#pokemon is a very big fandom

[colourful-void]

stgo artists and writers this is the fucking TIME to band together alright with journeys over this is the time for us all to be sharing posts and making recommendations like never before. reblogs and comments will go a LONG way to keeping a dedicated group of fans for this pairing, both those who make the art/writing/edits/cool stuff, and those who enjoy it.

I would be so happy if ppl took the end of journeys as a chance to share the art/writing/edits that people have made around again, to really push and uplift the new things we make, all that sort of stuff! make art of fics, make fics of art, make edits and moodboards, make new things, make posts reccomending old things, just... if you want to keep talking about the journeys characters, ash in general, etc, please please do.

i love seeing all your wonderful pkmn jn creations and I dont want anyone thinking that people won't care anymore, so lets all try and show off each others works!!

[pepperpixel]

which fandom do you think you were most involved in

Hmmmmm, this is a tough question!!! But also, an interesting one lol. I’d say, in terms of actually creating and uploading art it’d be either Undertale or SCP! Most likely it’s SCP but I remember being RLLY into Undertale back when it first came out and drawing a bunch of stuff for it

But, in terms of the fandom I was MOST personally involved and invested and ride or die on for the longest amount of my life, regardless of amount of fanart I’ve drawn (cuz robots r hard to draw…) it would without question be transformers lol, I’ve been obsessed with that shit since like 5th grade… I used to read thru tfwiki pages just for fun as a child and to see the funny captions on photos or the interesting trivia. I had one of crashboombangers old brainstorm voice clips as my alarm clock back then and it was DEVASTATINGLY LOUD, I shared my room w someone else back then and had that as my alarm and little me, had no sense of common decency towards someone else’s sleep cuz that shit was like a bomb went off at 5:30. It was terribly loud ghgh-

I was, And still am kinda obsessed with sharing and showing transformers to ppl cuz I think it’s rlly good!!! (Generally I show Tfp to ppl first cuz it’s a very cool well made entertaining show that I feel is a good entry point. But like. I enjoy a lot of the different versions, and showing them to ppl!) And I want more ppl! To care about and be obsessed w these hot sexy awesome giant robots!!! They’ve literally informed so much of my interests ghgh- and actually, I went back and checked my deviantart. And I don’t have a lot of my old transformers art on this blog. Cuz I had an old one I accidentally deleted before this one. But I’ve actually drawn MORE transformers art than I have scp art… apparently. I mean they might be evened out considering I haven’t rlly made many transformers videos like I have for scp. But still! Yeah.. transformers was and still is my favorite shit ever. I don’t draw a lot of stuff for it but it is always in my heart.

[doufudanshi]

ON GHOSTS AND DEMONS: Wei Wuxian's "demonic" cultivation?

There are a few big misconceptions I have repeatedly seen in English-speaking fandom about things that are fundamental to the story of MDZS. One of them is this—

Wei Wuxian is not a demonic cultivator.

To prove this, let's take a deep dive into the original Chinese text of MDZS.

(Adapted from my original gdoc posted on Twitter on May 27, 2022. All translations my own unless otherwise stated.)

Demon vs. ghost

Let's start from the very basics. In addition to orthodox cultivation using spiritual energy and a golden core, there are two other forms of cultivation that are mentioned in the novel:

魔道 (mó dào), or “demon cultivation/path.”

鬼道 (guǐ dào), or “ghost cultivation/path.”

To be clear, 魔 mo "demons" and 鬼 gui "ghosts" (and thus their respective cultivation/paths) are not interchangeable because of the in-universe worldbuilding within MDZS. Using the characters in the term 妖魔鬼怪 "monsters," MXTX created four distinct categories of beings, each of which has a strict definition in the novel. From chapter 4 (jjwxc ch 13):

妖者非人之活物所化; 魔者生人所化; 鬼者死者所化; 怪者非人之死物所化。 Yāo (妖) are transformed from non-human living beings; mó (魔) are transformed from living people; guǐ (鬼) are transformed from the deceased; guài (怪) are transformed from non-human dead beings.

And of course, WWX hoards all the ghost-type pokemon monsters at the Phoenix Mountain tournament, and he only exerts control over corpses, spirits, and the like (aka people who have already died). (As opposed to Xue Yang, who appears to have been actively trying to make 魔 "demons" out of living people with those "living corpses" of his, perhaps.) (And, ironically, in order to avoid showing necromancy / zombies on screen, CQL technically does show WWX practicing demon cultivation because everyone is "supposedly alive" even when they're corpses? Which is, funnily enough, far worse morally in the MDZS universe, lol.)

So, intuitively at least, we know that WWX must be practicing ghost cultivation—now let's look at some concrete examples from the book.

Running the numbers

1) 魔道 (mó dào) means “demon cultivation.” As such, it must use living humans.

魔道 appears one (1) time in the novel.

Yes, once. The only time it appears is in the term 魔道祖师 modao zushi, or the namesake of the novel, in chapter 2. This is a title the general public has given him through rumors:

魏无羡好歹也被人叫了这么多年无上邪尊啦、魔道祖师啦之类的称号，这种一看就知道不是什么好东西的阵法，他自然了如指掌。 Wei Wuxian wasn’t called titles like “The Evil Overlord,” “The Founder of Demon Cultivation,” and so on over the years by others for nothing—he knew these sorts of obviously shady formations like the back of his hand.

2) 鬼道 (guǐ dào) means “ghost cultivation.” As such, it must use dead humans. 

鬼道 appears 12 times in the novel.

Here is the first instance that 鬼道 appears, which I believe is the first time Wei Wuxian's method of cultivation is properly introduced. From chapter 3 (jjwxc ch 8):

蓝忘机 […] 对魏无羡修鬼道一事极不认可。 Lan Wangji […] had never approved of the fact that Wei Wuxian practiced ghost cultivation.

Here's another quote from chapter 15 (jjwxc ch 71) for funsies:

蓝忘机看着他，似乎一眼就看出他只是随口敷衍，吸了一口气，道：“魏婴。” Lan Wangji looked at him as if he saw through his half-hearted bluff. He took in a breath, then said, “Wei Ying.” 他执拗地道：“鬼道损身，损心性。” He stubbornly continued, “Ghost cultivation harms one’s body, and harms one’s nature.”

3) 邪魔歪道 (xiemowaidao) means heretical path/immoral methods/evil practices/underhanded means/etc—e.g., lying, cheating, stealing, bribery, and so on.

It appears ~24 times in the novel.

I mention this last term because it is often used to refer to Wei Wuxian's cultivation, but as a pejorative. Every instance of 邪魔歪道 is said by or to quote someone looking down upon Wei Wuxian’s cultivation (Jin Zixun, Jin Ling, etc.) and referring to it derogatorily, whereas every instance of 鬼道 guidao/ghost dao is said by someone discussing it neutrally and/or factually (Lan Jingyi, Lan Wangji, Wei Wuxian himself, random cultivators at discussion conferences, the narration, etc.). Here is a pertinent example with Jin Ling (derogatory) and Lan Jingyi (neutral) in chapter 9 (jjwxc ch 43):

金凌怒道：“是在谈论薛洋，我说的不对吗？薛洋干了什么？他是个禽兽不如的人渣，魏婴比他更让人恶心！什么叫‘不能一概而论’？这种邪魔歪道留在世上就是祸害，就是该统统都杀光，死光，灭绝！” “We are discussing Xue Yang,” Jin Ling said angrily. “Am I wrong? What did Xue Yang do? He’s scum that’s lower than a beast, and Wei Ying is even more disgusting than him! What do you mean ‘don’t make sweeping generalizations?’ As long as those practicing this kind of demoniac, heretical path are alive, they’ll continue to bring disaster. We should slaughter all of them, kill all of them, annihilate them once and for all!” 温宁动了动，魏无羡摆手示意他静止。只听蓝景仪也加入了，嚷道：“你发这么大火干什么？思追又没说魏无羡不该杀，他只是说修鬼道的也不一定全都是薛洋这种人，你有必要乱摔东西吗？那个我还没吃呢……” Wen Ning shuffled around. Wei Wuxian gestured at him to stay still, only to hear Lan Jingyi also cut in loudly, “Why are you getting so riled up? It’s not like Sizhui said Wei Wuxian shouldn’t have been killed. All he said was that people who practice ghost cultivation aren’t necessarily all like Xue Yang. Do you have to go around breaking things? I didn’t even get to eat any of that yet…”

Tl;dr—Wei Wuxian does not 修魔道 practice demon cultivation. When Wei Wuxian’s craft is discussed in a neutral and factual manner, it is referred to as 鬼道 ghost dao. 

In fact, Wei Wuxian’s imitators are also referred to explicitly as 鬼道修士 ghost cultivators.

魏无羡早就听说过，这些年来江澄到处抓疑似夺舍重生的鬼道修士，把这些人通通押回莲花坞严刑拷打。 Wei Wuxian had heard a while back that over the past few years, Jiang Cheng had gone around snatching any ghost cultivator suspected of being possessed or reborn, detaining them in Lotus Pier to interrogate them using torture.

So why the confusion?

Of course, there is the matter of the novel's title, which I will get into in a second. But the real issue is a matter of translation.

The idea that WWX uses "demonic cultivation" is a misconception in English-speaking fandom due to issues with the translation of terminology. Of note, EXR actually did translate 鬼道 guidao as "ghostly path" most of the time, though there were at least 3 instances of "demonic" and 1 instance of "dark," especially regarding the first few.

However, this misconception was perpetuated (and arguably worsened) by 7S's official translation, which not only mistranslated additional terms as "demonic cultivation/path" (at least in book 1), but also consistently mistranslated every instance of 鬼道 as "demonic cultivation/path."

So why is this book called 魔道祖师, commonly translated as "Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation?"

One possibility is one posed in Chinese-language meta online, which often cites that WWX himself is a sort of 魔 demon. While this may be true—after all, he can hear the voices of the dead—it doesn't quite explain the fact that the title sets him up to be the 祖师 or "founder."

My take is that this novel is very much concerned with hearsay vs. truth. This is one of the many monikers WWX is given by the public, who collectively view him as evil. (Also of note is that the non-cultivator public is not aware of all the nuances that cultivators learn re: distinctions between the 妖魔鬼怪 monsters.) In the quote from earlier, note that the first title we're given is actually 无上邪尊 “The Evil Overlord,” then 魔道祖师 "The Founder of Demon Cultivation." Like, what can that be other than MXTX telling us, "please take both of these with a HUGE grain of salt, lol."

(And not only the title, but the very first line—"魏无羡死了。" / "Wei Wuxian is dead."—is a lie.)

I think the title is genius, honestly. It intentionally makes readers come into the novel with preconceived notions that Wei Wuxian practices 魔道 demon cultivation and evil techniques—just like the public in the novel. What better way to tell a story warning about the dangers of how easy it is to fall for misinformation and jump to incorrect conclusions?

(Though, in our case, perhaps it worked a little too well.)

