#people for whom life is if not easy bc it's not easy for anybody than who don't have to deal with the fucking baggage some of us have

[loverboybrightsideghost]

they should invent a way to ask if you have felt suicidal or have had suicidal thoughts at the doctor when they ask where you'll answer truthfully. i am fine and i always fight the suicidal thoughts but i went to the urgent care the other day and they asked and i said no no nothing like that. but i lied! of course i have! i've been vaguely fantasizing about getting hit by a car the past few days!!! i truly hate suicide for Reasons, it makes me incredibly sad and distressed, and for myself sometimes i don't even realize it's started creeping into my head again (i'm fine i genuinely promise) but like. as much as i hate it, it's there in some of my friends and me and i have to wonder about the fact that "yeah, but doesn't everyone at least a little bit?" isn't the right answer.

[nevermindirah]

Do you have any thoughts on the use of AAVE for Nile (or lack thereof) in TOG fanfiction? I've been reading some Book of Nile fic and some writers seem to write her as a Millennial™ (using words like "fave" and "woke") but never acknowledge her Blackness in her patterns of speech. I know we don't see her use as much AAVE in the films, but I would argue she's in situations where code-switching would be valued (first in a "professional" environment in the army, then around a group of non-Black strangers).

Hi anon! I have many thoughts on this and I'm honored you asked me! But I should start by saying I'm white and any thoughts Black fans and especially Black American fans have on this that they want to share would be beyond lovely. (I'm not gonna tag anybody bc that feels rude but please add onto this post if any of y'all see this and want to!)

The main reason I personally avoid AAVE for Nile in my own fics is because I'm not Black. But Nile-centric fics by Black writers tend to avoid using much of it too, at least from what I've noticed/understood, and my guess is it's largely for the reason you mention, that she's in situations that encourage code-switching.

In movie canon Nile is highly competent at tailoring her language to each situation she finds herself in. This fantastic linguistics analysis meta shows how skillfully Nile chooses her vocabulary and grammar to meet her goals with different conversation partners in different contexts. In comics canon Nile had a bunch of different civilian jobs before joining the Marines, so she would've had experience code-switching in the ways that made sense for all those different contexts as well as the Marines and her family and high school and wherever else she spent her time before we met her. And now she's spending her time with a handful of immortals none of whom are native English speakers and a fellow Black American but one with a Queen's English UK accent whose professional experience is in the CIA where high-status code-switching is often an absolute must for success or even survival.

Fics featuring Nile are charged with extrapolating from that to how it might show up in her use of language that she's coping with a traumatic separation from her family and her career and pretty much everything she's ever known and now she needs to be able to make herself understood to people who seem to care about her and each other but are super duper in crisis, three (soon to be four) of whom predate Modern English entirely and the only one who's anywhere near her contemporary she's not supposed to talk to for a century. All of these people are telling her that pretty much any contact with any mortals poses an existential threat to her and the rest of the group. How the FUCK is she supposed to cope with that, like, generally? And would it be a more effective way for her to cope if she talked to Andy Joe and Nicky using the speech patterns that she used to use with her mom and brother, to at least retain that part of her identity even if it means having to do a lot of explaining, or would it meet her needs better to prioritize Andy Joe and Nicky understanding what she means with her words over using the particular words and grammar forms she used with her family?

I've seen several fics, both Nile-centric / BoN and otherwise, explore this a little bit in how/whether Nile uses Millennial™ speak. It's often a theme in Nile texting Booker despite the exile because of the popular headcanon that he as The Tech Guy is the only other immortal who understands memes. But Nile's much-younger-than-Booker mom probably uses Boomer and/or Gen X memes and Andy has been adapting to new communication styles for forever as evidenced by her canon high level of fluency with standard-American-accented English.

Which brings us back to people avoiding AAVE because they're not Black and they don't want to make mistakes (or they're not Black and they don't want to get yelled at for making mistakes, though I think many people overestimate how much they'll get yelled at while underestimating how much these mistakes can hurt). I can imagine some Black fans hold back from using much AAVE in fic because they don't want to share in-group stuff with white people who are likely to then adopt and ruin it, as white people so often do with Black cultural stuff. Some links about this including a great Khadija Mbowe video. I'm saying this gently, anon, because you might not know: woke, an example you cited as Millennial™ speak, is AAVE, and that's gotten erased by so many white people appropriating it and using it incorrectly online.

And also there's the part where fandom is a hobby and you never know when you're reading a fic that's the very first thing someone's ever written outside of a school assignment. This cultural considerations of language shit takes a level of effort and skill that not everybody puts into every fic, or even could if they wanted to because they haven't had time to build their skills yet. It's definitely easier for non-Black fans to project our millennial feels onto Nile than to do the layers of research and self-reflection it requires to depict what Blackness might mean to Nile, and it's not surprising that often people sharing their hobby creations on the internet have gone the easier route. There's not even necessarily shame in doing what's easier. It's just frustrating and often hurtful when structural white supremacy means that 3-dimensional Black characters are rare in media and thoughtful explorations of them in fandom are seen by the majority of fans as not-easy to make and therefore Nile Freeman, the main character in The Old Guard (2020) dir. Gina Prince-Bythewood, has the least fic and meta and art made about her of our 5 main immortals.

I've been active in different fandoms off and on for twenty years and I barely managed to write 5,000 words about Sam Wilson across multiple different fics in the 7 years since I fell in love with him. There's an alchemy to which characters we connect with, and on top of that which characters we connect with in a way that causes us to create stuff about them. Something about Nile Freeman finally tipped me over the edge from a voracious reader to a voracious writer. It's not for me to judge which characters speak to other individuals to the level of creating content about them, but I do think it's important for us to notice, and then work to fight, the pattern where across this fandom as a whole Nile gets way less content, and way less depth in so much of the content that's in theory about her, than any of these other characters.

Anyway, back to language. My two long fics feature Nile with several Black friends — Copley and OCs and cameos from other media — but all of those characters except Alec Hardison from Leverage aren't American. It's very possible I'm guilty of stereotyping Black British speech patterns in I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore. I watched hours and hours of Black haircare YouTube videos in the research for that fic and I modeled my OCs' speech patterns on what I heard from some of those YouTubers as well as what I've heard people like John Boyega and Idris Elba saying in interviews, but the thing about doing your best is you still might fuck up.

I'm slowly making progress on my WIP where Nile and Sam Wilson are cousins, and what ways of talking with a family member might be authentic for Nile is a major question I need to figure out. For that, I'm largely modeling my writing choices on how I hear my Black friends and colleagues talking to each other. I haven't overheard colleagues talking in an office in a long-ass time, but back when that was a thing, I remember seeing a ton of nuance in the different ways many of my Black colleagues would talk to each other. Different people have different personalities! And backgrounds! And priorities! A few jobs ago my department was about 1/3 Black and we worked closely with Obama administration staff many of whom were Black and there was SO MUCH VARIETY in how Black people talked to each other, about work and workplace-appropriate personal stuff, where I and other white coworkers could hear. There are a few work friends in particular who I have in my head when I'm trying to imagine how Sam and Nile might talk to each other. From the outside looking in, God DAMN is shit complicated, intellectually and interpersonally and spiritually, for Black people who are devoting their professional lives to public service in the United States.

One more aspect of this that I have big thoughts on but I need to take extra care in talking about is the idea of acknowledging Nile's Blackness in her patterns of speech. There's no one right way to be Black, and Nile's a fictional character created by a white dude but there are plenty of real-life Black Americans who don't use much or even any AAVE, for reasons that are complicated because of white supremacy. (Highly highly recommend this video by Shanspeare on the harms of the Oreo stereotype.)

Something that's not the same but has enough similarity that I think it's worth talking about is my personal experience with authenticity and American Jewish speech patterns. My Jewish family members don't talk like they're in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, and I've known lots of people who do talk that way (or the millennial version of it), some of whom have questioned my Jewishness because I don't talk that way. That hurts me. Sometimes when another Jew tells me some shit like "I've never heard a Jew say y'all'd've," I can respond with "well now you have asshole, bless your Yankee-ass heart," because the myth of Dixie is a racist lie but I will totally call white Northerners Yankees when they're being shitty to me for being Southern, and this particular Jew fucking revels in using "bless your heart" with maximum polite aggression, especially with said Yankees. But sometimes I don't have it in me to say anything and it just quietly hurts having an important part of me disbelieved by someone who shares that important part of me. The sting isn't quite the same when non-Jews disbelieve or discount my Jewishness, but that hurts too.

Who counts as authentically Jewish is a messy in-group conversation and it doesn't really make sense to explain it all here. Who counts as authentically Jewish is a matter of legal status for immigration, citizenship, and civil rights in Israel, and it's my number 2 reason after horrific treatment of Palestinians that I'm antizionist. But outside that extremely high-stakes legal situation, it can just feel really shitty to not be recognized as One Of Us, especially by your own people.

