#still debating if the girl are still upper class here like they are in canon (i mean its obvious they are ok)

[fynnisshit]

Nina the killer: Rewrite

⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧

Update 1/?

For my Nina rewrite, I just wanna put some things down for debate on if I should include this. A lot of what I'll be saying here are personal headcanons and such of the type because from the original story, there isn't too much to go off of. I am also going to be referencing Seireitonin's (on tiktok and tumblr) headcanons for Nina because I agree with some.

For starters, I am going to write Nina as a Blasian person (Dad was Black, Mother is Chinese). I think in a lot of ways it can add depth to her character, and it also makes sense in a lot of ways to me. In Seireitonin's post about why she thinks Nina is black she mentions how in a lot of cases black people often have absent fathers (That is not coming from me, that was said by Seireitonin who *is* a black person) and it lines up with how Nina's father was never once mentioned in her original story. In my rewrite, I want to write that her father actually dies from an illness like cancer. I think that it could be more sympathizable when it comes to her insanity that her father passes away when she is still growing rather than is absent since she was a baby. Also, in regards to her being part Asian, I think it could add to why she was bullied. I'm aware that many Asian people have and are often times made fun of and picked on for their ethnicity, and that also goes for African American peoples (in no way am I excusing this behavior). The bullying part of the story isn't only going to be motivated by her race, and I do not wish for it to be.

As I'm sure many people and myself headcanon her as a scenekid, I'd like to include that. I assume she is a scenekid and has just moved to a suburban area with her mother and brother. Many suburban parts of towns are generally middle-upper class, white, and typical "normal" people. I would assume that if a Blasian scene teenager moves into their part of town, it would probably give them some "bad" impressions.

For the setting of the rewrite, I'd like to make it known that Nina has just moved from California to a small town in Michigan. I think the generic trope of a girl from a small town moves to a big city is very fun, but I think it'd be super rad if the trope was reversed. In the rewrite, I want to include that one of the only reasons that Nina moves to a small town in Michigan is because of her mom having a job relocation. There's a city in Michigan called Freeland that is really close to a river, which I think later on it'd be handy for Nina herself when it comes to discarding the bodies she had killed. Also, Freeland is very close to a city called Midland, which is the headquarters of a big chemical plant/company called Dow (This is true, I actually researched for this, lol). Dow has a location in Hayward, California, which I think would be a good place for Nina to move from, assuming that her mom works at Dow.

I researched and found out that Midland is actually pretty expensive to live in, so I thought that the smaller and more affordable town nearby, Freeland, would work just fine.

In the rewrite, Nina and her little brother, Chris, would go to school at a Catholic or Christian, K-12, school. I don't think that Freeland actually has any religious schools, but I'm not going to be *that* accurate. At the school, I imagine that they would have a uniform and dress code that Nina tried her hardest to push the limits of with out breaking them to get away with being able to express herself in the way that she likes. That's where her canon outfit would come into play. The classic black skirt, purple hoodie, and red striped stockings are seemingly tame outfits. At school, I imagine the dress code is not too strict. Simply, a black or navy skirt, stockings, or tights with no more than two colors and a school polo. I'm sure they allow sweaters or jackets when coming and going from school, so thats why Nina would be able to wear her purple hoodie.

⛧°。 ⋆༺♱༻⋆。 °⛧

fin

[startledstoat]

i’m literally just pointing out that people in the fandom have noticed that the apparent standard in their fanart is hourglass figure, 0% body fat, massive thigh gap lol. i am obviously not hating on those bodies (that is literally what i look like!!!), just wondering why none of their characters have any sort of meat on their bones, especially regulus who canonically looks to be at least mid-sized

with what you said about remus - i agree! my favourite fics are the ones that delve into his body image and eating disorder as a result of his lycanthropy. with regulus, i don’t like it as much, mainly because people (cough cough jegulus writers) use it as a way to be like “well yes he was a massive racist prejudiced death eater voldemort fanatic but he had an eating disorder :((((( so it isn’t his fault he needs jamie to come save his wittle self :((((“

anyways thank you for your nuanced response i do appreciate actually debating with people on here instead of people just going “SKINNYPHOBIC AND MEAN LMFAO” which is like. yes maybe i am mean but skinnyphobic?? 😭

Love that you responded nicely!

When I think of Reg with those HCs I think of the EDs going along with the trans Reg idea, stemming from his body dysphoria and also having to do with him being raised with the pressure of being an upper-class pureblood "girl" who was expected to be the picture of flawless beauty, which would've been a very toxic beauty standard for someone in that position during that time (flat stomach, thigh gap, hourglass waist, full hips and chest). This is definitely not a HC that works for everyone, expecially those who don't HC Regulus to have been abused in his childhood or don't HC him to be trans.

The addiction is a separate HC and I'm not saying your take on it is wrong but my thoughts on it are a bit different. It's more what I think would have come around the same time he started realizing that he was on the very wrong side of the war and wanted out but couldn't see a way that he realistically could get out bc Voldemort isn't a dude you just go up to like "yeah man listen we had a good run but now I'm realizing that this is so much more fucked up than I thought and now I don't wanna be part of it anymore". (I like to think that he didn't betray Voldemort just because of what happened to Kreacher, but more like his doubts and fears were building up for a while and Kreacher being tortured was just the last straw)This guilt and self loathing that would likely have ensued would have been a very slippery slope, especially when paired with the pressure of being the new heir following Sirius being disowned and their father dying as well as the trauma from his potentially abusive childhood, I think he could have turned to things like calming draughts and dreamless sleep to initially calm his nerves and moods, but then fell in too deep. And it's fine that you don't like that as much! As long as you're being respectful to the people that do, because it's not a HC that's harmful to any real life people.

His redemption arc, both the canon and the fanon parts, definitely don't just erase the fact that he was a death eater that likely tortured and killed people, but the fact that he tried to do the right thing in the end does count for something. Not to mention that he was literally a teenager that was raised in that environment and was taught nothing else until age 11 when he went to hogwarts. 11 years of one type of propoganda being taught to him, during his developmental years no less, doesn't just go away. Yeah he was 18, and as a 19 year old myself I can say that he was both old enough to have learned right from wrong as he went through school, but still young enough that it's perfectly normal for him to have been terrified of turning his back on the family he knew and outright defying a genuinely horrifying maniac that killed people for fun. 18 is still a child in so many ways even if it's also an adult in some other ways.

It's unrealistic to think that Sirius and Andromeda didn't struggle themselves with nature vs nurture when they first started being taught other things in hogwarts and started hanging around other people, even if we wanna say that they were morally perfect right from the beginning and didn't have any internalized prejudices to work through.

I got off track lmao but anyway

I've actually noticed that more artists now draw plus sized characters than there used to be, and maybe that's still not a lot, but it's not a change that's going to happen overnight. It's like the difference between white james in older fanarts and indian james in newer ones. HCs come and go, and I do really hope more people get on the plus sized characters idea because I think it's great, but even people who do share that idea are still going to have different ideas of which characters it fits based on their own HCs.

The most important thing is that characters who are plus sized in canon stay that way in fanon. Characters who were never given a specified body type in canon (or maybe were specified to be skinny but not given a real reason to be skinny) are fair game for however people want to think of them.