[awful-little-goose]

my ideas of pokemon teams for the circus crew!

Also, some of these pieces are my actual first serious digital pieces (yeah- I made that pomni one even before artfight in July- it's been rotting in my files for a while)

Anyway, this was super fun, and I also made a team for Caine, and I'll probably render it or something!

Now, more details

I established some rules for myself as I made the teams for each character, and each of them had to have-

- one eeveelution: the idea is, since TADC is based on studying characters and their growth, the best pokemon to show the growth of people evolving in different directions is, of course, eevee!

- a pokemon to represent their appearance: since appearances and avatars are a BIG focus for some characters (Pomni learning about her new form, Zooble struggling with their body, Gangle’s whole deal with her mask, etc etc) it made sense to me that have one pokemon that reflects that in their teams

- one to two pokemon linked to SOMETHING that’s related to the character: for example, the fact that Jax always has keys, or Ragatha’s thing with knives, or Kinger and bugs. This can also come from things we know about the characters, that comes from outside the show: Ragatha liking horses, Gangle being a nerd (hence why she gets not only Mimikyu but also two pikachu clones, that also reflect her deal with her masks).

- a pokemon reflecting their main personality trait: yeah, I know, it’s always frustrating when characters get dumbed down to one trait by the fandom. But TADC offers us characters that are very diverse in their ways of presenting themselves, with unique personalities, that also fit in typical roles we’ve all seen before (the mom friend, the charismatic bully, the grouchy one, etc etc). I feel like this over characterization is meant to OVERLIGHT the fact that theyre MORE than just that main trait. And to give it some attention, I tried giving characters mons that reflected their "typical" character trait: a mischievious Gengar for Jax, a duo of shifting plusle and Minun for Gangle, a confused Spinda for Pomni…

- (mendatory): something relevant to plot points in the episodes. That’s how Pomni gets her little Sandile from Caine (after Gummigoo explodes-), or how Zooble gets their giant scolipede (inspired by the gloinks and the gloink queen).

And last rules:

- I’m allowed to twist the Pokémon’s designs a little bit

- each character’s fit should reflect a little bit of their main pokemon

- no one gets a legendary, mythical, ultra beast and what not: they’re normal ass humans, they get normal ass pokemon. For example: Caine, on the other, has a total of 0 completely “normal” pokemon! Since he is NOT a random joe!

- have fun!

So yeah! That’s all the rules that led me to my choices! If you wanna take inspiration from those, go ahead, but yeah! I hope that was fun to read all that, you little freak

[grison-in-space]

honestly so much of the way we conceptualize autistic special interests is predicated on there not being anyone who shares them with us? and like. have you met humans. have you talked to any autistics. because lots of them are pretty interesting actually! and autistic people are often pretty good at infecting you with their interests so that you share them too even if you're not as motivated to fixate happily on them for their own sakes!

huge whorls of autistic-generated human communities exist, and people who aren't used to autistic people never seem to realize that Yes Those Are Also Autistics, often because people are used to autistic special interests occupying some very limited contexts like Computers because Computers were a big new societal innovation and community spinning up right when people also started thinking about autism as a Distinction Among Humans. Also Pokemon. And the Internet. Nineties kids know what I mean, eh?

anyway here are some heavily autistic communities that allistic people never seem to realize tend to concentrate autistics and be driven by them:

every non-commercial domestic animal fancy ever, including dog, cat, pigeon, chicken, and horse people; also includes a fair chunk of the commercial kinds but there are slightly less of these

fandom of any kind (for some reason--it's misogyny--no one seems to realize that this also applies to female-slanted forms of fandom focused on storytelling and modification as well as male-slanted ones that involve information curation)

religion. especially any kind that involves any kind of organization--less the charismatic ones that involve manipulating other people, more the kind that draw people interested in the way that religion works. less/more is not all/none.

kink and sexuality generally and also gender. we think a lot. it's a problem. and we get snagged on stuff. plus sensory shit ties into everything. just saying. e v e r y t h i n g.

academia. look we get. we get interested in things. if you get interested enough in things people call you an expert and sometimes they give you money. money is nice. it lets you buy more objects of special interest.

acting. we wear masks all the fucking time and we get caught up in it. which makes you think about structure, eh?

comedy. ditto.

building shit. admittedly the allistics have largely noticed that engineers concentrate us by now but it has taken a surprisingly long time to realize that this also applies to other, older crafts.

fibercrafts and textiles. what about "we like textures and also figuring out how things work" is a surprise to you. also math. again the answer to how the allistics keep failing to notice this one is "there's lots of ladies in there."

I bet I'm missing plenty that I'm just not thinking of but my god, man, look at how many of these things touch us! look at how they shape our understanding of one another and ourselves! how cool is that

[wilcze-kudly]

Something I've always loved about atla is how it handled scars, particularly Zuko's facial scar and Aang's lightning scar.

I've probably spoken before about how, as a burn victim with a ton of skin grafts on my legs, torso and hand, Zuko really was the first character "like me" that I saw on TV. It was, as you can guess, quite a momentous moment for kid me. Which is probably why I'm so disheartened on the live action show shrinking and toning down Zuko's scar significantly.

Too often scars, especially burn scars are seen as gore or body horror and too graphic to be seen on TV that isn't horror or related genres. And often scars, especially facial scars are reserved purely for villains and are used as a signifier for 'evil'. A trope that you'll find is still alive and kicking even today even in big franchises.

And while Zuko does reinforce this trope to some extent, I think it was subverted enough for it to have irs own merit. Atla also steers away from the scars=evil narrative, by having a lot of "good" characters have scars too like Bato and Song. This helps destigmatise scars as a whole, making Zuko's 'scarred villany' seem like a more individual case.

In Atla, scars are more the trademark of victims rather than villains and this rings true for Zuko too.

Zuko is a victim of the Fire Nation in the sense that the Fire Nation's values of war, strength and honour facilitated Ozai's abuse of him, particularly the scarring.

Zuko's scarring does follow a very established trope of a son being scarred by a father, which is surprisingly prevalent, especially with burn victims. Seriously I collect these men like pokemon. This tropiness isn't a bad thing, since I think it leads to us very quickly sympathising with him. I certainly did, since his experience mirrors my own.

The scene of Zuko's scarring is also particularly special, due to it being rather unique, because it isn't quick or an action scene, nor is it shown as an overly gory horror scene, despite it being, well, horrific.

It's... tasteful. Or at least, as tasteful as the scene of a child getting scarred by their father can be, I suppose. It doesn't linger on the violence, but also doesn't sugarcoat it. The scene of Zuko's scarring, and the events leading up to it also give us a good exposition to his better qualities, like his compassion, and a good explanation for why these qualities stay buried.

I can understand why some people in the fandom believe that Zuko's scar symbolises his 'worse side', but I actually believe its the opposite. Very often, when a character has a 'split down the middle' type of scar, their scarred side represents their worse half, like with Two Face from DC.

Because Zuko's scar doesn't symbolise his allegiance to the Fire Nation, it symbolises the fact that he failed to live up to the Fire Nation's standards. It's a physical reminder of the time Zuko actively defied the Fire Nation's standards and mindset.

We get a lot of nods to Zuko's scar aymbolising disgrace and failure to uphold ehat the Fire Nation expected of him. It's literally a physical blemish upon his 'honour'.

This is especially noticeable when Zuko's appearance is contrasted with Ozai, who exists as sort of the human stand in for the Fire Nation's imperialism. For most of the show, we are not shown any of Ozai's features, his face being obscured by shadow or out of frame.

We finally see Ozai's face, it's when Zuko is seeing hik for the first time in years. And Ozai looks so similar to Zuko. An unblemished, perfect, complete Zuko, so to speak. In Zuko's fever dream, where we see an unscarred Fire Lord version of Zuko, he looks exactly how I imagine a younger Ozai would look. I also love that Zuko's adult design seems to lean into this similarity.

Furthermore, Zuko's scar is used time and time again as a way he connects with victims of the Fire Nation. People who don't know him, like Song and Jet, assume him to be another victim of the Fire Nation, citing his scar as the reason why. Which is half true, Zuko is a victim of the Fire Nation, just not in the way they think.

Jet: I think Lee would make a good Freedom Fighter. He's just trying to find his way in the world, like us. Smellerbee: You don't know anything about him, Jet. Jet: I know he didn't get that scar from a waterbender.

One person who doesn't connect to Zuko over his burn scar is Katara. I love the scene of Katara and Zuko in the crystal catacombs. It's a profound scene and one that always makes me a bit emotional, especially in the wider context of atla, a subject I've touched on in this post.

However, the handling of Zuko's scar in this scene is especially dear to my heart. I strongly remember that, when Katara offered to heal Zuko's scar, I actually got scared and upset. I was terrified of Zuko's scar being erased, of the connection I felt to him snuffed out and one of the best parts of his characterisation being erased.

But that's not what happened, and the scene is amazing on that front and all others.

We learn that Katara asscociates Zuko's face with the Fire Nation, which makes sense, since he's been kinda clingy for the entire 1st season. Katara denies it having to do with anything with Zuko's scar.

Katara: It's just that for so long now, whenever I would imagine the face of the enemy, it was your face. Zuko: My face? I see. [He touches his scar.] Katara: No, no, that's-that's not what I mean.

The Katara lover in me believes her. As a a member of the Sothern Water Tribe, she probably has seen many burn victims. And her pursuing healing would also probably lead her down the route of normalising and understanding burn scars.

However, I would not be surprised or disconcerted if the scar did have something with Katara perceiving him as a villain. After all, to a lot of people, scars and "ugliness" denote moral ugliness. The very obvious fire asscociation probably doesn't help someone traumatised by the Fire Nation too. It is a sad fact of life that even those who know better subconsciously react to people with scars and other "deformities" with disgust and distrust.

We also see Zuko explicitly give us the rundown of his previously unspoken struggle with feeling like his scar is defining him as a person.

Zuko: It's okay. I used to think this scar marked me. The mark of the banished prince, cursed to chase the Avatar forever. But lately, I've realized I'm free to determine my own destiny, even if I'll never be free of my mark.

This is something I can relate to as someone with prominent scarring and I'm sure we all sometimes feel defined by things outside of our control. Sometimes It's hard to seperate your identity from your appearance. And it's even harder to seperate yourself from events that influenced you so harshly.

As I previously highlighted, Zuko's scar relates strongly to his failure to adhere to the Fire Nation's ideals and conventions, his failure to be the perfect prince of the nation. And while to us, that is a good thing, to Zuko, at least at first, that is a very, very bad thing.

To Zuko, the scar is a symbol of his flaws, and a just, if not harsh punishment for his percieved transgression. He sees it as a brand, denoting his mistake and shame. He sees it as the physical manifestation of what his banishment and scorn from Ozai means.

