#so I could show them here on Tumblr and encourage ppl to make more fanarts and...

[batri-jopa]

Hey, other And Then We Danced (2019) fans, listen, have you already known that the song in the background of this movie scene...

...was initially different than the one we know from the final version of the film?🤯

[Video comes from this post of @andthenwedanced on Instagram (dated: 29 August 2019)]

What you hear in the fragment above is Tu Ase Turfa Ikavi (თუ ასე ტურფა იყავი) - and not Khma Amoige Panduro ! (which I already described to you in Part 1 of my "ATWD soundtrack & lyrics" series)

If you were so fine / Tu Ase Turfa Ikavi

If you were so fine, Why didn't I mention you, violet? Because, for love, I hadn't my heart open ( x2)

Now I met another gardener, Who swayed me with petting, Sang to me sweet voice, And swayed me on hem ( x2)

If you were so fine, Why didn't I mention you, violet? Because, for love, I hadn't my heart open ( x2)

[translation given by YouTube user @merabbarbakadze in comments under Hamlet's Gonashvili version of the song]

Alternative translation:

If you were so beautiful, why didn't I notice you before, violet? Because I didn't have my heart opened for love.

Now I met another gardener filled me with tenderness sweetly blazed with me began to swing me on hem of a skirt

if you were so beautiful Why hadn't I noticed you before, violet? Just because my heart was yet not opened for the love.

[translation above was given by YouTube user @leokac in comment under this Ketie's Melua version of the song]

თუ ასე ტურფა იყავი რად ვერ გამჩნევდი იაო იმად რომ სიყვარულისთვის გული არ გამიღიაო იმად რომ სიყვარულისთვის გული არ გამიღიაო

ახლა სხვა მებაღე შემხვდა ალერსით გამაბნიაო, ტკბილადაც მამიგურგურა კალთაზედ დამარწიაო. ტკბილადაც მამიგურგურა კალთაზედ დამარწიაო.

ცაზედ მიდიან წერონი მწკრივად და ჯარის ჯარადა რით ვერ შაიგნეთ იალნო ცრემლებ ჩამამდის ღვარადა რით ვერ შაიგნეთ იალნო ცრემლებ ჩამამდის ღვარადა

თუ ასე ტურფა იყავი რად ვერ გამჩნევდი იაო იმად რომ სიყვარულისთვის გული არ გამიღიაო იმად რომ სიყვარულისთვის გული არ გამიღიაო

[Original Georgian lyrics according to www.smule.com]

Now you can compare it with the song that was used in the final version of ATWD:

ხმა ამაიღე ფანდურო [Khma amoige panduro]

Raise your voice, panduri For the rising sun I wish to speak a shairi, For a sun-faced beauty, Sun-faced, sun-faced, for the sun-faced beauty

ხმა ამაიღე ფანდურო ამომავალი მზისთვინა შაირ მწადიან წარმოვთქო პირიმზე ლამაზისთვინა მის: პირიმზე პირიმზე პირიმზე ლამაზისთვინა

Now I am not sure what was the actual reason that one song won over another. Maybe And The We Danced movie makers simply had no permission to use "Tu Ase Turfa..."? (It happened before - many singers wanted not to be associated with movie about "perverts", that's why most of ATWD songs were recorded particulary for the movie and the song sang in the car had to be literally written for the car scene alone (!!!) - you can read more about it my "And Then We Danced: Soundtrack & Lyrics" series or under my "ATWD amateur guidebook" tag). Or maybe it was decided to not fit to the moment in the film as perfectly as "Khma amoige..."?

[⬆️The above is from FINAL version!⬆️]

I got to say I loved "Tu ase turfa" since the first time I heard it (and it was on ATWD OST playlist even! Though I thought it was a mistake for that song was nowhere in the final movie so I thought that maybe somebody was mistaken... Yes I was so stupid to think someone could mistake two totally different songs, lol😅). But I love "Khma amoige..." so much in this scene, it sounds so quite and delicate, almost like a lullaby... or maybe like a first shy thought of noticing somebody's beauty for the first time? - and it fits so perfectly with Merab's bashfull little laugh in marshrutka when Irakli's sleeping on his shoulder🫠 While "Tu ase turfa" would sound more... solemn? And serious? (especially the part with choir). Ican imagine it would feel more as if Merab was already deeply in love in that moment... Though the lyrics does emphasize the fact of not noticing beauty before being ready for love so theoretically it does fit to that movie scene... So I don't know, just my thoughts😅

But I love both songs, I love all of them!❤️❤️❤️

[ranboo-my-beloved]

I’m new to the fandom, so forgive me if I sound ignorant: can someone explain to me the differences between dt tumblr, Twitter, tiktok and Instagram? Is everything said about one or the other really true or just generalizations? (Like “dt Twitter is toxic”, and what not) should I be avoiding certain platforms of the fandom? (So far I’ve been on dt tumblr and insta, and they seem pretty chill to me so idk)

i only have personal experience about tumblr and twt so i invite anyone to add onto this

here are some basic stuff to the best of my abilities:

twitter

huge differences between 'big' and 'small' accounts

cc's can see what you post (can be negative or positive)

groupchats play a big role in meeting new people

overtly anti-shipping

great fanart, and if you're an artist and wanna show your work to the cc's you can @ them

'events' like when ppl get together to trend a hashtag, or for example the selfie day that happens every month

you don't get too much 'privacy' (ppl can see who you follow and what tweets you like - you could get called out for it)

nsfw accounts are there, but you likely won't run into them if you don't deliberately search up things

tumblr

no one knows how many followers you have so basically everyone is 'equal' in dteamblr

we panic every 2nd day about a cc possibly having a blog, but it's all red herrings so you're probably safe to post any bullshit you'd like :)

we kind of all know each other but also don't. i personally consider everyone my friend who interacts with me like 2x

shipping is free-for-all (respectfully ofc) and there is also 'truthing' which is essentially believing that a cc isn't straight

breathtaking fanart as well + some rlly amazing fanfic writers are here too

when some makes a good post you're gonna see it 20+ times bc everyone reblogs each other's stuff

no one has to know who you are - you can just pop out of nowhere any day with half a personality (that you might have stole from a cc but shhh) and you're gonna get a warm welcome

