile if this all wasn't enough for you but I won't stop drawing them holding hands and blushing until I get bored of it.

EDIT: I do want to thank you for the compliments on my art however, I forgot to add it yesterday.

[drjoneslabratory]

The Splatoon rant The franchise that won't leave my brain alone: 1 the biggest nitpick/issue I have with this franchise.

(Before you read, this is my opinion and this is just me rambling. Don't take it too seriously, I didn't as there are probably typos and grammar issues but ill fix it later as its lunchtime here and I am hungry.)

Anyways...

Splatoon is one of those franchises where it has something so strong that I can't stop thinking about it/draw ocs/write AU lore for it. I haven't touched it in ages as Its still in a box and I have drift. But I still think about it/listen to music, consume fancontent and still read the lore and think of the gameplay.

For years I had this Splatoon fps game I always wanted to play. I have thought about it, and drawn ocs/enemies/bosses/factions/guns for over seven years. (I am soon to show this wacky fandom one day)

Ever since playing Splatoon 2, the squid-to-kid ink mechanic has fascinated me. It's on the same level as the gravity gun/portal gun and the grappling hook/titans from Titanfall in terms of creative innovation in the shooter genre. Despite me having issues with the campaign and story etc. There is nothing like it (foam stars don't count) The multiplayer (of all games), is the most fun I had with a multiplayer pvp game since Titanfall 2 and I think one of the few multiplayer PVP shooter games that is casual and non-competitive focused. And more importantly not a gritty tactical mil-sim/cod clone or generic "not overwatch/Fortnite clone number 10000" It's its own thing, and it does it really well.

Everything is unlockable in the game, there are no microtransactions. No season passes and once in a while simple updates keep it fresh. and not make it repetitive for a concept that seems it be a trap for boring repetitive gameplay.

There are DLCS, but they are worth the price for the content you get. Octo Expansion/Side orders are full-on expansion packs.

Splatoon brings me back to a time when shooter games were focused on simple fun and had a gameplay loop that people wanted to spend hours on.

Splatoon Proved to me (personally) that those games are still possible. And maybe the issue with modern AAA gaming is that Gamers have unrealistic expectations and developers and publishers trying to find new ways of laundering money/investment to appease stockholders.

(seriously am I the only one who is concerned with hearing new articles about the alleged "Most expensive game ever produced every once and awhile, there is no way that is sustainable, especially with these live service games that keep popping up like fruit flies and then die, or showing signs of decay)

The thing, I think bothers me most about Splatoon, is that, I really, I mean this, don't like the single-player campaigns, more particularly the Main Octo-trooper enemies you fight in every goddamn game. Because they are just so... boring and not fun (To me at least). It pains me, really fucking does as Splatoon is capable of having fun Enimies (the Octoling soldiers (though I think have issues, but they are a solid starting point I wish they expanded on) and Salmonoids (god they are so fucking awesome) and whatever the robo fish bots are called in side order)

My main issue with the octo-troopers is that

Boring that most Octo troopers just kinda stand there and then move around. acting more like turrets than soldiers

not really threatening/poor readability of what you are fighting, I am not saying their being goofy is bad, in fact, the weirdness of Splatoon enemies (all of them) is what I think makes it unique, and what it is, but I feel like there comes A point where they are just "Too Goofy" and I think it can hinder combat encounters and can confuse the player on what enemy you are fighting. An example of Good/bad execution of this is

The Octosniper and Commander are my examples of "Goofy done right" and "threatening enemy you need to pay attention to" They fire their guns out of their mouth and have "out there" proportions and designs, One has cool sunglasses the other a peeping eye. but I also get the idea, that these are trained soldiers who were trained to shoot to kill and won't hold back. So I have to be careful around them or I am a goner.

For goofy done wrong, I think I can make the argument that I think the Octobomber and rocket Octotrooper enemies are A prime example.

I fucking hate these assholes, I moved them around Poorly to prove a point that, I can't tell which one is which from afar and often mistake one for another. doesn't help one has a more powerful attack and takes up more hitpoints. The only thing that separates them is easily missable and I think lazily done addition to their helicopter helmet.

Now back to the examples.

Most don't really use the main gimmick of the games (squid-to-kid ink mechanic The Octostamps and Squee-Gs don't count) What I mean is how the ink mechanic can affect combat encounters and I think (As far as I remember) only a few really "take advantage" of Splatoon gimmicks, I really like the shielded octo-troopers as they capture gimmick you are using ink as your main projectile type. you can blind them and have them freak out giving you an easy shot. The octopods glitch out and fly back causing an explosion of your own ink if defeated, creating huge ink puddles. Octodivers try to flank you by hiding in their own ink.

Most feel like obstacles then actual enemies The Tentakooks are a good example, mostly just item holders and nothing really else. Same with octo ballers. Most just try to cover large areas of ink with their own, which isn't bad, but feels like most enemies, most don't really do much.

