#mel's fandom stuff

[heart-shaped-noose]

Mephisto Pheles and Rin Okumura in episode 12 of Blue Exorcist: Beyond The Snow Saga

[arcanegifs]

Here's more comparisons of Arcane Gifs before and after I color and sharpen em!

[unhinged-as-hell]

Petition to call melvik "eclipse" or 'eclipsemages' because suuuunnn and moooonnnn.

[once-more-with-anxiety]

the most fun part of shipping to me is that you can literally do anything with it. who cares what other people think? we're all mentally ill people who are obsessing over fictional people. why does anybody even give a shit

[fazedlight]

I really hate where I see fandom going with AI.

I don't want to see AI-generated writing or art, period. But it's going to get harder and harder to tell as AI improves.

Which also means that newer writers/artists who write "too good" or "too weird" will be under immediate suspicion. Which means some genuine creators will feel frozen out.

It just paints a dire picture of fandom.

[sarcasticbeanie]

Paces around in a circle. Something something erasure of women (and very apparent w women of color) within fandom spaces, relegating them to support roles, villainous roles, or even making them tools of the narrative or just forgetting about them. And then when people point that out fans start calling them homophobic for not shipping the gay guys. Please that’s not what this conversation is about I’m head in hands. Man I hate it here. Sometimes even canon does this! I’m going to explode.

[danykindaforgotaboutdre]

The problem with jayvik

In a vacuum, there is no problem with jayvik. I like jayvik, I think their dynamic is interesting, I think they have chemistry (I think all of the characters have good chemistry with each other, actually), I think their relationship can be interpreted all sorts of ways. I think they're neat.

I also like Meljay, in fact I prefer Meljay, they have more layers that I'm personally invested in peeling back. I love how you don't know Mel's intentions at first, so the first impulse when they get together is to regard it with suspicion. But then, he lets himself be vulnerable with her and they're just open hearted and good to each other from then on. There's no trick, they just earnestly care and see the best in one another. Contrary to popular belief, Mel may have had an ulterior motive for nearly everything else, but she never had one for loving Jayce, that part was always true and good even if you can't see it at first.

I also like Meljayvik, I think Jayce and Viktor have a complicated relationship and she's never shown the slightest sign of being in any way resentful or spiteful over it. Nor is she given any reason to be whatsoever. She supports Jayce fully in his perfectly understandable preoccupation with Viktor's wellness.

But the problem with jayvik, or at least a particularly loud section of their fandom is, they badly want her to be resentful and spiteful. They want her to feel hurt and betrayed, they frame whatever jayvik have going on as cheating on this woman he never actually cared about, and that's supposed to be good, that's supposed to be a W for their ship. What is actually gained from this? Why is discussing Mel even necessary to enjoy this pairing (yes, erasing her is also a problem in the fandom but believe it or not, there's a way to talk about jayvik that doesn't involve doing either, and it's really not that hard).

Also, why does Jayce choosing Viktor have to be because he's gay? (fellas is it gay to chow down on a beautiful woman's coochie?) Why can't he just choose him regardless of whether he likes women or not? Why the insecurity? Is it because if you let yourself believe he actually likes women, you have to also admit that he chose Mel for no other reason than being attracted to her? I get it, they're jokes, haha, it's not that deep, but unfortunately when the same stupid patterns emerge around every woman and especially every Black woman in fictional media who "gets in the way" of fanon, it is that deep, it's annoying af actually.

[sukibenders]

tw: mentions of harm against women, particularly black women, organ harvesting, and just overall gross treatment towards black women

It's Black History Month and, tell me why, I stumbled upon a fic for Arcane that features the brutalization of black women (Mel and Sky), stealing/harvesting of their organs and bodies for the use of men (and a white man at that), and just all around stuff that is very reminiscent to how black women are/have been treated throughout medical history for decades? Mind you, it was used to fuel the JayVik ship too, makes me sick. If it wasn't some in that fandom fantasizing Mel being SA'd, then it's this. I can't with this fandom.

[lucreziaces]

Hey ASOIAF fandom,

Just wanted to ask politely that you please stop using Holliday Grainger as Lucrezia Borgia and "The Borgias" in general for your Targaryen fancasts!! Or at the very least, if you're gonna continue to do it that you please stop fucking putting it in "The Borgias" tag!! Thank you. :)

Sincerely,

The entire Borgias fandom <3

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

the worst part of doctor who fandom is how easy it latches onto a "consensus" opinion that then everyone assumes this is "obviously" the only way to interpret an episode, and also they also latch onto painting with a negative brush literally everything about an episode, questioning things that "don't make sense!!!" when like, they do actually. just because 1 part of the plot may be flimsy doesn't mean automatically all 300 creative decisions are too, by osmosis. this is not how stories work, karen.

[heart-shaped-noose]

Mephisto: *Bares his teeth at a literal teenager bc he was annoying him*

Mephisto two goddamn seconds later:

[needtobehisprettyboy]

Steb Doodle Dump <3

+ Spotify playlists based off Steb & his parents!!1!2!!1!2!1!1!1!