[jash-t]

When the cute and shy seamstress gets lost her way home but luckily her very woke country girl classmate that conveniently was installing signs around there and knows the village from memory helps her instead of heading back to work👌👌👌

Step one. Falling in love with this amazing cottagecore andershaw masterpiece by @noraine-norainbows (thanks for letting me use ur desings love!💙)

Step two. Already making a full cottagecore/late-1800 village AU with RH characters in my head so

Step three. draw the gays

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

Hi! It's an au twilight question.

What if Edward and Bella did the nasty in early New moon. Then the party happens and the Cullens leave. Bella discovers she's pregnant with Renesmee. What do you think what would happen?

A very interesting question, anon. One that will go very interesting places, I'm sure.

That said, as usual, because I'm a completionist, we have to go through the "why no canon?" routine. Bear with me, I simply must.

Why Didn't Edward and Bella Do the Nasty Pre-Breaking Dawn?

For all that Edward is, for all his... questionable morals and sexual fixations, he does have a moral code he strictly holds himself to.

Edward is adamantly against having sex with Bella in terror of the very real possibility that he will murder her in the act. He's very clear about this, he didn't think he could do it, at all, and only his sheer desperation that Bella never be turned, his desire to marry Bella, as well as Alice's thumbs up convinced him to do it.

If Bella was a reasonable person then she would have agreed as well. Sex with Edward, while she's human, is a bad idea. However, Bella never really seems to clue in on what vampires even are so I think the Man of Steel on Woman of Kleenex aspect is lost on her.

Had Alice not given the green light, I imagine Edward would have gone back to the drawing board and ended up either here or here. Bella turning is the worst possible outcome and Edward will risk almost anything, even Bella's death, to see it avoided.

But that doesn't mean it's an action he takes lightly.

He suggests pimping Bella out to Jake before he suggests sleeping with her himself. For Edward, this is a last resort.

More, Edward is a man of his time.

Edward was from an upper class family and, more to the point, still holds himself to the standards of the society he knew when human (much to Bella's amusement).

Edward wistfully talks about courting Bella, how he would have courted her had he been a true man in the time period he was familiar with, and why marriage to him is so very important.

That Edward doesn't seek out the approval of Charlie, Bella's father, is a hilarious aside to me. Edward's all about chivalry until all those old society standards get in his way.

What do you mean a gentleman doesn't sneak into a lady's apartments in the middle of the night to watch her slumber unawares?!

Regardless, marriage is extremely important to Edward, especially in the context of sex.

Edward will absolutely not have sex with a woman who is not first his wife. He also will not marry a girl that society defines as underage, he will wait until Bella's legal and probably until she finishes her primary schooling.

This means Edward was never likely to have sex with her before graduation and certainly not before her eighteenth birthday.

Which, at the earliest, puts her past the New Moon birthday bash.

Edward and Bella Do the Do Anyway

But let's pretend they do it anyway.

I'd say the most likely scenario is after the birthday disaster. This is it, Edward knows he is leaving Bella forever, if he is truly noble then he will never see her again.

Certainly, he will never interact with her nor hold her in his arms. To Edward, this is essentially his last true night on Earth.

So rather than pull a partial D.E.N.N.I.S. system, Edward pulls the full D.E.N.N.I.S. system, he initiates the "I" he was previously missing, "Inspire Hope". Or, in this case, get laid for the first and only time in his life.

He sneaks in through her window. They make beautiful, passionate, tepid love so Edward does not crush her in the act, and as she sleeps blissfully in the aftermath he sneaks back out the window to never be seen again.

(It takes Bella a week to admit that Edward just hit and run. The Cullens aren't coming back.)

However, because Edward didn't actually point blank tell her what was happening, rather than hit her New Moon stage of depression, Bella's instead in denial.

The Cullens are coming back. What, Carlisle has a new job? No, that can't be right, they're coming back. Alice would never leave her without a word. Edward would never leave her without a word.

Jessica pats Bella on the back consolingly and is secretly glad that it's not her. She might have been dumped by Edward Cullen, but at least he didn't humiliate her the way he did Bella Swan.

Leaving without a single word, yikes.

Two weeks go by then Bella gets the flu.

In a single day, she's unable to keep down anything. Huh, that's weird. Very quickly, Bella has her tampon epiphany. Bella is not a virgin, she had sex with Edward, she's late, and she appears to have a baby bump.

Bella is carrying Edward's child.

There is no question of aborting the child. This is Edward's child, the only piece she has left of him, even without Renesmee's gift it's ride or die. Bella is delivering this child even if it kills her.

However, she has some immediate issues.

First, she's visibly pregnant, it's been only two weeks. That's not supposed to happen. More, Charlie is bound to notice sooner rather than later, Bella would like to avoid that, the stigma of teen pregnancy, as well as the inhuman complications that are sure to come along.

Second, there's inhuman complications. Bella can't just go to an OBGYN, not even a town over. She's carrying something half human, a doctor will poke around and find that out, and then Bella's blowing the secret.

Bella knows vaguely of the Volturi at this point, but not the severity of the law, it's more that she promised Edward she would never tell a soul.

Plus, a human doctor wouldn't be able to help anyway.

That leaves vampires.

Bella tries to call/email the Cullens. However, thanks to Edward, all their numbers are disconnected and all their emails no longer exist. Her "Alice, help, I'm pregannant" messages are sent to a void.

(Alice, meanwhile, thinks she's finally successful in blocking visions of Bella. At least Edward will be off her back. Without the cliff diving and Jake, Alice does not assume Bella has died/committed suicide.)

A brief internet survey also yields Bella no results, but it does get her a lot of vampire porn. Thanks internet.

Bella... starts to get worried.

She's getting more and more pregnant in a matter of days, Charlie is starting to notice that she can't keep anything down, and the Cullens aren't taking her phone calls.

Then, Bella has it, she remembers that weird baroque painting Carlisle had of him and those Italian vampire dudes: the Volturi. Conveniently named after the city they live in, Volterra, Italy.

Bella debates her options.

Edward told her that these are the guys who make sure that humans who know the secret disappear. Well, Bella is a human who knows the secret, that's bad. Also bad is that they eat people, Bella is a person.

On the other hand, Edward implied these guys are civilized and friends of Carlisle. That's... good? Bella isn't sure she's on good terms with the Cullens, given the whole abrupt leaving thing, but maybe they don't have to know that.

Bella debates with herself, tries to look up the Denali, and only finds the National Park. She has no idea where these guys even live, or what they even look like besides "blonde hot vampire", and she's short on time. Plus, they are close with the Cullens, so the Cullens probably did tell them "Ew, Bella, No Gross, Do Not Want".

Because the Cullens all hate her now.

Bella has some money saved up, and this is probably a one way trip, and if she doesn't go then... well, it's not looking good. Bella musters up her courage, tells Charlie some outrageous fib to explain why she's disappearing off the face of the planet, and books a flight to Rome, then Pisa, then a bus ride to Volterra.

Bella subsists completely on blue gateorade, this doesn't go well, and she vomits blue in the parking lot.

Regardless, she makes it, huzzah she is in Volterra. It's sunny out and there are no vampires. Bella wanders around the city and looks for the most vampire building she can find.

Luckily, she happens to be right, and it's the very central castle. Well done, Bella.

Bella walks in and spots a vampire. She also spots a receptionist, Bella is very confused. Never the less, Bella says the magic words, "I'm a... friend of Carlisle Cullen?"

Even though Bella doesn't have Aro's name (or any of the other Volturi for that matter), Carlisle's name does the trick. Anyone who works for Aro knows that name.

Color Aro intrigued, he will meet this pregnant woman! (Caius, meanwhile, votes that they eat her immediately out of spite.)