Don't feel like A real army or "Bad guys" (I get its lore point, but from a gameplay view, They feel so incompetent compared to the Octoling soldiers and bosses heck I question why Mr Grizz would choose them over the Salmonoids (I, am glad I am not alone with being disappointed with Splatoon 3 campaign)

(this one is gonna rustle some jimmies, but don't take this the wrong way) The fact is all the Octoling soldiers you fight, use the same model and they all look the same and have no differences. I get it everyone loves the lesbian child soldiers but I think it wouldn't hurt if there was a male model (and there was a male model originally) or at least had different skin tones. (at first, I thought they were all clones, but apparently, they are all different people, I am sorry but I find it hard to believe Marina, agent 8, and Acht were in the same army when they all look the same no matter what rank, including 8 if you make yours a guy and not white) But the fact some have different weapons with different combat styles the elite's only difference is their black hair with seaweed.

I am sorry but when I am shooting trying not to die, I don't know which Octoling is holding which, and the fact it's third person really handicaps my focus. At least the elites have glowing green seaweed but if you removed that, you couldn't tell which one is the elite. I am trying my best to not come across as "There needs to be more boys, girls are icky" but I wish there was more diversity/readability for the Octoling soldiers, I really wish they were the main enemies you fought. If I were to do it. Id make them a mesh between the elites from halo or HECU from black mesa and Zombie Marines from doom the Gunners from fallout 4. There is this mod I have for Black Mesa that adds female/more diverse HECU soldiers. its random every time, but it makes combat/readability so much better. If I am in a combat section with them, I can now easily tell witch ones witch, who is holding witch weapon, witch one is coming to get me and how do I respond.

The elites and Marines from Doom are the perfect example of a "Readability" Zombie marines have a rifle and are slow firing meant to pepper you, the Sargent/shotgun zombies are the upper class meant to keep you aware as one shot at low health and your dead, The chain gunners are the beefy "wake up call" as they have a repeating hit scan attack causing players to be aware of how they move in a area and giving them a target to kill before the other demons. For the new ones "The shock troopers" in the recent expansion "Legacy of Rust" are An upgrade from regular Marines having a plasma rifle attack that they can spam blocking areas and keeping people focused. The gunners from Fallout 4 are not really that special they are just reskinned raiders with a military gimmick, but they provide a good example of the thing Fallout 4 I Like, make every human enemy you fight have a rank/variation, and each gunner though having a template/variation, you feel like you are fighting a skilled solider of that rank and they are unique/different enough, you feel like you're not fighting the same enemy over and over again.

The elites are so barebones and simple, but so effective, in CE, the upper-ranked elites are just a color swap with a weapon change at the top.

This a good video on the topic as it does it better than I can ever do I know these are not the types of games, I assume most splat fans play (I'll provide links and context later on if anyone is interested)

I know that this is a Nintendo game and demographics blah blah blah I'll I'm asking for is little more creativity and I wish that the single-player campaign was given more attention and life as the multiplayer I really think the default campaigns are just not really fun to be honest.

I don't wanna say it's bad or mediocre, as when they have their high points and when you fight the bosses the campaigns start to shine. I say this as a Galaxy fan, but I don't like how they're just islands and feel more like tutorials than actual levels and feel more like cut levels from Mario Galaxy than its own thing.

I am not trying to bring up lore or anything as this is going on long enough and I have a lot to say about the lore.

If you read this far, thank you, know, this is my opinion, and you're not invalid for thinking otherwise, I am just a nerd who likes shooter games and I really like Splatoon, and I feel like it can be even better than it is!

[some-pers0n]

I just typed out this when talking with some friends in a Discord server, but I think it probably could go here as well not gonna lie.

I have a lot of opinions on the views of fanart VS fanfic. A lot of fandom things in general are mocked by people who aren't really in them, despite other things being normalized. People who buy all sorts of merch for their favourite sports team or take off their shirt and paint their body the colours of the team aren't seen as that strange, but if you try to express that you like something more niche you're seen as weird.

Twilight is a great example of how something that's relatively innocent and light-hearted is twisted into a dead horse for people to routinely beat over and over again. Are the books that great? In my opinion, not really. However, a lot of people (in particular young teens) loved it. They however were made fun of and mocked relentlessly for their interests. A lot of the time you'll see fandom mocked because it's seen as something weird kids, do. Halo and Call of Duty aren't talked about in the same breath as something like Twilight, because despite being targeted towards a similar demographic (pre-teens and adolescents), they're seen as cool and nostalgic. Twilight? That's some dumb girl stuff. They should do something better with their lives than talk about a dumb stupid book all the time. Criticizing the writing and themes were a shield a lot of people used to bully others. A lot of the time, it's making fun of people for liking things. I bring gender into this because fandom culture is predominantly queer and neurodivergent oriented with a ton of teenagers. They are spaces for queer and neurodivergent people to express themselves and find safety in the comfort of media. A good chunk of the time when a person complains about fancontent and media, it ties back to ableism.