It's only when he begins growing as a person away from the Fire Nation's influnece, that he starts to realise that the scar is just a scar. It holds no power over him. And while he relapses for a moment, "demystifying" his scar allows him to do the same to the event of his scarring. It allows him to look back at that moment and not see righteous discipline, but rather see it for what it was and go "hey wait a minute that was actually fucked up.". Which allows him to look at The Fire Nation's conquest of the world and go "hey this is also fucked up.", when the lessons he's learnt in the Earth kingdom finally click.

I believe this is why we see Zuko almost purely from the side of his scar in the scene where he confronts Ozai, especially when it's contrasted with Ozai's unscarred eyes.

Zuko's scar, like many scars in fiction, symbolises imperfection. But rather than an "objective" imperfection, as most fictional scars do, Zuko's scar symbolises his imperfection through the skewed and biased eyes of the Fire Nation. It's a nice subversion of the trope that usually encourages us to equate beauty with goodness and ugliness with evil.

Side note, I know I've been using the terms "ugly" and "ugliness" to talk about scars. I just wanted to note that I don't think scars automatically mean someone isn't attractive/scarred people are ugly. But in a lot of media, scars are seen as gross and ugly, which is why I've been using these terms.

I like that Zuko defies this trope by being drawn as very attractive with his scar, and even being seen as desireable in canon.

Even though it does loop back to the 'attractive=good' symbolism, I don't think it totally invalidates the story Zuko's scar is telling. Plus it WAS an ego boost to child year old me who thought no one whould ever love me bcs I looked like a burnt chicken nugget. So I'll let it slide.

I love Zuko's scar, and I love how it seamlessly fit into the story, while also subverting tropes and invalidating stigmas towards scarred people. It's probably one of my favourite, if not very personal aspects of the character.

I do however, also want to analyse and go over Aang's scar from Azula's lightning and I plan to go over it at a later date, since this post is getting a bit long and overwhelming.

Toodles!

[ninathekillerzblog]

MONOSHIN FIC RECS

A compiled fic rec list of the more longer monoshin fics. All fics can be found on ao3. You should be able to click the title of the fic and be directed there!

this is for @fraisaa and the very few other monoshin enjoyers in this fandom 🙂‍↕️🙏 pls write more fics.

My Cat's Name is Jalapeño! by Perkykitties - 100k wordcount & complete - SINGLE HANDEDLY THE BEST MONOSHIN FIC I'VE EVER READ. cough sorry, bias is showing, post cannon fic after they graduated U.A.

Golden Days by hanwritesstuff (hannahkannao) - 208k wordcount & complete - five years after graduation, two heroes are brought together by coincidence, work together by necessity, and stay together by choice, trust, and maybe just a little bit of love.

Welcome To The Better Class by orphan_account - 200k wordcount & incomplete, post-cannon monoshin fic that broke my heart and put it back together again and idek anymore.

I want to kiss (your dumb fucking face) by gingerbreadshinsou - 126k wordcount & incomplete - it irks my soul that this is incomplete, it really really does save yourself and dont read it because you will be hooked and you will cry. Monoma develops a big gay crush on Shinso and his life descends into absolute chaos.

once more, with feelings by orphan_account - 50k wordcount & incomplete, in which Shinso Hitoshi transfers into Class B.

Resilience by Lilac_Demetrius - 43k wordcount & ongoing! Neito Monoma just wanted to enjoy his summer. Falling in love with his roommate's obnoxious boyfriend was never his intention. (omegaverse fic, dont say i didnt warn you.)

Now you know by albanyN - 42k wordcount & complete, in which hitoshi shinsou and monoma neito have more in common than they think.

Get Ready to have a Bad Time by despurrito - 41k word count & complete, honestly i was very very very hesitant on reading this fic because its an alpha/beta/omega dynamics fic. not to yuck anyones yum though! i cannot deny its still a good fic and if thats your thing, read it!

Sore Loser by SmolPidge - 33k wordcount & complete, After Hitoshi's transfer to the hero course is formally approved, he finds himself at the mercy of one Neito Monoma, who will stop at nothing to get him to choose Class B. Unfortunately for Hitoshi, it's working.

Like Turning Against Traffic in a Crowded Intersection by yanderegiran - 31k wordcount & incomplete, In which Shinso's in a relationship and everyone knows but him.

Smoke Rises, Water Falls by KiroAngel - 31k wordcount & incomplete/abandoned, postcannon soulmate au fic where shinsou finds himself growing more attached to monoma than he ever thought he would, but in a world where soulmates mean everything, what is that really worth?

Pink Summer by chromochaotic - 27k wordcount & complete, tooth rotting fluff and honestly the summer camp counselor monoshin fic no one asked for but we all deserve. 💓

Empathy by AuspiciousWhiskers - 26k wordcount & complete, in which Monoma Neito puts the pieces back together, and for once, they aren't just the pieces of himself.

Of Kitties And Parrots by gingerbreadshinsou - 22k wordcount & complete, monoma meets shinsou on a dating website and it's all downhill from there

That's Not a Kitten! by Perkykitties - 20k wordcount & incomplete - sequel to my cats name is jalapeño! i recommend you read the first fic before this one though. takes place when monoma and shinso are married!

fics under 20k words

What Could Have Been by Madame_Hatter - 17k wordcount & complete, three years is enough to change a man, as well as his feelings for his best friend.

Monoma Neito's Foolproof Plan to Get an Awesome Boyfriend and Rule UA by truejoyofsorrow - 15k wordcount & complete, Monoma decides that he should ask out Shinsou, shenanigans ensue.

Becoming a Cat Person by yanderegiran - 14k wordcount & incomplete, aka the pokemon trainer monoshin fic we all needed in our lives.

i learnt to love for the first time when our fingers intertwined by blinding_metaphysics - 12k wordcount & complete, Monoma and Shinsou were invited to a class A and class B camping trip. What was going to be a nice relaxing day turned into a horrible event.

hope you enjoyed this list! i might make a list of the shorter fics but honestly, theres a lot of those and not a lot of longer fics. we need more monoshin content pls can a very cool long fic writer see this and make my wishes come true?

[catmask]

genuine question – and i hope it doesn't come as weird – but how do get into...pokemon? </3

pokemon universe feels so big and there are so many games and i really like their designs – both for pokemons and trainers – making ocs in this setting would be so cool but i have no idea how to. begin!

could you give some advice?

ps leaving compliments for your comic and art in general!! i really like how your pieces are so colorful! gives the vibes of some small but cozy and fun town in a videogame..

no worries!! it seriously depends on what you are interested in - gamewise, region wise, and story wise.

heres what i can say. if you like typical top-down style pixel art rpg games where you solve tile puzzles and build a little team of monsters, any of the games before x and y is a good choice. platinum is a great introduction to the series because it doesn't baby you but is still decently difficult, heartgold/soulsilver are the 'coziest' games imo but may spoil you because of how much content there is, black/white and black/white 2 are the most story-driven of the games and bw2 is probably the longest play of all the games. emerald is also great, but its genuinely a hard game even as someone whos been a fan of the series for years. i would say to start with hgss because they're my favorites, but they're so good it might raise the bar too high for all the other games pixel-art games.

if you prefer 3D graphics, but still like the 'run around catching guys and solving tile puzzles', i think sun and moon are the best of the 3D games! the story is engaging and a little more modernized so that there are actual cut scenes, i think the pokemon available are cute and the region is really pretty. i thikn after that, x and y is pretty cute! the story is less strong in comparison to sun/moon. importantly; every game in the 3D era has a new type that was not present in the pixel art era - the fairy type, so if you want to learn the MODERN type chart and balances, the 3D games are where you'd need to start.

finally, if you're not a fan of the 'catch pokemon run around region' type games, pokemon has a LOT of really awesome spin off games. my favorites are as follows...

pokemon mystery dungeon explorers of sky. its the strongest story the pokemon company has ever written, and im a big fan of the mystery dungeon style gameplay.

pokemon ranger (any ranger game!) the story and graphics are cute, and it focuses on rescuing/rehabilitating pokemon more than capturing them. really lovely expansion of the pokemon universe.

pokemon go, because its free! so if you dont want to download a rom, or sink money into a new franchise, its an easy way to get into it.

pokemon snap - this was actually my very first pokemon game i ever played! (never owned it though heha) but there was just a remake for the switch, if you've got a switch that is. the game focuses on photographing pokemon in their natural habitat, and its really quite cute. slow paced and fun if you're not sure about battling yet.

finally... if you weren't looking to get into games at all, pokemon art + fan creations are personally my favorite things in the entire fandom! artists and writers and fangame devs are the people who hold this fandom up, engaging with their creations is a great and typically free way to involve yourself... im sorry this is so long, i hope this helps!! and ppl are free to add on to this hehe

[peachypede]

I will never not be bitter about how Kamado is portrayed as an shitty guy in the fandom and Volo is uwu pretty boy he was just feeling angsty when he tried to destroy the world and kill protagonist with giratina uwu

Rant below

Kamado, yes, made a horrible decision. He had his reasons. He saw his whole village destroyed by pokemon when he was young and never wanted that to happened again, Beni says they watched their family and friends DIE, so he gave in to his paranoia and banished the protagonist. It’s not an excuse, but he has his reasons for doing so.

And what does Kamado do when he realizes he’s wrong? The man get down on his hands and knees and BEGS your forgiveness. He does the Dogeza, the bow in Japanese culture that is the ultimate form of apology and respect to the other person. Kamado eats dirt and is basically saying “I fucked up so bad and I am so very, very, very sorry.” The Dogeza also is performed to show high respect, so Kamado is basically telling you as well that you far surpass his position. Your emperor levels of worthiness and strength. I think the amount of how embarrassing and humble this pose is is lost to people in the Western culture but this is a BIG apology and possibly even the BEST apology Kamado could gives since it’s an apology beyond words. He also apologizes to everyone else, telling them they were right and he was wrong.

"I acted on ill-considered presumptions and drove you from the Galaxy Expedition Team, forcing you to face great hardship alone…”

And you change Kamado. He becomes more willing to delegate and work with other people. He follows your lead. Hell, he has a line after you beat him on Prelude Beach where he basically calls you a god, that’s how much this dude respects you now.

"Perhaps you are a divine being yourself, sent to bring us gifts from above…”

The guy takes no credit for the victory on mount coronet, he says it’s all you!

"I know I've no right to say this... But we are truly fortunate to have been able to count you among the Survey Corps' ranks. If you had not joined us, we would have fallen on Mount Coronet. We would have lost our home. We would have lost our future."

He is a truly changed man in the end.

"I used to think that Pokémon were terrifying creatures. You've helped me see otherwise."

Volo on the other hand? Tricks you, betrays you, and then tries to KILL YOU. Kamado was always upfront from the beginning that he didn’t trust you, but Volo? He’s buddy-buddy with you to take advantage of you.

And he’s the reason why this all happened! He created the rift, displaced pokemon and hell some people since Ingo obviously fell in through this rift too (People blame Arceus for this :/ ) and nearly killed everyone in Hisui with rampaging nobles and origin forme Dialga or Palkia.