Well, Aro touches her hand and lo and behold she's scarily gifted. And she knows Carlisle, what a great day to be Aro.

Aro explains that everything's totally fine with her knowing the secret, it just means they have to turn her eventually, after she gives birth of course.

Bella stares at him numbly and wonders why Edward made this such a big deal if it was that easy.

Aro insists Bella start from the beginning, as in the very beginning of her life. This is weird, but Bella complies.

An hour later they get to the interesting part: Bella meets Carlisle (and Edward Cullen, Aro guesses). Aro gets to hear the whole, sordid, ridiculous tale of Bella and Edward's romance including the part where he fucked her and ran off into the night.

Aro is stunned.

He first apologizes for the Cullens behavior, they should absolutely not have abandoned her, and not turning her was completely irresponsible (what the hell was Carlisle thinking?)

He then gives the bad news, he... has never heard of anything like this.

You see, normal vampires don't have sex with humans. It isn't done.

Also, there's this thing called Immortal Children (Edward tell you about that, no? Well, he probably thought it wasn't relevant). That thing your carrying might not be a child capable of growth but an insatiable monster.

Or it could be the alien from Aliens.

There's no way to tell, really.

BUT NO NEED TO WORRY, BELLA, THEY WILL FIGURE THIS OUT.

Aro promises Bella his protection and a period of observation for the child. Bella's not sure she likes that observation part, but this seems like a pretty sweet deal otherwise.

As for what to do, well, Aro has to call in the foremost vampire medical expert. Sorry, Bella, but there's only one man for the job.

Aro sends out Demetri to find Carlisle.

Demetri shows up on Carlisle's doorstep, "Carlisle, old friend, Aro has need of you. Your son knocked up a human girl."

Carlisle blinks, blinks again, then does a thousand yard stare. My God.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, Edward is already on Victoria's tail. Carlisle tries to call him, to no avail, Edward isn't taking his phone calls.

Alice and Jasper are already on their trip to hunt down Alice's past. Plus, given the Volturi, they'd be unlikely to come anyway. Carlisle sends them a message.

Carlisle, Esme, Rosalie, and Emmett travel to Volterra to clean up Edward's mess.

And sure enough, there's Bella, very pregnant with a child that is very much not human. Carlisle dies inside, Rosalie's on a warpath that Edward would abandon his pregnant girlfriend to the point where the only place she could turn was human drinking vampires.

Rosalie takes it upon herself to leave Edward the world's angriest voice messages until he returns her phone calls.

Aro's delighted to see Carlisle again. Even if he does have a wife now. Also, Aro claims finders keepers for Bella, Carlisle's not happy about this and less happy that Aro points out that if Edward cared so much he wouldn't be absent right now, would he?

They figure out the blood drinking thing, Carlisle desperately raids a hospital to prevent Bella from being fed the leftovers of the Volturi victims. This likely doesn't work out for him.

At the last possible moment, Edward finally picks up his phone. He learns that all he's tried to accomplish failed spectacularly. Bella is pregnant with his demon child, is literally drinking blood, and is in Vampire HQ with the leader insisting she will be turned immediately after the C-section.

Edward races to Volterra and strides into the room demanding Bella be aborted and remain human.

Aro stares.

Carlisle awkwardly explains that Bella's too far along, it's too late now even if they wanted to, more she adamantly doesn't want to abort and never did.

As for Bella being human... Bella pipes in that she's cool on becoming the vampire part. Aro's a great guy. She then races to embrace Edward, he's come back, after all this time. And he's going to be a father, isn't that wonderful?

Edward loses his mind.

And because this is Edward, I have no idea what he'll do, only it'll be utter madness. This is my best guess.

To be a little more serious, he probably tries to abort the child anyway, he mercy kills Bella and the child, or Renesmee manages to get through to him.

Given canon, it's likely the latter. Bella is convinced that her and Edward's relationship is perfect.

Aro has no idea what to think of any of this.

[colourful-void]

Hope’s Peak AU General Outfit Headcanons

It’s more au!!!!!! I was really tired while writing this and it probably shows. If I missed anyone lemme know! I think I missed someone from v3 but I'm not sure who. If people are interested in the dr3 characters beyond Ryouta, I can add on to this post. Lemme know!

As a general rule, any special events that require uniforms (graduation, entrance ceremony, etc) will have most students wearing uniforms. It’s important to note that while Hope’s Peak has a uniform (the same ones seen in the dr3 anime) there is no dress code. You can buy a uniform in the school store, but they aren’t at all mandatory, and so Hope’s Peak Students can wear Literally Whatever They Want. So you don’t have to wear the uniform for your agab, you can wear a halloween costume everyday, pj’s everyday, really the only rule is that if you would get arrested for wearing it on the street, you probably shouldn’t be wearing it here, and you need to be wearing something.  

(I’ll also mention free time a bunch in this post, which is just whenever the students aren’t in class. I’ll explain the daytime/nighttime and class time/ free time schedule in a later post)

Long post, so details on each character underneath the cut! =)

[Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc]

Makoto: wears his outfit from THH, but the pants are the uniform and the jacket is the uniform. during free time he’s just in hoodies in jackets. He gets cold easy.

Sayaka: wears the uniform, she thinks it’s cute. Has hair clips/hairbands to accessorize. wears cute and trendy clothes!

Leon: doesn’t wear the uniform. Wears whatever was closest lying on the floor. 

Chihiro: wears the uniform, but sometimes with her in game skirt instead of the uniform skirt. some of the other girls took her shopping for dresses and skirts and she loves all those outfits and wears them all the time! =)

Mondo: wears the uniform, but not the tie, and has his shirt unbuttoned in that delinquent way most of the time. Sometimes Taka will through a tie on him, though loosely tied. (Mondo doesn’t like things restraining his neck)

Kiyotaka: are you kidding he wears the uniform religiously. He’s never seen in anything else. Even after class hours, on weekends, over break, he’s wearing it. Some of the under (and upper) classmen wonder if he even owns other clothes. 

Hifumi: owns a uniform. Usually wears it, but sometimes he just comes in pyjama’s. 

Celeste: never. She’s not even wearing it in the pictures from THH, she’s probably never even touched a uniform. She’s committed to the aesthetic. dresses all the time.

Sakura: wears it everyday, but only during school hours. wears stretchy workout clothes normally. 

Mukuro: wears the uniform, though she’s modified it so the neck is looser, and there are lots of hidden pockets for weapons. She also made her skirt longer. she also has a bulletproof vest she wears both during and after classes. shes got leggings with hidden pockets. 

Junko: also wears a modified uniform, with extra pockets, and a shorter skirt. She also has her tie from THH, and her THH skirt. Keeps her Monokuma Hairclips.

Aoi: More likely to be wearing her gym uniform or other work out clothes with the hope’s peak logo on them than the actual uniform, but staff will take what they can get.

Hagakure: doesn’t wear it.

Touko: wears the uniform, but Syo doesn’t. Syo just wears whatever, so if she’s in control when getting dressed, she’ll probably just wear whatever she can find. She doesn’t care if its clean, ripped, etc.

Byakuya: The Great Byakuya Togami has better quality clothes than the hope’s peak uniform, but will wear it when requested by Makoto, or at any school events where he wants to look part of the class or something. (School fair, stuff like that)

Kyouko: wears the uniform. It makes her dad happy.

[Ultra Despair Girls]

Komaru: Doesn’t go to Hope’s Peak, but wears the uniform for her own school.