It can also feel really shitty to be The Only One of Your Kind in a group, even if that group is an immortal chosen family who all loves each other dearly. Sometimes especially in a situation like that where you know those people love you but there are certain things they don't get about you and will never quite be able to. I'm definitely projecting at least a little bit of my "lonely Jew who will be alone again for yet another Jewish holiday" stuff onto Nile when at the end of I See Your Eyes Seek a Distant Shore she's thinking about being the only Black immortal and moving away from the community she'd built with a mostly-Black group of mortals in that fic. Maybe that tracks, or maybe that's fucked up of me.

Basically, this got very long but it's complicated, writing about experiences that aren't your own takes skill which in turn takes time and practice to build, writing about experiences not your own that our society maligns can cause a lot of harm if done badly, it can also cause a lot of harm when a large enough portion of a fandom just decides to nope out of something that's difficult and risky because then there's just not much content about a character who deserves just a shit ton of loving and nuanced content, people are individuals and two people who come from the exact same cultural context might show that influence in all kinds of different ways, identity is complicated, language is complicated, writing is hard, and empathy and humility and doing our best aren't a guarantee of avoiding harm but they do go a long way in helping people create thoughtful content about a character as awesome and powerful and kind and messy and scared and curious and WORTHY as Nile Freeman.

[army-of-mai-lovers]

in which I get progressively angrier at the various tropes of atla fandom misogyny

tbh I think it would serve all of us to have a larger conversation about the specific ways misogyny manifests in this fandom, because I’ve seen a lot of people who characterize themselves as feminists, many of whom are women themselves, discuss the female characters of atla/lok in misogynistic ways, and people don’t talk about it enough. 

disclaimer before I start: I’m not a woman, I’m an afab nonbinary person who is semi-closeted and thus often read as a woman. I’m speaking to things that I’ve seen that have made me uncomfy, but if any women (esp women existing along other axes of oppression, e.g. trans women, women of color, disabled women, etc) want to add onto this post, please do!

“This female character is a total badass but I’m not even a little bit interested in exploring her as a human being.” 

I’ve seen a lot of people say of various female characters in atla/lok, “I love her! She’s such a badass!” now, this statement on its own isn’t misogynistic, but it represents a pretty pervasive form of misogyny that I’ve seen leveled in large part toward the canon female love interests of one or both of the members of a popular gay ship (*cough* zukka *cough*) I’m going to use Suki as an example of this because I see it with her most often, but it can honestly be applied to nearly every female character in atla/lok. Basically, people will say that they stan Suki, but when it comes time to engage with her as an actual character, they refuse to do it. I’ve seen meta after meta about Zuko’s redemption arc, but I so rarely see people engage with Suki on any level beyond “look at this cool fight scene!” and yeah, I love a cool Suki fight scene as much as anybody else, but I’m also interested in meta and headcanons and fics about who she is as a person, when she isn’t an accessory to Sokka’s development or doing something cool. of course, the material for this kind of engagement with Suki is scant considering she doesn’t have a canon backstory (yet) (don’t let me down Faith Erin Hicks counting on you girl) but with the way I’ve seen people in this fandom expand upon canon to flesh out male characters, I know y’all have it in you to do more with Suki, and with all the female characters, than you currently do. frankly, the most engagement I’ve seen with Suki in mainstream fandom is justifying either zukki (which again, is characterizing her in relation to male characters, one of whom she barely interacts with in canon) or one of the Suki wlw pairings. which brings me to--

“I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!” 

now, I will admit, two of my favorite atla ships are yueki and mailee, and so I totally understand being interested in these characters’ dynamics, even if, as is the case with yueki, they’ve never interacted canonically. however, it becomes a problem for me when these ships are always in the background of a zukka fic. at some point, it becomes obvious that you like this ship because it gets either Zuko or Sokka’s female love interests out of the way, not because you actually think the characters would mesh well together. It’s bad form to dislike a female character because she gets in the way of your gay ship, so instead, you find another girl to pair her off with and call it a day. to be clear, I’m not saying that everybody who ships either mailee or yueki (or tysuki or maisuki or yumai or whatever other wlw rarepair involving Zuko or Sokka’s canon love interests) is nefariously trying to sideline a female character while acting publicly as if she’s is one of their faves--far from it--but it is noteworthy to me how difficult it is to find content that centers wlw ships, while it’s incredibly easy to find content that centers zukka in which mailee and/or yueki plays a background role. 

also, notice how little traction wlw Katara ships gain in this fandom. when’s the last time you saw yuetara on your dash? there’s no reason for wlw Katara ships to gain traction in a fandom that is so focused on Zuko and Sokka getting together, bc she doesn’t present an immediate obstacle to that goal (at least, not an obstacle that can be overcome by pairing her up with a woman). if you are primarily interested in Zuko and Sokka’s relationship, and your queer readings of other female characters are motivated by a desire to get them out of the way for zukka, then Katara’s canon m/f relationship isn’t a threat to you, and thus, there’s no reason to read her as potentially queer. Or even, really, to think about her at all. 

“Katara’s here but she’s not actually going to do anything, because deep down, I’m not interested in her as a person.” 

the show has an enormous amount of textual evidence to support the claim that Sokka and Katara are integral parts of each other’s lives. so, she typically makes some kind of appearance in zukka content. sometimes, her presence in the story is as an actual character with layers and nuance, someone whom Sokka cares about and who cares about Sokka in return, but also has her own life and goals outside of her brother (or other male characters, for that matter.) sometimes, however, she’s just there because halfway through writing the author remembered that Sokka actually has a sister who’s a huge part of the show they’re writing fanfiction for, and then they proceed to show her having a meetcute with Aang or helping Sokka through an emotional problem, without expressing wants or desires outside of those characters. I’m honestly really surprised that I haven’t seen more people calling out the fact that so much of Katara’s personality in fanon revolves around her connections to men? she’s Aang’s girlfriend, she’s Sokka’s sister, she’s Zuko’s bestie. never mind that in canon she spends an enormous amount of time fighting against (anachronistic, Westernized) sexism to establish herself as a person in her own right, outside of these connections. and that in canon she has such interesting complex relationships with other female characters (e.g. Toph, Kanna, Hama, Korra if you want to write lok content) or that there are a plethora of characters with whom she could have interesting relationships with in fanon (Mai, Suki, Ty Lee, Yue, Smellerbee, and if you want to write lok content, Kya II, Lin, Asami, Senna, etc). to me, the lack of fandom material exploring Katara’s relationships with other women or with herself speak to a profound indifference to Katara as a character. I’m not saying you have to like Katara or include her in everything you write, but I am asking you to consider why you don’t find her interesting outside of her relationships with men.

“I hate Katara because she talks about her mother dying too often.” 

this is something I’ve seen addressed by people far more qualified than I to address it, but I want to mention it here in part because when I asked people which fandom tropes they wanted me to talk about, this came up often, but also because I find it really disgusting that this is a thing that needs to be addressed at all. Y’all see a little girl who watched her mother be killed by the forces of an imperialist nation and say that she talks about it too much??? That is a formational, foundational event in a child’s life. Of course she’s going to talk about it. I’ve seen people say that she doesn’t talk about it that often, or that she only talks about it to connect with other victims of fn imperialism e.g. Jet and Haru, but frankly, she could speak about it every episode for no plot-significant reason whatsoever and I would still be angry to see people say she talks about it too much. And before you even bring up the Sokka comparison, people deal with grief in different ways. Sokka  repressed a lot of his grief/channeled it into being the “man” of his village because he knew that they would come for Katara next if he gave them the opportunity. he probably would talk about his mother more if a) he didn’t feel massive guilt at not being able to remember what she looked like, and b) he was allowed to be a child processing the loss of his mother instead of having to become a tiny adult when Hakoda had to leave to help fight the fn. And this gets into an intersection with fandom racism, in that white fans (esp white American fans) are incapable of relating to the structural trauma that both Sokka and Katara experience and thus can’t see the ways in which structural trauma colors every single aspect of both of their characters, leading them to flatten nuance and to have some really bad takes. And you know what, speaking of bad fandom takes--   

“Shitting on Mai because she gets in the way of my favorite Zuko ship is actually totally okay because she’s ~abusive~” 

y’all WHAT. 

ok listen, I get not liking maiko. I didn’t like it when I first got into fandom, and later I realized that while bryke cannot write romance to save their lives, fans who like maiko sure can, so I changed my tune. but if you still don’t like it, that’s fine. no skin off my back. 