90% of our communication is done in the tags tbh

you might see some more offensive-ish jokes or hot takes

the use of tone indicators is strongly encouraged (/j; /hj; /lh; etc.)

as i said i don't know anything about insta and only a tiny bit about tiktok so i can't really talk about them

i don't think you need to avoid any part of the fandom, every fandom has its chill and not-so-chill parts, so you kinda just have to experiment with them to find out which one you like the most

[sweetescapeartist]

Since there is barely anybody that looks at this blog now, imma say some things now that I'll reveal later on Twitter (maybe). Also this is gonna be a long read so you can read if you wanna or not. Its kinda a rant.

I started this blog because I liked Dragon Ball and wanted to share my ideas and things I liked with other fans. I enjoyed that. Krillin is my favorite character so I wanted to show him some love & maybe get more ppl to like him. Then eventually I started drawing nsfw art.

I began doing so because there's a great lack of Krillin positive nsfw art. Eventually on my Twitter, I gathered a following that like to see Krillin getting some love. I also went from sfw with my OC Tobi to drawing nsfw. The problem I have with both is that I don't have time as much to draw what is like to. Nor do I care as much for nsfw art.

So this is what I'm trying to say. I have other things I want to do. I draw for free and accept some requests. I'm not getting paid and I feel like I'm wasting my time somewhat. The positive is that more ppl have come to like Krillin and hopefully more will later. There aren't a lot of nsfw artist that promote Krillin. Its all about Saiyans and I understand why. I like Saiyans too. But its always at the expense of human characters that I like especially Krillin.

"Vegeta got beat up by 18 so he deserves to dick her down"

"18 should be with anyone else but Krillin. She should be with a Saiyan."

I'm seriously tired of it, ya know? Its just such negativity. I've tried to combat it with positivity and that does work but that's not what most ppl seem to care about or see. Krillin means a lot to many of us. Yes, we know he's a fictional character but he's someone we can latch on to and see ourselves in. How he constantly tries hard and doesnt give up despite having low self-esteem. He is very relatable and an encouraging character. So understand that it frustrates me and others when ppl keep making fun of a character we love just because of memes that are very innacurate, he's short, he's married to what most of the fandom consider the most attractive female in the series (so they're jealous of him to an extent), or when ppl downright degrade his character.

Why? Why treat a positive character so negatively? Ppl make fun of Krillin because he has PTSD but won't make fun of Future Trunks. They trash his marriage and make it seem as if 18 doesn't care for him because he has the most stable marriage in the series. They call his daughter an ugly troll but want to see her in hentai with some Saiyan. Such hypocrisy. That's why I've drawn some of the things I have.

There are drawings I've done that I haven't posted because they are so disrespectful to characters like Vegeta or Gohan. And I love Gohan so that's a reason why I never posted them. I'm a positive person but it seems many ppl only respond to negative. So here's what I've done/plan to do.

I have some comics planned to draw along with some pictures. The pictures vary on what they will be, but the comics... Here's what they are.

I will be making NTR comics starring Krillin but he is the main character. There are too many of him being portrayed as a wimp or punk that lets everybody get with 18 besides himself. Or its done behind his back. So I'm going to have Krillin taking other character's ladies from them. Yeah its negative in a way but also positive for Krillin. Maybe this can get the point across to ppl? Idk.

But I will make a comic where Krillin gets Videl, Bulma, & Chichi. I will make others where he gets into "situations" with characters like Kale & Caulifla, Cheelai, & others. I also plan to make a comic about Roshi basically being cucked by Krillin (you'll have to wait and see to understand that one). So that's what I have planned. Hentai comics with Krillin as the lead. Its unpopular and that is why I do it.

I'll make other more positive comics too. Like a comic about Krillin getting advice then marrying 18. Ill draw stories with my OC Tobi as he lives with Krillin and his family & dates Marron. It will focus on the Chestnut family and have father/son moments with Krillin & Tobi. And ill introduce other characters too.

But here's the big thing that contradicts everything I said prior. I don't want to draw DB anymore. The fan base has kinda wore me out but so has the direction the series has gone. In bored of the writing for DBS and it being solely about Goku & Vegeta when there are other characters like Gohan & Piccolo. Its a fighting anime so why would we only want to see 2 characters? God ki was introduced so that's an easy way for everyone to get stronger and involved. But its too corporate now and lazy. And the DBS manga... so terrible. Toyotaro is a much better artist than I am and not to talk bad about him but I think DragonGarowLee is much better for the position that Toyo. DGL knows how to choreograph fights better and understands Toriyama's comedy better. Toyo doesn't know how to write the characters. He makes Goku an uncaring idiot, makes Vegeta a poorly written Goku clone, makes fun of Krillin for no reason except he doesn't like him (seriously! He has called him ugly, weak, scared, useless, & had ppl like Goku and Roshi insult Krillin. Wtf?!), he doesnt know how to create a unique character without ripping off a character Tori has done much better. And the fanboys (& girls)

Gosh! The Vegeta fans are great but they can be crazy sometimes. They ignore all the evil Vegeta has done and ignore his flaws as if he's a perfect angel. Vegeta's flaws is what makes him such an interesting character! And him being different than Goku is a good thing. But there's a weird and false understanding of his character. "Vegeta is a better dad than Goku" sure. Vegeta just knocked up Bulma then left her as. Single mother and didn't care if she or his infant son died, never hugged his son until he was 10+ yrs old & didn't love Bulma until sometime during the 7 yr time skip. He was a terrible person in a terrible relationship! THEN he became a better person and actually loving to his family. That change is what make Vegeta great. Not his power level or how many kills he has or "cool moments."