All the warriors do not wear uniforms. I don’t think that Hope’s Peak Elementary has a uniform. They wear their in game things. Except Jataro, who wears an allergy face mask instead of his in game mask. 

[Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair]

Hajime: Wears the Uniform, though usually not the jacket. He’ll keep it with him, but hang it on chairs or something. If he’s wearing the jacket either Izuru is in control, Hajime is cold, or he’s at a formal event.

Imposter: they’ll follow the outfit choices including uniform of whoever they’re impersonating, they are Dedicated. 

Teruteru: doesn’t wear the uniform. Is always wearing a chef’s outfit. He didn’t wear it in dr3, he won’t wear it here.

Koizumi: Wears the uniform during class hours, wears simple dresses and overalls during freetime.

Peko: wears her uniform most of the time, though does own and wear casual clothes. She’ll usually wear those around her own room though, and she has little dresses she’ll wear on outings or on dates

Ibuki: it’s debated if Ibuki even owns a Hope’s Peak uniform. She’ll wear whatever she feels like, which means you may see her in a full suit, a ballgown, a tracksuit, her gym uniform, or a uniform for a school thats she’s never been to, and you can never tell what it may be. She is pretty fond of neon colours though, so typically she’s wearing really bright colours and casual clothes. She also ties her hair up different constantly, with no rhyme or reason other than ‘she felt like it’. She looks like Haruhi in that one opening scene to The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya.

Hiyoko: shes still wearing kimonos and she still cant tie them

Mikan: she wears the uniform most of the time, and casual clothes when it’s not class time. Her uniform has been modified for her by Tsumugi, to make the skirt longer. Her casual clothes are nice skirts, leggings and long sleeved shirts.

Nekomaru: He wears the uniform most of the time, and track suits/ his in game clothes during free times.

Gundham: wears the uniform during school hours, and his in game clothes during free time. However, he always has his scarf and arm wrap.

Komaeda: wears the uniform, but has his little sweater vest thing. Basically what he looked like in 2.5. His hair has a touch more colour to it though, and there’s brown starting to come in at the roots by his 3rd year. During free time he wears his jacket from the game.

Chiaki: same clothes as dr3 during classes. Will wear anime graphic tees and hoodies when she’s not in class.

Fuyuhiko: Guess what it’s his vest from 2.5, I’m sorry it’s getting repetitive but canon did alright with outfits in some places and I’m not gonna fix whats not broken.

Sonia: Sonia loves the hope’s peak uniform. She wears it often, but she does have some casual dresses for when shes not in class. A note I will make, Sonia is way more practical about her hair in this au because I refuse to believe that someone like Sonia would have hair that long and not tie it up. She wears high ponytails and her braid crown from the game, and is happy to try different hair styles, such as braids or buns.

Souda: “wow souda, how come your mom lets you have two jumpsuits?” also teeshirts and basketball shorts.

Akane: wears the uniform, but also gym clothes on the regular. sometimes she wears oversized teeshirts, and general work out clothes.

(Im putting Ryota here because I’m lazy)

Ryota: wears the uniform during class, and oversized hoodies when class is over.

[New Danganronpa V3: Everyone’s New Semester of Killing]

Shuuichi: wears the uniform. He also has his hat. He wore it a lot in first year, and slowly grew to wear it less. Now he wears it sometimes, but not always! When he feels like it. 

Rantaro: wears the uniform, and his normal clothes when school hours are over. He’s got a laid back style of dress that matches his personality 

Kaede: she wears the uniform and she’s very happy about it! Her casual clothes look like a uniform, they’re very preppy. Sweater vests and pleated skirts.

Hoshi: wears the uniform but replaced the normal jacket with his leather one, and his in game clothes when he’s not in class.

Kirumi: she’s wearing the uniform the majority of the time, even when class is over, since it makes her more recognizable to the other students. She keeps the gloves though. Students are Messy.

Angie: Ok previously I said she didn’t wear the uniform, but then I started drawing her in the uniform and I changed my mind. She wears her raincoat instead of the jacket and ties off the end of her shirt to show her stomach, like Brittney Spears. She has no clue who Brittney is, she just tied it like that to show off her piercings. Keeps the uniform skirt, has art supplies tucked into every pocket she’s got.

Tenko: wears the boys uniform actually! All uniforms offer equal mobility and she likes that uniform better. The dress code is like non existent, so no one cares. When she’s not in class, she might wear skirts or pants, she doesn’t really care. So long as it offers good mobility for kicking degenerates. 

Korekiyo: wears the uniform and his in game outfit. Keeps the mask.

Miu: doesn’t wear the uniform, keeping her in game clothes. She also has some other clothes, almost all of which have swear words on them, or pants with things written on the seat of them. Good thing hope’s peak doesn’t have a dress code!

Gonta: gonta is a gentleman who wears the uniform with pride! 

Kokichi: now with Kokichi it depends. Most day’s he’ll wear casual clothes, like hoodies and jeans. On good days/ days he’s particularly excited, he’ll wear his Dice costume from his art. If he’s not having a good day, he’ll wear the uniform. So far the only people who have caught on to this pattern are Sonia and Shuuichi. No matter what he’s wearing his scarf. If he ever came to class without it, Shuuichi/Sonia would probably pull him out of class in a panic to ask what was wrong. Beyond that, he’s got a bunch of hair clips he’ll wear sometimes, as well as rings and bracelets. His favourite bracelet is a bunch of purple glass beads that make a satisfying noise when he shakes his hands.

Kaito: He replaced his uniform coat with his purple coat. He is always wearing that coat. He also has JAXA shirts and other space themed clothes

Kiibo: for a while he didn’t have a uniform because.. well he’s a robot he doesn’t need one. But after he told Kiyotaka he wanted one, Taka gave him one, and now he wears it a bunch! It makes him very happy. When he’s not in class though he usually doesn’t wear it since he doesn’t want it getting dirty.

Tsumugi: Tsumugi made a lot of alterations to her uniform to make it ‘cuter’. Sometimes she’ll just come to class in different uniforms for various anime characters. As someone who sometimes just wears cosplay on a normal day and who goes to cons, there is something fantastic about seeing someone in cosplay doing mundane things, and thats what Tsumugi looks like near constantly. she’d rather have other people wear them, but ‘if no one else will wear them, I will!’and it makes good advertising. Also cosplay is fun!

Maki: Joining the modified uniform gang, also with pockets for knives and things. Also has a longer skirt. She braids her hair sometimes, because I can verify from experience that hair like Maki’s would be super inconvenient and get in the way. 

Himiko: she’ll usually wear the uniform, but if she’s feeling lazy/tired/depressed, she might just come to class in pj’s. Same thing for free times.

I think that’s everyone! lemme know if I missed anything, or you’ve got thoughts/things u wanna share! Thanks for reading this all!

[saffiealbright]

well, looks like i accidentally deleted saf’s intro post, because i thought it was a muse photo post (lol @ me). so here it is, rewritten! i’ve added/edited some trivial things, too, so here we go!