what IS skin off my back is taking instances in which Mai had justified anger toward Zuko, and turning it into “Mai abused Zuko.” do you not realize how ridiculous you sound? this is another thing where I get so angry about it that I don’t know how useful my analysis is actually going to be, but I’ll do my best. numerous people have noted how analysis of Mai and Zuko’s breakup in “The Beach” or Mai being justifiably angry with him at Boiling Rock or her asking for FUCKING FRUIT in “Nightmares and Daydreams” that says that all of these events were her trying to gain control over him is....ahhh...lacking in reading comprehension, but I’d like to go a step further and talk about why y’all are so intent on taking down a girl who doesn’t show emotion in normative ways. obviously, there’s a “Zuko can do no wrong” aspect to Mai criticism (which is super weird considering how his whole arc is about how he can do lots of wrong and he has to atone for the wrong that he’s done--but that’s a separate post.) But I also see slandering Mai for not expressing her emotions normatively and not putting up with Zuko’s shit and slandering Katara for “talking about her mother too often” as two sides of the same coin. In both cases, a female character expresses emotions that make you, the viewer, uncomfortable, and so instead of attempting to understand where those emotions may have come from and why they might be manifesting the way they are, y’all just throw the whole character away. this is another instance of people in the fandom being fundamentally disinterested in engaging with the female characters of atla in a real way, except instead of shallowly “stanning” Mai, y’all hate her. so we get to this point where female characters are flattened into one of two things: perfect queens who can do no wrong, or bitches. and that’s not who they are. that’s not who anyone is. but while we as a fandom are pretty good at understanding b1 Zuko’s actions as layered and multifaceted even though he’s essentially an asshole then, few are willing to lend the same grace to any female character, least of all Mai. 

and what’s funny is sometimes this trope will intersect with “I conveniently ship this female character whose canon love interest is one of the members of my favorite non-canon ship with another female character! gay rights!”, so you’ll have someone actively calling Mai toxic/problematic/abusive, and at the same time ship her with Ty Lee? make it make sense! but then again, maybe that’s happening because y’all are fundamentally disinterested in Ty Lee as a character too. 

“I love Ty Lee so much that I’m going to treat her like an infantilized hypersexual airhead!” 

there are so many things happening in y’alls characterization of Ty Lee that I struggled to synthesize it into one quippy section header. on one hand, you have the hypersexualization, and on the other hand, you have the infantilization, which just makes the hypersexualization that much worse. 

(of course, sexualizing or hypersexualizing ANY atla character is really not the move, considering that these are child characters in a children’s show, but then again, that’s a separate post.) 

now, I understand how, from a very, very surface reading of the text, you could come to the conclusion that Ty Lee is an uncomplicated bimbo. if you grew up on Western media the way I did, you’ll know that Ty Lee has a lot of the character traits we associate with bimbos: the form-fitting pink crop top, the general conventional attractiveness, the ditzy dialogue. but if you think about it for more than three seconds, you’ll understand that Ty Lee has spent her whole life walking a tightrope, trying to please Azula and the rest of the royal family while also staying true to herself. Ty Lee and Azula’s relationship is a really complex and interesting topic that I don’t really have time to explore at the moment given how long this post is, but I’d argue that Ty Lee’s constant, vocal  adulation is at least partially a product of learning to survive at court at an early age. Like Mai, she has been forced to regulate her emotions as a member of fn nobility, but unlike Mai, she also has six sisters who look exactly like her, so she has a motivation to be more peppy and more affectionate to stand out. 

fandom does not do the work to understand Ty Lee. as is a theme with this post, fandom is actively disinterested in investigating female characters beyond a very surface level reading of them. Thus, fandom takes Ty Lee’s surface level qualities--her love of the color pink, her revealing standard outfit, and the fact that once she found a boy attractive and also once a lot of boys found her attractive--and they stretch this into “Ty Lee is basically Karen Smith from Mean Girls.” thus, Ty Lee is painted as a bimbo, or more specifically, as not smart, uncritically adoring of Azula (did y’all forget all the non-zukka bits of Boiling Rock?), and attractive to the point of hypersexualization. I saw somebody make a post that was like “I wish mailee was more popular but I’m also glad it isn’t because otherwise people would write it as Mai having to put up with her dumb gf” and honestly I have to agree!! this is one instance in which I’m glad that fandom doesn’t discuss one of my favorite characters that often because I hate the fanon interpretation of Ty Lee, I think it’s rooted in misogyny (particularly misogyny against East Asian women, which often takes the form of fetishizing them and viewing them only through a Western white male gaze)  

(side note: here at army-of-mai-lovers, we stan bimbos. bimbos are fucking awesome. I personally don’t read Ty Lee as a bimbo, but if that’s you, that’s fucking awesome. keep doing what you’re doing, queen <3 or king or monarch, it’s 2021, anyone can be a bimbo, bitches <3)

“Toph can and will destroy everyone here with her bare hands because she’s a meathead who likes to murder people and that’s it!”  

Toph is, and always has been, one of my favorite ATLA characters. My very first fic in fandom was about her, and she appears prominently in a lot of my other work as well. One thing that I am always struck by with Toph is how big a heart she has. She’s independent, yes, snarky, yes, but she cares about people--even the family that forced her to make herself smaller because they didn’t believe that their blind daughter could be powerful and strong. Her storyline is powerful and emotionally resonant, her bending is cool precisely because it’s based in a “wait and listen” approach instead of just smashing things indiscriminately, she’s great disabled rep, and overall one of the best characters in the show. 

And in fandom, she gets flattened into “snarky murder child.” 

So where does this come from? Well, as we all know, Toph was originally conceived of as a male character, and retained a lot of androgyny (or as the kids call it, Gender) when she was rewritten as a female character. There are a lot of cultural ideas about androgynous/butch women being violent, and people in fandom seem to connect that larger cultural narrative with some of Toph’s more violent moments in the show to create the meathead murder child trope, erasing her canon emotionality, softness, heart, and femininity in the process. 

This is not to say that you shouldn’t write or characterize Toph as being violent or snarky at all ever, because yeah, Toph definitely did do Earth Rumbles a lot before joining the gaang, and yeah, Toph is definitely a sarcastic person who makes fun of her friends a lot. What I am saying is that people take these traits, sans the emotional logic, marry them to their conception of androgynous/butch women as violent/unemotional/uncaring, and thus create a caricature of Toph that is not at all up to snuff. When I see Toph as a side character in a fic (because yeah, Toph never gets to be a main character, because why would a fandom obsessed with one male character in particular ever make Toph a protagonist in her own right?) she’s making fun of people, killing people, pranking people, etc, etc. She’s never talking to people about her emotions, or palling around with her found family, or showing that she cares about her friends. Everything about her relationship with her parents, her disability, her relationship to Gender, and her love of her friends is shoved aside to focus on a version of Toph that is mean and uncaring because people have gotten it into their heads that androgynous/butch women are mean and uncaring. 

again, we see a female character who does not emote normatively or in a way that makes you, the viewer, comfortable, and so you warp her character until she’s completely unrecognizable and flat. and for what? 

Azula

no, I didn’t come up with a snappy name for this section, mainly because fanon interpretations of Azula and my own feelings toward the character are...complicated. I know there were some people who wanted me to write about Azula and the intersection of misogyny and ableism in fanon interpretations of her character, but I don’t think I can deliver on that because I personally am in a period of transition with how I see Azula. that is to say, while I still like her and believe that she can be redeemed, there is a lot of merit to disliking her. the whole point of this post is that the female characters of ATLA are complex people whom the fandom flattens into stereotypes that don’t hold up to scrutiny, or dislike for reasons that don’t make sense. Azula, however, is a different case. the rise of Azula defenders and Azula stans has led to this sentiment that Azula is a 14 y/o abuse victim who shouldn’t be held accountable for her actions. it seems to me that people are reacting to a long, horrible legacy of male ATLA fans armchair diagnosing Azula with various personality disorders (and suggesting that people with those personality disorders are inherently monstrous and unlovable which ahhhh....yikes) and then saying that those personality disorders make her unlovable, which is quite obviously bad. and hey, I get loving a character that everyone else hates and maybe getting so swept up in that love that you forget that your fave is complicated and has made some unsavory choices. it sucks that fanon takes these well-written, complex villains/antiheroes and turns them into monsters with no critical thought whatsoever. but the attitude among Azula stans that her redemption shouldn’t be hard, that her being a child excuses all of the bad things that she’s done, that she is owed redemption....all of that rubs me the wrong way. I might make another post about this in the future that discusses this in more depth, but as it stands now: while I understand that there is a legacy of misogynistic, ableist, unnuanced takes on Azula, the backlash to that does not take into account the people she hurt or the fact that in ATLA she does not make the choice to pursue redemption. and yes, Zuko had help in making that choice that Azula didn’t, and yes, Azula is a victim of abuse, but in a show about children who have gone through untold horrors and still work to better the lives of the people around them, that is not enough for me to uncritically stan her. 