That same twisted misunderstanding of Vegeta is similar to the misunderstanding of Krillin. Ppl think he's weak and a coward. But he fights aliens & beings stronger than him and even injures stronger opponents. He smiles in the face of danger and even gets excited during fights but is smart enough not to risk others lives. Krillin nearly killed Nappa, he would've finished Vegeta with the Spirit Bomb if Yajirobe didn't alert Vegeta that Krillin was attacking him, smart enough not to fight on Namek when they're outnumbered, took on aliens stronger than him, outsmarted them & escaped, protected both Gohan & Bulma, more skilled than Ginyu when he was in Goku's body, sacrificed his safety for others like Dende & Gohan, (for real tho, Vegeta didn't see 2nd form Freeza move but Krillin was fast enough to throw Dende out of the way and sacrifice his life. Krillin saw Freeza attacking and Vegeta who is supposed to be stronger did not see Freeza move!), he was the first person to actually damage Freeza and then taunted the Emperor of the Universe, he's always there for his friends, knew better than everybody else that if the androids defeated Vegeta & Trunks then he shouldn't get involved. He saved 18 who was innocent in this timeline, helped 16, wished for the bombs out of 17 & 18 so they could live normally. Then fast forward to DBS he fought to protect his family & planet & 18 calls him "cool", he conquers his PTSD and gained new power he always had but laid dormant, he defeated someone who actually hurt 18. & there are things he's done I didn't even mention.

And ppl constantly saying Goku is a bad dad. He's waaaaaaaay better of a father compared to Vegeta if were being honest.

I guess I've seen a lot of the negative side of the fandom and its disappointing. So I'm at a point where I kinda don't care. I'll make my comics but after I'm done with what I have planned, I'm just done with DB. I won't stop drawing entirely but I won't draw any requests unless I feel like it, I won't keep up with much DB news and content. I just want to come back to Tumblr, draw Krillin fanart, draw Tobi, write some rewrites, draw Tobi's story & that's it. Ill be a part of Chestnut Fest every year tho. That is one of the greatest things to come out of my time on Tumblr & Twitter. So big thanks to @chestnutisland!

But basically I'm tired of the fandom and I still enjoy parts of it but I want to do my own thing. So I'll partially be a part of the DB fandom but not in it too deep. Look forward to what I have in store. If some of my future content isn't to your liking, hopefully you ccan find something else I've done that you'll enjoy. But its still been fun & I've enjoyed the ppl I've talked too & friends I've made.

[primeadv]

SITS DOWN

PULLS OUT 10 GIANT ALBUMS :))) 

(this came out way longer than I intended im so fuckgkdsdf sory)

