#this is the kinda shit you can only find in gay fanfiction written by someone who doesn't speak English and also got hit by a bus | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

breitzbachbea · 3 years ago

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📒💖

Emi, I'm kissing you on the mouth right now, you're so sexy. In general but also for taking the bait.

Put “📓” or some other version of a book emoji into my inbox and I’ll explain the plot of a fanfiction that I haven’t written but daydream about.

The Constantinople AU

This AU is from 2017 and came about because I watched a TED-ED video about Constantinople's walls, relistened to the Aladdin soundtrack and because I had earlier talked with a friend about how I had not really seen people make a genie a woman. I came back years later to explain it to my friend Jonah and add new stuff and this year I showed it to @amber-isnt-a-precious-stone to add even more things. It's one of my favourite AUs for sure.

Dramatis Personae:

- Herakles Karpuzi (APH Greece) as Son of the Roman emperor and heir to the throne - Sadık Adnan (APH Turkey) as Soldier in the Ottoman army and Imposter Prince - Dilan Taş (Human OC) as Jinn and Sadık's unsuccessful wingwoman - Athanasios Karpuzi (Human OC) as the Roman emperor and serial skirtchaser - Salvatore Vento (Human OC) as Advisor to the emperor and Fuckface McBadDad - Michele Vento (APH Sicily) as Herakles' childhood friend

The Happenings™:

- It's set in Constantinople in an alternate Universe, close to ours. It’s the late High Middle Age/Early Late Middle Age (depending on how you want to periodize. I am working with how the German Middle Ages are divided, which is arguably a very bad method for classifying Byzantine. But this is my silly Hetalia AU, not my term paper). Around 1300, I’d say.

- Athansios Karpuzi is the current Roman Emperor, which makes Herakles the heir to the throne. Athanasios is desperately trying to wed his son off to any available suitors to form new alliances, but two things keep getting into the way: 1. Herakles is thoroughly uninterested in playing along with Athanasios’ plans. He’s not a chess piece on his father’s board if he's got anything to say about it. 2. Salvatore Vento is Athanasios’ closest consultant and protests any marriage for whatever reason he can find. For the sole reason that he has been eyeing the throne for himself the entire time and wants to marry his own son, Michele, to Herakles.

- Like in my Hetalia AU "Like Father Like Son", Salvatore and Athanasios trust each other as far as they can throw one another. There is no genuine trust here at all, no sympathy, really, they just stick together because they know the other is useful. Have some assorted banter as result of this:

Salvatore: "Immortal what a name! What a title to bear! Although immoral would have fit you much better." [Athanasios’ etymology is “immortal”]

S: "Maybe you wouldn't have to struggle to find a suitable bride for your son if you stopped dragging every young woman within and from outside Constantinople to bed." Athanasios: "He's into guys too, problem solved." S: "Oh, yeah, me dumbass thought you needed stop whoring around, how silly of me."

A: "If he is into anything at all. But if I have another child, they might keep this empire going." S: "No legitimation to the lineage's claim to power like a gay loner and a bastard child." A: "Ah yes, I hired the man whose wife ran away with his son so he could berate me about family life. How I value your opinion, Salvatore." S: "She didn't run away." A: "No, she just hides and sends you people until she can get her divorce. I'm very inclined to give it to her."

S: "They're childhood friends! They'd make a great couple!" A: "All I can hear is what a great emperor you'd make, ruling on my corpse."

- So. Herakles is staunchly resisting any marriage to anyone and minding his business one day, walking along the great walls of Constantinople. He stops to look out into the surrounding area and suddenly, hears a noise. Confused, he looks down and sees someone scaling the wall. Sadık looks up and sees the most beautiful man he has ever seen … spotting him trying to get into the city.

- Sadık is part of the Ottoman Turks, who’re conquering the area around Constantinople these days. He’s some nobody in the army and thought he’d give it a shot and get into the city by himself to earn some fame (and money).

- Herakles is seriously impressed Sadık managed to actually almost scale the famously impenetrable walls of the city. Not impressed enough to actually let him in. So these two banter a bit, Sadık now distracted by this hunk in front of his nose. Herakles correctly assesses that he’s a Turk and says of himself that he’s the emperor’s son. Sadık: “Hey, hot stuff, if that’s true and it’s so impressive, why don’t you let me in as a reward?” Herakles: “Yes, of course. And then I’ll open the gates for the rest of your people, so that you can just walk in and take the city. What impossible thing do you want to happen next, a kiss on the mouth?” Sadık: “What’s so impossible about that?”

- Either way, Herakles threatens to sick the guards on him, which leads to a “Oh no you wouldn’t” - Herakles grins and definitely would, so Sadık has to retreat. (#Don’tSickTheGuardsOnMyAssYou’reSoSexyAhaha).

- He goes back to camp, having gained nothing but a crush. He gets in real trouble for rummaging around the booty, where he finds an oil lamp and WOULDN’T YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. Dilan, a Jinn, pops out and Sadık uses his first wish to get out of trouble. Once that is done and the two have a moment of peace, he's thinking about what to do next and his mind circles back to Herakles.

- Dilan: "Ah yes, they always want something with love ... so who struck you and what's the problem?" Sadık: "Well ... I don't really know if it's true but he said he was the son of the emperor. He certainly looked the part! And I didn't really want to wait for him to call the guards to confirm it." Dilan: "Wait ... so you want to get with the son of the Roman emperor?" Sadık: "If that handsome little shit didn't lie to me, then yes." Dilan: "Isn't that a little out of your ballpark?" Sadık: "What, is it out of yours? Can't help me in that case, magic lady?" Dilan: "Psht, don't make me laugh! I can make the impossible happen, just tell me what you need." Sadık: "I dunno ... I guess getting inside the city?" Dilan: "That's it? That's all you need? That's less than a no-brainer -" Sadık: "Oh yeah, if it's so easy then, save that second wish for later. I got past one of the walls already once, I'll figure that out without your magic." Dilan: "Alright, alright ... and what about the wooing of your sweetheart?" Sadık: "That we'll see to once we're there ..."

- Dilan and Sadık chitchat while they make it to Constantinople. Dilan spends some time in the lamp, because walking is boring, but she does tell him that she's pretty sick of being in there. So that's where Sadık learns about her wishing to be free. Dilan in turn learns that Sadık doesn't have such a rosy life either (especially because now he can't return to the army, after he basically deserted).

- So they get to Constantinople and decide to actually factcheck if they got the right guy - and if yes, some general information about the emperor's son. Luckily enough, a friendly trader/tradesman tells them a bit about the city and the imperial family. Dilan: "So, did you by any chance ever see the emperor's son?" Trader: "Oh, well, that's an odd question, isn't it? But since you don't seem to be from here, I can understand the curiosity. Well, let me think ... You often see him only from afar ... during a triumph where he had accompanied his father during the campaign I got to see him up close. What a regal figure there at the head of the troops!" Sadık is too lost in the vision of his crush all decked out in military gear on a horse. And then taking all that gear off and being a regal figure while he fucks Sadık into the sheets … Dilan: "Yeah, yeah, yadda yadda, we need something more concrete. Height, hairstyle, haircolour, what does the dude look like?" The trader/tradesman is a little baffled but does provide a description that lines up with who Sadık saw. So with that information, they start to wonder how to woo a future emperor.

- Luckily, now that the trader/tradesman thinks they're here for imperial gossip, he actually mentions the fact that Emperor Athanasios hopes for his son to follow his footsteps and is currently looking for a suitable match, so that Herakles can be of political use even while he's still in charge. So Dilan and Sadık get an idea how to get into the city and Herakles heart. Or his pants. Milestones are still up for negotiation.

- After the grand entrance happened, where Herakles definitely took offense at either "Heard your prince was a sight lovely to see" or "Heard your prince was hot, where is he?" because either question was accompanied by Sadık's flirty looks, Athanasios actually lets Sadık and Dilan into the palace. There he and Salvatore discuss the entire thing, aka if whoever Sadık pretends to be is a good match.

- While they talk political stuff and snark, because of course Salvatore is against it, Sadık continues to feel very smug in his new princely identity and makes flirty eyes at Herakles. Herakles is just like "ugh" and much more happily plays with his cats. Which tbh sounds like they're 16 or something, but they're not that much younger than in canon (I think they'd be 22 and 24 here).

- Hijinks ensue. Herakles tells his dad that he’s a Turkish soldier that tried to sneak into the city and Athanasios doesn’t believe him, thinking Herakles is now lying badly to not get married. Dilan and Sadık are developing a friendship that is best described as hoes being bros.

- Dilan: "Look, you like cats. Cats are furry. Hairy, if you will. You know who else is hairy? Sadık. He's juuust as hairy as a cat - shhhht, I'm wingmanning for you and it's working great, you can thank me later."

