#tagging the ship for those who blacklist it

[favvn]

Gonna be real honest and rude about it here, but if we're going to start tagging K/S fanworks that existed prior to November 18, 2024 with "Unification" then we're doing a great disservice to the very fans who created those works and we're bending what fandom means to align with offerings from a corporation.

The fans who still chose to draw or write about Kirk and Spock being together despite Generations and the TNG episode that separated them did so out of their own visions of K/S's future that rejected what was officially being offered to them. They took one look at the new canon and transformed it to something else, without waiting for Paramount or Roddenberry to offer that image of unification to them.

I understand the desire to draw connections, track parallels and repetitions, and use later story-lines to re-contextualize what came before (I do it a lot in my trekposting! I'm a big fan of doing those things!). But to do this to fanworks crosses a line and it is so disheartening to see. This entire fandom came about because fans of the show saw Kirk and Spock as having a relationship that went beyond their official roles on the ship and their duty to Starfleet, that went beyond just friendship, and they dared to name it love and depict it in any way they pleased, regardless of what the general public thought, regardless of public pressure and removal at cons, regardless of anti-obscenity laws (which would impact fanworks depending on the state or country and the local enforcement of those laws), regardless of fanclub leader campaigns to blacklist slash fanzine editors and their supporters.

To take their work and reconnect it to something they had already dared to envision long before it was offered through the official canon is to ignore what fandom is.

Links and quotes for further reading under the cut.

Kathy Resch on publishing T'hy'la:

Two local Trek fen were publishing a zine called The Other Side of Paradise, and one of their issues was X-rated (het). I asked their advice, called their printer for a quote, and then took the finished zine in to be printed. The print shop was a wonderfully funky little hole-in-the-wall place in Oakland. They had a “mascot” named Phred, a brindle-colored Great Dane who had the run of the place. Their primary business was to publish limited run books and study materials for the University of California at Berkeley. They were set up strictly for book publication—no business cards or wedding invitations. They had the specialized machinery necessary to do that sort of work. It was, I admit, a bit difficult to go in there for the first time. I was a bit…embarrassed. But the people who owned the print shop were as cool as they could be…. Back then, it took about two weeks for a printer to print a zine. An odd thing happened during the two weeks T’hy’la 1 was being printed. I got several phone calls and letters from people asking me if I knew what was being said about that Horrible Nasty Zine that was being published. (People think the internet is fast, but the telephoning abilities of fans in early fandom cannot be underestimated.) Person A, a Big Name Fan who ran a fan club for Unnamed Trek Actor, was pitching a fit about this Horrible Nasty Zine and was asking fan club members to basically swear a “loyalty oath” that under no circumstances would they ever have anything to do with said Horrible Nasty Zine or K/S at all. (Almost all my tribbers were members of said fan club.) I finally filled in the details of this mystery when I went to pick up the finished copies of T’hy’la 1. Person A was doing a club zine, and had gone to various Bay Area printers for quotes. When she got to my printer, he told her — with a great amount of glee — “We’re doing one of those right now!” He brought out the back cover for her perusal. Not the front cover, with its nice tame drawing of K&S side by side. No, the back cover, with K&S in a liplock. Person A nearly had an attack, and then began spluttering all sorts of threats and imprecations. I take it the end of Western civilization was involved. My printer, being the ex-flower-child and complete iconoclast that he was, got a huge amount of entertainment out of this. (He didn’t get her business. But he got all of mine in the future.) Person A was determined to root out this evil. All that happened was that my tribbers who were members of her club went ahead and swore her loyalty oath, then made sure I was using their correct pseudonyms. I never heard directly from her, and since I wasn’t a member of the fan club in question, she couldn’t expel me. My printer really enjoyed printing my zines. By the time I’d done my 3rd or 4th issue, he told me the women in the bindery always looked forward to my zines. They’d post prints of the artwork on the bindery walls to keep them entertained while they worked.

[blackwell-academys-airdrop]

12, 18 and 19 for the ask game

12. the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them: Oh there are several I could name. I'd probably go with Brooke, though. She's so petty! She's funny to me :3

18. it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on... I reblogged a post about this a little while ago, but Nathan with powers. Heck, everyone with powers! (That's sort of what my Greyspace AU is gonna be like :3 ) Also, I really think people should do more crossovers with Until Dawn. They're very similar games in a lot of little ways.

19. you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like... I think the Rachel/Frank dynamic is really interesting. Of course, it's a hideously unhealthy relationship, is illegal, has a serious power imbalance, and may very well have been coerced on Rachel's part. I'd like to see an AU where the sexy stuff gets extracted and instead, he's a big brother figure to her, or, heck, if Frank, Sera, and Rachel become kind of an offbeat little family of choice. (Also, I love David as a character, but I'm not ashamed of that.)