How I feel about this character: EVERYONE WHO KNOWS ME KNOWS I’M IN LOVE WIHT RATCHET. I love him in all iterations of Transformers because he’s always the tired, pragmatic one of the group. In contrast, he’s also almost tiredly optimistic in some ways. He won’t get out of bed, but if someone gets shot in the head he’ll spend however long and beyond to resuscitate them. There’s 2 halves to this--the me who identifies with the beating exhaustion he exudes, and the me who’s in awe that he’ll still fight his way through life.  I won’t... get into each continuity...because that’s too much, so I’ll stick with probably the most unpopular version of him and that’s IDW (my impression, anyway). IDW Ratchet gets a lot of flack for being way too sour and like, maybe not selfish, but uncaring. He cares! A lot! He’s always thinking about everyone in really surprisingly thoughtful ways. Like when he’s 90% sure he’ll die due to Overlord and his last words are to promote First Aid to CMO (he’s ready!! god that’s sweet), and to give his hands to Whirl (though maybe a bit blindsided, he’s paid attention to some roots of Whirl’s trauma). Or yeah he’s hella mean to Drift in the beginning, but when Drift is dying in his arms he’s scREAMING at him “you’re gonna make it! You’re gonna be fine because I’m gonna make sure you’re gonna be fine”. He can be an asshole, but he knows the time and place. Death isn’t something to play with--he’s seen probably countless friends die, and he doesn’t want that to happen again. Even now, even after the war.  So I feel very confused when ppl act like he’s this mean, cold person. He’s exTREMELY emotional. He’s probably way too invested in everyone’s lives, honestly? He interrupts a round table story for Rung just to reminisce on the veery last time he, OP, and Roller were together in the same room (not even hanging out or anything, just being together one last time. who remembers that after 5+ millions years??). He started an illegal clinic in the bad part of town because he wanted to put his skills to better use! Like! LOL.  ALSO, a point that i think is unfair is that ppl think his atheism is just really mean. IT is! But I think it shows just how much of an emotional and extremely, deeply hurt person he is. It gets aggravating when he’s condescending of religion, because there’s no simple logic to it. He reacts the way he does because he’s a hurt person who’s gone through years of trauma and this is his way of coping. Is it healthy or right? Nah, but it’s humanizing. It’s why when he becomes closer to Drift he occupies this weird between space where he snarks but also tries to indulge more in perspectives outside of his own in his own dumb old tsundere way. He’s a person who believes in justice, ultimately, and religion to him doesn’t fall under justice.  ALSO, can I say that his inability to say good byes is so.. like relatable? I have rly bad social anxiety, and so I’ve definitely ghosted people who’ve been nothing but really supportive for me. It’s not because I wanted to burn them, but it freaks you out needing to, not even say goodbye, but communicate with ppl. And for Ratchet--how many times was he FORCED to say good bye to friends + patients who were dying beyond his help? Maybe, if he could help it, he doesn’t want to say goodbye. And it’s tragic the times he’s just left, these were people who ended up either dying for falling astray into insanity, i.e., beyond his help. But he learns. He chases after Drift, who he actually said, in a way, good bye to (helping him off the floor after being attacked, also I should point out that a very tiny handful of people were comfortable interacting w/ Drift at all, and how much Ratchet just doesn’t give a shit abt how other ppl think abt him. he’ll help drift off the floor bc t’s the right thing to do). He says goodbye in his old dumb way--First Aid calls him out on it. ALSO his trust in First Aid is super cute. ALSO he’s like.. genuinely nice to Ten (he helped him get a date with Minimus!!!). And he’s not afraid to call out on other ppl’s bullshit (telling rodi straight you dont deserve to be captain which, at the time, was really true). He’s also SUPER smart. Also there’s that post on tumblr that pointed out that Ratchet immediately goes to deescalate conflict. He’s willing to put aside pride and anything if it means ultimately coming to a resolution where EVERYONE involved is safe. The only time he doesn’t is FUCKING OVERLORD who he rightfully, immediately, tries to briefly incapacitate to lockdown his medibay (protect patients/information). Ok I gotta stop I can go on forever just going page to page. Also, despite my love, I can totally point out his flaws. He’s grating when it’s unnecessary, he’s abhorrently bad at communicating, he’s privileged, he’s narrow-minded at times, etc. ec. But again what I love about him is that despite all that, he’ll throw his own self out the window for others’s well-being bc he genuinely, genuinellyyy cares about other people. If only he could care for himself //cries All the people I ship romantically with this character OH god... everyone. He’s my bicycle.  ok look, ya’ll know I’m an intense dratchet shipper and I could literally write a god damn essay. ... here’s another essay???!! So, I’ma be real, I wasn’t a super dratchet shipper before. I wasn’t anti (i have no notps), but I was just “yeah they’re cute i guess haha”. But 99.99% the reason why I ship anything is all for super cute adorable fanart. and I kept drawing them because 1) ratchet’s my fav, 2) drift is super popular so I figured I should learn to draw him. And they became the only 2 mechs I could draw. I used to be way more into Scavengers + megarod. I used to only like 1 dratchet fanfic and that’s bc it was less romantic and more plot centric (still a fav tho). Then I kept seeing cute fanart, I would read posts by other dratchet shippers too about what makes them so nice? And I was yeah.. oh yeah. And it doesn’t help that in Lost Light, drift is CONSTANTLY by Ratchet’s side. He’s constantly checking up on him and holding him and touching him, like as if Ratchet is the thing that he needs to make sure, at all costs, is safe.  In Drift’s life, Ratchet is the one who appears to him when he needs support the most but is in the most denial of it. When Drift is at the brink of death, overdosed and about to be broken apart and Orion brings him to Ratchet’s clinic. Ratchet patches him up pro-bono and tells him that he sees something special in him.  like??? can you imagine how that feels? To have no one believe in you--you don’t even believe in yourself, and yet here’s this person who tells you “you’re gonna be great”. And it totally doesn’t hit Drift in anyway, at least in a way that’s tangible to him, until much later in life. Or maybe it does (hey, how do you weave character narratives when it’s been written by like 3 different ppl shrugs). And that statement means 2 different things to them. To Drift, it’s a reminder that he’s worth something, even if it’s a sliver of nearly nothing to hold onto. To Ratchet, it’s a reminder that the greatness he saw led to the deaths of thousands of people.  HEY can you imagine this person you saved, patched up, tried to encourage, ended up being a mass serial killer in the future? (have you ever read Monster by Naoki Urusawa). Ended up killing people you loved?  So it’s no wonder that a good part of Ratchet is absolutely mad at Drift. And I think if that was all, they probably would’ve ended up being amicable. But Drift also ended up being super religious and seeing the hand and primus in everything and oh my god is this person really waxing poetry on the value of life when he, himself, shot several bullets at me at one point?  I also believe they are uncomfortably similar as they are different. The reason why they constantly butt heads is they’re two people trying to escape a past they don’t want and found complete opposite ways to cope with their losses. Drift found religion, Ratchet is gratingly pragmatic, and they see each other and go “how could this guy choose to be this way?”. I’ve heard ppl like to cite the annual as the reason why they could never work out. BUT, can I point out, that they act around each other in a way they don’t with anyone else? Drift gets SO MAD. Ratchet gets extremely talkative and incredibly personal (pulled out an electro slug from someone’s spark, holy shit that fucking traumatized you didn’t it??). They challenge each other emotionally, and it’s so fucking difficult bc they’re both extremely depressed and suffer from PTSD and would probably rather just go on their dumb space adventure and look at stars--take 2 emotionally constipated idiots and you get them. And hell no, don’t tell me Drift is in-tune with his feelings bc he’s 10000% not. He uses religion to cope with a past and life that he doesn’t want to think about. He tries to re-contextualize himself because he hates who he is. OUCHHH. And Ratchet MAKES him confront the parts of himself he hates--bc Ratchet has seen his worst traits and isn’t afraid to make him think about it.  So why do they work out eventually? They realize how important they are to each other. Delphi, Drift saves Ratchet’s life while he’s barely holding onto his own because he probably feels like he owes Ratchet his own life. And that’s a huge turning point in their relationship--Ratchet sees that... Drift tries really really fucking hard. My friend Zig pointed out that post-Delphi, Drift is eating energon w/ chopsticks (what a fucking nerd), and you can see in a later panel that Ratchet (who chose to sit next to Drift) is using those chopsticks too. IT’s such a small thing, but they’re becoming closer by sharing and learning from each other. And then Drift takes the fall and leaves. And Ratchet realizes just how important Drift’s presence is in his life. I mentioned it already lol but the scene where Ratchet helps Drift up off the floor and it’s superimposed with the love message Rewind left for CD. They care about each other so much!! And Ratchet chases after him!! HOLY SHIT. If that isn’t romance, what is?? lol I kid, but it’s obvious just how important Drift’s presence meant to him. IT’s really because they became so so so close in a way that can’t be described as just friends. They deeply understand each other in really uncomfortable ways and bring out the absolute worst and absolute best in each other. And this point is where Ratchet again appears when Drift doesn’t realize he needs someone in his life. Drift thinks he can be a loner and just float aimlessly and voicelessly--hell no! He needs friends, he needs community. He NEEDs belonging, because he wants to belong somewhere. And Ratchet helps bridge him back to friends and found family.  And Ratchet slowly changes the more he’s with Drift. He reads religious text and tries to brag about it bc he’s a dumb tsundere lol but he’s trying to understand Drift’s interests more even if it takes a decade and more to get there. And Drift values him for being his rock. That’s why he’s constantly making sure Ratchet is safe and unharmed, because he owes at least that much to him. And yeah they eventually fall in love because they value each other in a way they haven’t anyone else. IM EMO I CAN GO ONE, this all probably didn’t make a whole lot of sense but yeah. I’m just so soft to the fact that they’re horribly hurt people who don’t know how to redirect their pain, but by being together they come out healthier and more confident. IT’S RLY ROMANTIC IDKKK My non-romantic OTP for this character As much as I also love OpRatch, they are also great best friend platonic ship. They know each other best, they’ve been through SO MUCH together. It’s honestly a shame they barely interact in IDW bc the small tidbits we have, they obviously deeply respect each other’s opinions and deeply value the relationship they’ve had over the past millions of years.  I’m also all for non-romanceOTP for dratchet because I can totally imagine they go to each other to talk about things they feel uncomfortable sharing with others (they’ve seen the absolute worst of each other afterall).  My unpopular opinion about this character I don’t... think I ahve one. Some ppl view my love for his as grating lol.  One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon. Medic spin off.