(ellie bamber, she/her) - have you seen seraphina albright? saffie / saf is in her junior year. the computer science major is 22 years old & is an aquarius. people say she is ambitious, candid, petty, and headstrong. rumors say they’re a member of hastings society. i heard from the gossip blog that she hacked into her schoo’s grading system and changed her grades to prove she could get into yates without her family’s help. (tessa. 24. pst. she/her.)

name: seraphina ivy albright nicknames: saffie, saf, sera, ser, s age, birth date: 22; february 14, 1998 hometown: new york city major, university: computer science, yates university sexuality: pansexual 

past

“she debated our civics instructor so hard that he conceded so that he could go outside and take a smoke break.” “i watched her hack all of her ex’s social media during our cyber security class. didn’t look up from her laptop once.”

and that’s me, john booker rutledge.

no, it’s serphina ivy albright

seraphina is the daughter and only child of ethan and annabeth albright—a new york state senate field representative and a british transplant museum donor/philanthropist. (making it canon that saf has a few british english speaking tendencies—word choices, cadence, pronunciations, etc.)

does albright sound familiar? saffie is cousin to darby and leo (and the late james) albright through their fathers. ethan albright works for his brother, the state senator.

throughout her young life, both sides of the family were very tight knit. they’d take holidays together, have weekly dinners, attend events side-by-side.

all of this change after ethan and lucas got into an altercation. one moment they were standing in the hall, talking business and having a drink. the next they grew hushed and moved into a nearby home office. by the time ethan left his relationship with his brother was irrevocably broken.

no one knows exactly what happened in that room, but the parents will swear up and down that their side was in the right. this caused a deep split between both sides.

still, in order to maintain the image of a loving family and well-oiled machine, ethan continued to work for his brother. the only times everyone would really see each other, though, were briefly at events, during necessary business, and at james’ funeral.

you’d think the latter would’ve brought them together, but it didn’t!

saffie was slowly influenced not to like her cousins, her parents likening them to their parents in, well, not the nicest ways. to put it simply, they told saf that it’s probably best if she didn’t trust them.

being the young, trusting kid she was, she took their word for it. even if the whole ordeal revealed sides of her parents—of the entire family—that she began to strongly oppose.

teenage years / personality shift

suffice it to say, seraphine wasn’t a big fan of what she found made the albrights the albrights. for years she strove to impress her parents and meet their incredibly high standards: look perfect, speak correctly, present yourself with impeccable poise. learn three languages so that one day you can speak to a number of high-ranking business officials. pick up piano so you can “spontaneously” play at events and gatherings and impress your peers (oh, it happened! time and time again!).

a childhood nearly wasted, by saf’s standards. it wasn’t until she entered high school—about the time the debris settled from the family split settled—that she began to branch out and discover what she enjoyed. what she wanted to spend her time on.

her friend group expanded to those outside of her prestigious school, rapidly expanding her small world view and perspective on just about everything.

very quickly saf saw her path—and it wasn’t acting out like darby or grasping at the idea of perfection like leo. it was not giving a fuck. her family’s problems seemed abysmal compared to everything else happening in the world.

around this time she gained an interest in two things: the world and the computers it’s so obsessed with. thus her passions for current events/world news and computer science began.

quickly she became the black sheep within her household, a fact as amusing to her as it is frustrating for them.

look—all saf wanted to do was go about the city (and her life!) on her own terms. go see live music, attend her own peers’ parties and events, and god forbid have some time for friends.

an unspeakable offense in her parents’ perspective, especially because at this point her grades began to go down. it wasn’t that she wasn’t smart—she had the makings of any upper east side prodigy—she simply focused them elsewhere.

secret

that being said, by junior year it hit the girl that she’d need to step things up. attending yates, her father’s alma mater, was still the goal despite her own falling out with him. it was a damn good university and she had a deal to make. if she could get in on her own, she’d study there on her own terms. doing what she wants.

and you know what!? she did! after cheating her way through the system. lol.

it started with hacking one teacher’s grading system to change a few grades. then, slowly, it grew. midway through the year all of her teachers were lauding her turn-around. by senior year she was a “model student.”

cheers to the TAs for the assist! they did all of the actual assignment grading. saf bargained with them to not to say anything.

in the end she got her yates acceptance letter in the mail, packed her suitcases, and ended up in preaker.

present / personality / little facts

now she’s studying computer science and taking extra classes that capture her interests.

at the same school her estranged cousins attend. fun!

gave calloway, her father’s society, a big pass. went with hastings.

some quotes to capture her personality:

i hate it when people ask, “do you trust me?” like... don’t call me out... the answer is no.

if you have beef with me it’s one sided, because i literally don’t care

some tiktoks for more of a feel: one, two, three

so, yeah, she’s a bit apathetic and no-bullshit and that might be a bit polarizing to some!

but she genuinely doesn’t try to be mean to people. she’s just, uh, blunt. lol.

the type to write in sharpy in a bar bathroom stall, but it’ll say something like, “damn, you’re mad cute”

can’t drive for SHIT! always took taxis, public transport, and town cars in new york. probably learned how to drive a little... while in the UK... so, the opposite-sides-of-the-street thing disorients her

fact: she’s naturally a blonde and dies her hair red. every few weeks it looks like a blood bath in one of the hastings bathroom sinks/showers.

fact: when she’s about to do just about anything with a computer she does the violet baudelaire thing where she pulls her hair up into a messy ponytail

the rest i’m just!! figuring out as i go luv!! x

[divainity-a3]

topic: reggie  +  family   (   relationships & dynamic   ) spoiler tw: archie afterlife, reggie & me,  archie comics (2015) GENERAL TW:  ABUSE, ABUSE MENTION, MENTAL ILLNESS  !

abstract:  it’s no secret that reggie’s parents play an absent role,  both in reggie’s life & overall in most of the original, campy archie comics. we see lots of mr. & mrs. andrews, we never get enough of the coopers & the lodges, and we get glimpses of gladys & jellybean jones, but never really the mantles ——— why is that  ?   what do we even know about ricky and vicky mantle, his alleged parents, if anything at all  ? and what little do we get from the comics and wikipedia to give us clues ? in this essay i will be going through the things that i know and accept as canon for my reggie’s relationship with ricky and vicky mantle and why reggie having a brother according to wikipedia makes absolutely no sense  !

                          SECTION  I.   THE  MANTLE  FAMILY  TREE

i. the  mantles  are  an  upper -  middle class  family.  more upper than middle, given how reggie spends his allowance,  &  ranking - wise, i headcanon  the mantles to be the second richest family in riverdale right below the lodges.  since the dawning of the original archie comics in the 50s, we’ve known richard and victoria mantle as  ricky and vicky  mantle, the well-off parents of their son, reginald victor mantle.

ricky canonically owns riverdale’s most popular newspaper the riverdale gazette and while vicky’s profession isn’t specified, i assume she either works in the secretarial portion of the paper along with the mantles’ other enterprises. y’know, the way heteronormative rich couples do. while the paper’s popularity generates a significant amount of revenue for the mantles, it isn’t their main source of income— investments & other business deals are. using their hard earned (not) inheritance and what they’ve made from paper circulation and subscriptions, they turn it into more profit by investing it in the right places. fiscally, the family is very well-off and happy. in every other department ? debatable.

ii.  the mantles are more or less, absent parents. and always have been. for starters, as i said it earlier: we don’t ever see them in the damn comics. even in cw’sriverdale— ricky and vicky are nowhere to be found. even according to reggie’s  wikipedia, we don’t know all too much about his mother and father aside from their professions but the archie reboot comics offer a different perspective that i choose to adopt.

exhibit a.  reggie and me (2015)  / issue #2 context: reggie coming home distressed after having accidentally pushed archie into a pond. betty went off at him, he ran home crying to an empty house. his dog, vader, is narrating, recalling how reggie describes it as one of the worst days of his life.