And in the end, Volo doesn’t apologize at all. The dude doesn’t even change.

"Someday, I'll solve every riddle in the legends of Hisui's Pokémon. And on that day, I'll stand before Arceus at last—No, I will CONQUER it! No matter how many years, how many decades, how many centuries it takes me!"

I’m just fully convinced at this point that it 100% has to do with Volo being pretty and Kamado not being that attractive.

My hot take of the new year: Kamado is WAY better husband material than Volo could ever be.

Anyway my rant is over…no hate on Volo lovers, I do think he’s a fun character to rotate like a chicken on a spit in your brain but this has been my biggest grievance in the PLA fandom.

[randoimago]

Headcanons of what's like to date (Pokemon) Grusha, Brassius, Hassel, and Larry please?

What It's Like to Date Them

Fandom: Pokemon

Character(s): Grusha, Brassius, Hassel, and Larry

Type of Request: Headcanons

Note(s): You got it!

Brassius

You'll have to drag him away from his work otherwise he will just be hunched over painting the whole day instead of taking breaks to eat and hydrate. Is also a bit stubborn when it comes to taking a break, but if he sees that you're getting upset or frustrated then he'll put his paint brush down.

Constantly watching you. When you two are on dates or just doing something like grocery shopping together, his eyes are watching your every movement. You're his muse and he doesn't want to miss seeing something that can spark his inspiration.

Likes to go to museums with you. Museum dates are something he always likes. And when he travels due to Gym Leader business, he's sure to take you with (if you want to, it's fine if you don't), but he's going to show you other museums in other locations.

Grusha

Wants to go snowboarding with you a lot. He's unable to do it professionally due to his injury, but he's happy to go on a date where he snowboards with you. There're some bittersweet moments with him while snowboarding, but he assures you that he is very happy to have these moments with you.

Grusha tries to seem like he has things together when he's with you. He's actually rather stressed out, but he doesn't like you seeing that side of him. Pull aside and hug him and he'll give the deepest sigh of relief because he really needed the hug.

Not the most emotional person. His scarf hides his face, so you really only have his eyes to tell you how he's feeling. But even with his emotions not really on his sleeves, he always gives you the softest looks.

Hassel

Lots of soft music playing throughout his house. Or even when you visit his classroom at the school, there's some soft music in the background. Even though he didn't go into music, he still very much loves it still.

Remembers lots of things about you too. Knows exactly what drinks you like and how you like to eat certain foods. Anytime he notices you're a bit stress or anxious, he's there with a comfort item he remembers you mentioning.

You get to witness his grumbling when he's doing schoolwork and he ends up smearing ink or pencil on his hand because he's left-handed. Just little pouts on his face because he thought he was careful this time. It's very adorable.

Larry

He is so tired and overworked all the time. And he's not going to hide his tired appearance from you. He won't complain (too much) in front of you, but he's not going to try and seem like he has his crap together in front of you all the time.

Real big on staying home and hanging out. He doesn't mind if you want to go out and do something, but he prefers staying home and relaxing. Doesn't mind doing typical house husband stuff either. Yeah, he worked all day, but he doesn't mind male wife-ing it up for you.

Either falls asleep too easily or cannot sleep no matter what. If you two are watching TV or something, then he'll end up falling asleep halfway through. But when it comes to actually laying down in bed, he is awake. His body is tired, but his mind is awake as he just holds you close and let's his eyes rest at least.

[savebatsfromscratch]

Hey hey! I just finished a ridiculously complicated and long UQuiz about fandoms! Please take it! :D

I put my heart and soul into this PLEASE play it!! I like sharing stuff I like, it's fun I promise. <3

Edit: This is kinda aimed a little at whump enjoyers btw, not entirely but a decent bit. Warning for swearing, possible spoilers for any/all included fandoms, vaguely mentioned drug use in one answer to one question, and violence. (Fictional.)

Included fandoms: Shark Wars, Warrior Cats, Pokemon Adventures, Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure, Hetalia, Percy Jackson, Gameknight999, Scratchcraft, the Pokemon Anime (with Ash as the protagonist), How to Train Your Dragon (books), How to Train Your Dragon (movies and shows), Spiderwicks Chronicles, and The Monkees.

Look under the cut for the "awnsers" to each question (after taking the quiz) if you want some context. XD This took me forever! (Warning, doing this will make this post very long.)

1. When your story gets serious, what do you want from it? 1. Pokemon DPA: A deeper meaning that gets the author in WAY over their head. 2. Warrior Cats: A deeper meaning that could be taken the exact wrong way if you so chose to. 3. Gameknight999: A deeper meaning that was probably not intentional. 4. Shark Wars: A deeper meaning that is mentioned explicitly once or twice and then never added to again. 5. Pokespe: A deeper meaning that needs a little thinking to make any god damn sense at all. 6. Pokeani: A deeper meaning that only seems to show up in half-canon material. 7. Spiderwicks: A deeper meaning that doesn't seem to have any actual bearings in reality. 8. HTTYD Books: A deeper meaning that CATCHES YOU OFF GAURD. LIKE, FUCK DUDE- 9. Scratchcraft: A deeper meaning that is pretty obvious if you ignore the fact that it doesn't actually exist. 10. Hetalia: A deeper meaning that is questionable at best. 11. Percy Jackson: A deeper meaning that hits really hard when you start growing up. 12. HTTYD movies: A deeper meaning that was better done somewhere else but I still cried. 13. The Monkees: A deeper meaning that just barely made it past the censors, and it as true to the real world as it could ever aim to be.

2. What do you want out of a protagonist? 1. Pokemon DPA: Overpowered. Also bites people on the ass. 2. Warrior Cats: I like to switch things up as the media progresses. :3 3. Gameknight999: Really traumatized but you wouldn't guess that at all from the concept of the story. 4. Shark Wars: Edgy but in a cringe way. 5. Pokespe: I like to switch things up as the media progresses. >:) 6. Pokeani: I can't tell if he's aroace or gay God Bless America. 7. Spiderwicks: I don't care. As long as they're in SOME SORT of a family- 8. HTTYD Books: Cursed by the repetition of history. 9. Scratchcraft: I want to pick my protagonist thank you very much. 10. Hetalia: Immortal, but silly. 11. Percy Jackson: Badass who everyone is scared of, but, like, they're so nice. :") 12. HTTYD movies: The more the merrier! 13. The Monkees: Someone funny, and maybe a little bit high.

3. What kind of antagonist really gets you going? 1. Pokemon DPA: Manipulators. 2. Warrior Cats: Just a little guy. :3 they kill people Just a little guy- 3. Gameknight999: At least a little edgy, preferably have motivations that don't make any sense. 4. Shark Wars: Kinda horny for no reason. lowkey 5. Pokespe: Utterly insane most of the time. 6. Pokeani: Idiots and/or common criminals. 7. Spiderwicks: Big scary beasts are good! Smart ones too! 8. HTTYD Books: Tumblr sexyman in a not-not-very-hot way. 9. Scratchcraft: Lowkey I could probably beat them up. 10. Hetalia: It's kinda weird to think of anyone as an antagonist. :( 11. Percy Jackson: Yeah. This guy would kill me and laugh about it. 12. HTTYD movies: Animal poachers are my favorite! 13. The Monkees: Is an antagonist really necessary? (Or is it the producer… hmm)

4. Pick a creature please! 1. Pokemon DPA: EXTREMLY overpowered magic penguin. 2. Warrior Cats: Cat who is cat-racist 3. Gameknight999: Minecraft wolf! 4. Shark Wars: Shark who is shark-racist 5. Pokespe: Traumatized rodent. 6. Pokeani: A weirdly athletic rodent 7. Spiderwicks: Fairies! 8. HTTYD Books: Dragon! (Sentient edition) 9. Scratchcraft: Cod God 10. Hetalia: A sentient piece of food. 11. Percy Jackson: Black Pegasus. 12. HTTYD movies: Dragon! (Pet cat editon) 13. The Monkees: Hmm... Monkee...

5. Pick an epic quote from one of the pieces of media in question. 1. Pokemon DPA: "I'm fine with being stupid!" 2. Warrior Cats: "Kill me. Kill me and live with the memory. Then tell the stars that you won." 3. Gameknight999: “You can only do what you believe you can do. I can do this,” 4. Shark Wars: “Let’s get you back where you belong before you catch your death.” 5. Pokespe: “If you can only achieve a dream by being deceitful, using others, and crushing their own hopes, that’s not called a dream, it’s called an ambition.” 6. Pokeani: "I see now that the circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are." 7. Spiderwicks: "We call them 'fairy tales' for a reason, you know. They're not real." 8. HTTYD Books: “We're all snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time.” 9. Scratchcraft: "Goodbye everybody! I'm going to the sky!" (Storm, S2E30) 10. Hetalia: “It seems as if Americans like to be the center of attention even after they're dead.” 11. Percy Jackson: "If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself," 12. HTTYD movies: "I wouldn't kill him, because he looked as frightened as I was. I looked at him… and I saw myself," 13. The Monkees: "If, uh, people say well, I can’t carry a note, I can’t, I can’t say, I can’t sing, I, I’m tone deaf. But nobody’s tone deaf, and if you love music, then you can play music."

6. How much violence are you feeling like looking at? 1. Pokemon DPA: The real fear happens when the comic relief finally stops. 2. Warrior Cats: Somehow the worst part is that hardly anyone seems to notice something is wrong. 3. Gameknight999: It's a game, but only to half of the participants in the conflict. 4. Shark Wars: Oh, that's torture and mass killings graphically detailed in a children's book, okay. 5. Pokespe: The blood was censored, but somehow you know it's there. 6. Pokeani: It's all fun and games until somebody randomly drops dead. 7. Spiderwicks: Everything is totally fine mom! My sister DIDN'T just get kidnapped by the fae! I promise! 8. HTTYD Books: Ultimately, it's never the violence that truly hurts, but the fact that you know it will happen again and again, and all you can do is try and make things marginally better while you are still here, crawling through the mud. 9. Scratchcraft: You get to choose how real any of this is. 10. Hetalia: A comedy with an underlying truth of extreme violence and war and the realization that none of these people can be friends forever. 11. Percy Jackson: Somehow we always seem to push through. ̶u̶n̶t̶i̶l̶ ̶w̶e̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶a̶n̶y̶m̶o̶r̶e̶ 12. HTTYD movies: We will always keep fighting! (But there comes a time that sometimes fighting the good fight is not actually the good fight anymore.) 13. The Monkees: It entirely depends if we're talking about slapstick comedy or the real deal here. (If you look too deep you'll find both.)