[i-want-my-iwtv]

How has the purge affected u?

[Apologies in advance for the Wall of Text™, I feel like longposting, sorry for the dash coverage, I didn’t think I had this much to say about this… And I probably shouldn’t do this, probably should have kept this to a flippant “It sucks!” with a VC meme, but I haven’t shared much publicly lately… now feels like a singularly poignant time to do so.]

NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN

It’s strange. I think running and participating in the @vcsecretgifts exchange (not finished yet!), and backing up that blog and this one for preservation (not finished yet!), helped take my mind off it! I’ve been busy with @wicked-felina coordinating substitute Santas, so I haven’t had much chance to indulge in it like a participant yet, but I did see that my recipient liked my gift, and that was heartwarming! I’ll reply properly when I have the peace of mind for it (yes I could be doing it now but this is the gear I want to be on right now), and I haven’t had a chance to read the gift from my own Santa, I’m saving that as a treat!

I did the #Log/ffProt/st, that helped. The purge is/was creatively stifling, somewhat, too, bc even though I don’t produce NS/FW stuff myself (I WANT TO, THO), I do reblog it, and support it, I see other artists and writers affected by it, and I felt and still feel helpless, unable to protect them. One of our VC fandom members who draws slash art has been shadowbanned, that I know of. It’s frustrating that the morality & purity police seem to have won this battle, but they haven’t won the war. We’ll take our garbage underground if we have to. 

How crushing to wake up to one’s blog(s) just canceled w/o explanation? We were given 2 weeks’ notice? To pack up our “nasty” stuff and leave? 

[X]

There’s nothing wrong with NS/FW stuff, adult ppl should be able to talk about it, fantasize about it, make art and write fiction about it, have kinks and explore them. I never bought the “if you like it in fiction you support it in reality!” argument, just like with all dangerous things we like in fiction but wouldn’t want in reality. 

“… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.” - Warren Ellis [X]

But I’ve fought those battles and there’s no point in engaging in unwinnable debate with ppl who are committed to misunderstanding me and twisting my words into a strawman they can easily knock over.  

It’s baffling that it’s an unpopular opinion that minors should be allowed to learn about sex, as much as they learn about how to (eventually) drive a car, manage alcohol consumption, defend themselves against violence, handle medication or recreational drugs, all these things that are potentially and not inherently dangerous to them, that they’ll be faced with in the Real World. I remember there were religious rituals in my youth where children could taste alcohol a little bit, it was exposure to an adult thing in a safe space, among other adults. Is this really all about Protecting the Children? Really? Or is it about mental domination? What it looks like to me is a self-proclaimed Particular Authority who wants to keep minors (and adults) submissive and reliant on that Particular Authority, it’s so much easier to keep them submissive and reliant to that same Particular Authority as adults. It’s always been about power. 

And I’m seeing that the communities most affected by the purge are AFAB ppl and LGBTQIA+. It’s misogynistic, LGBTQIA+-phobic. The fact that tungle reportedly blocked archivists from saving blogs before the NS/FW purge is just pouring salt in the wound.

I’ve started following these refugee/evicted tumblr ppl where they’ve migrated to. I’m trying to keep track of them. I’m in the @fiction-is-not-reality2 discord server, keeping my eye out for the next alternative platform.

Leading up to the purge I considered blasting a bunch of smut as a last hurrah, and I did reblog some Controversial™ stuff, just in case my blog was going to be deleted, but then, I lost steam on that. Why put in extra effort and get deleted anyway? Why poke the bear, and deliberately get deleted for it? Most of my blog is SFW, anyway.

I preserved my blog, the gifts blog, and just for archival purposes I should have been doing that all along, so it was good for my own historical safekeeping… so much good commentary and fanworks here, in the past 5+ years! Collecting the scraps just like I’d done in 1994, when there were articles about the IWTV movie and I wanted all of them, I especially wanted the illustrations and caricatures in the magazines (which was really validating of my interest in some way, fanart that was published, essentially!). And I had my folder of Deviantart I liked, of course. So I packed up my blog here to preserve it, it’s on wordpress now, iwantmyiwtv.com, with a lame layout, but I’ve got the tags showing, where fanart that’s blocked here can still be seen on WP.

I’m rambling. 

The purge reminded me that all this, as we know it, could and will be gone someday. Purges have done that before, especially to our fandom, attacked by its own canon author. We’ve survived this before. 

I’ve been on tungle since July ‘13. I’ve made and lost some wonderful friends here, some have moved on to other fandoms, or we’ve had partings of the ways. The fanart in this fandom, my memes, have been spread all over, I see them on Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter. When this blog is deleted, either by content flagging or by tumblr finally keeling over, our stuff is going to outlive us all.  