exhibit b.  reggie and me (2015)  / issue #4 context: reggie attemptng to make an effort with his dad only to be rejected immediately.

exhibit c.  archie (2015)  / issue #6 context: reggie’s coming back home from a failed attempt at persuading hiram lodge to let him into his inner circle.

exhibit d.  afterlife with archie (2015)  /  issue #9 context:  in a dystopian take on archie comics, reggie is reflecting on his entire life existentially while confessing his sins to kevin keller, someone he’s come to trust.

conclusions drawn:

coming home to an empty house wasn’t and still isn’t uncommon for reggie. across the multiple comics i reference, the narrative seems to be the same. his parents consistently don’t show up for him. are constantly working, and more importantly  never home. and even when they are home, they pay no mind to their only son, seen in how reggie attempts to get his fathers attention after seeing archie and his dad play ball. i can also assume that reggie had to raise/take care of himself, given that there’s no maid to be seen in any of the scenes where the ricky and vicky aren’t there. while the mantles clearly make sure he doesn’t starve, they don’t exactly do… anything else. as we see when reggie comes home crying, no one’s there to hold him. no one’s there to tell him he’s okay and that he’s valid. so he has to tell himself. and as he gets older and more self-sufficient, his parents start giving even less of a fuck about him being on his own. furthermore, reggie also has to teach himself what is right and wrong as a result, having little to no guidance from the people who are supposed to fulfill that role. obviously, we know how that works out.

ricky and vicky missed out on a lot of reggie’s milestones. being out on business trips all the time leads me to believe that the mantles missed out on a lot of reggie’s overall life and more importantly accomplishments (even if he doesn’t have a lot of them). to name a few things, i headcanon the mantles to have missed his middle school graduation, his first football game, multiple recitals through the years, and the day reggie got deemed captain of the football team, something he actually considers one of his bigger achievements in life. i also headcanon that reggie had to teach himself how to drive, shave, ask a girl out and all the other cheesy, heteronormative stuff rich families instill. the mantles sure do come back to reap the benefits though, happy to use reggie for bragging rights.

reggie blamed himself a lot for his parents not being around and developed deep-seeded insecurities about it growing up.i think it’s reasonable to think that a child as young as he was used to believe that something was wrong with him with his parents never seeming to want to be around him. that shit hurt him and that is where reggie’s need to constantly be around people and have companionship comes from—— it’s an underlying desire to be wanted for once. but he’d never tell that to anyone.

reggie acting out started out as an attempt to get attention from his parents. the only time parents will really be forced to pay attention to their children is when they have to answer for them. so it’s reasonable, i think, to assume that a lot of his bad behavior started out at least as a way to get his parents to give him the time of day. i don’t think the same applies to reggie in the present day, but nonetheless, —————old habits die hard. more on that, later.

                                SECTION  II.   THE  MANTLE  LEGACY

i.  reggie is, and always will be, an only child. according to reggie’s wikipedia, he also allegedly has a younger brother named oliver mantle that made a brief appearance once in a single issue like 40 years ago. in my canon, i’m choosing to ignore this for two reasons: a.because it literally just doesn’t make any sense for reggie to have any siblings. ricky and vicky can barely take care of reggie, god forbid they abuse and neglect another child. the idea is nice and it would mean that reggie would have someone to confide in, but alas i don’t think the mantles would be so …  kind.

and b.  because there’s absolutely no significant information and/or canon attached to thisalleged oliver mantle and so i have to conclude that he was just thrown in at some point during the original archie run because the writers realized they didn’t develop reggie’s family background in any aspect.

ii.  however, reggie does have two cousins. the writers do this on multiple occasions to all the characters, throwing in relatives here and there and they actually did give reggie two cousins which i actually do accept in my canon. their names are regina(first cousin) and may (third removed cousin), both of which are from vicky’s side of the family. reggie doesn’t care for may all that much but regina is someone he actually can get along with as they share the same kind of humor.

other than that reggie’s the only mantle heir, putting immense pressure on him to marry rich and carry on the family name———— but that’s a different meta for another time.

  SECTION III.  PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL ABUSE   &   NEGLECT

ii.  reggie himself is a victim physical and emotional abuse, mainly from his father, in addition to overall parental neglect. now don’t get it twisted, i’m not saying ms. vicky had absolutely nothing to do with reggie’s childhood trauma, but ricky certainly had the more prominent role as an instigator and we get proof of that on several occasions. i headcanon that vicky never laid a finger on reggie and truly does love him deep down, but her passiveness & allowing the abuse to happen has made reggie view her just as antagonistically as he does ricky ( and for good reason ). she’s a bystander and nothing more, a spineless bitch that never intervened, only spoiled him in hopes it would make up for his emotional scars. she pretends she’s not as bad, reggie thinks and knows otherwise.

exhibit a: afterlife with archie (2015)  /  issue #9 context:  in a dystopian take on archie comics, reggie is reflecting on his entire life existentially while confessing his sins to kevin keller, someone he’s come to trust. the first page of the issue is titled  ARCHIE & REGGIE,  all about comparing the two and their different persona’s but more importantly, their different upbringings.

conclusions drawn:

while the sentiment of this side-by-side is aimed to highlight the fact that reggie is a spoiled kid that likes to act out, what stands out more so to me is what looks like intense pressure to perform from ricky.  while i did say earlier that reggie’s parents have a very absent role in his life, obviously there are public appearances to keep up. the mantles can’t come across as unsupportive an absent, they need to put on an image. while you’d think this is a good thing that would force the mantles to show up more, my concern here comes from the reason for the fight being over the fact that reggie’s team, not just reggie, not winning a baseball game. despite never being there to emotionally support reggie, to me it seems like ricky expects perfection. i believe the pressure might be more so for athletic performance than academic, given that reggie’s wikidoes specifically cite reggie’s natural-born athletic excellence. i think it’s also worth noting as well that since my reggie is asian and i firmly believe this pressure is present (i’m asian myself, the struggle is real). reggie has slowly cared less and less and we’ll get to that later but, you get it.

the panels also have drastically different interactions between parent and child, ricky’s looking borderline abusive and more importantly, public. one could argue that it only looks like ricky only has a tight pinch on reggie’s ear, but i also have concerns about the extent of ricky’s expectations and what lengths he’d go to make them known, especially when reggie didn’t fulfill them as a kid. this leads me to my next piece of evidence.

exhibit b:   archie (2015)  /  issue #30 context: ricky has recently bailed him out reggie out of jail, having been charged with vehicular manslaughter. despite ricky having pulled several strings to get him out, reggie’s still acting out and in getting ready for the riverdale spring dance, has taken it upon himself to go through his father’s wardrobe without asking to dress himself for the occasion.

conclusions drawn:

reggie has an unforgiving memory. rightfully so, as he’s been going through this vicious cycle for as long as he can remember, but take note his ability to citeextremely hurtful things that ricky has been guilty of saying about his own son and, in some cases, said to his own son’s face. he plays it off as a snarky comeback, but to me, that’s a cheap coping mechanism and speaks to a greater desensitization on reggie’s end towards constantly receiving such disappointing and demeaning remarks from his own father. he  expects it, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt to hear.

ricky has a horrible temper. i say this because his temper is shown to go from 0 to 100 extremely quick (literally read any of the new archie reboot, you’ll pick up on it) until reggie puts him in his place. i honestly headcanon that ricky hasundiagnosed bpd  (disclaimer: my mother has bpd) and that this extreme range of temperament is something reggie has had to develop a defense to and it’s taken years for him to do. it’d take a lot of convincing to try and tell me that this temper has never escalated into physical altercations. especially from a toxically masculine man like ricky ? no chance.  