[mynameis-a]

i don't care if lynette "only said that to distract charlotte"

there is no platonic explanation for this

[reel-fear]

👁️👁️

You must tell 👀

*rubs my little hands together* sorry for taking a bit on answering this! My brain has not been braining lately but your ask couldn't have come at a better time bc Grant has been on the mind as of late and I am hyped at the excuse to infodump abt him- [this is gonna be long I am so sorry-]

now for quick disclaimers for anyone reading this that isnt the asker or me- we're not discussing canon Grant Cohen, we're talking my Grant, this black haired dude, that guy. Another fun disclaimer, I was HEAVILY, inspired by Grant's role/character in abomination for my Grant. Taking time to awknowledge every part of his character or story that was inspired by it would make this 10x longer so if similarities are spotted know its very likely I did that on purpose bc I just really love abomination KJHFSDGKJDHGSD-

Alright with that outta the way I'ma talk a lot abt what happens to Grant in the canon of Showtime to explain what I meant and also maybe a bit of me rambling about aus that explore Grants relationship with Sammy n Joey under a more romantic lens. Should be obvious but spoilers for It's Showtime down below~

So Grant in Showtime after he dies ends up joining the ink demon cult, becoming a lost one and earning the title of The Priest.

When the cult was all together him and Sammy worked together to run it. Sammy used his connection to the ink demon to recieve messages and learn more on how to survive in this new situation and Grant made sure the lost ones acted accordingly. [A role not so far off from the one he was forced to take when the studio started facing troubles before his death] Grant also took the job of dealing with sacrificing souls and sending them back to the dark puddles, which sometimes was members of the following chosen at random and sometimes whatever poor soul found themselves captured by them.

However when Malice rose from the puddles and made a deal with the Projectionist to seize a considerable amount of the studio as theirs, the cult was split up, Sammy and Jack forced to flee to the music department and Grant with the rest of the following being down in the area of Chapter 4. This put Grant in a very bad spot, the lost ones were very shaken by this event and since then Grant worries their faith in him has wavered.

An important thing with the ink demon cult was that it is meant to be a more realistic take on how a cult works. The Ink Demon runs the cult, he is the most powerful figure in it and yet the hardest to contact, so Grant and Sammy are little more than middlemen tasked with keeping things running or else they face the ink demon's wrath. Sammy is sadly very aware that the ink demon is not as benevolent as he or the lost ones would like the believe. Grant likes to think being the Priest will at the very least protect him if things go wrong, but he is sadly mistaken.

Grant is in a very dangerous spot, he knows the lost ones beneath him are getting angsty and worried about just how truthfully safe the cult is or if they should believe in the power of the ink demon. But he also knows if things fall apart the lost ones will come to tear him apart long before they go for the ink demon. Despite him merely being a puppet for their lord. A role Grant is not ready to acknowledge, not because he isn't smart enough to see he is just a pawn, but because he chooses not to think about it, less his paranoia eat him alive yet again... A very important thing to keep in mind with Grants character.

Grant did in fact play this role in life as well however, when things started going wrong in the studio, Joey was very quick to turn away from what was going on and continue asserting everything would be fine. Which while a lie he himself believed was a lie nonetheless. However Grant quickly became his right hand man as people like Thomas and Wally started noticing cracks forming all through out the studio. Staff going missing, the ink changing in the way it behaved and an eerie feeling the machine created in both of them.

Grant despite deep down being smart enough to know things were going poorly, parroted Joey's words, hanging off of them himself and doing whatever he could to shut down any attempts to bring to light the things going wrong. Of course, him and Joey both ended up paying the price for their lies, but so did everyone else around them. But unlike Sammy, Grant barely even seemed shaken to see that, like a conspiracy theorist seeing evidence their theory isn't true only makes them double down harder, Grant only seemed to double down on the idea that if he followed every order he was given. Surely things would turn out better this time.

So that's canon to the story of Showtime, but I do want to take a second to get some AU non canon ideas out of my brain centering around Grant and his relationship to both Joey n Sammy. In canon Grant's only romantic interest is Thomas, his literal husband and there is a lot of interesting conflict there, but I fucking love shipping so of course I have a million aus merely indulging in ships I think would also be interesting to explore in their own contexts. In this case, I'm gonna ramble a bit about Sammy x Grant and Grant x Joey and the interesting things I think there are to explore in their relationships in Showtime.

So you might've noticed that while not literally [as saying the ink demon is Joey in Showtime, while somewhat true, is not the entire truth of the situation and simplifies it quite a bit] Grant did end up following Joey to the grave... And then kept following him beyond it. Something that is objectively~ very queer of him.