Anywho, back to fanart. Fanart is iffy in that sense. Some fanart is seen as cool and amazing. I find it absolutely hilarious when some guy will complain about young girls drawing fanart of DSMP characters doing. literally nothing bad. Maybe they're just hanging out and talking. I dunno. Regardless, those type of people are more than likely to have hyperrealistic Joker art as their background. You know the type. It makes me laugh because like…how do you think that came into existence? But, still. Depending on who makes the fanart, it's seen as a cool and badass thing. If it's some random guy who paints Scrooge McDuck smoking a cigar and counting dollar bills or the Joker in front of an explosion, that's based and cool. But if it's like Gordon Freeman chatting with Barney and maybe being a bit vulnerable after being subjected to all of this trauma, it's lame and weird. Gordon Freeman is a cool strong guy!! Re-enforcing ideas that there's a certain level of tolerance. Somebody drawing your favourite cartoons from your childhood or your favourite characters doing generic and random stuff in a somewhat hyper-realistic style? Cool! If it's in a style that may vaguely resemble something softer, lame and gay. A lot of artists in fandom spheres will draw these characters doing silly things because it's an expression of their admiration for the media. It's comforting to them. Art in general is very personal, with fanart being something you make from your heart. You were inspired by this piece of media to not only create art, but create art of this media. Fanart is a bit iffy. Fanart is cool when it's Chell hopping through portals or standing over GLaD0S's destoryed body. Fanart is not cool when you make shipart of Winter and Qibli.

Fanfic however? You'd be pressed to find anybody who isn't involved in fandom defend this. Why? Because most fanfic at its core is queer. A lot of the criticism thrown at is is because of it being seen as something weird young teenagers do as some sort of wish fulfillment. Depraved weirdos who want to see your favourite characters kiss??? How horrible!! God, what weirdos. Not just that, but you're STEALING these characters!! You're taking them and using them as your own little dolls to do things with (these things being like. I dunno. making them kiss or hold hands). God, who would even write this stuff? Fanfic is almost always associated with NSFW content as well, far more than fanart. A good chunk of the reason I feel is because of stuff like Fifty Shades of Gray breaking out into the mainstream and being well-known for originally being a Twilight fanfic. It's. uh. known for not being the most PG of books, so yeah. Again, it's associated with young teens being stupid and dumb and writing this dumb stupid stuff because they are weird little freaks. It's stereotyped as being bad and generally kind of immature, far more than fanart ever was. While fanart is occasionally hit with the "drawn by stupid children who are barely even talented" stereotype (mostly with fangirls and such), fanfic is almost always is.

But, fanfic is so personal. It's incredible. Wonderful. I'm biased indeed, I mean, look at me writing my TF2 fanfic where I take the insane healer character and make him into a silly guy who is aro/ace and autistic (as well as having 97 other mental disorders). I'm no different than these other people who write slashfic of these video game and TV characters holding hands and kissing. However, I've seen so much passion and love. People pour so much of their time into creating these long and beautiful works of art. Thousands upon thousands of words, a good chunk of the time stretching over the length of entire books. These characters mean so much to these people. Fanfic is seen as lesser and more heavily stereotyped IMO because, more than anything else, it's about queer and neurodivergent people expressing their emotions, sexuality, traumas, and thoughts. Not to say that EVERYBODY who writes fanfic is gay or autistic or that there isn't any cis/het/allo neurotypical people out there, but just that it's heavily dominated by women, queers, and neurodivergent people.

But, that's just me and my silly opinions, ya know?

[strivia]

Gonna make this a big one—1, 2, 3, and 4 for Monk, DGHDA, Wearp, and D&DDads?

1. OTP?

Monk: It's gotta be Trudy/Adrian, lbr. Though I am also quite partial to Randy/Natalie. I just really enjoy their dynamic.

DGHDA: Honestly, I have more brotps for DGHDA than real ships. But my first thought for OTPs was Pantlas. I also like the idea of Tina/Farah.

Wearp: C'mon, you know me. It's Bobo/Jeremy. My little rarepair.

Dndads: YOU MAKE THE STRIV PICK? JAIL FOR RAE (I jest I jest) Listen, I'm a rampant multishipper, but despite not having written anything for it explicitly I gotta go with my OG: ✨Glenn/Ron✨ But really all my Ron shipping includes Samantha in the polycule unless its AU significantly

2. OT3?

Monk: Reading one of the spinoff books really got me into the idea of Randy/Natalie/Sharona. I should really try and write/draw something for it. I HAD THOUGHTS™.

DGHDA: Hmmm, I did quite like the idea of Farah/Dirk/Todd back in the day. I feel like most of my poly DGHDA are actually bigger than OT3s.

Wearp: Wyndolliday truther tbqh. IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN REAL. But more on brand for me Jeremy/Doc/Bobo and Jeremy/Doc/Wynonna do things for me. Also, unpopular opinion but listen, Rosita/Nicole/Waverly.

Dndads: Glondie!!! Aka Glenn/Ron/Jodie. The vibes are insane are you kidding me?

3.NoTP?

Tbqh, I'm not sure I have NoTPs for any of these fandoms in terms of ships I viscerally dislike? They're more in line for the next question. More often me disliking a ship is due to oversaturation?

That said, as far as dndads, ships with the omega daddies kinda squick me out. Glad people are having fun shipping them but no thank you, I do not want to think about it.

4. Is there a popular pairing you don’t necessarily dislike but aren’t too invested in?

Oh boy are there!! As stated above, I can get easily oversaturated with a popular ship I just don't care too much about.

Oakson (Darryl/Henry) just kinda lost appeal for me from oversaturation. It's fine, I get why people like it. Not personally seeking it out. I also think I harbor a bit of bitterness towards Glenn/Darryl/Henry, or polydads that doesn't include Ron. Which, objectively it's fine that people don't want to ship Ron, I know this. He can have a meaningful relationship with them regardless, but just *sighs*.