the abuse is physical as well as emotional.  absent parenting aside, look at the way ricky’s holding onto reggie’s collar. that grip is like ice and furthermore it’s also the first thing ricky does in confronting his own son. immediate physical invasion of space isn’t promising in parental maneuvers and yeah, we might’ve laughed all the time at how archie’s parents would grab him by the ear and drag him home when he was in trouble in the classic comics, it was all in good fun back in the day but reggie didn’t get the same, comical treatment. in fact, far from it.

it’s happened before.  the way reggie cuts his father off right in the middle of his alleged apology, simply telling him to get out of his personal space? the fact thatreggie has to tell him to stop makes it seem like ricky is a creature of habit and that he defaults unhealthily to physical confrontation. and honestly who would be surprised ? reggie’s immediate, nearly nonchalant defense makes me think he’s done this many times before. whether or not ricky’s willingness to back off comes from him trying to improve himself as a father, his efforts don’t seem to be working.

reggie’s acting out has become a method of survival. this argument is bit of speculation on my end and comes from what makes sense to me, but in my eyes reggie’s acting out as an almost-adult is both an act of defiance and an act of survival. i headcanon that once reggie grew up and became more aware of his family’s ‘clout,’ he began to weaponize it. remember the  ‘mantle family image’  thing i talked about earlier? jackpot. while reggie might have had to put up with abuse silently growing up, he soon figured out that if his father was gonna do anything, he couldn’t leave a mark. otherwise, people would ask questions.  i mean, imagine if he went to the press with a sob story about all the times conglomerate boss ricky mantle hurt his own son�� what would his family do then ?  reggie doesn’t give a fuck about the family, and for that he has leverage. the mantles can’t have a scandal, that’s bad for business !  reggie holds that over his father’s head, knowing it’ll get him to back off the way he does in the last panels and ricky knows better than to test his son’s boldness. so reggie doing whatever he wants, knowing ricky can’t do jack shit to him ? that’shis power source. that’s what gets him out of bed every day. it’s where his hubris comes from, his arrogance. knowing he’s the shit because he is.  this is where he finds his ground, making sure he never gets hurt again, and if he does it’s only on his terms. no one elses.

tl; dr:   ricky and vicky mantle aren’t shit, there’s absolutely no way reggie has a brother, reggie raised himself for the most part since he was about 9 years old, reggie grew up and continues to grow up in an empty house,  a good portion of reggie’s insecurities come from his childhood when he blamed himself for his parents not being around, and reggie is a victim of emotional and physical abuse as well as neglect.

so have mercy on him. he isn’t inherently evil and while his actions aren’t always excusable, it’s worth remembering that no one was there to teach him otherwise.

[dawnfelagund]

So I just listened to your presentation about the Tolkien fandom - which is really good btw, very informative - and the point that transformational fanfiction is mostly female got me thinking (mainly bc in my experience fanfiction in general seems more female, I have knowingly read only three authors who identified as male). Do you think that's bc most fandoms have a distinct lack of fem characters, so fem writers have an incentive to write transformational fics that male writers don't?

Oh my, oh my this is such a good question that I fear I will not answer it as well as it deserves. But I’ll try!

(Here is the presentation mentioned in the ask, for anyone who wants context. Both video and text are available at the link.)

Why transformational fandom trends female is complicated and has been the subject of much discussion/debate since the advent of fanfic studies back in the early ‘90s. Early scholarship focused on women using fanfic to expand the original texts so that the better reflected the women/author’s own experiences, especially where emotions and relationships were concerned. From Jenkins’ Textual Poachers (1991):

Fans want not simply internal consistency but also what Ien Ang has described as “emotional realism.” Ang (1985) suggests that Dallas fans viewed the program not as “empirically” true to real-world experiences of upper-class Texans but rather as “emotionally” true to the viewers’ personal lives…. (107)

Female readers entered directly into the fictional world, focusing less on the extratextual process of its writing than on the relationships and events. … The female reader saw her own “tacit inferences” as a legitimate part of the story …. Moreover, male readers tended to maintain the narrative’s pre-existing focus on a central protagonist, while female readers expressed a greater eagerness to explore a broader ranger of social relationships …. (108-9, citing David Bleich [1986])

Camille Bacon-Smith, author of Enterprising Women (also 1991) writes:

Fanwriters, like soap opera fans, want to see characters change and evolve, have families, and rise to the challenge of internal and external crises in a nonlinear, dense tapestry of experience. Whether because of innate qualities or socialization, women perceive their lives in this way, and they like to see that structure reproduced in their literature. The writing experience becomes one of participation in the lives of the characters. (64)

Jenkins and Bacon-Smith really established fanfic studies as we know it, so I include these ideas to show how foundational they are and, I believe, underlie more recent resistant/reparative motives. Underlying this early assumption is that mainstream media and literature doesn’t represent the experiences of women, so we have to create it ourselves. Hence what we’d now call transformational fandom: the shifting of authority onto the fanwriter to rework a fictional universe according to her own experience of reality. I think this holds true in Tolkienfic fandom, although it is more complex than the theories above (rooted in media, not book, fandom) suggest, in that my research shows that Tolkienfic authors engage in much more negotiation with canon details and (most importantly) Tolkien’s authority. In other words, they care about how to create that “emotional realism” but within the confines of the canon, which many would take to include Tolkien’s views, unstated in the texts, on the canon and even his moral prerogatives.

My sense is that there is a definite connection between the early ideas of women creating fanworks to see their realities and experiences represented in the fictional universes they love and the present-day idea of fanfiction as a form of resistant reading. (Here, I am perfectly willing to have my hand smacked by people better versed in fan studies history if I’m mangling or missing key pieces of the relationship between these two schools of thought. Just speak up.) Because part of the experience of being a woman is opening a history book and not seeing the lives of women represented or going to a film where women usually make up a minority of the cast (and are often cast into stereotyped roles). Part of our experience as Tolkien fans is coming to terms with our love of a book (LotR) where, to borrow the wince-inducing stat cited by Una McCormick, there are more named horses than women. (The Silmarillion fares better in terms of named women but still isn’t great, as I have argued elsewhere, in providing those named women with roles and agency equal to that of the men.)

(Here I’m going to focus on the Tolkienfic fandom. I know your question was broader than that, but I study the Tolkienfic fandom, and as a fan, I’m monofandom myself, so I’m hesitant to speak about the norms and practices in other fandoms, nor am I as familiar with their scholarship. Others with insights about other present-day fandoms, please do add on.)

Una McCormick has a fabulous essay in Perilous and Fair that positions Tolkienfic as a form of what she calls “reparative reading”:

The complexity of such reading and writing practices and the ambivalence of the creative labor involved in making repairs upon such texts have driven some women readers to find a presence for themselves in The Lord of the Rings through writing fanfiction as a creative-critical response to Tolkien’s text. By weaving female characters into the familiar narrative, or else focusing upon marginalized characters such as nurses, servants, and non-combatants, these authors write themselves–or those like themselves–into the events of the War of the Ring. (310)

Una is a fanfic writer herself and a Tolkien scholar, and her work is unique in this sense, because she is intimately familiar with the Tolkienfic community as a participant and also because she has written one of the rare fanfic studies pieces focusing exclusively on our fandom. However–and I don’t think Una would disagree–reparative reading is just a part of Tolkienfic fandom, so I don’t think it fully explains the “transformational is female” trend. It is certainly part of it. My survey data shows a strong interest among Tolkienfic authors; 78% agree that “Writing fan fiction lets me explore the perspectives of female characters.” (80% of readers “like reading fan fiction about female characters.”)