There's just something so compelling about the idea of Grant yearning for Joey so much, being so close yet so far as his right hand man but not being brave enough to become his lover eventually drove Grant's love for Joey to become an outright obsession. The idea that Grant's feelings for Joey became so intense from how hard he pushed them down it blinded him from seeing the truth of the situation outside of the way Joey painted it. Then dying and his obsession turning into an outright worship of him.

The idea of Grant settling for just being Joey's favorite lackey, his most loyal pet and knowing that's his role but not caring bc at least it makes him stay by Joey's side. Ohh it's an interesting one to say the least. I even did a few sketches of them u can see-

They are doomed by the narrative to me and have been on my mind a lot lately can ya tell? KJDHSFGKJHDFSGKJHDFGSD

However when it comes to Sammy and Grant, I think there is a lot of interesting potential between them too. After all they share being the Ink Demon's henchmen in all of this and to see them both come to terms with that and try to find comfort in each other is such a fun idea to me.

An au where they both decide to ditch the cult and the ink demon and on their own try to figure out what happened to Joey and how to fix things is very compelling to me. I could see their relationship starting out as doing all these things for each other under the excuse they just need comfort until it starts to turn to actual feelings for each other. Both of them coming to terms with the fact Joey was not in fact a perfect person and maybe didn't even know how bad things were getting deep down himself but also finally letting themselves hold him accountable for the lies he told... It's a very fun healing narrative and very in line with a lot of the themes It's Showtime deals with.

Either way, I just really love what I've done with Grant's character in It's Showtime, he's for sure one of the most fascinating to me and the themes his story explores are ones that are important to the story as a whole and by extension me. Umm this turned out very long but I hope u enjoyed the read! Tysm for the excuse to infodump abt him, I was itching for one as u can see KDJHGKJDHFGKJDHFGSD.

[gigacat]

Lmao not sure if anyone cares but just to be clear, I only ship harringrove and hellcheer, so if I reblob something that seems otherwise please know that - No.

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

BLOG DIRECTORY AND ABOUT - Check Read More! 

this is a fanart blog! I’m not affiliated with Moulinsart or anything official, and I don’t make any money from this blog. It’s entirely for laughs, even when the posts aren’t funny. I try and keep the content on this blog safe for work, there will be swearing and mild injuries every now and then. Let me know if you want anything tagged.

pronouns are he/they. I’m British Chinese, and I’m an animator. I will always leave asks on for this blog, but I might not be able to reply to all of them! I will try my best to respond to as many as I can.

I know a lot of right wing weirdos use Tintin imagery to push their shitty politics so if you’re one of those people kindly fuck off! I’ve also seen people repost my art to other platforms, if you want to share my stuff outside Tumblr please ask first, wait for explicit permission and link back to my blog.

I also never post anything shipping Haddock and Tintin together romantically. I have the tag blacklisted too, I don’t mind interacting with people who ship this but I’m just not interested in interacting with the pairing as I find it super uncomfortable.

Instagram (@professorcalculusstanacc)

Animation

Comics

My Stories

French Translation of My Comics by ironiebd

Post-Canon Characters - Where Are They Now?

- Archibald Haddock

- Chang

- Tintin

- Martine Vandezande

- Zorrino

The ProfessorCalculusStanAccount Post-Canon Timeline (in chronological order):

- St Benezet’s Basement

Tintin and Chang go undercover in a Catholic boy’s college to investigate a series of student disappearances.

(X) (X) (X) (X) (X)

- The Golden Palm

Tintin goes undercover at a film festival disguised as Hollywood starlet Marlene Katz to fight off the mob.

(X) (X) 

- Call of the Songbird

On a backstage tour of the Museum of Art and History, Tintin steals an ancient Chinese whistle to return it to its place of origin after Chang laments how European museums are full of stolen artefacts.

(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)

- The Beast of Loch Broom

After falling out with Tintin, Captain Haddock decides to take Chang under his wing to go monster hunting at a loch he used to visit on childhood holidays.

(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)

- The Gypsum Maw

Tintin is sent by his editor to interview a caver who is stuck in an unregulated cave.

(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)

- White Boy Goes Dancing

tintin finally goes to the club with chang

(X) (X) (X)

- The House of Glass

Calculus is the judge of an international flower show where the plant used to make Rajaijah madness juice is on display.

(X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X) (X)

- Tintin Takes the Tube

During the London Blitz, Tintin, Chang and Haddock go to check on Chang’s uncle in Limehouse. Haddock uncovers a Nazi plot in some London Underground service tunnels.