I also don't personally see Sharona/Monk.

Waverly/Nicole also has a bit of an oversaturation problem for me, where I like them, but I get a bit tired of it being such a large amount of the fancontent.

[bugflies00]

i think most of us, when seeing a piece of dsmp fanart - even if we don't have the post dates setting on - can immediately tell roughly when it was drawn. theres several reasons for that in my opinion

first off, and i think the most obvious, the character designs give it away a lot of the time. like at the very beginning of the dsmp fandom the designs weren't really developed, people basically just drew the minecraft skins - it's as time went on that the personas developed into true rp fictional characters, and the fans appropriated them and their designs and made them their own. just like, for example, ctommy went from just being tommy's streaming persona into a full fledged character with his own story and narrative arcs etc, his design went from just being tommy's minecraft skin into becoming c!tommy. like a Character. and so the designs started to vary and become more intricate, and fanmade design elements became so popular that it became like a staple of the design (the green bandana is the best example in my opinion, and even the blue cardigan later on, though less). and thats so cool to me like the fact that tommy's skin, apart from exile, Has Not Changed since july 2020 and yet his design in fanart has evolved SO MUCH is so so cool. and in i think like 2021, when the lore started to slow down and people had less story material to digest on a daily basis and had more time to reflect and create their own stuff, the designs and fanart just got even more all over the place (this is also when hybrid designs became super popular!! and also the whole blue cardigan + butterfly clips ctommy debacle, which i think really represent how much further fancontent had taken canon material). and i use ctommy as an example but like ctubbo is also such a cool example. like nowadays if you put an image of a goat or something in like an animatic or whatever, people instantly know its ctubbo. and that was FANMADE. maybe im just clueless and this is also a thing in other fandoms, but the fact that a FANMADE hybrid design became SO popular is so cool. and you can immediately tell what year a ctubbo fanart is from - if its the green shirt + human design it's 2020, if it's a goat hybrid it's 2021-now, and a lot of the art that uses the nuke theme was also 2021. and often you can even tell if a drawing was Drawn in 2022-2023 but was meant to Represent the early 2020 era, because it still looks different from art Drawn in 2020 (like the design, despite having often the green shirt, is still more intricate like they'll often incorporate the budding goat horns or something).

second, and this one is much harder to describe, but the like. Themes? Composition? has changed a lot. of course this could be explained by the fact that it's rare for new fans to discover dsmp, so most artists are the same as the early days and they've just evolved as artists and changed/improved (though i dont think one's worse than the other) their style, but theres a difference. i think it also has to do with the pacing of lore - or even total lack of lore in recent times. like back in the beginning, there were DAILY streams, and important lore events were part of those streams. there was so much content, All The Time. and firstly this did create that pressure that lots of online artists in the dsmp fandom have since criticised, about the constant urge to push out art for whatever lore had went down that week. and i think the really fast pace of it all, while great sometimes for the Viewing aspect (theres no odd gaps in narrative pacing like for example between cwilbur's last apology streams), left very little time to like. Process all of it. and so art from that era tends to be very focused on like. One Event. like the One Big Thing that happened that week - think the elections, november 16th, tommy getting exile, etc. of course there were references to past events etc, but it was more often than not depictions of like. The Current Thing that was happening. or like Your Take on What Happened. and i feel like this really evolved as lore turned more sparse and fans had more time to reflect on all of it As A Whole. and so since i would say 2021-2022, i've found that fanart tends to be less the depiction of One Scene, and rather more like a Collection of scenes, of themes; like a study of a character or a symbol etc. am i making sense here? like the dsmp fanart you see on your dash nowadays is Rarely just a drawing of cphil killing cwilbur on november 16th (unless someone is on a nostalgia spree and reblogging old art) (yes thats me sorry); more often than not, it'll be one of 3 things: 1) some kind of AU/original design or like "putting x character in x clothes!" 2) shipping/platonic pairing stuff 3) some kind of like. drawing of a character that englobes Several themes and aspects. do you understand. like since it's all Happened already, people rarely draw the Scenes anymore; rather they focus on the character as a Whole, since we have all the canon elements in hand already. but of course yadda yadda theres always exceptions and i personally alwyas LOVE to see people re-explore the story and redraw old scenes like i adore it don't get me wrong. but it's definitely become less common because we have a more global view now

so yeah theres definitely a bunch of factors here and if you have other ideas PLEASE tell me about it i love talking about this

i need to make a post about the differences in dsmp fanart between 2020 and now . someone remind me

[petitprincess1]

Hello fren hope ur well Call this a melodramatic ass ask but i was thinking that life was easier before fandoms before the internet in general in terms of consuming content There was no peer preasure,no wide spread harassments,no doxxing,no death threats,no needing to consume fancontent feeling like a chore just it was you watch a show and you could do whatever Im actually thankful the hazbin fandom has you Your my main source for HH content now but I still think people like you are the minority and i guess i feel pressured now adays conssuming shows online then when i was younger and its fucking sucks What do you think?

Yeah, I guess things were a lot more chill in the earlier days of the internet.....who knows what the fuck happened lol x3 Everyone collectively decided to lose their shit. Although, I didn't really start going online until like....maybe around 2015 or 2016. I never really did much interacting with fandoms, excluding writing. I mainly watched YouTube vids.