7. How do you like your fandoms. 1. Pokemon DPA: I'm fine with a small fandom. I'm not bothered by the bones of a (slightly) bigger one. 2. Warrior Cats: This fandom feels like being surrounded by a pack of wolves! thumbs down 3. Gameknight999: I have never been in a worse fandom. Seriously. Imagine being in a fandom of twelve yearolds on WATTAPAD that then transitions to DISCORD. This is what Hell feels like. (And I'm Catholic.) /pos I luv you guys but STILL 4. Shark Wars: Literally no other person in the whole world is perfect for me. :3 (PLEASE JOIN ME. PLEASE. HELP!) 5. Pokespe: This fandom feels like being surrounded by a pack of wolves! thumbs up 6. Pokeani: Most god awful takes you've ever seen because half the people here don't even like the content and the other half are eight years old. 7. Spiderwicks: What fandom? 8. HTTYD Books: When the fandom is just the size that you can't argue with each other over media or you'll fall apart. ok symbol 9. Scratchcraft: Tight knit fandoms on almost exclusively Discord and a children's coding website are good enough for me! 10. Hetalia: Honestly, I love the discourse. I'M SORRY I KNOW, I JUST- gets jumped 11. Percy Jackson: The memes are so unfunny it feels like it's stuck in the 2000s. 12. HTTYD movies: I don't even care if half the fandom is crossovers with unrelated fandoms, I want to have fun! 13. The Monkees: Pretty big and dedicated, once you get there. (Might have to sort through the graves of 2014 first though.)

8. If you were my mutual in this fandoms (HYPOTHETICALLY) what sort of content of fandom stuff do you like from a mutual. 1. Pokemon DPA: This whump fic is NOT weird, I promise! (>:3) 2. Warrior Cats: Whump fics every october. thumbs up 3. Gameknight999: 1 (one) 66,000+ word crossover fic and basically nothing else. 4. Shark Wars: Stupid meme edits. 5. Pokespe: Memes? ? Gore? ? Animating the same scene eight times? Yep 6. Pokeani: Uh… I did a ship week once? 7. Spiderwicks: Fancontent? glups 8. HTTYD movies: 80 billion reblogs once in a blue moon 9. Scratchcraft: Fanart that has absolutely no relation to canon. 10. Hetalia: The occasional shitty animation. 11. Percy Jackson: Old art posting. 12. HTTYD books: Gore art of everyone's favorite buff teenager <3 13. The Monkees: Literally over 1000 reblogs in two weeks, and then shutting up for a month.

9. (Sorry if that last question almost made you click away lol.) Now, pick a SILLY quote completely out of context! :D (And further apologizes if none of them are funny out of context. lmao) 1. Pokemon DPA: "Nah…he probably started a rock band! He's got the hairdo for it!" 2. Warrior Cats: "Okay, I'll bring back your stupid stick. Keep your fur on." 3. Gameknight999: "Theres another sign, it says…COM?" 4. Shark Wars: "It was not a good whammo. Not good at all." 5. Pokespe: "I wish [corporation name] would have a lot of customers. Preferably a hundred thousand people on the first day," 6. Pokeani: "I'll use my trusty frying pan as a drying pan!" 7. Spiderwicks: "It just figured that Mom would get back from the store NOW." 8. HTTYD Books: "…she had once stunned a stag with one blow of her mighty bosoms, and many a smaller animal had suffocated in their stern depths." 9. Scratchcraft: "SLAM DUNK!" misses horrifically (Storm, S2E30) 10. Hetalia: "YOU PEED ON THE FLOOR??!?!" 11. Percy Jackson: "Tremble before the horror of Diet Coke!”" 12. HTTYD movies: "I knew it. I'm dead!" 13. The Monkees: "Nobody even lends money to a man with a sense of humor!"

10. Pick a piece of an "outfit" 1. Pokemon DPA: A hairclip made with the symbol of a cult which brainwashed you 2. Warrior Cats: A cat collar. It's broken. 3. Gameknight999: Diamond leggings 4. Shark Wars: Tattoos put in place with sea urchin spines 5. Pokespe: Electricity proof (yet fingerless) gloves 6. Pokeani: An extremely rare baseball cap obtained by mailing in cereal box tops obsessively 7. Spiderwicks: A dress made by dwarves 8. HTTYD Books: A torn fire-proof suit (you must wear it to battle) 9. Scratchcraft: Red shirt with a watermelon (with a face) on the back. :) 10. Hetalia: Combat boots with questionable origins 11. Percy Jackson: A silver skull ring 12. HTTYD movies: A wing suit with a partially broken spring 13. The Monkees: Green wool hat.

11. Choose a location a protagonist (or perspective character) finds themselves 1. Pokemon DPA: A building rigged to explode, the only exits have malfunctioned 2. Warrior Cats: A dark forest. Bones crunch underfoot. 3. Gameknight999: A room full of gunpowder, lava sparks awfully close by 4. Shark Wars: Enemy territory, bodies float down around you 5. Pokespe: The rift of time, memories that you do not know fly by 6. Pokeani: A sunken ship on the bottom of the ocean, it is quickly filling with water 7. Spiderwicks: A dumbwaiter, it stops in a entirely closed off room 8. HTTYD Books: The mast of a sinking ship, lightning burns through the air 9. Scratchcraft: A mermaid gladiator arena, who needs to be serious? :3 10. Hetalia: An empty box of tomatoes, gunshots ring outside 11. Percy Jackson: A place so evil that you are too mortal to process it's true horror 12. HTTYD movies: The beach, making your final stand against someone you used to love 13. The Monkees: A large black box.

12. Choose an experience a protagonist has endured. 1. Pokemon DPA: You feel yourself begin to cry. No matter how evil this person is, you cannot help but forgive them. When will they understand? 2. Warrior Cats: You stand alone, suddenly in complete darkness. Overwhelmed by shame, you realize it is better for them all to think you are dead. 3. Gameknight999: You stand on a thin path under the world, your greatest enemy with a pickaxe in his hands. 4. Shark Wars: You find yourself in the deepest trench in the ocean as you are pulled down by a weight you cannot remove. 5. Pokespe: Ice freezes around you, crackling slowly up your arms as you scream for help. No one comes. 6. Pokeani: You feel your soul slowly begin to dissipate as your body turns to stone. 7. Spiderwicks: Your body shakes, skin burning as poison touches it. You lift your foot, revealing what is left of something you should have loved. 8. HTTYD Books: You have been kidnaped, and finally, your letter to your mother has been returned. You reach your skinny arms through the bars of your prison window to unravel the paper. You can't help but wonder what wonderfully army she might have sent to rescue you. What do you find? A resounding "No," you must save yourself after all. 9. Scratchcraft: Lightning rains down around you, but you smile. It's finally time to join the other gods in the sky. The people you once loved are nothing but shadows to you now. 10. Hetalia: You lock yourself in your room. Days, weeks, months, and years pass you by, but even three centuries of knowing your fate cannot prevent it from occurring. 11. Percy Jackson: As a person able to breath underwater, you are yanked into unfamiliar waves, for the first time ever, you know what it is like to drown. 12. HTTYD movies: The beautiful creature before you lays it's head on the earth, giving up. Your hands shake and the dagger falls to the ground. 13. The Monkees: You stagger through the desert, but when you have finally found a vending machine, standing there atop a drifting hill of sand, it doesn't give you what you wanted.

13. Pick another quote that made me feel emotions. (Side note, the HTTYD books series especially has a lot of great quotes. Just some unfair propaganda from me. :3 Can't be TOO serious can we?) 1. Pokemon DPA: "You're no big bad war machine? Y'know how I know that? … You're crying." 2. Warrior Cats: “My curse is to live forever, knowing what has been and what has yet to be, powerless to change anything.” 3. Gameknight999: “Sometimes we have to reach a little farther than we can, be a little stronger than we are, and do things that we normally wouldn’t be able to, because we must, to take care of those we love,” 4. Shark Wars: "You're a murderer!" "A realist," 5. Pokespe: "No matter how much I reach out to the brightness of the outside world… the darkness keeps dragging me back. No matter how hard I try, I never get to enjoy my freedom," 6. Pokeani: "We do have a lot in common. The same earth, the same air, the same sky. Maybe if we started looking at what's the same instead of always looking at what's different… well, who knows?" 7. Spiderwicks: "Don't you know me? Am I not your own self?" 8. HTTYD Books: "You, dear reader, I am sure cannot imagine what it might to be like to live in a world in which books are banned. For surely such things will never happen in the Future?" 9. Scratchcraft: "I'm am not smart and I should not have done that. Ha hA- Hope I didn't loose everything I own." (Saltyy) 10. Hetalia: "When I look into all of your stupid faces, I think how fun it will be to pound them into dust." 11. Percy Jackson: “Don't feel bad, I'm usually about to die.” 12. HTTYD movies: "A man will never how far he's willing to go until he steps to the edge and looks down" 13. The Monkees: "Um. Kidnapping man."

14. Window shopping! Pick a "iconic" cover/thumbnail with the name of the series cropped out! 1. Pokemon DPA: [A picture of the cover of the seventh book. It shows Hareta, Koya, Heataran, and Shaymin. It is mostly red.) 2. Warrior Cats: [A picture of the cover of Into The Wild. It shows an orange cat with green eyes among blades of sharp green grass.] 3. Gameknight999: [A cover of a book showing Gameknight brandishing a sword at a red Enderman. It looks weirdly off model for a minecraft book cover.] 4. Shark Wars: [A picture of the cover of the first book showing a very blue shark (Gray) with a smaller a green one (Barkley) next to him. There are others in the background. It is mostly blue.] 5. Pokespe: [A picture of the cover of book three in the Red and Blue arch. It shows Red and his pikachu Pika, as well as a few of his other Pokemon along the side. The background is green.] 6. Pokeani: [Part of a Poster showing Ash, Misty, Brock, and a whole lot of Pokemon. The background is white.] 7. Spiderwicks: [A picture of the first cover. It shows the three main characters looking down at a book with very different expressions. The drawing is brown tinted, but the area around it is blue.] 8. HTTYD Books: [A picture of one of the covers of How To Betray a Dragon's Hero, it shows Hiccup being carried above a lake by a red dragon.] 9. Scratchcraft: [The cover of StormLordZeus' final episode of season two. He is an armored minecraft man with glowing purple eyes floating in a lightning storm.] 10. Hetalia: [The cover of the first book in the series. It shows Italy, Germany, and japan on a white background.] 11. Percy Jackson: [The first cover of the first book. it shows a boy trudging towards New York City through the ocean, a golden sword in his hand. It is stormy.] 12. HTTYD movies: [A poster for the first movie. It shows a large black dragon (Toothless) reaching his nose out to touch Hiccup's outstretched hands. There is a wide moon in the background.] 13. The Monkees: [A screenshot from the Daydream Believer music video. Peter is playing piano, Davy is behind him, singing, Mike is playing guitar above them, and Micky is on the other side, also singing and playing tambourine. The room is rainbow striped.]