(X)

- Unnamed Area 51 story

Chang and Tintin have a midlife crisis and decide to break into Area 51 after a bunch of alien sightings flood the tabloids, and get into trouble with the US government.

(X)

- The Goddamn Moustache Saga

Haddock really fucking hates Tintin’s new look. Bullying ensues

(X) (X)

[jetspikepub]

No one ever really talks about it in the fandom and it NEEDS to be discussed because it's hilarious to me. I have to ask where all the crazed spike x julia fans come from 😭 like say one thing negative about the ship or ship spike with someone else and there's this one person (who I think owns multiple spikexjulia accounts snd pretends to be different people😭😭) that starts sending their "CAnoN aNd facTuAL eviDencE" with so much hostility

I've also noticed that Julia fans either always hate Faye and/or don't give a damn about Spike's well-being and just want him paired up with Julia even if that costed him his life, which I don't even think Julia herself wanted for him to do in the end lol. It's a little disturbing

Oh trust me, this is a looong story. It's not like we don't see it, we just got tired of it. You're not alone, I give you a warm hug🫂

This user has been terrorising Bebop fandom across multiple platforms since 2022, I think. If you ever see this bitch harassing someone just flag the account or ban it. A collective appeal could do the trick, but it's gonna be like chopping off Hydra's heads. This pain in the ass keeps posting weird commissions on X (Twitter), Deviantart, Reddit, Pixiv (for Christ's sake, please DO NOT search Bebop tag on Pixiv, it's a total disaster in there right now) and edited Bebop wiki, describing Faye as Spike's no 1 enemy and Julia as a goddess of doves and roses 🤢 It's hard to track down every account, the only way to stay safe is to not interact with them and blacklist. "If I ignore it, maybe it will go away" tactics is the best in this situation, don't let them take away your time and emotions, they cannot be reasoned with.

Another thing that bothers me is that stupid localisation of guide books with SpikeJulia nonsence the translators added just because they wanted to and ruined the original idea that implies multiple ways of story perception. I've aready dispelled that "truest lover ever" myth by presenting the original texts from my collection of Japanese books. They fucked up with "love" kanji meaning in Eng and this changed a lot (I did some analysis here and here). Now we can see what happens when these love stories fall into the wrong hands: haters cite it like a Bible in each and every thread about SpikeFaye😩 Also there was a post about some Julia's love letter to Spike (wtf?) written on the back cover of the vol. 6.

I wanted to make a post about it and took pictures of a Japanese edition but forgot. Now it's the right time to dispel another myth.

According to quick translation results, this guide was made to inform fans about some Bebop episodes which weren't aired on regular TV and appeared later on WOWOW (premuim satellite broadcasting) because of censorship.

There was no mention of Julia writing letters to Spike in the original series. It was Spike who gave her a note describing rendezvous point or whatever and she tore it to pieces🤷🏼‍♀️

Just remember: Spike's well-being is up to the viewer. Noone can convince you otherwise if you don't want to and noone has right to insult you. Spike is for everyone 🌸

The situation is so annoying, those who loved SpikeJulia or didn't give a damn about them now hate this. If someone is going to use "SpikeJulia" as a safeword I will understand 🤣

[wingwaver]

A few tips for new Tumblr users wanting to write here

Yo if you're here from Reddit or Twitter or some other site and just wanted to give this a shot you may have seen some blogs that are dedicated to writing headcanons or short fics or even original works for their own OCs and you may be thinking "hey I wanna give that a shot! I like to write!" then I have some tips to make it easier on you and people who see your content.

1. First off, if you're writing a pretty long piece the you should probably put it under a read more, it'll look like this on mobile

and this on desktop

or you can write :readmore: on a line by itself and press enter.

2. Now if you're gonna write for a whole bunch of different fandoms and you wanna make a master list then I suggest making an actual list with the fandoms you write for and then making more lists with the actual content as a you go along because you can only have 100 links in one post (I know that sounds like a lot but as someone who has around 300 Transformers things written trust me you fill up a post quicker than you expect, especially if you take requests from other people). The way I typically do it is like this

The first pic is the MASTER master list that lists everything I write for and when they're underlined like that it means they're links. The second pic is after clicking the G1 link, it's a separate post that has the actual fics and headcanon links. Note the 6/100 in the tags, this is how I keep up with how many things I've added. You can of course just use the numbers options from here

or just number them manually from your keyboard like I'm doing with this post. Adding links has no barring on what else you add to the post so you can add yourself some fancy header or divider pics if you want.