- At first, Dilan mostly employs her magic for some silly little things with Sadık to woo Herakles. It doesn't work very well. Herakles: "I know it's magic, that's not impressing me - Okay, it is kinda cool, but you're still a dick." Dilan: "But a dick with a cool sidekick, come ON! What else do you want me to do to make the nerd viable?!" Sadık: "You call that wingmanning?!"

- Once Dilan realizes dickbags Athanasios and Salvatore are, she also uses little magic tricks to continously make their lives worse. Ironically, this may be what finally endears her and Sadık to Herakles. (If you haven't noticed, he doesn't like his father very much and Athanasios doesn't care for him aside from being a political pawn).

- At one point, Michele shows up at court! Herakles is overjoyed to see his childhood friend, which he hadn’t seen in years! Sadık is absolutely not, because it looks like just when he and Herakles almost had something, this twat shows up and steals the show!

- Dilan: "Well, I can't make him not love this dude, but I could beat the dude up." Sadık: " ... keep that in mind."

- However, when Dilan goes to investigate what Michele is doing here (and wingwomanning again), this ensues: Dilan: "Hey brah, what's up, why so blue looking? Is it because your boo just told you you ain't his number one anymore?" Michele: "I, eh ... no ... May I ask who you are?" Dilan: "Just one of the servants of the insanely charming and powerful - and hairy - Prince who's here to marry the Prince. Yep, he's sooo gonna marry that guy." Dilan: "There was a whole musical number about it, you should have seen it, I was on top of my game." Michele: "Sure heard about it, you stirred up trouble here. Hope it helps ... I'm not saying that Herakles should marry someone his dad set in front of him, but it'd be nice if he found someone at last. He told me he was very lonely the last years ... I don't want to leave him behind just as lonely again." Dilan: "Yeah, it'd be - Leave him behind?"

- Dilan: "Good news! His loverboy is not here to stay! He wants to go to the west, he's just here because of his terrible dad!" Sadık: "Oh, that's good! Wait ... isn't his father that asshole of an advisor?" Dilan: "Yeah. Why." Sadık: "The guy who wanted to marry his son to Herakles since apparently forever?" Dilan: "Yeah, but his son is not going to marry him." Sadık: "I smell a trap 10 miles against the wind."

- There is no trap however. Herakles realizes that the crush on Michele is nothing but a childhood crush and has to be left in the past … and that he wants to move forward with Sadık. When he wants a conversation one-on-one, Dilan wants to make it a one-on-two, but Herakles asks her if she doesn’t want to keep Michele company in the gardens, it’s not gonna take long, an hour or two at most. Then she can also fetch Michele when they’re done, so that Herakles can say goodbye before he leaves for Sicily.

- Dilan thinks about it, finds it’s not a trap (and if it was, nothing she and her fists couldn’t solve) and goes in the garden. There she talks with Michele and makes the mistake to either show off her magic powers, tell Michele of TurGre’s meetugly (#Don’tSickTheGuardsOnMyAssYou’reSoSexyAhaha) or to be like: “Hey, do you wanna know a cool secret? Sadık isn’t a Prince, all of this is my doing. Pretty cool, eh?”

- Unfortunately, they’re not alone. Salvatore was searching for Michele in the gardens, to get his “fucking rotten brat of a son” to play along after all instead of disappearing once again. So he overhears this. Salvatore: "Oh, so Prince Sadık is not a Prince? That's a funny joke indeed and I'll laugh my ass off the hardest in the end."

- So just when Herakles and Sadık had time to talk about their feelings and confess and, also, you know, make out and fumble for good measure, they get interrupted. Literally when Herakles was finally stripped down to his tunic and Sadık slid his hand underneath it.

- Athanasios: "This is gonna be the last wall you breached, you little rat." Herakles: "Dad! Stop it!" Athanasios: "This man nearly ruined our dynasty. Arrest him." Salvatore: "Arrest the man indeed. Go and get the ex-emperor." Athanasios: "Ex-Prince. It's not the right time for your snark." Salvatore: "I'm not talking about that small fish. Guards - arrest this careless idiot who nearly ruined our city by letting a scammer into its walls! Clearly the emperor's been in on this and can't be trusted!" Athanasios: "You've lost your mind." Salvatore: "You've lost yours and it's actually the thing you'll miss the least when syphilis is going to eat away the last of your rotten brain in the dungeons. So get him! And that ottoman faker, too, just get the trash out of here."

- The scene ends rather dramatically, because I love the thought of Michele and Dilan rushing to their help, but they get held back. Dilan maybe gets restrained by some anti-magic stuff. And Dilan begs Sadık to use his last wish to help him. To solve this problem. But Sadık refuses, because he promised to use it to set her free. So Dilan is just livid and upset, distraught, yelling at him to let her do something while he gets taken to the dungeons.

- So now Salvatore’s in charge and setting his plans into motion. PR is of course the first thing that needs to be done, so there’s a speech to Constantinople’s masses: "But, as you know, I respect and regard the royal family, the entire dynasty, more than any of you! So I am not going to assume power, it'd be a crime against God himself who granted us this emperor, if I had removed him for anything but his unstable condition and his tragic mistake of almost letting his lineage being tainted! Not to mention that this would have been the end of our beloved empire, our city, suddenly overrun and ruled by those barbarians! No, of course I'll give my power to the true heir who was merely a victim to his father's incompetence. To prove I really mean it, I'm even going to give up my son to the Prince, to forever bind my loyality to the throne!"

- Michele: "I hold no more respect for you as father as I did when we left. I'm not going to play along your perverted plan." Salvatore: "Well Michele, if you don't respect me as father, then maybe you'll respect me as the Roman Emperor!"

- Meanwhile, in the dungeons, Athanasios and Sadık have some great chitchat. Sadık: "Guess that's some quality father and son in law bonding time, eh?” S:“Though I'm pretty sure your son would rather call me daddy than you." A: "Once this entire drama is over, I'll have you decapitated. Or just kick you back to your people and let them handle this." S: "Ah, but when I came here as a fake prince, your arms and gates were wide open. Should've listened to your son when he told you so."

- Here’s also some Salvatore content: Athanasios: "And now you strut around in my clothes. I'm surprised they even fit you fatass!" Salvatore: "Oh, the entire imprisonment is really getting to you, ain't it, emperor tightlips? Ah, I meant - ex-emperor tight lips. Now you've sunk low enough to insult me with such details. Is it because you have nothing else left now that you're off your high horse?" Salvatore: "I thought so. At least you're enough of a sound mind to not threaten me with 'once I get out of here' hot air. Because we both know you're not getting out of here in a lifetime anymore. And yes, I’m wearing your rags, since I’ve got no time to waste.” Salvatore to Sadık: "Actually, it's sad that you aren't going to be there to watch it. Although, I think a public execution would just spice the entire wedding festivities up, if I think about it."

- Ah yes. The wedding. Herakles: "You look great today, my love. Like a polished jewel." Michele: "Thanks. I'd never seen a man more handsome than you though. Truly, a prince with all his qualities seen right away." Both: -sigh- Ft. Dilan, who’s just watching the kids sadly and is trying to reassure them she got this, she’s gonna find a way, it’ll be fine!!!

- Herakles and Michele wonder why Sadık didn't use that wish. To which Dilan replies he said he'd free her with it, but she didn't believe he'd actually uphold that promise. And he shouldn't have because now she's useless and he's in trouble. (And Hera only falls more in love with Sadık, because being a good person is HELLA swoony.)

- Dilan also tries to cheer them up and I believe she can still do small magic tricks, she just can't get out of whatever shackles/confinement she is in. So when she isn't despairing or raging, she tries to cheer Herakles and Michele up with some silly little tricks. She shapeshifts into their fathers to make fun of them. Which leads them to an idea ...

- I have no idea what it is though. I only know that the grand final and resolution involves shapeshifting. If anyone who's better at plots wants to give me ideas, please do.

- However they manage to stop Salvatore's machinations, this is what follows: Salvatore gets thrown into the dungeons. Herakles decides to not let his father out and instead take the crown himself. He becomes emperor and marries Sadık. Sadık uses his last wish to set Dilan free. Michele goes to travel to Sicily, promising he’ll write letters to them and come visit some day (Dilan promises the same).

- The end of Salvatore and Athanasios rotting in jail together is SO satisfying to me, bc now that they are useless to each other, there is nothing left to do but be a pain in each other’s ass. They hate each other and they DESERVE EACH OTHER.

Sequel Bait:

- Before we get to the sequel bait, let me give you some prequel bait for a change. Here's a little "what if one of the many suitable matches for Herakles had been one of the Beilschmidt brothers" scenario. Plus free medieval history lesson:

- Now for the actual sequel: Three years come and go. Herakles and Sadık settle in their new rules as emperor and ... emperor's husband. (I don't know if Byzantine empresses were "put into office" in the same way the Emperor was. If someone is more knowledgeable about this than me, correct me).

- Their marriage is going swell, however both struggle in their new official roles. Herakles faces all the administrative problems and tough decisionmaking that comes with being a ruler, while Sadık struggles to be accepted by the people of Constantinople. Where Herakles tends to take care of the court, Sadık tries his hand at being a military leader.