Who even made this one? One of the vintage memes. Maybe their watermark was long ago cropped off, or maybe they hadn’t put it on:

^It was used in a meme here, but I don’t think that was the OP, it’s gotta be more than 4 yrs old. Pretty sure the “JUDGING YOU” in Impact font was around Twilight time, which came out in 2008. This meme is still floating around, it’s still amusing to ppl all these years later. Someone’s stroke of inspiration, and we may never know who it was, but we enjoy it, it’s part of the worn fabric of the fandom.

Will ppl remember me when/if I’m gone? I don’t need to be remembered, it’s enough that I was here at one point, and encouraged ppl to make fanworks, that I helped bring ppl together. I don’t need them to know it was me, specifically, or know much about me, this blog was never meant to be about me. Those I brought together might remember how they met. There are those who have seen behind the curtain and I hope to hang onto them as long as possible.

If/When this all disappears, I want ppl to know how much I enjoyed interacting with ppl through asks, the chat feature. I’ve missed answering asks, and I’ve missed the feeling of seeing new ask alerts without having to brace myself for Discourse. I’ve missed seeing that anon icon as a friendly, but shy, human being, rather than a living person who’s in pain, somewhere else in the world, throwing bricks through my window. Someone who’s suffering bc they’re not getting the attention they need, truly, someone who deserves to be loved, someone who needs validation for their opinions on things, and wanted mine, but I couldn’t give it. I’m only human, too. I made this blog for 15 year old me, who couldn’t find enough VC fanworks, so I set out to collect, make, and encourage them, but all in the spirit of optimism, bc that’s what I got out of canon. 15 year old me drew self esteem from those books. That’s the only person I ever wanted to please with this thing and that girl is still my priority. 

We’ll survive this purge, we’ve done it before. Hold onto the ppl who you’ve made connections with. I’ll be here as long as I can. 

Most importantly, I’m not letting the morality & purity police tell me what ’m allowed to learn about, make fanworks about, or enjoy in published or fan fiction, etc. 

[miru667]

How did you become a Onceling?

Uhhh this got kinda long so im putting it under a readmore!

My first exposure to The Lorax was when my biology teacher read the book to the class in high school. That would’ve been…2006 at the latest. I watched The Lorax 3 weeks after it came out in 2012, cuz i was bored one day but i remembered seeing a trailer on tv for this movie which was based off the book that my bio teacher read to us 6 yrs ago, so i decided to watch the movie on a whim.

I enjoyed the movie and I think I cried at the end but i wasnt crazy about it just yet. I did look up the HBCIB song a couple days later, and then i think i tried googling for pictures of the onceler for reference cuz i wanted to draw him. Almost all fanart was from tumblr, so that’s when i discovered tumblr. Probably the first onceler fanart i saw actually was from this durnk lalonde askblog (nsfw) who has since removed their onceler art lol. And i just kept finding more and more rly good onceler fanart, and i started bookmarking the blogs of my fav onceler artists. I didn’t join tumblr yet.

I eventually found swag onceler’s askblog and he was extremely entertaining and i was absolutely captivated by his rude humour, his popularity, and the moments of genuine care and niceness that would reveal itself underneath the immaturity from time to time. I still hadn’t joined tumblr yet but i was so addicted to this askblog that i sent an ask thru anon anyway. When he answered it [here!] I was over the moon for the entire week.

At the time he also favoured a onceling named Peppermimint and ppl shipped them together as swaggermint. A lot of other fangirls got jealous but that only made me support the ship more, so i got EVEN MORE INVESTED in the askblog kjfdkfjg that’s right folks, my first ship in the fandom? a onceler askblog x self insert. i never shipped classic oncest or normaler.

I’d go into tinychats too to spy on oncelings talking to each other (also Swag would sometimes show up omg) but i was too shy to participate until one day I did and I also doodled the onceler on the whiteboard back when tinychat still had that feature. Ppl noticed and liked my art and Prisma (the tinychat host) encouraged me to get a tumblr so i could share my art with the fandom. I had already been fantasizing about making my own blog, not only to post my art, but so i could more easily follow all the onceler fanart blogs that i had bookmarked, but that encouragement finally convinced me. So after my final exams were over I started my blog on April 20th 2012.

After officially joining tumblr I eventually found an analysis blog called once-ler-fluff, which was deleted but then remade and you can see some of their original posts here: [link] (and OP is [here!]). It was these insightful analysis posts that really made me appreciate the movie a lot more and made me fall in love with the onceler.

THE REST IS HISTORY and if i keep going in the timeline i’ll never stop until we reach the present slfdjgfl but man 2012 summer was truly the happiest time of my life. I quit everything else i had been doing previously that year (which was mostly a ton of FB games, playfish/EA forum moderating, and venting in a secret online journalabt how sad i am over my past relationship breakup) because the onceler fandom was the only thing i wanted to focus on and the only thing i wanted to spend my time and energy on.

Sooo that’s how i became a onceling!

You can check out this post for more important dates/details: http://miru667.tumblr.com/post/45899026044/okay-im-going-to-record-some-historical-dates

[sanchoyo]

EXACTY!!! EXACTLY

I think the problem is how the websites are set up!!! old deviantart and old websites in general (like, forums) were awesome bc the small communities and actually FEEDBACK was encouraged!!! Websites don't really do that anymore idk how to describe it...and there's no real good websites for art sharing like that!

I mean.

instagram is mobile only, which tends to kill quality, doesn't let you have long descriptions, or put links in them!!! It's the most popular way rn for artists to get a following, and the hashtag system is good! But it doesn't really allow for a community to exist; it just wasn't made for art, it was made for photo and video sharing. Also again: MOBILE ONLY??