15. This quiz is all over the place, isn't it. Whatever. Time to pick the sort of media you would like to enjoy your chosen franchise/series in. 1. Pokemon DPA: A short(-ish) and sweet manga series. 2. Warrior Cats: It is critical that these books must have as many mistakes as possible. Also, there must be a LOT of them. 3. Gameknight999: Books where you eventually start wondering if the author proofread this stuff at all /pos 4. Shark Wars: Vaguely obscure children's books 5. Pokespe: A really fricking long manga series 6. Pokeani: This anime is WAY too long. 7. Spiderwicks: A short series of thin, but aesthetically pleasing books 8. HTTYD Books: Some surprisingly chunky books with a cool font! 9. Scratchcraft: Youtube videos where most of the series is deleted :( 10. Hetalia: Anything I can get my hands on. A webcomic, an anime, music, more than one musical for some reason, etc… 11. Percy Jackson: A book series that has several levels of optional other series to read with it :D 12. HTTYD movies: Movies and a whole lot of optional episodes if you want them 13. The Monkees: A two season TV sitcom from the 60s, a movie, several books from the people involved, and several albums of varying quality.

16. Pick a silly story I've had happen in relation to these stupid things. 1. Pokemon DPA: I thought it was a different series. Like, I picked it up and thought I was reading a different book series than I was. 2. Warrior Cats: I stayed up ALL NIGHT at Girl Scout Camp reading one of the books a few into a section of the series that I have never read before or since. 3. Gameknight999: I associate the smell of magazines with this fandom now, unfortunately. 4. Shark Wars: For some reason I could not find book two. Like. For four years. Why. I found everything else almost at once. What about book two makes it impossible to find. 5. Pokespe: I made it my mission to read through the entire series in a month every summer through middle AND high school. 6. Pokeani: My mother constantly apologizes for letting me watch this show. It's great. 7. Spiderwicks: On a four hour car trip, the only thing I brought to do was read this book. I get car sick when I read in a car. 8. HTTYD Books: When I was in like second grade I accidentally left one of the books out in the pouring rain at an aunt's house. It survived, shockingly. 9. Scratchcraft: I'm a thumbnail artist??? Idk how that happened woah 10. Hetalia: My friend and I were out watching this show in the middle of winter. She got minor frostbite. I wasn't even cold. skull 11. Percy Jackson: I read the first book instead of having Thanksgiving dinner with my family. It wasn't on purpose. Nobody could find me and I was too busy reading to notice how much time was passing until everyone was already gone and there wasn't food left. 12. HTTYD movies: This and Das Boot Directors Cut are my favorite things to watch on the TV. Yeah. 13. The Monkees: I was very upset in college and I prayed for any sort of distraction to make me feel better. A day later, I got so hyperfixated on this fandom that I could not think about anything BUT the fandom and began alternating between squeaking in joy and sobbing for about three days straight.

17. Thank God that's over! Woah, speaking of Him, pick an afterlife! (If there is no such thing in the series in question, I picked the next closest thing that appears in the media.) 1. Pokemon DPA: Chunks of earth float in the twisted sky. Somewhere you cannot see, a shadowy creature roars. 2. Warrior Cats: A life just like yours, but none of you can grow anymore. 3. Gameknight999: It doesn't apply. My code will be gone before I get there. 4. Shark Wars: A sparkling ocean, uncannily blue and full of voices, but calm. 5. Pokespe: Time is paused here. Music floats through your ears. 6. Pokeani: Not sure. Every time I die, I seem to come back. I guess it'll be a surprise? 7. Spiderwicks: Suspended in time on the back of a magical creature. If I reach down to touch the ground, I will finally disappear. 8. HTTYD Books: My death doesn't matter. What matters is what I do in my life. 9. Scratchcraft: A comedically timed Minecraft "YOU DIED" screen. 10. Hetalia: Well, I'm not ever going to die, first of all. 11. Percy Jackson: You have to be a hero to even remember living once you get there. 12. HTTYD movies: Presumably Valhalla? 13. The Monkees: Can't. The writers won't let it end. (They crushed it anyway.)

18. What "bad end" would you like to be a very easy possibility in something you read? 1. Pokemon DPA: The world has been restarted, made into something devoid of love and emotions. But you'll never live to see it, in fact, it's as if you've never lived at all. 2. Warrior Cats: A horrible drought robs a society of water, slowly, they all wither away. 3. Gameknight999: The virus bleeds out of the game, infecting the real world turning it into a nightmare. 4. Shark Wars: A horrible emperor takes over the entire world, cannibalizing or enslaving anyone who stands in his way. 5. Pokespe: The protagonist stays frozen, and unfortunately, the second follows in his footsteps. There is no one to stop change now. 6. Pokeani: A creature beyond all of humanity has decided that people do not deserve to live free. 7. Spiderwicks: The fae continue killing, families are lost to their power, the town twists, crackling into the trash heap at its center. 8. HTTYD Books: As they say, "If it doesn't end well, then it isn't the end!" 9. Scratchcraft: [I've got nothing. Honestly. I don't know how I've managed anything serious so far. Feel free to pick this if you don't like the other options lol.] 10. Hetalia: Well. Honestly. The whole thing kind of feels like a bad end? 11. Percy Jackson: The Old Ones take over again. There is nothing but suffering for humanity now. 12. HTTYD movies: Everything will continue just as it was. 13. The Monkees: Well. The band broke up.

19. Okay, if there are any fandoms you DO NOT WANT to be recommended, speak you peace now. (This will give you one point for every other fandom. Picking "no," will give you one point for everything, to even them out.) 1-13: [self explanatory]

20. One more question! Time to pick your own. >^w^< 1. Pokemon DPA: If you had the choice to, would you forgive the man who hurt you so badly? 2. Warrior Cats: If you had to break the rules to find your true place, would you do it? 3. Gameknight999: If a day for you was 72 days for your friends, how often would you visit? 4. Shark Wars: If you were a fish, would you eat another fish if they asked you to very nicely? 5. Pokespe: If you had to conceal your true self if it meant love from others, would you do it? 6. Pokeani: Would you pick ̶c̶h̶a̶r̶m̶a̶n̶d̶e̶r̶,̶ ̶s̶q̶u̶i̶r̶t̶l̶e̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶l̶b̶a̶s̶a̶u̶r̶, or pikachu? 7. Spiderwicks: If you were to find out faries were real, would you put your life on the line in order to see them? 8. HTTYD Books: Do you believe that it can ever get better? 9. Scratchcraft: If you were a god, would you play a quick board game before ascending? 10. Hetalia: If you were to live forever, would you take it seriously? 11. Percy Jackson: If you had the choice to life forever or be a target for the rest of your life, would you take the offer? 12. HTTYD movies: Will you keep fighting? 13. The Monkees: "Hey! Who turned on the dark?"

Fandom descriptions:

Shark Wars: Hm. Did you get kicked out of YOUR Shiver too?? Shark Wars is a book series by EJ Altbacker which goes through increasingly violent and terrible events in the lives of the main characters, all while aiming at a relatively young audience. It's one of those series that takes like thirty minutes to want to start reading the book (even as it's in your hands), but once you do, you literally can't put it down. Truly a masterpiece, if I, the only Shark Wars fan on the planet, can convince you. I highly recommend this series! It's a lot of fun! (Don't worry about the Shark Magic, it's martial arts if they say it is.)

Warrior cats: May all cats old enough to catch their own prey gather before highrock for a clan meeting! Warrior Cats is a book series written by a group of authors who, together, go by Erin Hunter. It follows the lives of a whole lot of cats, and it does so in a way that is shockingly gripping (and, let's face it, a little ridiculous), frankly, you couldn't really ask for a better middle school friend group roleplay. About a million characters, and about a million ways to interpret them… purrfect. (sorry) (The moon pool sure is cold at this time of night.)

Pokespe: The power of the Viridian Forest has bestowed upon you the ability to read something real good. The Pokemon Adventures (or Pokemon Special) manga is a very long running manga series written by Hidenori Kusaka. It currently goes from the Red and Blue games ALLL the way to Scarlet and Violet, and it does a great job too! It's characters are original and three dimensional (despite being based on game counterparts), and it's plots can be completely unexpected, even for someone who played the original games. I highly encourage getting into these series, or at least reading up to the third book. It's a lot of fun. Yes. We KNOW about the Arbok already, stop mentioning it!! Why do you think we're here!??!?

Pokemon DPA: …do you want to meet a god- Pokemon Diamond and Pearl Adventure is an eight book series by manga author and artist Shigekatsu Ihara. It centers around the travels of Hareta as he makes his way through the Sinnoh region. Very fast paced and with slightly odd humor, you may wonder why I like it so much, and to that I have to tell you that it is, in fact, my FAVORITE Pokemon media. I know. A little ridiculous. But who can blame me? The art, character designs, and story are all really good, and the action is nothing to scoff at. If you like something silly, just a wee bit violent, and a lot of fun, give this series a try! I could really use a friend in this fandom. XD We don't mind being a little stupid here. :3

Hetalia: Oh boy, here we are. Hetalia is a controversial manga, anime, and musical franchise started by Hidekaz Himaruya. It is a satirical telling of various points in history through humanized versions of the counties. It is absolutely not everyone's cup of tea, but it helped me to better understand (and find interest in) history, and if you like satire and historical situations, this may be the place for you. Uh… Make pasta not war?

Percy Jackson: Well. I didn't ASK to be a half blood. (And I guess neither did you.) Percy Jackson (which hardly needs an introduction) was originally a book series by Rick Riordan, and has since expanded into a (not very well liked) movie series, and a show, as well as many other connected series. Despite this, the original book series is by far my favorite, and if you are looking for something that is very funny, and very violent, it is the way to go. Have fun demigod! (PS: I think I saw the upstairs window glow, did you see that?)

Gameknight999: Ah. I see, you got hit with the digitalizer too! The Gameknight999 series is an unofficial "isekai" Minecraft novel series by Mark Cheverton. It can be considered childish, and most often found in book fairs at elementary schools, but it can have a much darker tone if you want to look into it. The fandom itself for this book series came at a difficult time in my life, and though I am unable to determine whether the fandom was an overall net positive or negative for me, the books were definitely a positive. They inspired creativity and community, while also being objectively hilarious in concept. Come, let's hold hands and frolic through our computer screens together. :)

Scratchcraft: Welcome new Scratcher! Click the "create" button to make a new project. :3 Scratchcraft is a Minecraft SMP that is currently in it's fourth season. What is interesting about this SMP, however, is that it was started on the website Scratch.mit.edu, and, also, that it is not very active. While the content itself in this fandom is few and far between, the community is incredible once you get your footing in it. The member who currently uploads the most goes by "StormLordZeus" on Youtube and went by "haunted_enderman" on Scratch. (His Minecraft skin is pictured in the result image above.) And NO, you can't ask to join Scratchcraft.

Pokeani: Sorry you woke up late, we've just got a Pikachu left! Oh well, no matter. The Pokemon Anime (starring Ash Ketchum as the lead character) was an anime that lasted for 25 years across 26 seasons and several movies. It is not my favorite Pokemon Media, but it is still one of my favorite fandoms of all time due to it's cast, great range of amazing to hilariously bad animation (only sparingly), and episodic nature. If you are looking for something fun that you can pretty much jump into whenever, the Pokemon Anime may be the right fit for you! Enjoy your journey, you hopeful Pokemon Master!