- One morning, Sadık wakes up with Herakles in the room. Which should not be surprising, if it wasn't for the fact that Herakles had left the city yesterday. He's oddly nonchalant about it when Sadık asks him and also ... weirdly chipper? Eager? Kitschy in his flirting? He's at first flattered, but soon very confused by everything and wonders if either he hit his head real hard in his sleep or if Herakles fell off his horse when he tried to make it out of the city.

- Turns out none of it, because after some more eyelash fluttering, his "husband" goes POOF! and turns out to be Dilan, who's on the floor laughing. "You should have seen your stupid face! Really! Wait, I'll show you!"

- After Dilan is done shapeshifting into Sadık, absolutely overacting his reaction and argueing with him about it, they finally get to catch up. Turns out that Dilan was bored by travelling around the world and wanted to check in on her old buddy.

- She couldn't have chosen a more opportune time to do so. Once Herakles returns, he ... at first has a weird reunion with his husband. Sadık is kind of wary around him and starts to list his attitude and general personality traits/ticks as proof for ... something. Takes a while for Herakles to get the news that Dilan is back, too.

- Herakles is very relieved to hear that! He wanted to confide something in Sadık, because after he had returned to the city, someone had taken him aside. Natasa Simonides, an old and trusted courtly advisor, needed help. Recently, her husband Ibrahim disappeared and she's worried.

- Natasa also told Herakles a secret: Ibrahim is a Jinn, which is why his disappearance worries her even more. Herakles informs Sadık and asks Dilan if she knows anything, but she sadly hasn't heard anything either. - Before she can zip off and see if she can find Ibrahim, Herakles asks another favour of her - to educate Natasa's twins, Timothea Farah and Omar Veniam instead. Natasa thinks they may be able to find their father, but they don't know they're half-Jinn, so they'd need some guidance. Dilan happily agrees to be their teacher!

- My only more in-depth infos on Jinn and their children with humans comes from this Monstrum video by PBS Storied. I don't think Thea & Omar would need to be taught by anyone to be seers and how to be in communication with non-human spheres, but it makes for a better story.

- So Dilan is off to teach the kids while Sadık volunteers to go and search for Ibrahim. Herakles resumes his imperial role in the city.

- It's not really fun and as the people become more and more agitated with the status quo, more and more people "remember" that the old emperor is still around. Enough people are going "What's that kid knowing anyways?! All those highfangled ideas and useless reforms, for what?" that a select few decide to stage a coup by releasing Athanasios from the dungeons.

- Now, I still haven't decided if Salvatore also gets let out. The problem is that I really would begrudge him his freedom ... but I also begrudge Athanasios his freedom! It doesn't feel fair that one bastard gets to walk free and the other doesn't!

- Out in the field, Sadık isn't having much more luck. No Jinn in sight and the trouble he has with a few of the men that accompany him keeps him thinking about the acceptance problems again. He really wishes at one point that Herakles wasn't emperor at all. You can imagine how terrible he feels for these thoughts when news of the coup catches up to them. Be careful what you wish for and all that jazz. On top of that, he gets into trouble as well - betrayed by some of the men he had taken along. He gets stuck in some place like a cave or an abandoned house he was investigating ...

- Sadık finds a large sealed bottle and thinks 'Well, what's the worst that could happen?' He is greeted by a GIANT cloud of smoke instead of anything edible/drinkable. By the time the cloud is human-shaped, he already has a giant grin on his face. Sadık: "Hah! I have a sixth sense for this kind of stuff!" Jinn: "Greetings, mor-" Sadık: "Yeah, yeah, quick question, is your name Ibrahim? Or do you know one of your kind called Ibrahim who's been passing through recently?" Jinn: "My name is Ibrahim - " Sadık: "Great! You know a Greek lady called Natasa? I take that look as a yes. Okay, so first wish is to get us out of here, second wish we'll see, third is like freeing you from the whole servitude bit - You do the three wishes thing, right? Anyways, your wife and kids are wishing for dad to come home, so get us out of here, you'll get explanations on the way back."

- In the meantime, Dilan and her protégés, along with Natasa and Herakles, have been trying to figure out how to solve the problem at court. It doesn't help that the news of Sadık's troubles also reached them (I know the speed of spreading information may be historically hella inaccurate, but I need it for the drama). So Dilan is torn between helping her best bud and helping the rest at court. The Greeks cook up a plan and assure her that she should go and help Sadık, they've got this.

- The plan is to get Athanasios to do something incredibly stupid that would immediately turn the people against him. They exploit the fact that Athanasios likes to listen to words that fall from pretty lady's mouths. So Timothea flatters her eyelashes and promises to tell him something of a vision she had ... that the divine has something to tell him through her. (Don't worry for her, she may have to endure his fingers under her chin, which is infuriating and nauseous enough, but no more skin contact than this). Thea gets backed by her brother to lend it more credibility once Athanasios considers with his head and not his dick.

- And we can all appreciate that Dilan has been sent away, otherwise the scene would have been like this: Thea: "The spirits are talking to me about you ... " Dilan: "Mhm, mhm, indeed, I can hear them to. They're saying that you're a bitch!"

- Dilan in the meantime reaches Sadık, Ibrahim and those of his troop that haven't betrayed and abandoned him as soon as they heard of the coup. A little happy reunion before she immediately fills them in on what's happening.

- They come up with a plan themselves to finally get rid of Athanasios and the Simonides and Herakles have begun to sweat a little back home, because Athanasios mistake of listening to the twins' advice has bought them time, but not really solved the problem yet. Which is when Dilan and Ibrahim sweep in, concocting an illusion powerful enough to wrap up everyone in Constantinople and make Athanasios seem like the literal devil. Some mass-hallucination miracle bullshit, truly, to assert that he doesn't deserve the throne.

- Maybe for good measure, Athanasios disappears after the illusion is over. Dilan and Ibrahim have no idea where he went, they say with a smile.

- Another grand finale! The four lovers are reunited, Thea and Omar are overjoyed to have their dad back and he is overjoyed to have his kids back. When Dilan tells the Simonides twins that they did a great job, she's a good teacher after all haha!, Ibrahim and Natasa invite her to stay. Dilan says that they don't need her, surely, now that Ibrahim can teach them, but Ibrahim says he could use some help. Herakles also encourages her, saying that he'd love to have her at court - and Sadık also bullies her into staying. "What do you wanna do, see the world again? Didn't do much for your peanut brain the first time around, maybe hit the books together with Hera so that you'll be a passable teacher some day."

- Dilan and Omar also have evolved a crush on one another during this entire mess. That's what I'll leave you with - all well that ends well.

Also hey you! Thanks for reading all of this! Here's a little bonus content if you made it this far!

A wonderful fanart of Michele and Salvatore by my beloved friend C0FFINATED over on twitter!

Here's an amazing commission of the Greeks and Turks by @captkirkland ! I'm not sure if I'm allowed to repost the pictures myself on tumblr & you shoud reblog it from him anyways. Show him and his amazing art some love! From left to right it's Timothea, Herakles, Omar, then Dilan, Sadık and Havva (who's not featured in this AU, rip. Things would have worked to well with their brainpower).

Thanks for reading this! Hope you have a wonderful day!

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lauraluna98 · 4 years ago

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Why Little Witch Academia didn’t need a new season

A thing that I find pretty common among the great majority of the LWA fandom is how most persons want so much a whole new season for the anime even with the ending that was more likely a conclusion ending than a cliffhanger to another season or more adventures

To be honest when I firstly entered into the LWA fandom I was thinking that this wish for another season was more like a meme or something because of a ending like that, why did people want so much about a new season? But I’m not going to say about that because I already know the reasons most people want

Here we are with 14 reasons why there’s no need for a new season and I’m open to see if someone has a answer to that and why is better to just leave the show the way it was

1- The ending is already a conclusion

I have already said about that but here I am to say it again just to clarify this. The ending was something that put a conclusion to everything that was a “problem” on LWA World plot, they solve everything, like the tension among witches and politicians, the humans starting to think that magic is cool, the “Spirit bomb” like kinda of power which beat the main threat and everyone sees that, now the whole problem with people who doesn’t believe in magic is solved on the anime

2- The show is written to be simple

A thing that I find a lot when people say that they need a new season is that the World of LWA is very complex and well build… And well, they’re right, but that doesn’t mean they would have a proper writing to be a completely masterpiece for a lot of seasons, the intention is only to be about Akko fulfilling her dream and this part is already done, remember that this is a Studio Trigger anime, the writers there aren’t that good and most of the animes have the “Don’t give up” message and is written around that

3- Its a waste of time and money

This isn’t a secret to anyone that LWA has one of the most beautiful and well made animations in the world and its all handmade, now imagine to do a whole season with 24 episodes like the one we already have just think ho w much frames they would take to make with the same level they did with the anime and how much time and money they needed to bring just to pay the animators just to make a whole new season for an anime that already have a proper ending just because some fans wanted. Animations tend to have around 30 frames per second, now imagine a 22 minutes episode