Twitter...is twitter... the hashtag system isn't great and it's just. kinda toxic. I only log in there to post art then dip. The only way to get a following is to jump aggressively on every art trend that lasts a week and HOPE a post blows up. and people are doing NFT shit and tend to self-promote on popular posts and. Ugh

tumblrs tagging system doesnt work half the time bc of a lot of rules they dont TELL YOU, and SO many people left after the nsfw ban (which DIDNT WORK I STILL HAVE PORNBOTS FOLLOWING ME!! WEEKLY!!!! SCREAM) and tbh that was a DUMB choice on their part. sex workers used this app and it was relatively safe for stuff like that and since we're talking abt art-platforms, nsfw artists did too!! I'm ace and rly dont even look at that stuff but I understand the importance of having a space for it. (and a lot of them were super good at tagging it, so u could just blacklist stuff anyway) now the issue is that ppl on here dont wanna rb so its harder for art to reach people!!! esp if youre just starting out and don't have a following. A lot of ppl dont check in the tags for art for fandoms! (or the tumblr tags just straight up dont SHOW the post in the tags...again. poor tagging system)

I KNOOOW people think of dA as a place where it was like. full of weird kink art. (I am NOT arguing abt that. it 100% was/is lol) but tbh thats ...p much everywhere on the internet... if you'd even mention a fandom/chara in the description, it'd show up in the search!! The search feature was great! The old way of sorting galleries use to be great bc if you were looking for certain stories or ocs from a person, you could easily find it! collabing/art trading with people felt so much more casual, and it had a forum feel where you could send comments back and forth.. where if ppl were fans of a thing, you'd see their comments with yours and be able to reply like 'YES OMG I LOVE THIS PERSONS ART/OCS TOO!! AAA' like. specifically thinking of Miss Chelsi-Apple-Leafs comic!!! God it was fun when she'd release stuff and a ton of tmm fans would speculate and gush in her comments lol. And adopts!! how fun were adopts!! and decking out your page with stamps/making them for ur friends to let them know you're their fan...

frankly just no other website compares imo when it comes to art sharing and no other website feels like it's really MADE for that in the way dA was. it USED to be so good before they dug their own graves with poor design and lack of navigation/organization. (Poor Website Design. When its an ART SITE?? HIRE BETTER DESIGNERS MY GOD. YOU HAVE SO MANY OF THEM ON YOUR WEBSITE-- people screaming they hate the new design and they didnt listen At All!! it was a move I hope cost them a lot of money >:( ) and now the site is practically dead. THEY USED TO HAVE CATAGORIES!! like you could search by art type: photography, brushes (for specific programs, too!!) traditional vs digital, fanart, sculptures, animations... etc!! and they got rid of that, making the search/filter system SUCK SO MUCH ASS. (they replaced it with something called topics. it doesn't have nearly as much categories, is not as easy to navigate, and is a lot harder to find stuff on...thanks DA...)

there's more, and i'm sure someone's done a more in depth post or even video on it but...god if you weren't there back then to compare, you'd have no idea how much it went downhill!! and there's no REALLY good alternatives rn :(

I miss tmm gang 😔 it really is harder to make friends on every other website im on!! the website I get the most feedback on my stuff now is actually ao3, but that's for my writing, not my actual art... ao3 needs to do a sister site for art ashshdf

the other day when I was devart to find old art, I was surprised to see I had 288 watchers on there! I assumed it was more because like, before I quit the website I had a good bit of interaction!! A lot of feedback, favorites, questions and fun convos!! It felt like a cozy lil community...

Whereas my art blog here has more followers than that and still a LOT less interaction. The rb to likes ratio is always so. So many more likes. And the fanart of course always gets more attention than oc stuff, which like on DA ppl asked after them and drew fanart and aaa... it was so sweet...

So like. Shoutout to ppl that rb my art. It means a lot and ilu!! (+100 love if u leave nice tags. +1000 if u do it for my oc posts)

[i-want-my-iwtv]

My mom got me into The Vampire Chronicles a couple months back, and now I’m looking for the fandom. Why is the fandom so small? Why is there so little fanfiction? I often have to write fanfiction that I want to read. (Which is fine by me, it’s just I’m not that good at writing.)

Hey, welcome to our little corner of tumblrland! Share your fanfic with us, step out into the light, Anon! I’m often critical of my own writing, and I often have a beta reader, a dear friend who gives me constructive criticism and even rewrites lines if I ask her to do so, like an editor, a beta can offer a huge improvement on one’s writing. Maybe you’d like to find a beta reader? 

-PREAMBLE SORRY BUT I MUST- and no TL;DR for it-

Sometimes when ppl ask those questions, Why is the fandom so small and Where is the fanfic b/c I can’t find it, it’s argument bait, I’m sorry to say. 

But I’m taking it at face value that you are somewhat or totally unaware of our history, that your mom might not know, and that you are not putting out bait for argument. I’ll try to give you a synopsis in good faith, and hope that other ppl see this post as such. I’m not interested in taking sides, reopening those old wounds for the millionth time. I think of us as the bastard children of fandom, beaten in to a corner by a formerly abusive parent, and we are survivors of that. As such, I would hope that we could offer each other even more compassion than other fans in other fandoms. It doesn’t always work that way. Things can be misread and emotions misinterpreted; this is a text-based communication so we are cheated of facial and verbal cues, it is far too easy to misread intention.

What draws ppl to VC? From what I’ve learned over the years, a lot of us felt marginalized in one way or another and we related to something in VC, we drew strength from it as we were struggling with something in real life. It helped at a time that we needed it. It might still help us. Some ppl just like the purple prose! For real! 

Whatever the case, and however you choose to engage with canon or fandom, no one’s relationship to the books or characters supersedes anyone else’s. Not mine, not yours, Anon. We all have our own personal relationship with it. I hesitate to use the word “valid,” bc no one needs “validation” to love a book series or character(s). No one can be “invalidated” for loving a book series or character(s). 

I was in fandom before the internet, and even tho, as I’ll mention below, it was with only one other flesh-and-blood friend, we had our own 2-person fandom! We liked what we liked. We didn’t agree on everything, we still don’t, but it was always civil, and any argument was always based on curiosity and trying to gain a better understanding from each other. It was never about this public display we have now on tumblr and other social networking sites of idk, “My 10K notes means my opinion supercedes yours!”? I don’t subscribe… Unless those 10K notes are turning into dollars, then we’ll revisit it, lol. 