Even then, it was much calmer than it is now. Granted, a lot of the drama is on Twitter, thankfully, and, other than irl movements, it hasn't been too bad. At least, for me. Yeah, I have that....whatever it is going on with Trickster, but meh. I got my Strixxie now.

My suggestion is if you're feeling like simply going through fandom content is a chore, then maybe take a step back from the fandom or even online in general. Personally, online is a nice little safe space. Yeah, you get death threats and stupid shit, but I find it funny sometimes. If it's too much, then just take a break. The internet can be very overwhelming at times, so I think many can understand that.

Although, I'm glad you enjoy my content. Not sure what you mean about me being the minority, but....I suppose I appreciate it xP I guess I understand, but it's a little hard for me to say because the most I've been integrated into a fandom is probably Villainous. Granted, Lion King was there, but it wasn't much. Villainous was the first time I really started getting into theories, drawing, writing, and interacting with other fans. Honestly, as harsh as I am with that show, it really helped me get my start.

[zirkkun]

Yo you have every right to be upset about things! You're still a person with your own feelings and deserve to be treated kindly. No one should come at you for making things you enjoy or for misunderstandings. I hope things get better for you even if I wasn't here for when all the drama happened (or maybe I was and just wasn't aware of it? I tend to avoid drama as much as possible tbh)

I didn't really post about it much. I think I answered about 4 asks about it (three of them in the same post because i was sure it was the same anon due to the similar string of seemingly continued messages) and the rest I just deleted as soon as they came in, but I got... A lot. A lot of mean things said too. Kinda hurts when you wanted to make something because you knew this work was highly criticized and wanted to let people give it a second chance only to be shot down by the people you were hoping to defend lol

In short, and a lot of it I missed because I was blocked by a lot of people so my friend sent me screencaps; someone took I believe only the old ask box post I had for ULR, which at the time was called "Underlust Rewrite," and was disgusted at the fact that everything was revamped and "made for kids" (because it's not 18+ explicit content, but as I've said before, it's just cause I'm too scared to be horny on main, and I've literally made a whole different biological system for ULR so I can write the necessary story ""sex scenes"" without it being human-like sex or otherwise uncomfortable or too explicit for me to draw, but I still consider it a mature story overall), so they blocked me instantly here and on twitter and then made a callout post on twitter itself. People were telling me originally to stop calling the AU Underlust, and I didn't really get it at first, because like, what's the difference between my spinoff and, say, Underlust Gold, Swapfell Indigo, TS!Underswap, you know, names that have add-ons from the original title to differentiate it but still connect it to the source. So that's what I said, as well as if I removed the Underlust name, it would be considered stealing to me, because I'd be disconnecting it from the source. But apparently, instead, what had been the concern was that it was just being called "Underlust" and the "Rewrite" aspect was implying I was replacing the original story, which like, had never been my intention and I've made a bunch of things with both the ULR and UL cast together and love the idea of Lust and Ace meeting up and just being a disaster duo of not working together at all. I just adore Underlust like it's in my pinned FAQ, Lust's been in my banner for months now, and he's practically my staple pfp character on every account but here atm.

It took like 3 days for it to actually click what was going on, because once I finally got the chance to have a conversation with someone where they weren't telling me I was the scum of the Earth -- which, honestly, bless the three people I talked to, they were so sweet (which actually included someone from the Japanese side of the fandom whose art I loved too... yeah it got pretty far. Once I sent them a message though it was cleared up quickly and they did post a clarification post about ULR and me, so that was nice to see.) -- I finally got the chance to realize that this was a misunderstanding from the beginning, from both sides, where people coming at me were saying I was doing all of the stuff above and probably more but those stuck the most, while I was confused as to where this information and accusations were coming from and what they were referring to in the first place. They probably never explained it in the anon asks because, well, they probably assumed I knew what I was doing, but when they came at me about something I didn't do with vague context of something I did do, I was very confused, and got really defensive really quickly, and really honestly snapped pretty hard. After my first initial explanation post and people were still trying to tell me to stop ULR/don't call it Underlust/whatever else there was, I just got tired and told people to block me if they didn't like it. But that didn't really stop anyone and honestly made it worse because that's when I started getting really nasty messages. I like... Specifically remember one where someone called me a lowlife and a thief, and that one stuck the most, but I tended to not read through them before deleting them for my own sanity. I actually did this to one of the people who'd later talked to me calmly about it at first too, because I had just woken up, and really didn't want to read an essay lecture on everything everyone's been telling me at the crack of 7am when I was borderline ready to delete my account and start over lol