Conclusion    

misogyny in this fandom runs rampant. while there are some tropes of fandom misogyny that are well-documented and have been debunked numerous times, there are other, subtler forms of misogyny that as far as I know have gone completely unchecked. 

what I find so interesting about misogyny in atla fandom is that it’s clear that it’s perpetrated by people who are aware of fandom misogyny who are actively trying not to be misogynistic. when I first joined atla fandom last summer, memes about how zukka fandom was better than every other fandom because they didn’t hate the female characters who got in the way of their gay ship were extremely prevalent, and there was this sense that *this* fandom was going to model respectful, fun, feminist online fandom. not all of the topes I’ve outlined are exclusive to or even largely utilized in zukka fandom, but a lot of them are. I’ve been in and out of fandom since I was eleven years old, and most of the fandom spaces I’ve been in have been majority-female, and all of them have been incredibly misogynistic. and I always want to know why. why, in these communities created in large part by women, in large part for women, does misogyny run wild? what I realize now is that there’s never going to be a one-size fits all answer to that question. what’s true for 1D fandom on Wattpad in 2012 is absolutely not true for atla fandom on tumblr in 2021. the answers that I’ve cobbled together for previous fandoms don’t work here. 

so, why is atla fandom like this? why did the dream of a feminist fandom almost entirely focused on the romantic relationship between two male characters fall apart? honestly, I think the notion that zukka fandom ever was this way was horrifically ignorant to begin with. from my very first moment in the fandom, I was seeing racism, widespread sexualization of minors, and yes, misogyny. these aspects of the fandom weren’t talked about as much as the crocverse or other, much more fun aspects. further, atla (specifically zukka) fandom misogyny often doesn’t look like the fandom misogyny we’ve become familiar with from like, Sherlock fandom or what have you. for the most part, people don’t actively hate Suki, they just “stan” without actually caring about her. they hate Mai because they believe in treating male victims of abuse equally. they’re not characterizing Toph poorly, they’re writing her as a “strong woman.” in short, people are misogynistic, and then invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of feminist theory to shield themselves from accusations of misogyny. it’s not unlike the way some people will invoke a shallow, incomplete interpretation of critical race theory to shield themselves from accusations of racism, or how they’ll talk about “freedom of speech” and “the suppression of women’s sexuality” to justify sexualizing minors. the performance of feminism and antiracism is what’s important, not the actual practice. 

if you’ve made it this far, first off, hi, thanks so much for reading, I know this was a lot. second, I would seriously encourage you to be aware of these fandom tropes and to call them out when you see them. elevate the voices of fans who do the work of bringing the female characters of atla to life. invest in the wlw ships in this fandom. drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic (please, drop a kudos and a comment on a rangshi fic). read some yuetara. let’s all be honest about where we are now, and try to do better in the future. I believe in us. 

[theunemployedrogue]

idk just feeling kinda sad and lonely... pretty long rambling personal post beneath the read more...

It's a combination of things getting to me... firstly, there's the fact I feel like this site is finally starting to *really* die. I've noticed a drastic drop in activity on my dash in the past month or so to the point it feels like there's never more than 50 or so new posts at a time, & there's hardly any new notes on the activity page at a given time either.

Tumblr may be a hellsite but it's literally my only "social media" (aside from like....LinkedIn) at the moment. There's a handful of folks on here I really enjoy interacting with, even if it's just the occasional message or comment. I feel like I'm about to lose some of my only ties to the world outside my immediate circle if people jump ship completely :/

idk where people are even migrating to. Twitter? Insta? Tiktok? None of those sites really appeal to me at all... Part of me wonders if people (especially ppl my age) are kinda just disconnecting from internet fandom communities altogether and focusing more on IRL stuff. Honestly I'd probably benefit from logging tf off myself lol...

But 'just logging off and getting a damn life' is an especially daunting prospect right now bc my IRL situation isn't exactly ideal at the moment. For one thing, we're still in the middle of a pandemic. Secondly, I've been unemployed for about 3 months now. That has it's obvious downsides, although I will say it's not all bad. I had enough savings set aside that I decided to take a breather instead of immediately looking for another job, & my roommate and grandma have been very supportive of me and helped with some of my expenses during this time.

So like, I don't regret my decision to take time off. I mean yeah I'm a little anxious, and I know most of my family thinks I'm a lazy piece of shit, but overall the downtime has been a positive thing. I've finally been able to quit drinking and improve my eating habits, which has allowed me to better manage some of my chronic health concerns. I've also started picking up some online gigs so I don't totally deplete my savings, & to help me get back in the groove of working.

Unemployment is isolating af tho. I was already incredibly isolated when I was WFH at my last company, but losing that job meant I also lost a decent chunk of contacts (even if they were just work acquaintances). I'm lucky I have a roommate and that my grandma lives nearby, otherwise I'd have no access to IRL human interaction on a regular basis.

But I still feel lowkey devastated that I've fallen out of touch with the few other friends I have. I know they're busy with work and their own lives, and until recently I was too overwhelmed with depression to really engage anyone, but now that I'm starting to feel better it's hit me just how much I miss them.

Unfortunately it just feels harder than ever to reach out and connect with anybody nowadays, even those I consider close. It's so easy to lose track of the days slipping by and accidently wind up neglecting people. Whenever I do reach out I never have much to say, so I end up feeling like I'm just wasting people's time :(

Idk what to do to make things better. Part of me feels like I've let some relationships (mainly with my family) get damaged beyond repair at this point. It seems selfish and pointless to try and mend things with certain people whom I've likely offended or hurt by withdrawing from them for so long. Then I feel like there are other folks who have simply outgrown me, and the best thing I could do for them is to quietly step aside and let them move on.

It's just always been so hard for me to make and keep friends. I know it's pretty much entirely my own fault, but it still hurts having to reap what I sowed. I suppose it'd be nice to try and meet some new folks who share my current interests, but I'm always too scared and awkward to put myself out there like I should. I honestly don't know how much I can change about myself at this point in my life, or if I'll ever be able to conquer my shyness.

I feel immature and whiny even making this post, but I just needed to get this stuff off my chest. Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this far. Take care.

[drabbly-dreamer63]

dear me of the past,

It’s you, from the future!

I miss being you. Despite what we’ve gone through, you still managed to feel happy time to time. You were always grateful for that.

Just so you know, you’re not naive. And you’re not crazy. Stop worrying about that.

You were you, and you accomplished so much by just doing that. You never let anyone influence your opinions or decisions, and that took real courage.

Yeah, you were awkward, yeah you were shy, and had a shell that needed to be broken out of over time.

That’s okay, and I’m glad you did!

You were friendly to everyone, and empathized with those whom felt left out. And you even began to accept those you didn’t like/seem to like at all, which was also huge.

You were brave, bc you tried your damn hardest to be the best at everything. You were an overachiever. While having ambition is good, know that it was okay to take a break. It was okay to laugh and smile at stupid, funny Snapchats. It was okay to just wanna lay in bed and procrastinate. It was okay to skip martial arts that night, and okay to just rest. You needed all those things.

Now, the weight of your actions then are starting to come and hit us again, except full force now.

All that hiding of our true emotions?

All the shit we blatantly lied about unintentionally?

Everything about letting our own anxiety and fear of “failure” rule our life?

That’s gotta stop. And you know and feel that, deep down to your core. It’s time to move on from that way of living, okay?

Bc you were never a failure. You were never gonna be disowned. You were never weird, or an attention whore, or whatever other shit you heard about yourself way back when.

You were strongly and proudly you. And I know it felt like you were wearing a mask, acting like this illusion of a “perfect girl” almost 24/7, and greatly able to fool everyone around you, and even yourself, at times.

It’s going to be okay. I knew you heard that a lot then, and trust me, we still fucking hear it now (annoying, huh?) But that’s a truth, and pls, believe that. I knew you sorta did then, but even now, we still know that fact to be true and believe it, if only a little.

We need time to heal.

Especially within the past 3 years, you’ve dealt with so much pain, and were holding it all in to yourself. You bottled it up, to protect yourself. But it was okay to cry about it, and feel upset, even if then you didn’t even know why.

You, my friend, forced yourself to grow up too fast. And even now, we wished that we could go back and change that, to worry less, live more laid back, and done so so much more differently.

But we also know that there’s no point in continuing to dwell so hard on the past.

And also, the future will always remain unknown, so don’t worry so hard about that either.

The future isn’t all cut out to what people made it, either! It wasn’t “better than the blip of high school” it wasn’t like college was duper fucking fantastic, NO!

Now, we hate that we bought in to almost all the crap that adults fed us growing up. Bc while some of it could’ve been true for most, it ended up not being for us!!! And, stay with me now...... that’s O-K-A-Y.

Yeah, life didn’t go according to your master plan. Yeah, right now, you’re really not where you envisioned yourself to be at age 20.

I know that sounds so out of this world insane and mind-blowing....... but that’s okay!!!!