3. Adding links! Links can look like this https://www.tumblr.com/wingwaver/721887224846778368/test-post-for-reasons?source=share or like this https://wingwaver.tumblr.com/post/721887224846778368/test-post-for-reasons depending on whether you're linking from mobile or desktop/browser Just highlight the text you wanna add a link to and a the little chain will move to the end, click it and paste your url you want to link to and press add link, then press post/save draft/save (whatever the blue button says)

Now you've successfully linked a post to another post!

4. Tagging! To get your fics and headcanons seen to build an audience you usually wanna tag the stuff correctly. If you're posting a fic about Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix Wright from Ace Attorney then you'll tag it with #Ace Attorney, #Miles Edgeworth, and #Phoenix Wright in the tags area. But it's also a good idea to mention if it's a ship or general fic in the tags too. If so then putting ship names and #Miles Edgeworth x Phoenix Wright and #Miles Edgeworth/Phoenix Wright in the tags will help everyone know this is a ship fic. Tagging with characters or fandoms that aren't apart of the fic just clogs the tags for people looking for content of said characters and fandoms so it's very looked down on here and will likely get some of your stuff reported for spam so only use the relevant tags. Also tagging for triggers can be tricky here because of how fucky tumblr is but please don't tag censor tags. Tagging things like #a**** or #a*use or even #abu$e doesn't work here because people who have #abuse blacklisted will be able to see this content because it wasn't tagged properly. Also if you're writing for OCs or reader inserts it's common courtesy to tag those appropriately too. Someone looking for a reader insert may not want to read an OC and vice versa. Also many people filter those out so try to add tags like #x reader, #*fandom name* x reader, and #*character name* x reader for easier filtering. Also people cruise those tags too so it'll help people who fo want to read that content find your stuff!

[ace-of-spaders]

*taps the mic and laughs nervously because of the major stage fright*

Lizzington shippers, fam, grandmas and grandpas, can I have a moment of your attention, please?

It's not a secret that, while some people in Lizzington community are still active, whether they write or make gifs or keep our dash full of Lizzington even in this trying times ( @melbob26-blog, thank you for this! ), Lizzington community as a whole went into hibernation over the last couple of years.

And I get it, interests change, especially when one show ends and there's another ongoing, moving on from the show that ended is totally natural, especially when it didn't give your favorite characters the happy ending they deserved.

I get it.

Hell, for a pretty lengthy while there I focused on other ships and shows, too, especially after TBL ended ended last year.

But you know what I realized earlier today, when I reread some of the old fics, browsed through gifsets and text posts, watched some fanvids?

It's the show that ended, for some in 2021, for others in 2023. And the only thing that means is that it cannot disappoint us anymore.

( it's not like we were suddenly deprived of quality content, because let's face it, the fans have been the main source of the quality lizzington content for years now, while the show gave us mere crumbs, on a good day )

But Red and Liz?

They are still out there, fighting criminals, catching Blacklisters, travelling the world, shamelessly flirting, toppling shadow organizations, raising Agnes and/or any other children they have, and generally being the sexy badass power couple they are!

Nothing changed in that regard.

So why would we mourn them, when they are out there, healthy and happy and in the middle of yet another adventure? I'm sure right this moment Red is drawing Liz into another one of his heists and she's only too happy to join him, even though she pretends that she's not, for the sake of the game.

There's literally no reason for us to stop writing, giffing, editing, sharing theories and headcanons and memes and just talking about our favorite couple.

And by writing all of this, I want to propose something daring to you:

Let's revive the Lizzington community!

Let's rewatch earlier seasons and gif the hell out of them because it's been a while and because precious moments between these two are not going to become less precious even if it's giffed 10 or 100 more times, not to mention that ever gifmaker's style is different, so there are virtually no two identical gifsets as there are no two identical snow flakes.

Let's make fanvideos, picspams, picture edits, fanart, moodboards! The amount of songs, quotes, moments etc that can inspire you is virtually endless!

Let's write fics, let's explore AUs, let's give each other prompts and challenge each other to try something new or practice some aspect of writing, like writing kisses or AUs or hugs or making up Blacklisters etc!

Let's share headcanons and theories and ideas and what our versions of Red and Liz are like, because everyone has their own unique versions of Red and Liz living in their head, and it's just beautiful, if you ask me!

Let's reblog stuff, filling each other's dashes with Lizzington!

Let's scream about Lizzington because no one does it like them!

Let's revive the Lizzington Community, we all miss it!

PS. Feel free to reblog this post – spread the suggestion!)

PPS. To assure you that I'm not the type of person who encourages others but doesn't do anything themselves, I can tell you I've already got some ideas for a couple of Lizzington events in mind. Those include challenges, thematic weeks etc.