Some people I do remember were accusing me of trying to censor nsfw content or erase it as well because ULR isn't 18+, and I'm out here on my horny ass like "wh. What are they talking about, where did you get that idea, have you SEEN my ao3 recommended list," /j but in all seriousness I really didn't understand that accusation at all because I've never been against nsfw content in the slightest and lowkey? This is very dumb -- but like, you know how they say when you get hate mail, you know you've made it? Well, for me, my thought has always been, "When there's 18+ fancontent of my OC's, I'll have finally made it." This is... Not a joke, some of my friends think its very weird LMAO oh well. I've been on the internet for far too long at this point -- like, definitely since I was far too young, probably, and being with a family of the next youngest being 12 years older than me, I really dove into stuff pretty quickly I definitely shouldn't have, but hey that's life -- I'm really unfazed by mostly anything now. Hell, me making ULR was honestly half motivated by me wanting to make others more comfortable with this kind of media, discussing sexuality and otherwise sexual-considered topics, without really being embarrassed or bothered by it. Because, people talk about death and killing and whatever other gorey stuff just fine, but the moment sex comes up, people just gasp in awe, y'know? I kind of grew up that way myself but like... ironically, in being more comfortable with my asexuality, I realized that it's honestly not that big of a deal. Sure, we don't need to hear the details of everything. We don't need to hear the details of a murder either. But I will never understand how murder is always the lowest on the "morally wrong list of things to not to" to so many people and that it's fine to mention, but even consider bringing up anything else and it's like, a sin and you're a bad person. Even racism is like, higher up on there for a lot of people, which it's like... this is an issue that needs to be discussed, or it can never be solved. You can't just kick that away and hope it goes away on its own, that's never how it works.

Ah, well, now I've gone off tangent lol. Sorry to make you read a blob of text lmao but having things in a cohesive format of what I've been thinking does feel a bit better. Thank you for the support regardless, and I do want to keep making what I really enjoy, because frankly, I really want to make things that make people take a step back and think for a moment, y'know? Things that invoke like a realization in yourself about something you didn't even know. That's how fiction's always been for me, so I want to give back by making it that way too. ... maybe my horny content is exempt from this however. That's just. Self indulgence LMAO.

Probably helps that I'm actually talking this all out for once, too, since before any of this I tried to keep as much of the situation contained to myself as possible in hopes I could clean it up before it got too bad. That was, in hindsight, probably a terrible idea lol. But I didn't want to be a source of stress for anyone following me or become the new creator-to-defend that like, 50% of people hate and 50% of people love and that you're either on one side or the other and there's no where in between. (I feel like Arin Hanson comes to mind for me every time I think of someone like this.) I know I can't please everyone and I knew internet hate would come eventually, but like, didn't expect it to be over a name or tag choice. I thought that would be a simple enough DM or clearable thing but apparently not, especially since I saw someone a few weeks ago delete their blog over a similar thing (though, the opposite, in a way: posting nsfw in a sfw tag by mistake). It wasn't in the UT fandom so y'all probably weren't following them (tbf I wasn't either, I just witnessed it happen from start to finish), but it was still disheartening.

Anyway, thank you, and sorry to make ya read all of that (if you actually did vahdbs don't blame you if you don't it's a lot of thought dump lmao)💕💕

[aroworlds]

Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Luthyx

Our next aro-spec creator is @luthyx​, who also goes by Petrichlorine and MUSE-42. They’re better known on this blog for sharing snippets from an in-progress work called Sanction the Skies, celebrating all things a-spec and dragon!

Luthyx is a transmasculine, agender aro-ace creative with mental illnesses, specialising in speculative fiction and digital art, the latter both original and fancontent (primarily for How to Train Your Dragon). You can find their gorgeous art on their DeviantArt account and their writing at @sanctiontheskies​, currently featuring artwork, maps and a wealth of worldbuilding and characterisation teasers. Lastly, if you enjoy Flight Rising, you can check out their dragons under the name Luthyx!

With us Luthyx talks their confidence in their aromanticism, the need to live an authentic life on their terms, the way their characters and worlds become part of them, and writing spec fic as an aro. Their determination to craft and make as they need sparkles in every word and dragon scale, so please let’s give them all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

My tale is a fairly straightforward one. By the time I was of the age that most people started experiencing their first crushes, I’d moved to a different state and begun taking an online school, free of the peer pressure that lies ever-present in most traditional classrooms.

Even then, as I began to develop my skills and passion for writing, I’d already begun to see the influence of the omnipresent Romantic Subplot. It was everywhere: books, film, music, poems. I couldn’t so much as flip on the radio without hearing a disillusioned, autotuned cry for help healing a broken heart. I hated it. I still do.

It quickly became apparent to me that I wasn’t like the others. Every once and a while, my mom would drag me to her church, where I’d be forced to endure the company of undisciplined tween boys and catty, Twilight-obsessed girls. It was the girls especially that caught my attention: the sheer passion and fervency with which they discussed who they found hot, what Hogwarts house they were in, and their critiques and praise of The Hunger Games. I found it absurd to objectify people, fantasy or real, like that.

I think this was probably about the time I began to realize that I was agender, too, but that’s a story for another day. Thankfully, I’d already become a headstrong, independent teenager, and I was proud to say that I was different, that my interests were in something that, in my head, was much more important and much more intense than those of others my age.

I can’t recall the first time I heard the term aromantic or the first day that I applied it to myself. I think, deep down, I always knew, and I’ve always been astoundingly proud of it. To me, romance isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of things, but just another life experience I haven’t had, like owning fourteen chihuahuas or going on a warm summer vacation to the Middle East. Not everybody wants to experience those things, and society is completely fine with it - I see no reason as to why they should feel differently about romantic relationships, but I suppose they do. Dealing with the fallout of that bias is their problem.

I am me, and the me I know will not be held down by stereotypes, will not conform to any sort of life script I am handed, will not feel sorrow or remorse for a single experience lost. I’m here for a good time, and my idea of a good time involves doing what I love. Romance is not on that list.