What is interesting is that there is not a big difference in how women and men respond to the statement “Writing fan fiction allows me to explore the perspectives of femalecharacters.” 78% of women agreed; 73% of men agreed. Where there is a significant difference: 90% of nonbinary survey participants agreed with this survey item. (It’s worth noting that the sample of men was small. Less than 4% of survey participants identified as male.)

I also feel that I have to note that, historically, Tolkienfic fandom has had contingents hostile to including women characters in Tolkien-based fanfiction. Many who started in the fandom when I did (mid-2000s) will remember when “OFC = Mary Sue” (itself a term that I find sexist since the number of scrawny, nerdy dudes who become superheroes in comics attests that adding a dose of Awesome to a whopping pile of Ordinary is not inherently deserving of derision), and many people avoided writing women characters because they were a flame magnet. Key to this piece of history, too, is that, in my experience, the detractors and bullies of creators who wrote about women? Were, like the rest of the Tolkienfic fandom, a majority women. This was not guys trying to preserve a boys-only treehouse in the canon; this was women policing other women’s production of fanfiction, often using the canon itself as a tool to do so.

It’s also worth noting that changes in fandom perception of women characters has been due to the concerted effort of fans to draw attention to sexism in the canon and in the fandom and to celebrate fanworks that feature strong women characters. @vefanyar‘s concept of the textual ghost is the prime example in my mind, in that she not only drew attention to the problems in the canon–simply scrolling through her Textual Ghost Project is a visually provoking experience–but the potential for fanworks creators to address those problems in the reparative way that Una McCormick identifies. @vefanyar, among others, has paired this work with the canon with a concerted, years-long effort to encourage and celebrate fanworks about Tolkien’s women, creating a climate where, finally, it feels like writing about women comes with more rewards than risks.

So. To conclude. I think that the scholarship, my data, and my own experience as a Tolkienfic author/archive owner points to an answer to “Why is transformational fandom overwhelmingly female?” in the context of Tolkienfic fandom, as: It’s complicated. Yes, some of us are working to address the inequality both in the number and quality of female characters in the canon. But as my presentation states, this is just a partial picture because Tolkienfic fandom is not fully transformational, and women are attracted to this fandom for reasons that have nothing to do with establishing gender parity in the canon. I earlier held up the stats of 78% of authors (and 80% of readers) enjoying fanfiction about women to suggest that there is an interest in telling women’s stories in the fandom, but I’d also say that the one in five not interested (or not sure if they’re interested) in stories about women aren’t insignificant. This is still a sizable contingent of the fandom, a majority of whom are women. The desire to produce transformational fanworks runs deep in women fans and may hearken back to Jenkins’ and Bacon-Smith’s broader ideas about women’s experiences, may suggest a difference in how girls/women are socialized, may reflect barriers to entering more affirmationally oriented fan communities, or may come down to something else (like the social/community aspect of fandom) entirely.

[madeleine-says]

On artful tragedy

Attending the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design’s Graphic Design programme has been my dream for ages. Now that I’m in Providence, it seems that I’m at a loss for what to do with the BFA I’ll be receiving in two and a bit years. 

I applied to RISD thinking that art was my Life, my Everything. The reason I take each breath every morning, desperate to pick up the paintbrush, the palette, and the canvas (okay: turn my laptop on and click on the bouncing Photoshop icon) and get to Work. I would draw for hours on end, while watching TV, while listening to music. Hell, I could even tell the time based on the show that aired while I was drawing. If my nerdy friends had math and science to be engineers, I had Art to make me an Artist. 

Now that I’m in RISD, the world’s most prestigious art and design institution (tm), I have fallen out of love with Art. Art capital “A”. 

Being one of the best art students, if not the best, in my high school to just being one of the many talented artists in RISD was a severe blow to my self-esteem. However, this plight is not the reason why I had a falling out with my previous lover. I was lucky enough to be able to bounce back from this minor bump in the yellow brick road. Not a lot of people at RISD have been successful. Some of them even drop out of the school altogether, unable to handle the stress of critique (which sometimes borders unprofessional comments), a crazy workload (I had 30+ hours of homework on top of 30+ hours of class every week during my freshman year), and just the very isolating promise of dedicating your Life to your Work FOREVER. 

I’m clearly still in RISD. In the Graphic Design Programme to be exact. And I really love my department: the teachers, the classes, the work that I’m doing. And yet I still find myself unhappy with my situation. I know that I should not be, but I am. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about why I have found myself in such a predicament. RISD has the tendency to bombard us, the students, with questions of identity politics. I understand that it’s a response to the growing dissatisfaction students have with how faculty and staff treat works that exist beyond the European canon of art, as exemplified through this video regarding “The Room of Silence”. I have experienced this phenomenon, when I made work about Filipino culture. My classmates and teachers were just so scared about commenting on the concept of my work. I understand why they would be: I was the only student of Filipino heritage in my class. It’s so difficult to comment on cultural work outside of one’s own culture. The shortcomings of current American politics, in terms of inclusivity, only makes this situation all the more difficult. 

Due to events in my personal life that have forced me to question my sanity and position in society, I decided to stop making work about Filipino culture, about being Filipino. I don’t think that this is a break or my “evolution” as an Artist. Although my life has not been ideal, I don’t think that aestheticising my “problems” would solve any of them. Moreover, as an ethnic and racial minority in the United States, I play the role as my culture’s unofficial representative, whether I like it or not. When I make art about my culture, I am exploiting the long and drawn out history of Spanish, American, and Japanese colonialism. I am romanticising the ways Filipinos have suffered for a Western audience. I realised that I live in the United States. People from the Philippines will never get to experience my work, yet I am using their experiences. Am I exploiting them for my own artistic and academic benefit? After all, it is me who is making work for my portfolio to get a job from so-and-so company. 

Over the summer, while I was processing the aforementioned events, I read Miguel Syjuco’s “Ilustrado”. The book was a hodgepodge of narratives from different sources and was an enjoyable satire of bourgeois (or should I say “burgis”) Filipino society. More importantly, it brought up the question of who the artist makes art for. In a heated debate on the works of the fictitious author Crespin Salvador, two critics of Salvador question whether or not Salvador made works for or about Filipinos. After all, the majority of the writer’s works were about Filipinos yet written and published in English, the language of the upper classes that reinforces the view of coloniser as strong and native as weak. I looked at my own artistic practice: going to school in the world’s most prestigious art university in the United States, making work about Filipino culture, and then showing it to my American classmates. Why am I making work about the Philippines when I don’t have the opportunity to get critique from Filipinos? Why make work about Filipinos, a group of people immensely affected by American imperialism, and then hope to elicit the sympathy of the very Imperialists in question?! 

I guess my abstinence in regards to making cultural work stands as a pathetic protest to my burgeoning unhappiness with how cultural dialogue is treated here in RISD. I don’t want to make art that amplifies my voice on issues on the suffering of those less privileged than I. I don’t want to make art that reaffirms Filipinos as the victims of colonial history, to make tragedy porn. When I exploit the experiences of marginalised groups, am I better than the white girls I make fun of? Not really. In fact, I might as well start drinking Pumpkin Spice Lattes instead of mango juice.