PPPS. I'm not sure how many people are checking the tags these days, so I'm gonna tag some people I know under the cut, just in case, to spread the suggestion. If you weren't tagged, trust me, it's nothing personal!

@meetmeatthecoda @iwouldlovetoeatyourtoast @agxntkeen @factoseintolerant @tale-xistime @james-baeder @lettie1609 @withwhatiam @peace-love-on-planet-earth @missourired @felilaprivada @strawberry-pills @roominthecastle @codewordpumpkin @my-robot-heart @kitkate91060 @imyourplusone @shelly1952 @itsjustme-itsmylife @castle2cute @nancyjocom @cress-26 @lunaarlilacs @femaleoptimistic @scifi-gk @greeneyedsoul88 @figureofdismay @shippinglizzington @kissthefuture @thetwistedargent @actuallylorelaigilmore @sorrydearie @turningtimeinthetardis @buildinggsr @apicturewithasmile @windfalling @piketrickfeet

[gamebird]

The Murderbot Diaries Tumblr Community

There is a Murderbot Diaries Tumblr community now. As far as I've been able to tell, you join by having an admin add you to the invite list. I'm the admin. If you want to join, let me know and I'll add you.

I've sent invites to the authors of a couple pages of recent posts in the tag, and some of the authors of the posts that show up as 'Top' vs sorting the tag chronologically. Invites to date have been somewhat random - there's nothing personal if you haven't had one yet. Just let me know and you'll get one.

It does not allow me to add side blogs. I think once I invite a person, they get to choose which side blog they use to post/comment in the community. So you'll have to send me your main for me to send the invite, but after that you can interact using whichever side blog you want to use. (I think! I'm not an expert on this.) This also means if you post murderbot-tagged stuff from your side blog, I may well have tried to add you and been denied. A solid quarter of my attempts to invite people were rebuffed by the system.

Once the system allows co-admins, I intend to add some so this isn't a one-person show. I'll have more to say on this when I've figured out what a Tumblr community admin does other than issue invites. A lot of this is still in development by Tumblr, including the ability to have more than one admin.

Rules are as per Tumblr (obviously). I would ask that shipping/relationship/romantic-themed posts be tagged with the ship in question so people who blacklist those topics will have their blacklisting work.

[discowheelsau]

🛼 Disco Wheels: a WH AU! 🪩

ㅤㅤㅤa famous and beloved rollerskate rink from the 80s, brought alive by its colorful cast of puppets and live entretainment. a safe place for anyone and everyone, no matter who or what you were.

ㅤㅤㅤa story following Wally—nicknamed Roco—and his experiences working at a roller rink, until everything went wrong.

！﹘ Index

About the AU

The Cast

Boundaries

Tagging Guide

Important Links

1. ﹕ About the AU

ㅤㅤㅤit's the 80s, and all you can hear being talked about is the latest rollerskate that opened not so long ago. neon lights, disco music, a cast of colorful puppets and live entretainment bring the building to life all day and all night long. ㅤㅤㅤa place where everyone is free to be who they are, free to have fun however they want; sounds like a dream come true, doesn't it? come in! the doors are open for you, everyone is waiting. ㅤㅤㅤ ㅤㅤㅤwill you join the fun…? :o)

2. ﹕ The Cast

Roco :: Wally (he/it/roll)

the main mascot of the roller rink; he appeared the most in commercials and other promotional material, and could be seen present in the rink at all times either dancing, singing, or rolling around. - Actor: Renny

Blades :: Sally (she/he)

the "chill friend" of the group; she could be seen frequently in roller skating and roller skates ads, hanging out near the speakers, or rolling around the rink. - Actoress: [REDACTED]

Cherry :: Julie (she/he/cherry)

the most cheerful one out of the whole group, always ready to be the center of attention and the life of the party. she was always dancing and singing along the disco music of the rink. - Actoress: [REDACTED]

Beetle :: Frank (he/they)

possibly the most grounded out of the whole group - although certainly not any less fun! they could usually be seen skating around the rink helping those that needed it. - Actor: Mateo

Dee :: Eddie (he/dis)

a popular drag queen in town; like Julie, he's always ready to be the center of attention, frequently dancing alongside her during the later hours of the day. - Actor: Ken

Mr. H :: Howdy (he/him)

with a more "rich jock" attitude, he was the most admired by the rink's attendees out of the whole group. he was always ready to help anyone that needed it! - Actor: [REDACTED]

Pop' :: Poppy (she/her)

the mother figure of the group, she used to appear most frequently in health/ safety PSAs videos in the rink. she usually worked during child-friendly hours of the day. - Actor: [REDACTED]

B.B :: Barnaby (he/him)

the clown of the party - he was always up to making everyone present smile and laugh along. he had more party tricks up his sleeve than stars on his fur, or so he said. - Actor: [REDACTED]

3. ﹕ Boundaries

What is ok?