By the math we have 30 x 60 x 22 = 39600 frames for each episode and if we multiply by 24 episodes we have an 950400 frames anime

Imagine doing almost a million frames of a concluded anime that has a pretty solid story because the fans want while they could use all the time and money to focus on other shows and even release one that is as good as the show you love so much

4- They need to change the ending

Nice now they want to have a new season, but here we are, how they need to keep the plot keep going, they have a completely “it’s everything fine and done” ending, a conclusive final to the series, with all of the things solved, they would need to bring something to the plot happen without being forced or nonsense and even more complicated than that. Is that they needed to maintain with the same simple written and the whole message of “Don’t give up on your dreams” and the whole motivational writing, they would need to change what happened to the ending to bring a reason to the plot to happen

5- You want Diakko

I’m a Diakko shipper myself and I know pretty much that the LWA fandom is about Diakko and Diakko is the thing in LWA fandom being what it is and I know that the fandom want a new season to the Diakko happen

And don’t say “No, no you’re wrong we don’t want the romance we want just the new season”

Don’t be an Hypocryte, you guys want the Diakko a lot and what if the season comes out you guys are going to post parts without context saying “OMFG DIAKKO EZ REAL LOOK HOW THEY ARE GAY” like the Diakko already do with the Official arts without knowing that Official art ≠ Canon

And I pretty much know that what if came out people would complain saying “NOOO THE DIAKKO ISN’T HAPPENING THIS SEASON IS TRASH AY WANT ANOTHER” and I pretty much know that the Diakko is gonna be a huge queerbait if the show have another season, they would tease a lot and in the end they would simple “Screw you we don’t want romance” The producer has already stated that they don’t want romance

So don’t have the hope that Diakko will be canon, is sad to say that but is the true, at least isn’t another season of queerbaiting

6- “But Akko story is finished and they want to explore other characters like Amanda or Diana”

No they won’t going to explore Diana and Amanda story, since both already have their time to be developed and to be honest LWA is Akko even tho she’s not that well written character, LWA is about her, she’s the main character and the one who make the plot happen, like everyone changed because of Akko and that’s it, Akko is the main character and they aren’t going to simple put Diana or Amanda as the main characters even if they are more liked than Akko sometimes, they didn’t have the weight and aren’t as addicting as Akko and I’m saying that being a 100% Diana stan

“But the director and the producer said that on a interview in the past”

Yeah and a interview confirms that Akko is lesbian too

Oh for the nine lesbian witches, I need to say that you guys are picking a interview and putting out of the context to just being a reason to be right into a discussion even tho the context could be another. And I pretty much know that they could say that to be more like a concept idea rather than really making a second season focused on Diana or Amanda

For Amanda we have only that manga story about their parents and she wanting to be expelled from Luna Nova since she hates magic, but then she starts to like the magic because of Akko

For Diana we have more and most things are already done for her to the point of even Daryl being less asshole with her, but we mostly could have an story about her childhood and how she overcome her nerf (plus giving Bernadette an husband ewww), how did Daryl side of the family start to hate Bernadette’s side since is already shown that Daryl didn’t care about Bernadette (she simply sell everything that Bernadette want to keep) and she simply let their daughter and even her bully Diana for liking Chariot, but even that we don’t have a proper longer story, this is a story that could fit well on an 50min OVA, nothing more than that.

So we have that Akko story is already over so a new season isn’t needed to happen

7- The nine witches and Chariot’s past

This is another thing I’ve seen some persons saying that there’s some things that they could well develop like the nine witches and Chariot’s past

And I’m going to be clear here

Do they need?

Are you guys going to watch it?

They could fit the whole Chariot’s past with a 53 minute OVA

The Nine witches they could fit on a OVA or even with an 9/10 episode season but how did they would develop a story about them? They only have Woodward and Beatrix (and maybe Jennifer) the other seven (or six) are unknown they didn’t think to give names to her they only think to put hats on the headmistress room and just to mention that there’s nine witches who founded Luna Nova

And I don’t think that would be as addicting to watch with the fans as an new season that would be a sequel with Diakko queerbait (I would love to see it)

Just see the LWA fanfcitions

Mostly are just Diakko, you can count on your fingers on how much LWA fics are made about Chariot’s past and the nine witches together, even the kudos could be counted on the fingers and even that fics are some of them written with that both concepts being the main story and even when they put that being the main plot you could simply count that with just one hand

So yeah would be a waste of time and money doing things about the nines and Chariot if nobody was going to see it and even if they see this isn’t gonna give any profit to the show

And I say it again

Did it was needed?

LWA is about the whole journey about Akko becoming a witch like Chariot and is written to be about that even with the whole complex universe with a lot of concepts.

8- We could get Gainax’d

Well before it was Studio Trigger it was Gainax

We all know that

And we could simple get trolled in the whole anime

Or with a worst ending (than the one we already have)

Or with a completely Queerbait get trolled

making everyone straight, Diana have a boyfriend which was Thomas from the OVA appearing again, giving shitty generic episodes (like beaches and hot springs and I need to say that a hot spring episode could kill Trans headcanons? Making all characters explicit Cis), Akko and Andrew are together (for the happiness of the Ankko fandom), all that in the ending of LWA, or even killing everyone at the ending, etc

Gainax/Trigger isn’t good at ending of their shows (just see how they rushed to finish LWA plot) and LWA is the least worst ending

9- Manga and light novel are out of question

Nobody was going to buy a expensive light novel which came out only in Japan (and maybe in English) or a Manga because this is a Trigger show, Trigger shows are made to be only anime and the Manga is made by other creators based on the original one, so they are official but not canon (or canon in their continuity)

And why pay a mangaka to do an alternative story which the fans aren’t going to consider canon ?

10- Fanfiction

This is simple, you guys want a new season? Go read it

Made by fans

Fanfictions aren’t only NSFW shit with all that kinda of things that make the people reject the humanity and is gross forbidden to the society

Fanfictions are fanmade stories

And isn’t that hard to find one with a solid plot and a well developed story than the original LWA show

This isn’t hard to find and there’s even some AU’s which explore more than just the original universe like ones that they made with no magic at all, some about the past, some even longer than the whole bible (like mine), fixing the plot holes or even making the characters more human, well developed and likeable (like Hannah). Or even a more mature plot where the characters say curse worlds talk about more mature stuff where they can’t in the original or even about LGBT themes more deeply than just teasing

“Oh but I would prefer an official than a fanmade story would feel better”

Well you have your preferences

But I’m here to also give just one advice, the Official plot wouldn’t be as good as fanmade plot since the screenwriter has passed out and even they hire one to be on her place it still isn’t gonna be as good as the original show or fanmade plot. Studio Trigger shows aren’t knowing for writing but for their good animation

Just stop with your prejudice against fanfiction think that is only about teenagers writing about smut, because this is just stereotype about fanfictions while there’s some written by adults and even teenagers who can give a proper plot even better than the original show and think even more that they are doing that for free, you’re getting a book with awesome things of your show plus an awesome story where the writer put their commitment, time and effort to do it (I’m writer myself and I take like 6/7 hours a day to write a chapter of my stories to reach the word count and keep the daily updates)

11- Another shows and proper game adaptations are better

Just leave the anime alone and want more shows with this kinda of stuff or even a proper game adaptation (not that crappy Chamber of Time game), with a better gameplay, more addicting to play and stuff like that

A proper game would be very welcoming

They already have an awesome world to develop a game if they hire a proper team to make it they could do a proper game not that early ps2 era graphics crappy RPG

12- An OVA or an Extra Episode is better than a whole season

This contradict a little about my arguments but I’m going to say that is better to just do an OVA or an Extra special episode rather than a 10+ episode season or even a 25 episode season like the original part

Even tho would be just a generic and relaxed special since there’s nothing more to develop in plot after the ending rather than a Slice of Life special

13- This will create the “At least we have it” type of fan

If the season isn’t as good as the original, some people will complain and say that isn’t as bad and at least we have it

And to be honest I hate that type of fan

Because they like every single crap made by the corporation but not for real, they just lie saying that is great and at least we have it some even contradict to the point “oh its bad but at least we have it and look these separated moment is good and compensate the shit the rest of the show is

Or if the show is average they will say everything to make everyone think that is a masterpiece

And this type of fan is what the creators love because they could make the anime being crappy written and there still persons who would still give money and will like and some of them would say to the others which complained saying is bad that isn’t bad as they say.