We are still hella young, and the truth is yes, we still have so much time to think, to live, to wonder, to dream, and to feel happy.

Finally, we’re living in the present. At long fucking last, dude.

We’re gonna try and stay here as long as we can, bc that’s what’s gonna help us heal the fastest, as well as the easiest.

I love you, and I miss how we used to be so happy-go lucky and easily optimistic.

That part of you hasn’t completely vanished, it was just pushed aside and replaced by the you that felt the need to steel your heart, to grow tf up already, and be serious and abso-frickin-lutely careful with your words, who you chose to let in, who to trust, and who you shared anything with.

You were cautious, definitely excessively, but don’t worry about that anymore dude.

It was only easy to keep up that act for so long. Simple as that.

You’re human. You’re allowed to feel things, “good and bad” and everything in between. You’re allowed to feel scared, but don’t let that fear continue to stop you from chasing what you truly want to do. You played hella hard by the rules, by the book. It only got you so far, and now, in the adult world, with no one but yourself to tell you what to do anymore, it’s so vastly different.

Now, hun, you don’t need to ask anybody’s permission to do what you want to do. However, don’t continue to worry those people that care about you tho!! Let at least one or two of them know what you’re up to, ESPECIALLY if you think it could be sketch. Call your mom. Talk to your family. Keep in close touch with the friends/people that matter to you most. Just keep doing what you’re doing.....but this time, allow yourself to let go, of expectations, of anxiety, of feeling “obligated” to do or feel, anything.

You are very mature. You are very smart, and well-educated. You know you love to learn, and strive for self-improvement and the idea of tracking progress so much.

And I’m here to say that we’re finally one step closer

to being complete as a whole, genuine, bombass person. And that’s certainly worth smiling about and celebrating, right?

[teashadephoenix]

11 Questions

I got tagged by @pomegranate-belle <3 I'm sorry this took for fucking ever?!!??

I’ll tag @lioness--hart @fox-in-the-library and @whitegodiva if you guys want to do it? And anybody else, obvi <3

1. How long have you been writing?

Actually sitting down to type stories out? Eight years old. I've been making shit up since I could talk. I have it on good authority I am entertaining to listen to.

2. What are the major themes of your current wip(s)? LONG ANSWER

omg I really dont know. I spent several hours over several days banging on this question in my head both in front of the computer and away from it only to come to the horrified realisation that I Don't Know. *gay panic*

I know the things I like to write about. I like to write about free exchange of culture, of mutual respect and fraternity with your fellow humans (which leads to themes of unity, unconditional love not only of people but of the world, and the gray area of what it means to protect those things without giving in to hate, indifference and intolerance. THE GRAY AREA IS WHERE I THRIVE.)

I like to write about intergenerational relationships (which leads to themes of obsolescence, changing of the guard, and how people, in general, not individuals, never really change. Like, there's For a Good Time graffiti on the walls at Pompeii. That is HILARIOUS.)

I write a lot about family, both born and found. (Everybody has a place and everybody is loved.) I write about mental illness and being queer (which all by itself leads to themes of not knowing your place in the world even if you have one. Frequently comes up against the previously mentioned theme)

So yeah. I don't know. My big WIP, the Aalee Rise series, is about a young woman on the cusp of adulthood going out into the world for the first time. It's her idealism vs reality. The other main characters in that cast are all foils re: various facets of societal structure and ideologies. One challenges her idea of government, another her idea of religion. She falls in love, her loyalties to her brother and parents are tested, she makes mistakes, she fights monsters and saves the world. A lot.

tldr; It's my sandbox and I just wanted to build castles in it. I don't really know if the castles will mean anything when I'm done. I hope they do.

3. What do you want people to take away from your story once they’ve read it?

My greatest ambition is that I could ever write a hero as beloved as the heroes I read about growing up, figures that reminds not to give up hope, to get back up when we're down, that the dark times ahead of us will come to pass.

At best, if I've done that, I'll be ecstatic and satisfied.

At worst, as long as you had a good time, if you didn't throw the book across the room in disgust, I'll take it.

4. Would you be excited if people write fanfiction about your wip(s)?

YAAAAS. I would literally never read it because Im terrified of accidentally absorbing someone's ideas and making them my own bc Christ alive that's a legal nightmare, but yes that would make my life.

And you can have my firstborn if you send me fanart.

5. What’s your go-to writing beverage?

Tea. Really strong and sweet. I make a fresh quart each morning and usually go through it by the end of day.

6. Who is your favorite oc? Tell me about them!

OMG ALL OF MY CHILDREN ARE PRECIOUS. (it's Aalee.)

Aalee Dering is the eighteen-year-old protagonist of my Aalee Rise series.  When we meet her in volume one (Worldwalk) she and her twin brother are setting off on their coming-of-age journey around the country. Her people, the Noruahai, have defended humanity for generations from unearthly creatures called asmic, and if she wants to become a licensed Marshal like her famous mother (and wow, she really, really does) she'll have to prove herself on her Worldwalk.

Aalee thinks with her heart first and always. She loves beautiful things, and all things are beautiful to her. She's quick to cry and struggles with anger, as well as distraction; she has trouble keeping focus. Good for getting into trouble. Not so good when it comes to being a responsible adult.

It would probably be easier if she wasn't of two minds on every single decision she has to make. She empathises with everyone, which can be paralysing-- how can she fight someone whose point of view she gets?

7. Do you feel that mistakes are important learning tools in the writing journey?

Mistakes are learning tools of life, darling. In writing they generally aren't the types that will destroy friendships, health, financial status, etc, which means they're generally easier to bounce back from. Unless you commit career suicide in some way...

8. Rank your ocs by their capability in a footchase (either running after or from smth, your choice)

1. Fall from the Aalee Rise series. He's a complicated human. Without getting into the context of the world he's from, he's hard to explain; but the short version is he's half-ghost so he can basically turn himself into the wind.

2. Rosie Frey from Color of the Stars but only when she's a lion. In her human form she's pretty normal.

3. Lynn Blythe (or any of the other vampires) from Echoes of Eden, because they're cheating cheaterfaces who use mystical vampy powers to be stronger and faster than humans

4. Sendmarshal Henley from the Aalee Rise series. Probably the fastest regular human. Imagine the most beautiful, tall, leggy black woman you can, all lean muscle and elegant grace, and now imagine her scooping you up and zipping out of danger with an easy smile on her face... *fans self* I stan.

5. When running headlong into danger to save someone? Aalee Dering. When running away? Frustratingly, satirically slow. She's one of those idiot heroes who stops to make sure everyone got away okay so Fall's always running back to grab her ("MOVE, IDIOT" "But that little old lady--" "FIRE-BREATHING MONSTERS. MOVE.")

9. Does your wip have romance? tell me about it!! if not tell me about a friendship/important relationship in your wip!! MORE LENGTHY BLAH

Relationships are the driving force of my writing. How one loves or is loved by other people, how they relate and engage with others, is how one grows, in real life and in fiction. There are a number of relationships in all my series that I'm fond of for various reasons. (For instance, even though she cannot STAND him, I'm eager af to write Eden and Lynn's relationship in Echoes of Eden because of how complicated it is.)

And as a rule all of my characters are queer or questioning unless otherwise stated, and I ship everybody with basically everybody else, and almost everybody has a love story in their history. (at least, their parents certainly do because I am a gross vile romantic and these fuckers came from somewhere.)

That having been said, for the sake of brevity I'll stick with Aalee Rise and limit myself to the Big Three: Aalee and her brother Elles, Aalee and her best friend Norah, and Aalee and Fall.

FAMILY: Aalee and Elles are twins. Born together and never separated, which stands out in a world where families are broken up by chaotic circumstances and random death on a regular basis. Aalee is easily distracted and has difficulty communicating her thoughts, so she tends to act on impulse; Elles is forever the cool head and the hand grabbing her by the back of the shirt to stop her from walking into danger. And after eighteen years of this... he's tired of it. He loves his sister, but he longs to see the world on his own terms, walk his own path. And Aalee doesn't share that sentiment. Not only doesn't share it, but is blown away when it comes into play. Her partner in crime wants to break away, and she does not take it very well. The first volume (Worldwalk) explores how their relationship suffers, grows, and changes due to this break.

FRIEND: Aalee's best friend of ten years is Norah. They met as little girls in a monster-ravaged town; Norah was entertaining the youngest orphans with a story and Aalee joined in. The pair of them spent a long night keeping civilians from panicking while Marshals battled asmic beyond the walls of the bunker. They exchanged addresses and became penpals over the next few years, since both of their parents travelled and they were rarely in the same place at the same time. That changed suddenly when Norah lost her father. Since then, Norah's family and Aalee's have lived in the same town. Norah is her warm hand in the dark, her shoulder to cry on, the first person she tells any good news. for Norah, Aalee is the only person (at the beginning of the story, anyway) with whom she can be her real whole self. They love each other no matter what.