Fan art, edits, cosplays, fanfics, anything creative!

Character interactions of any kind!  In any medium!  I’d love to see them!

Memes or things alike!

Hurt/comfort!

Fanon AUs of the AU

Edits! All of this, as long as you tag/ credit me of course!

What is not ok?

Selling mass produced merchandise.

Sexual interactions, both explicit and not explicit.

Ignoring a character's sexuality for shipping purposes.

Redesigns, recolors, tracing, etc. without my permission.

Any type of com-proshipping content; this includes Wallycest.

Any kind of AI content. Please respect these boundaries, if not you will be blocked and blacklisted.

4. ﹕ Tagging Guide

#disco wheels au — general tag for the AU! #lore — general lore/ important posts. #ask — all answered asks made to the blog! #golden disco years — all posts related to the roller rink. #watcher mansion — all posts related to Watcher Wally's Mansion and other interactions with other AUs in it.

5. ﹕ Important Links

Spotify playlist

fanart folder!

... it's best to not live in the past, isn't it?

are you willing to hear the truth…?

[anistarrose]

So the thing is, if people ship characters who are explicitly not into romance (whether aromantic or otherwise), that ultimately doesn't affect me on a level beyond "annoyance" — I can blacklist tags, and blacklist or block people who don't tag it. What I have to ask myself every time I see these things, however, is this:

"Does this reflect how this person feels about romance-averse people in real life? Does this reflect how this person treats romance-averse people in real life?"

Because how someone engages with fiction doesn't have to be a reflection of how they treat real people, obviously — and in this case, I would of course hope that it isn't. But if you know anything about what being aromantic is like, in real life or on the Internet... you'll understand why I'm not optimistic.

Thinking two characters are so cute together that you reject a bunch of their characterization to make it happen is just annoying, not a crime! But the second you make the leap to telling a real human person things like:

"I don't care how much you say you're not interested, because you just won't realize that you and X would make such a cute couple,"

or:

"I don't care how much you say you're not interested, because you're clearly just in denial which the Right Person has to come along and fix,"

or:

"But — but — but not falling in love is just so tragic! I want you to be happy, not sad and lonely your whole life!"

like the rationales that apparently motivate so many people to ship? Then that has crossed the line into harming real people.

I don't actually think that shipping aromantic characters is the primary cause in the cause-effect diagram, when it comes to the correlating the shipping with "likelihood to say these terrible, invalidating, autonomy-undermining things to real people." Precisely, I don't think it's a cause to a meaningful degree when you compare with the opposite direction — I think people who say these things to real aromantics (or anyone else who just isn't interested!), because of what they think about these real people, are in turn more likely to think amatonormative things about fictional characters. I think that there exists a feedback loop to some extent, because fiction can influence people's beliefs to some degree, but it's not symmetric. Real-life amatonormativity causes mass amatonormativity in fandom spaces.

So... at this point, do you see why aromantic people in fandom get a little defensive about aro characters, and about other characters who overlap with aro experiences? You see why we get kind of pissy when people very selectively throw a very specific part of their characterization out the window? You see why we maybe don't want to associate with those people? Why it makes us so uncomfortable?

"Stop shipping romance-repulsed characters," in my opinion, is a understandable outcry from the community that I obviously sympathize with — but it nevertheless conceals the core of the issue, especially from non-aromantics who aren't living with amatonormativity shoved down their throats at all times, and therefore might not be able to read between the lines. At the core, this isn't actually a debate about the morality of shipping in fiction, despite overlap with that discourse on the surface.

The real cry for change isn't "stop shipping that character." It's "start accepting me for who I am, without trying to either undermine or mourn it at every opportunity." Because at the moment, the overlap between people who erase fictional aromanticism and real aromanticism is significant — and even where they don't overlap, you know what? Romance-averse folks just trying to live in peace can't fucking tell the difference.

[chaifootsteps]

Ok, so after scrolling through some reels on Insta, I'm pulling up with a friendly reminder to not be an asshole to normal fans of Hazbin and Helluva (the ones who are just drawing fanart and cosplaying (without racist implications)), if they aren't trying to start a fight with you.

Both of those shows have major writing flaws, but ultimately quality is not always tied to enjoyment and no matter how trash you think both the shows are, that's no excuse to comment on a video of a compilation of cosplayers taking a public transport "it was good until hazbin showed up".

It's one thing to call-out Viv's shortcomings as a writer and a person and another, if you trash on fans just having fun. You are just being an asshole for literally no reason and also giving a bad name to the critical side. Stop.