What even is the point of my blog? It’s for entertainment, my own experience, a collection of other ppl’s experience, and fanworks. When ppl say that I exert all this influence on an army of ppl, I am, in actuality, preaching to a big pile of cats, that’s how it feels. I serve catnip to cats. That’s the intention, anyway.They don’t even Like some of it, I’ll get like 5 notes on this post, lol. I have no need to be Right. I have no need to be anything other than a brief reprieve from how insane Real Life is and can be.

Fandom isn’t a contest. No one is keeping score. No one even knows your follower count unless you tell ppl (and I wouldn’t, bc even if you only have 10 more followers than smne else, it generally leads to envy). 

TL;DR for the below info: The fandom was small, but it’s growing now, and there is fanfic, try here on tumblr, and try Archiveofourown.org (AO3). Fandom, however, like Real Life, takes your own work to make what you can of it. 

FRICKIN’ WALL OF TEXT™ NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN

A) The fandom is was small bc:

^Gawds this is gonna be me on the outside eventually, it’s me on the inside sometimes lol.

It’s an old fandom, over 40 years old! IWTV, the first book in the series, was published in 1976.

Back then, fandom was just the ppl you could gather together, physical mailing lists, idk. It progressed to zines, probably, like other fandoms, but you had to know who was making them. I wasn’t born yet so I don’t know!

As the internet was born, ppl began to find each other on webrings, but even then, it was hard, bc Anne Rice did not approve of fanfic. So you had to know where to look or be lucky enough to stumble upon it.

By the early 90′s when I came into VC, there were some fic sites like Rotoli dela Lune (IIRC?) but AR waged a #war on fanfic, sending threatening cease & desist letters to writers, and that made everything EVEN HARDER to find. 

There were official VC graphic novels for a few of the first books and they are hilarious and cringey. Here’s Louis feeding on Daniel jeez… Looks like he wants a lick of the trachea first?

Of course, the IWTV movie in 1994 (in development hell for nearly 20 years) did bring in a wave of new fandom ppl, but they really only found whoever they physically met bc of the movie, and the VC books that were out at the time. Meeting in the audience at the movie? Or in bookstores in the Fantasy/Horror section under R, maybe? Probably?

[X] And TBH the movie got backlash bc it was reviewed as being too gay to some, and as not gay enough, but overall, it did well financially and is still considered smtg of a cult classic bc they drag it out and show it on TV leading up to Halloween or whenever Tom and Brad have new movies out ;D (one near-to-Halloween weekend I watched it 4 times, and that was too many, even for me).

Which was my situation, I had my one VC friend, we met in middle school bc I saw her reading QOTD on the bus, I pestered her that morning, and she had to tolerate almost 20 years of my fannish behavior ever since, all directed at her like a fire hydrant, and then she forced me to start a Tumblr and here we are.

*ahem* 

We had another small influx of fans with movie!QOTD in 2002, but as the story was barely tethered to canon, and for a number of other reasons, idk if it was the blockbuster ppl had hoped it would be. STILL, there are fandom ppl who find it nostalgic, or love it and embrace it even admitting its canon non-compliance. So I try not to trample it too hard, but trampling it hard was once encouraged! anyway… suffice it to say, someone(s) has to watch it with me and mock it to help me through it, lol.

In 2012, we got a graphic novel of Claudia’s POV during IWTV called Claudia’s Story. You can find it on Amazon.

B) The fanfic IS out there.

CURRENTLY, the fandom is experiencing a revival, we liiiiive!

with the recently published books and AR no longer fights the fanfic writers! Woo!

AR has a FB page and an official VC FB page, where she communicates with her People of the Page and whoever else comments on her posts.

There’s also a thriving community of ppl here on tumblr, who make fanart, write fic, do podcasts, write meta, cosplay, etc. Dig around in my archive and you’ll find them. We just did a @vcsecretgifts exchange and there’s fanfic in there.

Another great place to find fanfic is archiveofourown.org (AO3). You can set up an account and post your fanfic there, and I bet you’ll find readers who want what you have to offer!

There’s also fanfiction.net, and wattpad, but I don’t know those sites very well.

^^^All this taken into account, the thing is, anon, fandom is not an open door. 

Fandom is not a ballroom with everyone listing their url name down and committing to staying or even having civility, we can’t make a VC RP directory bc inevitably ppl aren’t invited for whatever reason, and feel left out, or they move on to another fandom anyway. It’s not everyone extending their dance-cards for you to sign your blog url for a dance with EVERYONE. We have had arguments and in-fighting, call-out posts, cliques… there are heated posts about certain characters or ships still getting reblogged with their 10K+ notes and an implication that if you “like” those certain characters or ships, that you’re contributing to real world harm. 

Fiction’s affect on reality is a debate that’s started before the internet and will go on as long as we are capable of communicating. Societies have waves of being more or less pure, like a pendulum. That’s not the focus of my blog. 

All debates aside, fandom is what you make it, it’s not guaranteed easy friendship. I once thought it was, but I learned the hard way that it’s very much like real life. You have to do the work of finding and reaching out to those ppl who you find a spark of connection with, and actively nurture that spark. On a public site, you have to extend yourself and show some opinions and thoughts, gush about what you love, reblog from ppl who you relate to, and gradually build your own network of friends. Nothing is handed to you. No one will crowd into your inbox bc your url sounds cool (well, maybe a few urls get attention bc of that!)(there is an exception to every rule).

So whenever I say “Welcome to our little corner of tumblrland!” I mean it, I do welcome all, and I hope that I’m going to see you flourish as you make your way into the space. Are you a new fanartist, or writer, or someone who’s supportive even if they don’t have the skills to create fanwork of their own? A combination? Show us, and reach out, and if we’re compatible, we’ll reach back.