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

My creative streak started young. For as long as I’ve known it, I’ve been drawing characters and writing stories. Mind you, the first stories were about Littlest Pet Shop figures and were written with the help of my parents, but it was a start nonetheless. Art, in its many different forms, has always been my form of self-expression. I often wandered off into my imaginary world when I got bored, and when I went to sleep every night, I’d often spend hours just imagining characters doing as they do before drifting off to sleep. I still do that every night - like clockwork.

I think it was when I was in my early teens - thirteen or fourteen, maybe - that I decided I wanted to be a writer. I recall turning to my mother one night and saying, “I wish I could write a book,” still believing that I was too young to attempt such a thing yet. “Nobody says you can’t do it right now!” were the words she gave back to me, and then off I started.

The project I started then is one that’s still ongoing now - a series of books I call Sanction the Skies, featuring dragons, wars, and a good hunk of divine intervention. I’ve worked and reworked it ever since that fateful day, improving the lore, changing the characters, watching my perspective of them evolve and change alongside me. They are a part of me, through and through.

It hasn’t been the easiest journey, but I’m still chipping away at it, ever-determined. It’s been doubly hard to follow my dream because of all of the messages about how impossible it is to be a writer in this day and age, and that you can’t do it without a well-paying side job. My stubborn self says, “To hell with you!” and works on it anyway. I want to write, to draw, to forge, to craft, and the world be damned if it tries to stand in my way.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

The only way it’s expressed is in my writing, where almost all of my characters are explicitly aro. The Romantic Subplot is a tiresome, often badly-done trope, and I’d like to steer away from it altogether. I want to show that a friendship is not worth less than a romance, and that a good story can still be told without the boy getting the girl - or the girl getting the girl for the sake of progressiveness.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

Honestly? Not much, at least not yet. I think I may face a bit of pushback in the future because my novel features no romance, but overall, I’ll probably be fine in that regard.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I rarely connect with them at all, honestly. Most of the discussion I see is either people screaming about amatonormativity or people asking, “Am I asexual/aromantic if…?” Alternatively, there’s people discussing their experience being partially a-spec or aro-spec, none of which I can relate to. All I want is a place to revel in my identity, to be able to talk about anything BUT romance, to form strong friendships.

Sometimes it hurts me to think that the friends I have now will soon find romantic partners, and I’ll be left behind in the dust as a third wheel. I hope my friends won’t do that, that perhaps I can still make myself heard - but who knows? I’ve had no luck with finding any other aro-spec people in my region at all, unfortunately, so the internet is all I’ve got in that regard. I’ll just have to wait and see what the future holds!

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

I find I connect somewhat decently. I write fantasy and sci-fi, which generally seem to be more acceptable genres to have a lack of romance, especially when a pair of dragons are the main characters. It is alienating from many fandoms, though, because they often focus so much on the romantic partnerships and shipping. Almost every blocked tag in my dash concerns ships, kissing, hugging, romance, children, and anything related to those.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

Ohoho, this is a fun one! Well, right now, I’m working on re-writing Chapter One for the trillionth time after giving the town it takes place in a complete and utter overhaul. I’m also working on making a short comic that takes place in the universe of the book but is unrelated to the main plot, though it features characters and locations that may be explored in future books. I want to do the comic in the hopes of gaining some traction and interest in the books, since I’m rather horrible at advertising at the moment.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

Again, the comic! It’s about a con artist who incurs the wrath of the demigodess of misfortune after a con resulted in the death of a sick hatchling. There’s also some stuff with an ancient, precursor species of dragons and one of their final remaining sanctuaries.

[herotheshiro]

hello i’m here to write a post rambling abt my latest hyperfixation and my thoughts abt it now that i feel i might be getting less serotonin from it these days.

so my latest hyperfixation is fe3/h which i will now be shortening to 3h in hopes that it doesn’t show up in any tags and also i’m too lazy to keep slashing it when i mention it. i’m writing this on the hopes of my interest winding down rn, i feel less excited about it these days than at the beginning of the month when i suddenly decided to look it up/look more into its fandom content after feh released the latest 3h banner. i was talking to my sibling abt it bc i had gotten de/due on a free summon or something idr i just got him and i brought up offhandedly that i shipped him with this other unit in 3h bc having been on the internet and fandom-adjacent spaces since 2019 at least means you see 3h content to some degree. which means the context is that i had somehow seen ash/edue on twitter before and thought it was a cute pairing but didn’t really look more into it bc i didn’t really care as i do not own a switch nor will be getting one any time soon (i could watch a playthrough but idc enough. too many routes and intricacies that would be best understood if i just played it myself, ya know).

anyway. latest feh banner and this convo with my sibling means i look up ash/edue again and for some godforsaken reason THIS TIME i’m like ok. time to FUCKING DIVE IN and so i read a bunch of fics and whew-ee ash/edue brainrot time which is hilarious bc i literally know fuck all about the game and had to read through the fandom wiki walkthrough to get all the plot/story points so i could better understand the individual units and also wtf is going on (which you don’t really need to know imo esp if you’re just looking at a ship which only includes ppl from one house but i wanted to know at this point bc i was in deep-dive mode). i like the physical aesthetics and the personality match of ash/edue so i’m not really surprised i was like ALRIGHT HONING IN but man imo not the greatest thing to get into a series through a singular ship. anyway i was hype so i was coming up with ideas for drawings and looking up general 3h content but now it’s coming to the end of the month and i feel like it’s starting to wane ...