This. Block the tags, blacklist whatever words you need to blacklist, and leave the dwindling body of normal HH/HB fans alone. It solves absolutely nothing to be an unprovoked dick to people enjoying their fanart, their cosplays, and yes, their ships that you hate.

[damnfandomproblems]

5893

Lmao... We're not getting into this wank again, are we? Especially so soon after the total dumpster fire of minor-sent asks from the other problem?

["Just because there isn't sexual content in the show, doesn't mean the fandom needs to add it in there."]

Erk. Wrong. Fandom is the place for doing things that weren't in the original media. The most obvious example? Hey, those characters weren't gay or in a relationship in the show, but they could totally be a couple! They have so much in common! Let's make them gay in our art and fic.

If you can't grasp this most basic concept, you really have no authority to be dictating what is, or isn't, warranted in fandom. But let's keep going, shall we?

["I hate when I'm looking for fanfiction and I see minors being shipped with adults or even young characters doing the deed with other young characters."]

Where, pray tell, are you even looking for these fanfictions? On the tumblr app, which is 18+? In a general tumblr tag, which doesn't have a max age limit? On AO3, which also doesn't have a max age limit, and is more akin to a library which will, obviously, have all manners of content?

And you can hate whatever ships and dynamics you want, nobody's stopping you. I hate Starker with a passion. But you know what I do? I filter, and I use xkit, and I blacklist, and if that's not possible, I avoid the places it's likely to pop up. Because I accept the fact that I can change my behavior, but I can't stand at the beach in front of a massive tsunami, and hold up my hand and expect it to stop. Nobody else is at that beach except you. You're the one who didn't heed the age restrictions (or lack of) of the spaces and the general freedom of those spaces, and is now standing there, about to drown, and all the other fans are standing on higher ground tsking and shaking their heads, because it's just that stupid.

["I think fandoms for kid shows should be safe places."]

Safe space for who? For kids? There are entire fandoms for Lego, for ATLA, for MLP, and for dozens if not hundreds and thousands of other kid's properties that are populated largely by adults. Because guess what? Kids grow up. People are kids for like 1/6 of their lifespan. And you think ATLA fans will simply stop existing in fandom spaces once they hit 18 or 21? What an incredibly sad way to see things.

You want a safe space for kids, make your own space. Default fandom on the internet is inherently not a space geared towards kids! Not just because, well, it's on the internet, and we all know about rule 34 (if you don't, look it up), but because the existence of a fandom for any given property has zero obligation to only have kids in it. For the reason I just described above.

You're coming into spaces with a naive and uninformed idea of what that involves, then acting like everyone else is at fault.

Don't.

Posting as a response to a previous problem.

[kabukiaku]

I don't know if you're aware but the artist you reposted not too long ago, the ryuzato one (ryuzato-backup?) actively likes to draw and post ermm terzo/copia (amongst other things). You might not know, which is understandable. I doubt you're active in that part of the ghost community to know of the entire issue involving them, but I figured you'd appreciate being told about it at the very least.

my hot take: respectfully, I don’t care. I actually have blacklisted the tags that contain ships I’m not into, and I move on. I like their other work that doesn’t involve those ships.

I don’t need people telling me who to not follow. I used to actually listen and not consider what I would do.

I know who to follow or who to block if there’s actual issues I’ve had with a specific user. I’ve been in fandom spaces for so long now I just know my way around things. How to interact properly and respectfully.

I’ve already said this before, but I’ve learned that if you don’t get caught up in the things you don’t like in a fandom space, don’t engage in meaningless discourse, and focus on what makes YOU happy and find others who share that joy, you’re going to enjoy life online way better, trust me anon.

[just-antithings]

Okay genuine thing I want to say as a long-term follower (and fan, thank you!) of this blog: 

A lot of pro-shippers, I suspect young ones, appear to have bought into the anti lie that proship means "into [x] controversial ship/depiction." In fact, i know they have, because they are only tagging their posts with proship tags and no other ones, not even the related fandoms or characters or common standard cw's/tw's.

Guys...that's not what pro-ship means 😭 assuming someone's anti-censorship principles say something about what kind of depictions they create or engage with is absolutely part of the problem. You've also made it hard for people who don't like those things, but will defend your right to like them, to be your ally; with no tags or in-post warnings to filter/blacklist, the only fighter they have left to deal with you is the block button.

We're on the same side, and I'll defend your right to read & write & ship whatever you want, but PLEASE stop helping antis sell their "pro ship means problematic ship" nonsense. Like it's to the point where I feel like we're one step away from "proshitters please interact."

Very good points!