ROMANCE: And then there's Fall. Aalee meets Fall when she rescues him from being murdered in a back alley-- except, oops, turns out it was a sting operation to catch the killer because he's not actually the helpless filthy vagabond she assumed he was; he's actually a powerful Marshal who was on assignment. Stuck together for various reasons, he becomes a mentor to her on her worldwalk, while she blatantly digs into the mystery of who he is, which turns out to complicate their lives, the lives of their friends and families, randos they happens across, their enemies, and also God's. To say they fall in love with each other is an understatement of cosmic proportions. They choose each other.

10. Do you believe in the advice kill your darlings?

Yeah but I take the advice as intended; which is not, as most assume, kill your fave characters, but to get rid of that which does not work, even if you love it. That pearlescent line of dialogue, or that golden bit of allegory? Doesn't matter how much you love it and how proud of it you are, if it does. not. work. it HAS. TO. GO. (save it in a new file to reread when you feel down and scrap that shit from the main file.)

that said re: killing characters, in my youth I was very much of the George RedRum Martin camp of "KILL THEM ALL" but as Ive gotten older my main focal point has been "What purpose does their death serve?" Death is not the only sacrifice worth writing. So while I am not afraid to kill my characters, I do take the nature of their deaths in the writing very seriously. There has to be a point.

11. Do you prefer plotting or worldbuilding? Why?

WORLDBUILDING MANYEXCLAMATIONPOINTSGOHERE! Plotting is like the maths of writing. It's measurement, it's brickwork, it's demolition when the wall you put up last week is three feet too long and now you have to scrap it and start over. Vital. But not my favorite part.

Worldbuilding is the art. It's the music your OCs hum and the stories that they treasure and the faith that holds them up when the crap you throw at them might tear them down. It's the story behind the jacket they wear and it's the reason they nod to the altar when they enter a place of worship and it's the meaning of their names. It's the magic. How the world works, the little details that make it real to the reader because it's real for your characters, is my favorite part of writing.

[defenestrata]

erich + ALL (too bad suffer w me)

stares into camera like i’m in the office. thanks realm. i lov having friends on the internets. i’m still figuring out erich’s character bc he was ( and likely still is ) a little bland but what’s under the cut is long so enjoy djhsjhfs

QUESTIONS FOR YOUR OCS

What’s the maximum amount of time your character can sit still with nothing to do?

about half an hour at best, to be honest. and he’s the most patient person in his family. 

How easy is it for your character to laugh?

not easy, not at all. erich isn’t no-nonsense, he just doesn’t have a tendency to open his mouth and laugh. sharp exhales and repressed smirks all around. 

How do they put themselves to bed at night (reading, singing, thinking?

sleeping pills. due to a couple of past incidents, erich has a crippling discomfort in the dark. and he’s also not rich enough to keep the lights on all night. about 1/3 of the time, he doesn’t need artificial medication, but sometimes he does. 

How easy is it to earn their trust?

full and complete ‘i’d die for you and i know you’d die for me’ trust ? near impossible ! erich’s trusted like five people in his life, one of which went missing, two of which were separated from him and the other two that betrayed him. 

How easy is it to earn their mistrust?

his idea of mistrust is pretty black and white. which means that he only decides to lose faith when you do something that stabs him in the back. that’s probably why two people have already stabbed him in the back. maybe one more will.

Do they consider laws flexible, or immovable?

laws are only good for making sure everyone stays out of everyone else’s way. otherwise, miscellaneous laws like piracy and intellectual property aren’t that important to him. 

What triggers nostalgia for them, most often? Do they enjoy that feeling?

the one particular thing that triggers nostalgia for him is snow. erich’s memory of snow is not separate from his memory of old friends and family. until the point that he didn’t reunite with his fam, he felt nothing but a hollow bitterness. now, seeing snow is a little more calming. 

What were they told to stop/start doing most often as a child?

alright, so for one, for the longest time he was supposed to be an important role model for his sister, younger than him by five years. so he was pushed to start being responsible from a pretty young age. after that he had to be pushed to participate in things at school, which he hated doing because it was all silly and he was bad at arts and crafts. 

Do they swear? Do they remember their first swear word?

oh yeah, sure. he has no sanctity when it comes to that kind of stuff. his first swear word has to be shit. but in german, so scheiße. mama was absolutely shooked.

What lie do they most frequently remember telling? Does it haunt them?

unfort, erich has told and continues to tell a lot of lies, some little and white, others less so. the most significant lie he’s told is hiding what really happened while he was on his own from his family. okay, this needs some insight on his backstory jhsjfds but uh to summarise: he was separated from his family, under the guardianship of a stranger for a little while, but got involved in deep web conspiracies and eventually got himself kidnapped and psychologically tortured for a bit but he hasn’t told his fam about it after they reunited. 

How do they cope with confusion (seek clarification, pretend they understand, etc)?

his pride, damn it. he will never admit he hasn’t understood anything ever, he’ll just nod and try to fill in the gaps himself and i hate him. 

How do they deal with an itch found in a place they can’t quite reach?

try his best to reach it. his parents didn’t raise a quitter. probably just duck into a quiet place if there are too many people around. 

What color do they think they look best in? Do they actually look best in that color?

he thinks he looks really good in this grey jacket he has, which he’s especially partial to. it’s pretty shit. what he really looks good in are stark colours, especially black and white. 

What animal do they fear most?

dogs. he has allergies. other than that, maybe raccoons. 

How do they speak? Is what they say usually thought of on the spot, or do they rehearse it in their mind first?

he rehearses absolutely nothing and dies like a man. however, to be honest, speaking isn’t really his thing, it’s kind of a last resort. he’s much, much more of a listener. that being said, he has the tendency to say things that aren’t socially tactful, but not frequently.

What makes their stomach turn?

later in his arc he’s forced to be a decent protagonist and blackmail the antagonist with what the antagonist loves the most. he doesn’t like being in a position where there’s absolutely no doubt he’s doing something bad. basically if he knows he’s breaking the golden rule, he’s going to be uncomfortable. 

Are they easily embarrassed?

yes. yes. and his friend jamie, another oc, will use this to her advantage until she dies. 

What embarrasses them?

compliments. insults. mentions of his past. just anything that’s about him, being said by another people. he talks about himself, others talk about themselves

What is their favorite number?

what’s the point ?? he has no favourites. 

If they were asked to explain the difference between romantic and platonic or familial love, how would they do so?

noah fence but he’s a terrible person to ask about this. he’d literally say “familial love is like platonic love but for family” and “romantic love is platonic love but when you kiss”. 

Why do they get up in the morning?

fuck if he knows. first it was because he’d get dragged out of bed by his physical therapist if he didn’t show up. now it’s because he’s being hunted down by an organised crime cult thing.

How does jealousy manifest itself in them (they become possessive, they become aloof, etc)?

erich has difficulty making personal attachments to anything, so he isn’t frequently overwhelmed by strong feelings of jealousy. if he is, he has difficulty making anything of it beyond “i am mad. why am i mad. what”.

How does envy manifest itself in them (they take what they want, they become resentful, etc)?

for the first week erich does try to take some kind of moral high ground and ignore it, but second week leads to bitterness and snideness. although envy is not really a big deal for him. he has a fairly healthy family dynamic once he reunites with them, finances aren’t terrible etc. if i had to attribute a fatal flaw to them it’d be either pride or wrath. 

Is sex something that they’re comfortable speaking about? To whom?

i mean, in theory he’s comfortable because he doesn’t think of it as some super taboo subject. sure, sex. but because he’s been socially constrained for much of his life he’s just kind of bleh about it. 

What are their thoughts on marriage?

marriage is marriage. woop. does he want to get married ? heck no, he’s got shit to do. 

What is their preferred mode of transportation?

the london tube (he lives in london). the organisation of so many lines with all the crossover points is so, so satisfying. 

What causes them to feel dread?

forgetting. names, places, faces, details. especially when he can’t remember if it was important or not. he hates being surprised by events. 

Would they prefer a lie over an unpleasant truth?

yes. yes. absolutely yes. truth is way overrated in society in his opinion. nothing is really true because everything is subjective. in which case, people can just pick the reality that suits them. if it doesn’t hurt anybody, why bother. 

Do they usually live up to their own ideals?

no. his ideal isn’t as much an image of himself as it is the goal of taking down aforementioned organised crime ring. he hasn’t done that yet. 

Who do they most regret meeting?

i’m so very glad you asked. albert michael strauss, a colleague of erich’s father, who took him in after he was separated from his family, and took splendid care of him — for the first year. after that, he realised that erich was involved in shady business and gave him out to the police without a blink which later led to the kidnapping. yeah, erich wants him dead. 