How To Train Your Dragon (movies and shows): Welcome to dragon training! The How To Train Your Dragon movies and shows were based on a wonderful series of the same name, but quickly fell completely off the mark. You may think, because I personally prefer the books, that this means that the movies are bad in some way. Absolutely not! Without spoilers, the first How To Train Your Dragon movie is my favorite movie of all time, and the second it's really all that far behind it. If you want something with incredible music, a great story, and a really nice message (not even to mention the characters and animation) try out at LEAST the first movie, and start branching out from there if it hooks you in like it did me. And, yeah, if you see that Night Fury, I heard pretty much everyone is looking for it.

Spiderwicks Chronicals: Must've taken the dumbwaiter up here huh? The Spiderwicks Chronicles is a short book series made by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. I must admit that I do not often post about this series, but despite that, it is one of my favorite fantasy series I have ever read. It's short, sweet, and very depressing when it wants to be. If that kind of thing sounds up your alley, who knows! Maybe someone just like you could encourage me and others to show more interest as well. (Don't forget to get some fairy bathwater in your eyes on the way out. Sorry if that's gross, it's kinda important.)

How To Train Your Dragon (books): Well, suffering swordfish, you've found your way here. The How To Train Your Dragon books series is a twelve book series by Cressida Cowell that follows Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third and his friends as they go on wacky misadventures through the Barbaric Archipelago. At least, it is until the true extent of everything becomes clearer and clearer. If you want something that becomes surprisingly serious (while still remaining rather funny), and is incredible and exciting all the way through, try on these books for size. Isn't fate artistic?

The Monkees: Hey hey! We're the Monkees fandom! Some people say we Monkee around! The Monkees was a 1966 show about four people who wanted to be a band, but it was also a band made up of four people who wanted to be in a band. Depending on what you want, this fandom can provide you from anything from sitcom antics, to Real Person Fiction, to a really weird movie. -and of course, save the Texas Prairie Chicken.

[reejindeed]

It seems like a lot of us One Piece fans started to leave the fandom for other things. You have your folk lore, I really got into pokemon. I wish you luck on your new art adventure.

I was pretty much only reading One Piece whenever the Kid Pirates were involved tbh

After a lot of the Yamato drama and general transphobic/homophobic/racist bullshit that kept getting regurgitated with the same three points of discourse I just got… tired. I’ve been tired for a long time. I wanted it to be better and I can absolutely see and acknowledge One Piece and Oda for where it is and for where he is, but like… man. It just wasn’t making me happy. Keeping up started feeling like a chore and an expectation. I was actually almost happy when the Kid Pirates were written out because I had this moment of like… finally I can be free of this shit.

Unfortunately the majority of my audience is One Piece-based so I don’t think I’ll ever fully be able to leave leave, (especially because something like Irish paganism and mythology isn’t exactly enough to go off of to keep a steady flow of money and I would have COMPLICATED FEELINGS about that anyway since I’m still very much a novice here), even if I am able to allow myself space to breathe and pursue other interests outside of this big huge modern epoch. This is still my livelihood, which is another part of the reason I didn’t want my entire career to be centered around making fanart of an anime I didn’t feel great about. I wanted to be thinking more about what I want to be doing, and the type of work I want to have representing myself as well as what is marketable and will make money. Fanart for large fandoms builds more interest for commissions because it has a wider reach than original work. It does serve a function. It’s just not where my heart’s at, and given the state of everything I’d rather be putting my energy towards something that makes me want to draw again.

I still have a lot of love for the little corner I built for myself within the One Piece universe. I still really respect One Piece for what it is: an INCREDIBLY vast sandbox that allows for the immense creativity of the fandom to build upon this empire that Oda has created. That’s no small feat, and I have an IMMENSE amount of respect for Oda as a writer, world-builder, and artist. I’ll still probably be drawing the Kid Pirates for a long time.

Just not as much as I used to.

I really hope I can also continue to build an audience of people who have similar interests as me in all regards, not just one specific fandom for one specific anime.

[genericpuff]

From the standpoint of someone who doesn't even like LO that much. Reading through this gave me a strange sense of discomfort? I think. Something about the combination of the essays, and the digs at the author in a lot of posts, and making a community based on it, and the ranting. It made it feel a lot more group ragging on something than normal fandom re-writes. I can't help but want to say something on the subject (0/3)

Gonna respond to all your asks together if that's okay, from what I can glean there's a word limit on mobile (?) so it makes it very interesting to see who's able to put all their thoughts into one big ask vs. who has to cut them up into parts 😆

So I can understand that discomfort, it's actually one that I also initially felt towards the community when I discovered it. Though even more so because when I found out about antiLO being a thing, I was still a MASSIVE fan of LO and my thought was "wow, these people are losers" LOL but then a lot of what they were saying resonated with me more as I realized the story was going nowhere (it was around the trial arc when Eris was revealed to be the 'reason' for Persephone's wrath).

All that said, I don't think I was wrong to feel off back then even though I don't feel that way now. We have our own takes and ways of approaching certain subjects, and how we feel is how we feel.

I will say that I can't, in any way, take credit for 'creating' the community. AntiLO pre-existed me by years and I was simply welcomed in as my opinions of the comic changed. I was a lot more involved in UnpopularLoreOlympus when it was born around the S2 finale of the comic. So... don't give me any sort of credit in 'owning' this community or anything of that sort, I came in during a period when criticism of the comic was becoming more common practice. I'm just also someone who's very verbose and loud in their opinions which appeals to a lot of people in this community, so I get why people might see me as some kind of "pillar" within it or like I'm the loudest person in the room, but I promise you that doesn't mean I have any sort of ownership over this part of the fandom or that I feel my opinions carry any more weight than the people around me. It's just a community, after all, not a religion.

It's true that saying I'm not making money off Rekindled doesn't mean I'm not benefiting off it in other ways. But the 'benefits' are still kinda... nothing? in the grand scheme of things? like okay great I have loads of people reading my stuff every update but like, this is still just Tumblr lmao none of this is real and as soon as Rekindled is over, I might be lucky to bring some of the readers over into my next project, but I doubt whatever I do next will get as popular as Rekindled was. All the "benefits" I get are virtually the same as what people writing fanfiction get on AO3 get or what people doing redraw videos on Youtube get. It's fake Internet points for making fan creations.

And that's okay, because that's sorta just the nature of fandom in general, throughout any niche community. People will be naturally drawn to what's familiar and what I do here appeals to the people who are familiar with LO and the criticisms of it, often people who agree with those criticisms. The Zelda community has LinkedUniverse, Pokemon has Hanamusa, Attack on Titan has communities that are dedicated to loving the anime, hating the anime, and even dunking on people who don't 'get' the anime, Undertale has every single crazy rewrite and rewrites-of-rewrites that have been spawned from its fanbase. Did you know there's an entire community of people who discuss and argue over fire alarms? I didn't, but when I found out about it, it was after listening to a video on Youtube discussing all the interconnected drama of the fire alarm community. Like that's wild and seems so stupid and pointless... but it matters to the people who are in it, and my opinion of how they operate isn't going to change how it makes them feel to be a part of that space. That's kinda just human nature, we create our own little microcosms of things to bond over so for people within those microcosms, any amount of disagreement or discomfort will feel massive in proportion.

I guess the point of what I'm trying to say is that a lot of this stuff feels crazy loud but it's really only that loud because it's occupying a single room.

The reality is that Rekindled is still a very niche project dedicated to a niche webtoon that's a part of a niche medium. As loud as it is within here, it's still only because it's such a closed community. Anyone outside of the Webtoons community has zero clue what it is. The 'attention' that I'm getting is still from other niche people who occupy a very specific interest.

And that's not even exclusive to Rekindled, despite Webtoons attempts to sell LO as a 'worldwide phenomenon', a lot of people don't know it exists and couldn't care less. Does that mean my rantings about the comic and its creator matter any less to me or the people who are interested in them? Not really. Is it all pointless? Maybe, but not everything really needs to have some bigger point. We're all kinda just here spending time talking about something we both love and can't stand. What I say about LO and do with Rekindled is undoubtedly inconsequential and pointless to people who aren't in the room. That's fine. That's why I keep it all in my own house. There are definitely people who talk about it outside of the home but that's far from what I can control.

That said, I think LO also does fall into a very unique category where it's very easy to do rewrites and redraws of it simply because it, in and of itself, is a rewrite. Rekindled is far from being the first "fix it" fic, not only of LO but also of any piece of media in general, it's not really a new phenomenon (but again, when it's loud, it can be easy to go "well clearly YOU had to influence this"). People are drawn to retelling LO or 'fixing' it because LO is based on Greek myth. If it weren't for that, no, I don't think people would be as interested in doing so. It's because we literally have a solid foundation of reference material - the myths and original poems - that we can go "hey, why did LO do this? it should have / could have been xyz". You can't really do that as much with a purely original work besides wish fulfillment of "what if xyz happened" because whatever an original piece of work winds up being is clearly what it was meant to be. We have nothing to compare it against.

But with LO, we know what it could have been because we know what it was trying to be since day 1 - a retelling of the Abduction of Persephone. That's not to say we always knew exactly what Rachel was planning on doing with it, but it's not hard to be disappointed when we see certain mythical stories being established in LO - such as the tale of Eros and Psyche, the Titanomachy, etc. - only to see them get dropped or completely mishandled.

On the one hand I could use HADES and Stray Gods as examples of popular media that don't get 'rewritten' the same way LO does because while they have their own unique interpretations of the myths they're based on, they still feel like properly thought out stories that appreciate the source material. LO, by comparison, feels like it's written by someone who hates Greek myth.

But on the other hand, those rewrites may absolutely exist and I'm just not aware of them because I don't occupy those rooms! The world is only as big as we perceive it to be.

That said, it's always sort of ironic to me when people say Rekindled is "riding off the coattails of LO" because while I can understand their sentiment - because obviously it's a direct re-creation of LO - that opinion seems to operating from the assumption that LO was ever not riding off Greek myth's coattails to begin with.

And no, I don't think my criticizing of LO on an LO-focused blog should in any way be conflated with "media isn't allowed to be bad". I've said this before and I'll say it again, I'm into loads of bad media. I'm also fully capable of enjoying a piece of media but also shit-talking it without actually feeling any sort of vitriol towards it. House M.D. is one of my favorite TV shows but goddamn some of the plots are just so dramatic and out-of-this-world that you can't help but laugh at them (and that's why we have spaces like /r/okaybuddyvicodin LOL). One of my favorite games growing up was Starfox Adventures because I had never played the original Starfox games but I had played loads of Zelda and Adventures was basically Zelda but with Starfox, and I know there are plenty of people who will go "but puff, that game is ass!" and I know! But I love it regardless.