14- Wouldn’t be that good

This is the final argument I have and I say that would be just average or just bad or simply not as good as the original one

They don’t have the plot to continue the story and keep going

So will be a forced plot to make a reason to the story happen

With an Generic villain with an generic reason to be evil

And Now I finish with 14 reasons why LWA didn’t need a new season and is just better to leave the show alone

#LWA #LWA JP #LWA 2nd season #New season #LWA New season #akko kagari #Diakko #Little Witch Academia #Little Witch Academia new season #3rd season #2nd season #LWA OVA #LWA discussion

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annethepancake · 3 years ago

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Sherlock rant

I recently rewatched BBC Sherlock for Rupert Graves, and aside from the lack of Lestrade appreciation I have a lot of problems with this series. Here are my thoughts:

1. It was all a blur

My second first impression of the show: I don't remember anything but the characters. And some characters I just blatantly forgot, like Mary. And I loved Mary on my second watch! I really forgot that at one point John actually got married and I don't even remember when I watched the show for the first time. I can still recall most of HIMYM's events and I hated that series.

2. It’s overall not a detective/crime show

Watching Sherlock for the second time, I mostly turned off my brain and just let it play in the background because (1) there's hardly anything for me to solve with the characters, most clues are taken by Sherlock off-screen anyway (especially after season 2), (2) they focus way too much on the quirks of the characters that make it almost like a sitcom that got dragged on for way too long. A crime/detective show shouldn't allow me to turn off my brain.

3. The characters just kinda fall flat

Exploring the depth of human emotions is not a bad approach to a modernized version of anything, I’m not trying to pretend I’m better than someone who gets sentimental over fictional character (if you know my blog at all, you know I am not), but at least write good characters. Sherlock is hardly a multi-faceted person; in fact, he’s kinda like the Wattpad teen fic main character sometimes. He physically fights off some terrorists with a machete to save the damsel in distress? He gets high off his tits but still got everything right all the time? John is just kinda there for most of the cases. Jim is a poorly written antagonist. Irene is a lesbian but gets the hot for our main character, surprise surprise. The only interesting characters to me are the ones who act like normal people: Molly, Greg and Mary. They are the multi-faceted characters, ones who I can actually relate to without feeling inferior to them in any way. Write characters like them, stop trying to be smart about it and stop writing Wattpad fanfictions for Sir Conan Doyle’s original works.

I get that they try to make Sherlock more like a human with emotions, making him quirky and arrogant, then make him quirky and more likable. It’s hardly a convincing character development though. He’s given over-powered deduction skills, so edgy, so high and mighty all the time. When he is finally written as vulnerable, turns out he has plans for that too. I would love to see him get it wrong once and maybe get humbled by that mistake, but getting Mary shot and killed is hardly even his fault, he is only doing his job. And killing off Mary is overall a bad idea anyway.

4. They treated the fandom like shit

I was absolutely disgusted at the start of season 3 when the showrunners just straight up shat on their fans. I wasn't there with the fandom during the wait between season 2 and 3, but I believe it was a pretty long wait (2 years, I could barely wait 2 years for my comfort series, and they have like 10 episodes per season), and they were presented with the first actual mystery of the series: How did Sherlock survive the fall? After years of waiting and having fun theorizing, they were met with a mockumentary about them, starring the most hated character of the protagonist and the fans. Those are the people who actually cared about the show for god's sake. The fact that the showrunners treated fans like crap and there's still an active fandom for the show appalled me.

Now not only The Empty Hearse bugs me, but the entire show does as well.

Allow me to digress.

Doki Doki Literature Club is a great example of audience engagement done right (Sorry for using this example I’m not actually that invested in the other franchises). After the success of the first game, the story provoked so many fans into solving the mysteries of the characters, some of them went really, really far. And that’s because of the actual mysteries that the development team took effort to plant into the plot. There is actual pay-off for painstakingly following the clues; as far as I know, only two (2!) people in the world have come close to solving the mystery of the first game (or they actually did). The game developers value their fans and their intelligence enough to have planted those clues where they did, and it’s a genuine exchange between the fans and the creators. Now even though you haven’t actually played the game, when you hear of the name and you’re only kinda familiar with gaming (like me), you’ll probably know what it is. What started as a mere open-source game by an indie developer became a sensation which left millions of fans begging for more.

Looking back at Sherlock, there are tons of logical flaws for a self-proclaimed crime series, virtually no clues for the audience to solve crimes along with their favorite detective, and when there was actually a mystery (Sherlock jumped off the building), they plainly showed him alive and well minutes later. Do we really need to see things spelled on screen to know what’s going on? Are we supposed to accept that Sherlock Holmes is an all-knowing future-predicting genius now too? Not a great sign of respecting the audience there.

So far, the only thing left that’s interesting about this series is the characters’ dynamic. Which brings me to the next criticism I have for the show.

5. The plague that infested mainstream media

Why is there still an active fandom? Queerbaiting and targeted marketing.

Community marketing is proven to be one of the best marketing methods there is, if not the best, to lengthen the lifespan of a product or service. The way they do that for shows and films and video games is usually by planting seeds of possible lores and history inside the content. Look at Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, they are franchises that ran for multiple years with a ton of history and world building that provokes fans’ imagination.

Sherlock - well, Sherlock has sexually ambiguous men.

Sherlock has a formula for success. It was an adaptation of the most iconic detective novel in the world, funded by one of the biggest TV networks in the UK and possibly the world (don’t quote me on this). Making this series means you can appeal to such a wide group of audience even before airing. Adding in the quirky smart men who live together, you’ve basically guaranteed a prime-time show with millions of loyal fans all over the world.

Fans are not stupid, and queer people don't just find queerness everywhere they go. They know a gay subtext when they see one. Sherlock came back from the literal death for John, pretty gay if you ask me.

This show is very much not just about some guys being dudes solving crimes, they have relationship that’s deeper than friendship, and definitely not platonic. They deliberately wrote a sexually ambiguous Sherlock Holmes from the get-go - literally from the very first episode, then capitalized off of the targeted demographic, never a pay-off for their anticipation. Martin Freeman said in interviews that he could recognize Sherlock fans, them being generally women from 16 - 25. No shit Sherlock, this show targets them and capitalizes off of them, being quirky and gay as hell, of course the fanbase is generally 16 - 25 and female.

Sherlock queerbaited the fandom for years for the sake of marketing and there’s never a pay-off, nor was there any recognition to the community, and to add to all that bigotry, queercoding pretty much all of the villains? Why was a show aired in the 2010′s allowed to do this? Why did Mark Gatiss, an openly gay man, a writer of the show, allow this to happen? Why are millions of fans all over the world allowing all this to go on?!

6. Conclusion

Now I haven’t read the books yet, so I’m not at all qualified to criticize the adaptation quality of the TV series; I’m just talking about the TV series on its own. Despite my criticism, I think the first two seasons did quite okay. There are quite a few nice cases there, I like The Blind Banker and The Hound of Baskerville. They did those well because the focus was on the cases themselves, and the connection between John and Sherlock was only in the background. I, like many other fans, like to figure things out on my own, to read between the lines, and to not have things spelled out for me. With the next seasons bombarded with Sherlock and John bonding it seriously felt like mere fan service for me and even though I wasn’t there when the show was on, I still felt like I was robbed and my interest in the show was abused.

Sherlock is undoubtedly super influential in pop culture even now. It has to have done something right to be in that spot (capitalizing off loyal fans?). I’m not writing this rant to change someone’s mind about the series, by all means, I’m still gonna love the hell out of Gavin Lestrade, and absolutely lose my mind over Mary Watson. So do take my words with a grain of salt, I’m just disappointed that one of the most influential shows there is is just short of my expectations.

#sherlock #bbc sherlock #rant #criticism

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tundrainafrica · 4 years ago

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hi, maybe you're tired about this kind of convie regarding hange's gender but i really need your opinion. is it that wrong if i consider hange as a she? istg i'm not anythingphobic, i'm just still stuck with female hange in anime. i stan aot since 2013 and felt just fine to open up about my preference in hange's gender but lately, considering hange as a she is like the most sinful thing in the whole planet and even being attacked and i don't know what to feel about it. 😩

Thank you for the ask anon!

Lmao, I am tired of this discourse but I’ve kinda accepted that it’s never gonna end really so I’m still happy to give you my opinion about this again.

I have written about it here.

Before I go into this long ramble again I’d like to clarify some terms which tend to pepper the discourse of gender, sexuality etc etc etc.

Biological Sex: What genitalia where you born with? Either born male, female or with both genitalia.

Gender: What do you identify as? CIS, Trans, Nonbinary etc.

Sexuality: Who are you attracted to? Homosexual, Heterosexual, Bisexual, Asexual, Pansexual etc.

Gender roles: Where do you fall on the gradient? Feminine, Masculine etc.

And the point of this is, the discourse on gender is soooo complicated. Like very complicated because Hange being interpreted as NB to some people only covers the question of gender. Like these do not cover every other facet of the gender sexuality discourse.