Who are they the most glad to have met?

kisha and jamie, his physical therapist and her mentee respectively. they were pretty successful in bringing him out of his shell after the torture, giving him support, asking about his family, helping out with finances, and finally even letting him stay with them when he gets evicted later in the story. 

Do they have a go-to story in conversation? Or a joke?

if erich’s super comfortable with you he may tell you stories of his younger sister being dumb.  of which he has quite a few. otherwise, if he’s feeling a little prideful, he’ll tell you the story of how he got onto a plane and got off it scot free without a boarding pass or a passport. yes, that did actually happen, and he’s so proud. 

Could they be considered lazy?

no. he knows what he wants and he’s proactive enough to get it.

How hard is it for them to shake a sense of guilt?

oh boy, okay so erich rarely does things that make him feel a super genuine sense of guilt. he tends to justify it with ‘it was necessary’. but if something does indeed make him feel guilty he will he haunted by it for days and days. 

How do they treat the things their friends come to them excited about? Are they supportive?

he listens and nods and maybe even quips. if its someone very close he’ll agree to help if needed. he’s got a very impersonal kind of supportive system that i’m still figuring out. 

Do they actively seek romance, or do they wait for it to fall into their lap?

i mean provided that a) he trusts someone, and b) cares about them to the extent that he has such strong platonic love that he begins to be confused about his feelings, he’d be in love. but that’s a huge process. so no thanks. 

Do they have a system for remembering names, long lists of numbers, things that need to go in a certain order (like anagrams, putting things to melodies, etc)?

not really sksksk he forgets things like a cool person. 

What memory do they revisit the most often?

memories of being locked in a tiny dark room, memories of being kept in a blindingly white, noiseless room. memories of being bombarded with loud and overlapping speeches and music till he can’t even hear his own thoughts. that kind of memory. 

How easy is it for them to ignore flaws in other people?

difficult. his natural cynicism of people emphasizes on their flaws and may even ignore their good points. even with his best friends, he can’t ignore flaws when they pop up. it doesn’t diminish his appreciation of them, however.

How sensitive are they to their own flaws?

facts: erich’s sense of self is awful. he is pretty much playing a video game character of himself in the real world, interacting with objects and making observations with little attention on himself. if someone did call them out for being apathetic, cold and/or straight up duplicitous and condescending he’ll go “yes but what’s your point”

How do they feel about children?

okay, kids are a bit of a weak spot with erich, mostly because he has a baby sister. he likes how silly and unbothered about the world they are, it’s very amusing to him. also, objectively, he’s relatively decent at calming kids down and taking care of basic needs. once the mess that is his plot is over he wouldn’t mind having a kid. 

How badly do they want to reach their end goal?

he wants to take down mettugi pretty badly but he’s not passionately blindsided enough to do something stupid. he’s willing to kill but he’s not willing to die. if he plays his cards right it won’t be necessary. 

If someone asked them to explain their sexuality, how would they do so?

shrug emoji. it all depends on who he can connect with. 

QUESTIONS FOR CREATORS

A) Why are you excited about this character?

i’m excited mainly because i want to break a really gross trope in writing him. there’s this trope of tall, dark, handsome boys with dark pasts that are abusive to their friends and generally flat characters with no real meaning to them. i want a surface level tall, dark and handsome with genuine wit, capacity for sympathy and a moral code skskks 

B) What inspired you to create them?

oh boy long story short i doodled a person on the back of a test paper in ninth grade which gave me an idea for a detached character who hacks in solitude and he’s sort of developed over the years into what he is today. no single thing inspired him. 

C) Did you have trouble figuring out where they fit in their own story?

no, because they’re the protagonist for the first segment of this story.

D) Have they always had the same physical appearance, or have you had to edit how they look?

absolutely not ! draft one erich was much older, and ethnically german. this erich is younger and the son of turkish immigrants to germany. 

E) Are they someone you would get along with? Would they get along with you?

i think we’re both too detached and awkward to get along and get close, but we certainly wouldn’t have arguments. 

F) What do you feel when you think of your OC (pride, excitement, frustration, etc)?

frustration because ARGH i’m having trouble getting a hold of him and fleshing him out

G) What trait of theirs bothers you the most?

erich is meant to be a little volatile, but i’m having difficulty defining it very well. also it gets everyone around them to pull away just when they were getting close and that’s frustrating as an author too.

H) What trait do you admire most?

casual sympathy ! erich won’t hold your hand and tell you it’s alright but he will try to cook for you. he also tends to be generous to buskers and the like just because. 

I) Do you prefer to keep them in their canon universe?

yes but i do that with all my ocs because they’re so defined by their context and canon.

J) Did you have to manipulate or exclude canon factors to allow them to create their character?

uh i’m not 100% sure what this question is asking tbh but the way this story is proceeding it’s very much driven by the characters — the story doesn’t make the muses, it’s the other way around.

[elfyourmother]

replies

kunstpause replied to your post: “[[MOR] idk man like i feel isolated enough as it is bc even in the...”:

I feel you! Seriously I am so happy I know at least one (you) person for whom Sebastian is as important as he is for me.

faejilly replied to your post: “[[MOR] idk man like i feel isolated enough as it is bc even in the...”:

I know almost all of those feels. *hugs* And EVEN IN the admittedly small corner of the fandom that gives Sebastian a chance and doesn't demonize him, half of them still, imo, get him /wrong/ (and/or frequently write him as much too young) so I can't even hang out THERE. :P It's exhausting.

yeah like there’s a really small number of people I trust with Seb, and I’m worried about sounding overly elitist about this, because that’s not really what it’s about. it’s more that what I want/need from stories with him is very often not what I get from the positive content that’s out there. people have a tendency to write him in a way that emphasizes extremes, without the subtle nuances that are there even in the sparse canon content with him, if you pay close enough attention. but it’s those nuances I’m most interested in tbh. I always want to dig deeper with characters, in general, and fandom as a whole trends toward treating every character like a collection of broad stereotypes

also @foundcarcosa I know what you mean, hell I’ve been That Weirdo in DA fandom since the very beginning tbh in terms of shipping. as i like to mention, Gisele made Voldy cry bc her story didn’t follow the implicit racism canon (i wear it as a badge or honor, or else I’d be too depressed to continue)

I do the same thing, the spamming headcanons out of spite thing

it’s easy to say the negativity doesn’t affect me, but I’m fundamentally a sad clown and a lot of that posturing is fake it till you make it stuff. that and being worn down by the endless bad discourse and toxic "friends” talking a good game about supporting other people’s sandboxes while simultaneously vagueblogging about my OCs literally every time i talked about them, or reblogging shitty “criticism” about characters I ship my OCs with every time I talked about those relationships (eg. I post “the major theme i got from solavell@n in canon was ‘you changed everything’ and so I took this and ran with it w him and Khedira, how does his worldview begin to shift bc of her relationship w Spirit, etc etc” 

then a reblog mysteriously pops up my my dash w “egglord is irredeemably evil and he’s can’t ever change because he’s old and basically elf satan and lol @ ppl thinking their dumb lavellans can change him and stupid and Toxic and Problematic” )

or I talk about egglord’s sex life w her even in a joking fashion and then there went the vagueblogs about how ppl are “exhausted” by how ~sexual~ everything is w him (this also happened with Sebastian posts to the point where I literally found myself censoring my own fucking posts bc I was afraid of upsetting ppl talking about my own goddamn opinions about my sandbox, that i’ve never posited as being anything but mine and not a reflection on anybody else’s characters or relationships. but I never got the same courtesy from these ppl)

you deal with enough of that shit, even the most confident person starts to feel bad.

I mean Khedira’s the biggest example of it anyway, probably because she breaks canon in such radically fundamental ways, even more so than the other two, and in ways that 99% of the rest of fandom can’t even comprehend, even the ones who don’t especially care about canon compliance. I literally had to write a story nearly from scratch because i hated so much of that game tbh. 

lmao like i can’t have anything, even my weird corner. I always go a step too far for ppl.

[itiskhalsa]

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[santiagostyle]

I didnt even notice u reblogged it too 1-116 payback tiiiiiiime

oh boy here we go

1: Let’s start with a tricky one; what is the real reason you are confused right now?

tbh bc i just remembered i have to read a play for uni by tomorrow and i’m confused about why i never do my homework

2: Do you ever get “good morning” texts from anyone?

lol no

3: If your significant other smoked pot, would you care?

like,,,, only if it was having adverse effects on either of us but if it was a once in a while thing i don’t think i’d have an issue with it 

4: Do you find it easy to trust others?

??? yes and no like it depends on the person

5: What were you doing at 11PM last night?

probably reading fanfic tbh

6: You’re drunk and lost walking down the road; who is with you?

my best friends from uni lets be real they’re the only people with whom i would be drunk and lost in the same night

7: What would you do if you found out you had been cheated on?

that would require an s/o but i would dump them

8: Are you close with your dad?

eehhhhhh depends on the day

9: I bet you kissed someone last night, right?

lol good joke

10: What are you listening to?