With LO, it's not a matter of "bad media shouldn't exist!" it's a matter of observing what makes it so bad and why that's had a negative impact on both the audience it attracts (primarily teenagers and children) as well as the culture it's taking its ideas from. If LO was just some "so bad its good" webtoon that was easy to enjoy but also poke fun at, I would have zero issue. It's the fact that it's blatantly problematic in its writing and intentions but still hailed as the #1 webtoon on the platform (webtoons in and of themselves being a medium that I've lived in for over a decade so it's virtually impossible to get away from whatever is influencing the culture as a whole) while winning all these accolades for being "brilliantly written" and its creator is given a voice over Greek culture when she herself is not Greek or even well-read on Greek culture in any capacity - that's the issue and why I've spent so much time talking about LO. And if it wasn't me, it would be anyone else, because the problem has been around for ages and people have been trying to get the word out about it for years.

I don't necessarily think every 'fix it fic' is built equally. I think it's a case by case thing. A lot of people are deadass just doing it for fun and to be a part of a community, and I think that's wonderful. There are also people who try to do this but ultimately disrespect whatever the creator was going for by somehow implying that their own original ideas were inferior just by existing, or using their fix-it fics as a way to deliberately harass the original creators (ex. whatever the fuck 'art lore' is on TikTok, based on what I've seen it seems purely made for bullying budding artists and talking shit which is... gross af, but I don't think it's anywhere near the same as readers of LO calling out its highly successful award-winning creator for having zero clue what she's doing with her comic lmao). I don't think a blanket statement of "fix it fics are bad" accomplishes anything because it depends on a variety of factors like the person's intentions and what they're trying to accomplish. Many fanfictions in general could be called 'fix it fics' even if the creator 100% loved the source material with zero issue - because they're still saying "what if xyz happened instead"?

Me, personally? I'm someone who loves Greek myth and who used to adore LO. I was very discouraged and upset when I saw it turned into what it became, and I wanted to try my own hand at creating something new out of the rubble that could give me closure. It's what I choose to do with my time and other people seem to enjoy it as well. I'm sure there's loads to criticize and speculate on regarding my 'intentions' in creating it, but at the end of the day I'm sorta just doing what I want to do with my time because I have a lot of thoughts and ideas I need to get out of my head and many of them are thoughts and ideas that other people like reading about.

If you feel uncomfortable by the amount I talk about it here and the way I talk about it, that's fine. Those are your feelings. There are loads of other antiLO-themed blogs to read that might not give you that same vibe. Even I have certain icks towards certain opinions within the antiLO community, I've seen some people be genuinely shitty and I'm sure that's ironic to hear considering you're describing your own discomfort towards my stuff, but we all have different tolerances towards different things at the end of the day.

I do my part to keep things in my own house of a neighborhood that's really small in the grand scheme of things. It just feels like a big neighborhood if you don't travel. There will inevitably come a day where I'll pack my boxes and move elsewhere, talk about new things and write essays about other topics. That's obviously not today but I definitely don't want this to just be like, my entire identity or the rest of my life LOL it's just something I've chosen to spend my free time doing and I'm content with that. Maybe a year from now I'll feel differently, who knows? At the very least I'm hoping to one day finish Rekindled because no, I don't want this to actually be my identity for the rest of my life, change is a good thing LOL but what that change will bring is, for now, a mystery. Here's hoping wherever I end up at least brings its own uniquely good times like I've had here :' )

Sorry, that was a very long response with a lot of sorta aimless muddling over the topic at hand, but thank you for the opportunity to discuss it regardless ! because I do think it's important to find that 'grounding point' when it comes to stuff like this. because as much as I get riled up over LO, yeah, at the end of the day, it's just a dumb webtoon and I don't wanna go soiling myself over it LOL but I'm also just like... running a Tumblr blog with my personal thoughts and ideas, no more or no less. Even the "attention" I get is still only 200-400 notes per new episode of Rekindled, which pales in comparison to any real metrics of "success" imo LMAO again, it just feels loud because this is a niche community made up of a lot of the same names and faces; step outside of it and no one gives a shit LOL

[ganondoodle]

Hello 👋

Swallowing my nerves at last to send you an ask! I was just wondering, what inspires your designs? Are their inspirations in stuff like movies or games? Or just things you come up with yourself?

i .. honestly its kinda hard to tell, sometimes i just randomly think of something, like some detail, or color combination and try to incorporate that into a design somehow; it can come from anywhere, like the color scheme of a pithaya/dragonfruit is something i have been wanting to make a design with for ages but havent come up with anything good in all those years ;O;

im a very easily fascinated by color, espeically in nature, like sometimes i just stop and stare at something like i froze in time bc i just woooooooooooooah color! i probably look like a weirdo doing that though

its really hard to pinpoint anything specifically, the most is probably .. other artists? i guess? which always makes me nervous bc my memory is shit in most areas of life and i worry myself to pieces whether i unintentionally "stole" an idea and just dont remember and think it was my own, it goes further that sometimes i see something that makes me want to draw a similar concept but dont bc i dont want to 'steal' even if that couldnt be further from my intention (have been accused of that before ..)

that said for my ocs specifically .. most are rather old and have just kinda evolved out of their awkward first iterations (shargons first iteration was a hauro-howl- copy that was really just some human covered in feathers .. another oc was once a hellboy copy but in green- havent drawn nor redeisgn them in ages lol), the biggest inspirations for them is a mix of animals, bonus if you dont see them often- im a big shark, whale and sea creatures in general nerd so i tend to take from them as a priority but always trying to be less directly animal and mostly just .. features that work together

Eadrya is one of the newer OCs- i started to write but then looked at my folders and oh they are from 2017 .., i even made a design timeline for them how much they, and my art, have changed back in 2020, so thats also way outdated now lol (they apparently started as a whale .. thing? its like a pokemon evolution lol)

this is them now (i like this sketch still, though shargons design is now also outdated lmao)

this ones from early 2023 so also outdated now but you get the point

for demons i try to be a bit more wild on shapes and colors while still adhering to the rules of how they work (humanoid form, demon form, animalistic, one element each and more or less made to fit that, 4 arms is very common, look to be bost scary and wild but also something that would make you stop in tracks and stare in awe and fear if you crossed paths)

often times designs just kinda .. happen, i have maybe the idea ok i wanna make something with a white and red pattern also moose or those big horned cows are cool and kinda scary so maybe sth akin to that (though this one is technically a redesign too- its also pretty much entirely different)

for non demons but still non human i go for a much more restrained design, mainly inspired directly by an animal and giving the color scheme a good spin, plus adding unconventional body shapes, like ki'ita is also a good example, her old idea was just orca anthro pirate and just by making the white green instead in her most recent redesign already adds that little spin to it

that can have its pitfalls though, as i often fall into the big arm small head small legs scheme over and over xD

alot of it is trial and error, deciding on the colors can take me hours bc im always searching for my little rule of having one contrast color that shows up in very few places to draw attention to it (like with Eadrya its those bright yellow eyes and thingy at their tail)

and that is all about myy own ocs, when its fandom stuff it works kinda similar though, either in the connections i wanna draw or just thinking it further- like how deities in destiny work also just kinda .. happened like an ever derailing train

like for demise i was at first really just im gonna give him horns bc horns are cool and he got those on the starting mural in the game- so how his hair work? well maybe it isnt hair actually and just unbound energy, im making him a deity too and fit hylias design to his so, yeah, then so how does it work, ok he gotta have a skeleton still, but what if his entire actual body is made up of pure magical energy with its core in the ribcage? with the core in the ribcage >:3c and the scales you see are just like cooled down lava as an armor bc his thing is fire and earth !! the normal blood? is a thin layer of skin imiated from mortals to keep the scales together and flexible so if he ACTUALLY gets hurt hed bleed magic that looks more like lava and any normal blood you see is just the armor- so why does he have a skeleton still instead of being just energy? maybe its gotta be bound to something OH and what if all of the deities started as mortals like a mirror to the trio later on and the gods cannot have direct influence to the worlds so they needed a right hand that is neither god nor mortal but both by killing a mortal by whatever their element will be (demise burned, hylia drowned etc) and their skeleton and spirit is kept but put into a body of magic- OH what if their spirit core is like almost piloting their bodies like a mech in a way bc if youd look close youd see that every strand of magic is actual a hand of their spirit so it makes it more weird and other bc hed be able to reach out with thousands of burning claws of all shapes and sizes like the beheaded forest god at the end of mononoke- SO if hed lose and arm or something all those strands would untangle and rearrange his bones back together-OH MY GOD the whole armor idea works so well for ghirahims dark armor so what if demise had two swords once and lost one and since has forged an armor similar to his own for ghirahim out fo fear of losing him t---

and that all is a process that happens over several weeks and months not rarely while i am drawing something mindlessly and suddendly *have a thought* and omg that makes so much sense-

so "what" inspires my designs? an ever derailing train of thought about making cool thick monsters that arent the evil thing to get rid of for once? cool color schemes? idk it just kinda happens??

[tomatosoupandpasta]

INTRO POST (again? yes again because I do as I please)

IMPORTANT STUFF I'M VERY SORRY

Redoing this because I don't like the last one teehee :3c

You can call me either Tomato or Mon (although Tomato is more common), I'm a genderfluid lesbian and use any pronouns without any preference

I use tone indicators both ironically and unironically because I 1: don't want to offend people, and 2: think it's hilarious to see "choke on a lemon /pos"

My reblog tag is "tomato reblog" and my yapping tag is "silly stuff". I vent sometimes, these are usually tagged with "vent post" or "tw vent" and the like

I'm not the brightest when it comes to references and I often make a BUNCH of typos and grammatical errors if I don't double check it (and I only double check it if I remember to)

Also I use the term "freak" affectionately

@g1rasol <- PLATONIC WIFE❗️❗️❗️❗️🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🗣🗣🗣🗣🗣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅🦅

Go fucking CRAZY in my askbox. Tell me how that lemon tasted, rant to me, event ven idc. I love interaction.

^ That being said I'm very shy on dms and won't make much sense because I'm nervous. You can yap to me there anyway

I AM A MINOR

INTERESTS?!?! (i will update this as I go along (and the ones capitalized are the ones im most active in)):

VOCALOID

PROJECT SEKAI

mdzs

tgcf

svsss

komi can't communicate

undertale

deltarune

alien stage

legend of zelda

TOILET BOUND HANAKO KUN

sonic the hedgehog

kipo and the age of wonderbeasts

dungeon meshi

gravity falls

doki doki literature club

a hat in time

honkai: star rail

omori

pokemon

adventure time

stardew valley

love bullet

the guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all

minecraft story mode

villains are destined to die

more to be added...

(userbox by @/vbs-kaitos-big-naturals)

(userbox by @/tazmaboxed)

(userbox by @/sweetpeauserboxes)

(userboxes by @/tazmaboxed)