(I hate the sketches but trust they WILLLLLL look awesome if I ever get round to finishing them)

Queenfish, the cutest, romanticist, most healthiest ship to exist <33333

But as a Shape of Water AU!!!!

Mel is still mute in the AU and Steb doesn't speak human language—silent fishy love <333

(their ship name is Goldfish which suits them more than Queenfish and I am literally the only one to call them Queenfish but idc RAA)

More under cut:

Mermaid Steb!!!!!!

✓^w^)√

I really wanted to draw a mermaid but then I lost motivation cause I was supposed to be doing hw

(which I haven't done yet & my math midterm is THIS Saturday)

Steb as a model 🥰🥰🤭

+ Human!Steb

(Guatemalan/Zaunite doctor mother x black American/Piltovian enforcer father, but their love story is real cute and NAWWWWTTT a simple oppressor x oppressed love story)

[Ignore how awful the sketches look btw I just wanted to sketch them out before I forgot what I wanted to draw]

[Which thank gawd cause I forgot I wanted to draw Human!Steb]

References ⬇️⬇️⬇️

(plus pics from his insta that I'm too lazy to look for again)

[unhinged-as-hell]

Rant about melvik antis because this is actually bothering tf out of me.

I'm happy melvik is getting more traction, but at the same time I'm not yknow? I loveeeeee everything about melvik, the dynamic they could have, the parallels they do have, and even that it's a rarepair. But now people are going to go out of their way to hate it and the shippers, and put the ship in a box where everything is black and white when it's clear everything in the show is anything but. I don't understand when people act like a ship personally offends them.

The entire point of a rarepair is that the characters just interacting is rare. That's why people like exploring them, because they wanna know how they could've have been. "In canon" this "But in canon-" that. We know we don't have anything in canon about them, that's half of the reason why we like them. Also I have it very strange when people think they didn't interact at all in the 7-8 years they knew each other before season 1.

I don't want it to be canon, I'm happy with Meljay being canon, or even Jayvik(since I love them both too), I just want to be able to have something to myself without people making it seem like it's a terrible thing, and that all melvik shippers ruin both of their characters while me(and other melvik fans I know) love them mostly because of how their characters are. I love their canon character development, erasing it would be the worst thing I can think of.

One of the reasons why I jumped on the melvik train was because it was further away from how toxic this fandom is with ships.

That's all.

[solitaireships]

Posting my fic wip list here to try to keep me accountable for actually working on things, idk what order they'll be worked on, but they will be done

[fazedlight]

I didn’t have the word for butchness when I was a kid.

But I do remember, for a while, feeling that I had found my people - as a horseback rider and a tomboy.

When you’re working with horses, you build muscle from throwing around bales of hay, you’re constantly covered in dirt and slobber, you smell like horse shit. I repaired fences and oiled saddles and got trampled and all that. The first time I was called butch - which was by a straight person, who didn’t think of it in terms of sexuality - was in that era, when I was wearing a tank top that showed off my arms.

It was a refreshing place where I could be myself. Catholic school often forced me into skirts, family forced me into dresses for formal occasions. (My family was well-intentioned and loving, but it was a different era.) I didn’t realize that I was routinely feeling humiliated. But I found my people in riding. And I figured, even though it seemed I was expected to grow out of the tomboy phase, that horse people showed me I didn’t have to (even if I didn’t have an adult word for it).

Which led to an odd sense of betrayal, when I first saw my trainer for a fancy occasion outside the context of a barn. She wasn’t covered in dirt with her hair tied back in a practical ponytail. She was cleaned up, in a pretty dress, hair down and lovely, wearing jewelry and makeup. Completely normal for folks to do, but it felt like a threat to me. That what I saw at the barn wasn’t who she was all the time, when it was all the time for me.

Women could be feminine all the time. Women could do both. But there seemed like no room for women who were masculine all the time, women like me. As my riding friends grew up and developed their femininity more, I felt left behind. Was there anyone like me?

I finally started finding people in college. Away from a Catholic upbringing, suddenly surrounded by queers of all flavors, I finally figured out my sexuality, started figuring out my sense of gender and self. I still didn’t know anyone I’d describe as butch, but the sheer variety I saw helped me realize that I didn’t need someone to be exactly like me in order to belong.

And then I buzzcut my hair - over a decade ago now - and it was euphoric for me. It was such a strong statement that this is who I was. And I know gender isn’t black and white, there are absolutely femme folks who can pull off buzzcuts, but it certainly changes the math. There was no “I can do both” for me. I do one, because that shoe fits.

And then I was called butch again for the second time in my life, and I realized I was finally home in myself.

[mydignityisinflames]

Overall I did really enjoy S2, in particular act 3, but I definitely think it should have been 3 seasons not two. They crammed too much in so some bits ended up being a bit underdeveloped and there were pacing issues throughout the series but the animation was stunning as always and they did well to pack it all in with the timeframe they were given