Mowgli’s Road by Marina and the Diamonds

11: You can only drink ONE liquid for the rest of your life - what is it?

i mean look logically? water

12: Do you like hickeys?

..... sometimes

13: What time do you go to bed?

usually between 11 and 11:30pm

14: Is there someone who continuously lets you down?

there are several people who continuously let me down

15: Can you text as quickly with one hand as you do both?

nope

16: Do you always answer your texts?

i try my best to

17: Do you hate the person you fell the hardest for?

nah

18: When was the last time you talked to one of your best friends?

in person like 6 hours ago, online like 20 mins ago

19: Is there someone that makes you happy every time you see them?

yeeees

20: What was your last thought before you went to bed last night?

“oh shit i haven’t done the reading... oh well”

21: Is anyone else in the room with you?

my mum is in the room like adjacent to me i guess that kinda counts bc they’re sorta connected

22: Do you believe what goes around comes around?

mmmmm i like to think i believe it but i’ve found that it’s not always true

23: Were you happier four months ago than you are now?

definitely not

24: Is there someone you wish you could fix things with?

mm yeah

25: In the past week, have you cried?

yes

26: What colour is the shirt you are wearing?

grey

27: Do people ever call you by your last name?

only my best friend from uni on some rare occasions 

28: Is anyone ignoring you right now?

i mean,,,, i wouldn’t really know would i 

29: Do you have a best friend?

i have several

30: Would it be hard seeing someone else kiss the last person you kissed?

nah i’m over him now

31: Who was your last call/text message from?

lmao my dad i sent him a list of groceries

32: Are you mad at anyone?

i mean,,, yes kinda like not for something specific it’s just a general annoyance directed at a few people

33: Have you ever kissed someone older than you?

yes

34: How old will the last person you kissed be on his/her next birthday?

21

35: How many more days until your birthday?

266

36: Do you have any summer plans yet?

boi i barely have plans for friday night

37: Do you have any good friends of the opposite sex?

i sure do

38: Are you keeping anything from your best friend(s) now?

mmmm i’m low key salty with one of my best friends but not gonna tell her

39: Do you have a secret that you’ve never told anyone?

nah at least 1 person knows all my secrets

40: Have you ever regretted kissing someone?

lmao yes

41: Do you think age matters in relationships?

only if it’s ?? illegal or an abuse of power

42: Are you available?

i mean??? i think so yes????

43: How many people have you had real, strong feelings for since high school ended?

i had ‘feelings’ for someone but idk if u would call them real or strong,,, and i guess i kinda like someone rn if that counts

44: If you had to get a piercing (not ears), what would you get?

probs my belly button

45: Do you believe exes can be friends?

mmm depends on the situation

46: Do you regret anything?

nah i try not to

47: Honestly, what’s on your mind right now?

the fact that i haven’t done the reading for uni tomorrow

48: Did you ever lose a best friend?

yep

49: Was your last kiss a mistake?

nah

50: Why aren’t you pursuing the person you like?

i mean,,,, i’m going on a date on friday does that ?? count ??

51: Has the last person you kissed ever seen you cry?

not cry but i was close one time like way way waaaaay before we kissed

52: Do you still talk with the person you LAST kissed?

not unless i see him in person

53: What was the last thing you ate?

pasta!!!!!

54: Did you get any compliments today?

well my modernism lecturer told me i had some great ideas about virginia woolf 

55: Where are you going on your next vacation?

this is an excellent question and i do not have an answer

56: Do you own anything from other countries?

yessss, all the stuff i bought in the US, and my best friend just got back from Serbia so i have stuff from there too but I also have presents from China, Spain, Mexico etc etc idk my extended family travels a lot

57: Are most of your friend guys or girls?

girls

58: Where have you lived most of your life?

Sydney, Australia

59: When was the last time you took a long drive?

Like,, yesterday I was in the car for almost 5 hours

60: Have you ever played Spin the Bottle?

lmao yes at year 10 camp with half of my grade

61: Have you ever TPd someone’s house?

nope

62: Who do you text the most?

i generally use like Facebook messenger more often than text but either way the answer is my best friend from uni

63: What was the last movie you saw?

Metropolis 

64: What’s preventing your current boyfriend/girlfriend from going back to their ex?

I do not have an s/o

65: How many boyfriends/girlfriends did you have in 2011?

LMAO ACTUALLY THAT’S THE ONLY YEAR I’VE EVER “DATED” ANYONE SO ONE (1)

66: Is the last person you kissed younger than you?

nah

67: Do you curse around your parents?

never ever around my dad, sometimes around my mum depending on the situation

68: Are you happy with where you live?

mmm yeah pretty much

69: Picture of yourself?

that’s so,,, much effort and nobody is gonna read these so

70: Are you a monogamous person or do you believe in open-ended relationships?

yay monogamy 

71: Have you ever been dumped?

yes

72: What do you most like about making out?

this feels inappropriate to answer on a public forum but god idk ???? it’s just all around nice

73: Have you ever casually made out with someone who you weren’t seriously involved with?

hahahah yes oops

74: When you kiss someone for the first time, is it usually you who initiates it or the other?

always the other person boi i’m nervous af

75: What part of a person’s body do you find most attractive?

??? their face i guess

76: Who was the last person you talked to last night before you went to bed?

one of my best pals from uni

77: Had sex with someone you knew less than an hour?

.... not applicable 

78: Had sex with someone you didn’t know their name?

also not applicable 

79: What makes your heart flutter and brings a big cheesy smile to your face?

god okay um cute boys cute girls and cute dogs

80: Would you get involved with someone if they had a child already?

I mean,,, given that I’m pretty young probably not but I wouldn’t hold it against them if that makes sense. Like I wouldn’t NOT get involved with someone just bc they had a kid

81: Has someone who had a crush on you ever confessed to you?

haha god yes it was,,,, unpleasant

82: Do you tell a lot of people when you have a crush?

??? i haven’t had a crush in a long time but I used to always tell my two best friends from high school

83: Do you miss your last sweetie?

nope

84: Last time you slow danced with someone?

???? never

85: Have you ever ‘dated’ someone you’ve never met?

hahah no

86: How can I win your heart?

be a) jake peralta or b) amy santiago

87: What is your astrological sign?

gemini

88: What were you doing last night at 12 AM?

fam i was sleeping

89: Do you cook?

I can make tacos that’s about it

90: Have you ever gotten back in touch with an old flame after a time of more than 3 months of no communication?

well like i kinda had to bc we went to school together but we defs had a period of Not Speaking and then became friends again later kinda

91: If you’re single right now, do you wish you were in a relationship?

mmmm kinda sorta

92: Do you prefer to date various people or do you pretty much fall into monogamous relationships quickly?

i prefer monogamy but i don’t really have experience with either

93: What physical traits do you look for in a potential interest?

idk i don’t really have A Type in terms of physical features i just like boys who make me laugh ugh

94: Name four things that you wish you had!

1. a guaranteed job in the arts industry 2. the capacity to ensure world peace 3. less anxiety 4. like,,,, money bro i’m broke rn

95: Are you a player?

no

96: Have you ever kissed 2 people in one day?

like if kissing my friends counts then yes

97: Are you a tease?

i don’t think so????

98: Ever meet anyone you met on Tumblr?

not yet but i have met someone i met on twitter

99: Have you ever been deeply in love with someone?

no

100: Anybody on Tumblr that you’d go on a date with?

i mean??? idk ????

101: Hugs or Kisses?

both idc this question sucks

102: Are you too shy to ask someone out?

god YES but i think,,, i kind of accidentally may have done it anyway

103: The first thing you notice about the opposite sex?

their face??

104: Is it cute when a boy/girl calls you babe?

YES just depends on the context bc i’ve had a lot of people use it passive aggressively 

105: If a sexy person was pursuing you, but you knew he/she was in relationship, would you go for it?

nope

106: Do you flirt a lot?

i think unintentionally yes

107: Your last kiss?

???? what about it ???? it was like almost 2 years ago so like does it even count 

108: Have you kissed more than 5 people since the start of 2012?

boi i haven’t kissed more than 5 people period

109: Have you kissed anyone in the past month?

no

110: If you could kiss anyone who would it be?

tbh? amy santiago

111: Do you know who you’ll kiss next?

i mean i have a pretty,,, good idea 

112: Does someone like you currently?

god i hope so or else this date is gonna be awkward

113: Do you currently have feelings for anyone?

see above

114: Do you like to be in serious relationships or just flings?

look i don’t have experience with either but i think probably relationships 

115: Ever made out with just a friend?

umm ??? i mean maybe like we were friends at the time but i was kinda Into Him idk i don’t have an answer for u

116: Are you happier single or in a relationship?

look tbh i’m,, kinda happy either way as long as i have my friends