Because everything up there is ‘mutually exclusive’ to a degree because everyone is so complex. Like you can take a random option in each of those, fit it together in our heads and you would still come up with a realistic person. Because that is how complex human beings are. I have friends who decided to get a boyfriend, realized they were trans, transitioned to male but had both boyfriends and girlfriends. I have a butch lesbian friend who dated a few guys then decided to date girls then decided to transition. You have me who literally tried everything on the sexuality spectrum, crushed on a few girls in high school, crushed on a few more girls in college, thought I was asexual for a while, fell in love with a guy and realized I love dick.

You can actually have a biological male who identifies as nonbinary but is bisexual but has feminine tendencies.

And that’s why even I find it so confusing to address the issue of non binary Hange vs female Hange. Because they are not even in the same bracket. Like we can have a non binary female feminine bisexual Hange all at the same time if you think about it.

If you have read all my fics and all of my meta about Hange, you would see that I refer to her as a ‘she,’ but at the same time, I do not portray Hange as overly feminine. I headcanon that Hange has tried dating women and I also head canon that Hange has female genitalia (yo, I write preggo Hange fics). She actually falls somewhere in the middle. And what makes the gender part so hard to consider is because usually whether someone decides to identify as CIS, NB or Trans is up to the person.

And there are just so many other hcs I want to tackle as a fanfiction writer and as a Hange stan beyond her gender and that’s why I don’t really headcanon the whole discovery part because even as a kid, I have never been so particular about my gender. I know I’m a biologically a woman, I have feminine and masculine tendencies. I have loved both men and women. but gender just seemed like just a decision which I just didn’t want to think too hard about.

I mean where I live, my first language doesn’t have gender pronouns so I can avoid the whole discourse altogether by just using Tagalog. I’m the type of person who will just have this person think I’m a man all the way until they meet me because I just wanna get things done and I feel no need to correct people. My first crushes were all women, despite my being a woman and the first people I have ever loved were women and I didn’t want to decide whether I was bisexual, heterosexual, homosexual etc. yet because even teenage me just found it way too complex and too final and just went around saying I liked this girl or I liked this guy and generally because I’m that type of person, I don’t spend a lot of my time thinking about gender even in a fandom space unless somebody asks.

And does it make me homophobic/LGBT-phobic etc etc for deciding to use ‘she’ and deciding to tackle questions about Hange beyond her gender? No. Like this conclusion is inherently flawed. I was hella gay for a huge point in my life. 99% of my crushes were women. Then there was this period where I didn’t enjoy romance The only guy irl I have ever crushed on is my current boyfriend. But even when I explored my own gender, sexuality, it was always an ‘in the back of my mind’ thing. I didn’t have huge personal metas about what exactly my gender was or where exactly I fall or what pronouns I prefer.

And nobody is obliged to look so deep into this discourse. The important thing is in real life, we respect people’s pronouns, we respect the names they want to go by and we respect people’s preferences (as long as they aren’t dangerously criminal.)

And the thing is, this isn’t even real life. This is a fandom space. And in a fandom space, everyone is literally interpreting characters however they want. We have people literally pairing off Levi with both men and women and technically we’re assuming Levi’s gender, sexuality etc. Sure it might diverge from canon but does that make our headcanon any less than the others? Like Levi’s sexuality has never been confirmed and technically we’re all just assuming what kind of person Levi would have wanted to fuck right? Like every yaoi pairing, every ship is just fans assuming someones gender, assuming someone’s sexuality.

And sure people could argue, ‘Yams’ didn’t confirm her gender. But Yam’s didn’t confirm anyone’s sexuality either but here we are pairing Mikasa off with Annie then pairing Mikasa off with Eren. Like same energy with ships, are there ships which are inherently superior to others? And technically, I could headcanon Levi as a woman if I wanted to and no one could stop me. I mean sure let’s celebrate that some of our headcanon and preferences have been acknowledged but what battle are we trying to win here really.

To answer your question, it is not wrong. Having any opinion and having whatever headcanon you have about any fandom in this space is not wrong.

Sure, Hange is a comfort character to many people for various reasons. Hange is a comfort character for me but Hange is not any single person’s comfort character. Hange is a gift to us by Yams to interpret and play with however we want. Hell, every other character we’ve ever grown to love was a gift to all of us by the author. And we can choose to hc them however we want. That is the magic of fandoms.

If I wanted to, I could make some eruri and ereri mpreg fics for the kicks, I could interpret Levi as every single gender, sexuality on the spectrum and it would be just as valid. I mean I won’t because I don’t jive with those headcanons or those types of ships but I would respect people who have those types of preferences.

This space is free for everyone. We can choose what we want to consume and we can choose how we want to interpret characters.

The only responsibility we have as fans is to use the right warnings when we post shit and to respect everybody else’s preferences.

What I would consider ‘sinful’ is just dropping some unnecessary hate into a place which is supposed to be our safe space or pushing an agenda or an opinion and being hateful about it in the process. Like sure, spread your agenda, spread your opinions and your headcanons but please be nice about it.

We’re all just sad people trying to survive in this crapsack world.

#levihan #hange zoe

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stina-is-a-punk-rocker · 4 years ago

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‘always and forever, lara jean’: a bungled mess of my thoughts while watching the movie

Alright, cards on the table: I never finished reading the book. I got bored a couple of pages in, so I just read up the summary on Wikipedia and called it a day.

Not gonna lie, I expected better from the movies. I loved the first movie; it was cute, it was fun, it hit all the right places. The second movie was… eh. Jordan Fisher is cute, so that’s a plus.

And then we got the third movie; the final in the To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy.

And it was somehow even worse.

Maybe I’m exaggerating. Despite its shortcomings in the plot and character development-related departments (the fact that Lara Jean wrote addresses for letters she never meant to send is something that will bother me on my deathbed), the movies have their merits. They’re cutesy and charming and enjoyable, overall; movie-LJ is sweet and unashamedly a girly-girl, which is a refreshing change from the #NotLikeOtherGirls, pick-me girls and bruh girls we had in loads of other YA movies growing up. Peter’s pretty cute, too; he’s not a possessive freak like so many other love interests (The Kissing Booth, After, Anna and the French Kiss), and his and Lara Jean’s dynamic is cute, too. Not to mention- we finally have an Asian lead whose Asian-ness isn’t the whole focus of the story!

Again, maybe I’m being extra with all this. The series is, at its core, solely for entertainment purposes. Not every piece of media has to have an underlying message and you shouldn’t need to read between every goddamn line to find something worthy of enjoying. They’re certainly helpful for whiling away a couple of hours; perfect for bingeing with a pint of ice cream in hand, and all of this is in good fun.

Also, it goes without saying, but: spoilers ahead.

The film beings with Lara Jean scribbling a postcard to Peter while she’s in Korea with her family. The inclusion of that little snapshot of Asian culture made me so happy- seriously, fuck everyone who says diversity in media doesn’t matter. I’m not even Korean, and I was overjoyed at seeing a couple of scenes just from the same continent I’m on. The K-pop music in the background was a fun touch, too (although all Korean music isn’t K-pop, but that’s a rant for another day).

(Also: Blackpink has so many more suitable songs than Pretty Savage that go with the theme of the movies. Kill This Love in the second movie while Lara Jean is getting ready to go to her boyfriend’s match is bad enough- they’re supposed to be in love in that scene, goddammit.)

One thing that bothered me throughout the movies is how obviously non-Korean Lara Jean and Margot look. It’s like whoever chose the cast went for any random Asian- Lana’s Vietnamese and Janel Parrish is half-Chinese, and it’s so obvious. You seriously couldn’t find two Korean-Americans who even vaguely resembled each other so they could pass for sisters? The actresses do a stunning job and I don’t want to shit on them, but I just wish they didn’t go with the ‘all Asians look the same, what’s the difference?’ mindset.

Also, a nitpicky thing I’ve noticed in movies with characters who read a lot: no one holds their books up while they’re reading. Your arms start to cramp, which is why you keep your book in your lap while you’re reading, or you rest on your belly and hold the book in front of you. My spine and shoulders didn’t suffer years of torture as a chronic reader for you to include characters who hold their books up while reading.

A major gripe I have with Always and Forever, Lara Jean is how the characters are almost jarringly out of character- not from the books, but from the two previous movies, too. Lara Jean didn’t have much of a character to begin with, so I can’t say much about her (she dissed Oasis at one point; it’s okay for me to be mean to her), but the rest of them are either caricatures of themselves or just totally different people.

Movie Peter >>> Book Peter. He’s almost too perfect (except for the fact that he unironically loves The Fast and the Furious, which… ew), almost too much of the ideal boyfriend. Not that my perpetually single arse would know. How do boyfriends even work? I wouldn’t know the first thing to do with one; how often should you feed it? Do you need to take it on walks?

(In the notes I’ve written towards the end of the film, I’ve complained about Peter being immature and making Lara Jean feel bad about following her dream to go to NYU. He confuses me.)

Not to mention how distractingly adorable Noah Centineo is from some angles and under certain lighting conditions (other times, he reminds me of the human version of Shrek and that bothered me). King of weird Tweets and Instagram captions though he may be, he’s got a really nice smile, and his gravelly voice is both parts sexy and disturbing.