i mean i still like ash/edue but i’m just less interested bc i’ll never really play 3h and even though during this month my sibling actually got 3h and is playing through it rn, i just don’t really feel like playing the actual game bc i already know all the plot twists and points so what’s the point. and also bc i was so ash/edue focused for a bit, now i’m like hehehe only ash/edue when i see general non-ship content but like. i think both these units are interesting past their duo dynamic and i’m not particularly like anti other ships with these units nor do i feel mega uncomfortable seeing other non-ash/edue ships (this makes more sense in context with my a/3 ship struggle posts lmao. but also yeah ngl sometimes i see other a/she ships and i’m like eh i’ve read the supports but i don’t see this ship actually happening. although caspa/she on the other hand ... that’s cute) but i’m like i do actually need to sit with these units individually if i want to better get their personalities bc i’m starting to feel kinda bad that maybe my representations of them aren’t wholly accurate to their general personalities. like actually mentally bad, not just like ‘oh... well too bad whatever’ bc i just be getting caught up in making sure fictional characters fit canon even though sometimes fancontent just be ooc and is accepted regardless. tl;dr of that second point, i feel like my brain is too into shipping mode rn re: these two units and i need to split them in order to better understand them. but also that’s a lot of effort bc tbh i don’t particularly care too much abt 3h as a whole ngl or at least these 2 units are prob not really the units i would stan

idk it’s really stemming from me being like ‘oh ho i know the 3h story’ but then being like lol no i don’t when my sibling is discussing the current happenings during her 3h playthrough. i mean she’s playing the v/erdant wi/nd route which tbh of course i know less abt bc in-game ash/edue really focuses more on the BL and BE houses in terms of interactions/drama but i’m just like :( bc i take fictional stuff too seriously for my mental health. i’m not like having BAD mental health abt it but i can sense when shit might be starting to hit the fan so i’m like :(. also i’m starting to side-eye some ash/edue fancontent bc now i’m starting to think a little more critically abt the pairing and tbh their “paired” ending reads weird to me as a poc living in the US (assumption of ded/ue is a poc and as/he is a white guy) ... like it’s not BAD per se, like as/he isn’t really culturally appropriating but also like ... fellow poc in the US, you know how it feels sometimes when some random white person is like ‘i’m opening this ethnic cuisine restaurant bc i respect the culture so much’. i know that’s not necessarily what’s happening in the “paired” ending and as/he isn’t being one of those uppity white ppl who try to “better” the ethnic cuisine but man makes you think. i’ve only read TWO fanfics that explicitly was like ‘man it’s fucked up that a white person has to be this ethnicity’s ambassador huh?’ which makes me a lil sad in retrospect (also the 2nd fic i’m thinking of isn’t even in-game canon, it’s a modern au that talks abt cultural appropriation differently so like is it even the same). anyway i actually haven’t read the paired ending text in a while so maybe i’m remembering it wrong but i’ve personally changed it up a little in my headcanon so that the inn is just a general inn that as/he just so happens to serve some du/scar dishes at to normalize their inclusion into f/odlan culture. anyway this convo about 3h’s treatment of poc is a whole other story and discussion lol, my sibling and i were discussing it last night so that’s why i’m bringing it up

[its-not-aphase]

Im curious. Why do you still run this blog? I dont mean to offend but like, the Undertale fanbase is practically dead, Some famous AU's are stopping to update as well and most of them are toxic as well. What keeps your undertale interest going?

Hmmmm… Well i mean. Talking about toxicity first, Idk if you are reffering to the AU’s or the fanbase ? but like Every fandom always have a shit side towards it so like, theres always good people in the undertale community too :O

as for AU’s its more a subjective thing for me x) cuz AU’s comes from the creativity of someones mine intreperting the game that was made by the holy lord toby fox (god bless him lmao). coughireallylikeasrielaustholmaoeuhhueuhe

Honestly im surprised myself that i love Undertale this much. Its 2 years i think? thats like the longest i ever went liking a game, even going so far to make stuff like underphase and regretale and many many many asriel doodles lmao.

I think its the fact that Undertale was there for me when it was darkest the most. (I wouldnt go into details) but its right there close to my heart x) and so far (or atleast my followers) are all amazingly nice as well :O And updating thise blog is always a pleasure :D its fun to draw~ and undertale is still fun for me~.

but concidering i dont have much followers as well, and because at this time undertale fanbase is growing slow, i wont get as much followers as if i were doing this blog 2 years ago.

but thats fine :D

I didnt do this blog to gain followers , i did it because its fun~ and theres some people who want to see it develop as well~. Also this might come as odd , but having sm0l follower fanbase thing feels a bit better than being a huge figure? its easier to manage and easier to put all the askers ask in the blog :D (even tho i sometimes have to pick them sowwy ;A;) but yeh.

wow thats a long rant lmao. maybe ill reverse the question to you and the followers of this blog then if yall are interested :O

what keeps YOU checking on the undertale fancontent?