But I digress.

I’ll never forgive the directors for what they did to Kitty and Chris- two of my favorite characters, from both the books and the movies. Kitty’s annoying to the point of being borderline unlikeable- gone is the occasionally snarky comic relief we all came to love; in her place is an annoying brat whose every line comes out forced. Also, making soap is fun; fuck you, Kitty.

Chris is essentially Dixie D’Amelio’s character from that TikToker Grey’s Anatomy ripoff; the main character in One Direction fanfiction from 2012 who doesn’t want to go to the concert but her best friend gets a ticket for her so she can’t bail but Harry Styles sees her in the crowd and falls in love at first sight and 50k of mutual pining and misunderstandings late, they get together. She’s cynical and snarky and hates capitalism and consumerism and prom (because of course she does), but secretly, she’s into it (because of course she is). My guess is that she’s there to appease all the arseholes (including myself) who accused the characters of being too one-dimensional, but it seems too out of place in a movie that doesn’t have much plot to begin with.

I really, really hate how Lucas was done dirty- throughout every single movie. Of course, it’s Lara Jean’s story so not every side character has to be fully fleshed out- but you’d think three. entire. movies. would be enough to give Lucas a bigger role than the GBF and the token black guy for the diversity brownie points. Every single time Lucas shows up, it’s to push Lara Jean and Peter’s story forward. I would’ve liked to see a romance for him pushed forward instead one for Chris- especially because he says, at one point in a previous movie, that it’s hard to find other gay boys, so it would’ve been sweet to see him find love- and Chris’s character arc could’ve been focused on reconciling with Genevieve. Instead, we see the OG Reggie from Riverdale be the one to show Chris the bright side of monogamy, and Lucas gets a date to prom as an afterthought (another darkskin black dude, so no one thinks the film is racist).

Genevieve’s character in this movie gives me whiplash. Look, I’m all for girls supporting girls- healthy female relationships are something way too many YA movies lack- but she goes from bitch queen extraordinaire to friendly the moment the next scene calls for it. Her character isn’t consistent. A redemption arc should be executed cleanly and believably; you can’t have a character be a total prick one moment and then suddenly be, “Hey, if you get into NYU, let me know,” the next.

And Genevieve’s still an arsehole to Chris; at one point, in NYC, while they’re at the NYU campus grounds (I knew that Lara Jean was going to go to NYU the moment she saw all the banners; I fucking called it), Genevieve tells Chris, “University is for people who actually have a future,” and I recoiled. I’m not the nicest of people and yet that was going too far. Chris doesn’t hesitate to shoot back a, “You peaked in high school,”, but still. Y i k e s. You can’t convince me someone’s turned over a new leaf when they say something like that.

Lara Jean’s dad (forgot his name; gonna call him Dr. Covey) is as unremarkable as ever, and his new wife (forgot her name, too… Trisha? Trina? Eh, something like that) is… unsettling. I mean, I get that they’re all loved up and twitterpatted, but there’s something about all the smiling they’ve got going on that chills me to the bone.

Also, Trisha/Trina kinda looks like TikTok’s ThatVeganTeacher and it bothers me.

Another huge problem with this movie even being made is that the series never had enough plot to continue onto a trilogy. Lara Jean’s letters are what the plots of the first and second movies revolve around; the third only mentions them in passing. The final love letter from Peter was a cute callback, but there’s a massive continuity issue with the first two movies and this last one- both character and plot-wise.

Maybe I’m not articulating this clearly enough, so I’ll use an example: take Harry Potter, for example. Harry’s main goal throughout the series is defeating Voldemort. And it takes all seven books for him to get there, to finally achieve this.

Lara Jean’s goal in the first movie changes midway; from keeping up the façade with Peter so she can avoid the crap with the rest of the letters getting out, to making her fake relationship real. It forms a bridge with the second movie; the letter that went out to John Ambrose, and her dithering between Peter and perfection (I’m not sorry). But what does the third movie have to do with any of this?

There were way too many music montages. You couldn’t go five minutes without a random pop song playing in the background, and it was annoying as hell. Don’t Look Back in Anger was w a s t e d on this stupid film. The artsy scenery shots were even worse- no, I don’t give a fuck about the New York skyline or a bird’s eye view of whatever vehicle Lara Jean is in. A few shots of Seoul would’ve sufficed; the rest was overkill. This movie is way too damn long already (almost 2 entire hours!!!); cut out a couple of those. No one cares.

I thought they’d pull the whole Aladdin trope with character-A-keeps-trying-to-tell-character-B-the-truth-about-a-lie-B-believes-in-about-A-but-B-keeps-interrupting, but Lara Jean (typing her name out is annoying, why couldn’t she have a single name, like both of her sisters?) comes clean earlier than I expected. Peter’s reaction about LJ not getting into Stanford is… uncharacteristically mature? No “Why did you lie to me?”, no accusations, not an ounce of betrayal. Which I did not expect from a guy who’s a little bitch for the greater part of book one (I really don’t like Book Peter, in case you couldn’t tell). I know fuck-all about book three’s Peter, so I can’t tell if he really did adopt this mature, well-adjusted persona, or the movie did it to make Peter seem like less of a dick (like they did it with the sextape-that-wasn’t-a-sextape in the first installment).

On a sidenote, how do these main characters in YA books get into really good colleges with zero to no visible effort? These arseholes fuck around for the entirety of the story and have way too much going on to actually do schoolwork, but they waltz into Ivy Leagues at the end. And apparently, I’m not the only one bothered by this.

There’s something to be said about how the movies don’t really sexualize minors (characters who are minors, to be fair. None of the MCs look anything like teenagers), though. It’s almost weird to see them not getting drunk and partying and having sex all the time. Maybe that’s why Lara Jean trying to get her hand on Peter’s dick felt so stilted and awkward (I cringed so hard when she kept trying to touch him and he kept pushing her hand away, holy shit).

And the kissing. It’s to be expected from a romance film, but there was so. Much. Kissing.

The amount of product placements (… actually, I could count only two: Apple and a pair of Beats headphones Lara Jean puts on at one point, but the movie shoved so many iPhones in my face that I’m obligated to exaggerate) would’ve made anti-capitalist Chris mad.

I’m guessing this all takes place in a parallel universe, sans the coronavirus. Still, being in quarantine this past year and being socially awkward for every other one, it was agonizing seeing everyone so close together in NYC. When Peter kissed the ball (lol) (I have the sense of humor of a straight boy in middle school, don’t judge me) when him and Lara Jean go bowling, I had a visceral reaction. And what are the odds of Peter meeting his estranged dad at the very same bowling alley?

Speaking of Peter’s daddy issues (I’ve written “Hardin but diluted” in my notes; I watched this movie at, like, 1 AM; I’m not entirely sure what was going through my head at that point)- I hated how they guilt-tripped Peter into giving his father another chance. In the wise words of Hannah Montana, everybody makes mistakes- but leaving your wife and two kids for another woman is pretty far from a little oopsie on Mr. Kavinsky’s part. I don’t blame Peter for hating him, and I’m not in a place to judge whether Mr. Kavinsky (does he get a first name?) should be forgiven or not, but I feel like they let him off too easy and made Peter seem like a misunderstood teenager with anger issues for not accepting Mr. Kavinsky’s (crappy) apology at once.

And it adds nothing to the story at all; Mr. Kavinsky peaces out after having one (01) coffee with his firstborn, and he’s never seen again. If you’re going to introduce a subplot, make it tie into the main storyline- the very least you could do is make it an important enough part of the story to have more than 10 minutes of the run time. It makes no sense as to why they’d bring up Peter’s dad in this last film, when he’s already gone through two perfectly fine. I guess it was a ‘tying everything up’ part… even though no one cared.

Lara Jean’s handwriting is surprisingly ugly for someone who’s written that many love letters. And her styling took a definite nosedive; her outfits in the first movie were so effing cute, but now they’re just… meh.

There are so many conversations and lines that the writers must’ve thought sounded good enough for someone to type out the quote in curly font and slap it on a screenshot from the movie to post on Instagram, but when it comes to the actual delivery, they just sounded… weird.

Peter says one time near the beginning of the film, “You know what I’m looking forward to the most in college? Never having to say goodnight,” because he expects him and Lara Jean to get into the same college.

But I guess the word they should’ve used was ‘good-bye’, because this just makes him sound stupid.

At one point, Lara Jean asks Kitty how much Kitty’s gonna miss her when she goes off to college, and Kitty says, “A four.” Later on, she confesses, “I’m gonna miss you a twelve, Lara Jean,” and all I could think was, “But we’re endgame, Archie!”

(In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t let people know I’ve watched Riverdale; it lessons my credibility.)

Still, there remains some good to be found: all the baked goods looked very delicious and made me crave chocolate chip cookies. Peter wearing the socks Lara Jean gifted him at the beginning of the movie was a cute gesture, and Lara Jean giving Peter her teal hatbox? The one she kept her love letters in? Was so? Cute? Help?

And hey, it’s a cliché that’s been done to death, but I’m always a sucker for that part in movies where the girl walks down the stairs in a pretty dress with her hand on the banister and the boy turns around and his mouth falls open and all he can say is, “Wow,”- and this film did not disappoint! Not to mention how cute both Lara Jean’s and Chris’s prom dresses were.

Dr. Covey and Trisha/Trina’s wedding was cute, too- I struggled to decide whether Kitty wearing a necklace that says ‘feminist’ and a tux is a bit too on-the-nose, but I’ve decided that it’s nothing to get my knickers all in a twist about (for clarification: it’s not the necklace or the crossdressing that made me debate this; I just wish they didn’t make a big deal out of it- I wish they didn’t have Kitty and Lara Jean get into an argument about her not wearing a dress, if that makes sense?).

And the final letter- the one from Peter to Lara Jean- I ate that shit up; it was so, so, so cute.

In conclusion (why is it so easy for me to crank out 3k about my thoughts on a Netflix movie and yet when it comes to English Lit. at school, I’d stare at a blank sheet of foolscap for ages?), did I enjoy the movie? Not really. There were parts of it that I liked, but it was overall too boring and I kept wishing I’d watched the new SKZ Code episode instead every few minutes.

But that doesn’t mean that it was bad. I kinda feel a little sad, actually, now that Lara Jean and Peter’s story has come to a close; To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the first movie, is one of my favorites, and bitch though I might about them, the kinda grew on me… like an innocent plant, at first, but then like a fungus. Not a parasitic fungus, just not mutualistic, either… kind of like a commensal.

Maybe I should stop with the biology similes.

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sherlollydramoine · 5 years ago

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Welcome to the Tumblr-Dome Bitch! Pt 2

Warnings: Language, anonymous fake Tumblr death threats, some hilarity, and idk.. Just enjoy!

So here is part two. I hope you all enjoy because this was way too fun to write.

Word Count: 1823 (I really should have just written this as a fic, but I was feeling lazy and I’m tired) this part two. I’m going to have to write a third part to this and it’s going to be funny and hopefully we’ll get on to some sexy times in part three

(PART ONE)

You wake up several hours later and the first thing you did was check your phone. Unsure if you dreamt or hallucinated last night. Did Rami Malek really come to your apartment, find your smutty fanfiction and then get addicted to Tumblr while sitting on your couch?

Checking your Tumblr notifications you see you had several messages from Rami’s blog ItsMeRami.

ItsMeRami sent a post.“Wow people are so creative. I’ve never said or done shit like that in my life.”

“I just got six messages from people asking if my blog was the real Rami. I said ‘as if’. I’m cackling.”

ItsMeRami sent a post “Holy hell that was kinda hot, I think we should try something like that. Or maybe you aren’t into the possibility of calling me Daddy?”

“ItsMeRami sent a post. “What in the actual fuck is this weird shit?!”

It’sMeRami sent a post. “This is.. I have no words.”

“This Peen blog is fucking hilarious. I might have to specifically start wearing no underwear all the time, and whenever cameras are about start thrusting my hips.”

“Wow. I never realized just how visible my dick is when I don’t wear underwear.”

“Omg Free-Rami’s blog is hilarious. Some of these people on here are crazy but I love her sarcastic responses.”

“I hope you don’t mind. Since we follow each other now I started looking at some of your other blogs you follow… wow. Just wow.”

ItsMeRami sent a post. “This is pretty interesting, maybe I should role play as Snafu for you, that could be fun. You seem to like a lot of posts about Snafu. This piece was interesting. Maybe we should find a train and… “

ItsMeRami sent a post. “I’m.. what the fuck.. You warned me about this place being a hellsite, maybe I should quit while I’m ahead. This is too much.”

“I hope to God we’re still on for later because I want to try some of this stuff with you. By the way, I really loved the pieces you wrote. The question is do you want it quick and dirty or slow and sensual? Maybe both? We could do both right? Shit, I need to get off of here for a while and actually go to sleep. This is why I don’t do social media dammit, and damn you woman, what did you do?”

“Hope you are getting some good sleep. Good night..er morning.. I’ll message you in a few hours. XOXO”

Finally having read through a majority of the messages you type a response. “Your responses to this place of Tumblr hell are the best things the internet could ever offer. I just woke up and I can’t stop laughing. I will look at all the individual posts later. You can always deactivate your blog later if you don’t want to keep it. Noone will fault you for that. As for tonight.. Bring it however you want, Daddy..or Sir.. or Rami.. whatever you want to be called. It’s alright. We can figure it out when you get here. What time were you thinking? I can make or order us some food and we can chill for a while.”

Your phone alert lets you know that there is another notification, thinking it was from Rami you picked it up. It wasn’t though it was from your friend @free-rami

“Hey girl, have you seen this new blog ItsMeRami?”

You almost choke.

“No. Why?”

“There is a rumor going around that given the title that maybe Rami is really on Tumblr.”

“I highly doubt that, it’s probably just someone trying to stir some shit or something.I thought Rami doesn’t do social media? Though Tumblr is fairly anonymous so if he were to pick any platform to actively use this is the best one do so undercover.”

“Yeah that’s what I thought but some of the stuff that’s been posted on there is interesting. It’s almost written as if it really is him or someone who knows him.”

“I’m about to shower, but I will def check it out when I get out”.

“Cool, let me know what you think. I’m curious….”

“Will do, though it most likely is just some crazy fan or something.”

“Probably. People on here are crazy as hell sometimes.”

You finished your shower and ended up checking out the ItsMeRami blog. What you found had you laughing your ass off. For someone not very savvy on social media, Rami sure took to Tumblr quickly.

A favorite thing of his, is apparently to go search for fan photos and reblog with random commentary about ‘I don’t remember this’ or ‘You look so happy’ or ‘What the hell is that guy wearing?’ or ‘Who the hell does this guy think he is?”

You are apparently going to have to have another conversation with him about the meaning of anonymous. Damn his inbox and message box must be full.

It wasn’t until you started to find his fanfiction reblogs that his comments really became hilarious.

``I don’t think I’ve ever ripped someone's shirt off with my teeth, but maybe I’ll have to try it. Any volunteers?@yourTUMBLRurl’

‘Why is she calling me Daddy? I’m not her father. That would be really inappropriate.’

‘Yeah sex on a beach is a no-go for me. Have you ever done that? Sand gets everywhere, including places you don’t want it to.’

‘My eyes are beautiful, aren't they? But I’ll never tell exactly what color they are, I like reading about other’s hilarious descriptions of them.’

‘Holy shit, you wrote about a character you guys haven’t even met yet?! That’s so cool, and maybe, just maybe, your characterization of this… Detective Cutie Pants is almost spot on.’

‘Wow. Benjamin fanfiction. This is.. That’s some old stuff right there!’

‘You all really love Snafu don’t you? He was a fun guy to play. I’m glad you all think he’s sexy.’

‘I’m not gay, but this is beautifully pornographic’

‘Wow that was quite a read. Personally, I’ve never actually had a threesome but it sounds quite exciting, and exhausting.’

‘This is just perfection. The setting, the writing, except those leather pants did not come off that quickly or easily.’

``I'm pretty sure my homie Elliot probably wasn’t as bold as he is here, but very creative fresh take on things. I’m going to pass this along to Sam to see what his thoughts on this are.’

Deciding to message your friend @free-rami back, all you had to say was “Whoever this is I highly suspect is just trying to do an impersonation. I mean isn’t his username for this the same as that email from the Rami Undercover Online piece from the end of the summer? Honestly, I just think it’s someone trying to rile people up.”

“I think you’re right, it’s just weird. Why would someone do this?”

Likes, attention, followers? Who knows? I’m pretty sure that it’s fake. There is no real information in the profile so it’s hard to tell, I think. No telling with the loons that are out there.”

“Did you notice that they reblogged nearly your entire masterlist?”

“Yeah I woke up to a ton of notifications. I’m going to send them a message and see if I can get to the bottom of this.”

“Let me know how it goes.”

“Will do! :)”

You message Rami again and hope that he will see it under the millions of messages that he may likely be receiving now.

“WTF!!! I thought you wanted to remain anon? Seriously? Those comments were fucking gold though but you’ve got the whole internet in a tizzy now! I’m sure this shit has already been tweeted, facebooked, snapchatted, or instagrammed. CALL ME WHEN YOU CAN AT 555-730-0054”

He messages back with “I’m not really sure what’s going on here but I have a ton of notifications and messages, I barely saw yours. Thankfully you are the only person I follow so I figured out how to message you that way. I see your other message now. I’m going to call in a second but yeah… I might have actually gone too far on some of those comments.”

He obviously hit send and then immediately called you because your phone started vibrating in your hand.

“Hey you!”

“Hey you too! Sooooo.. What the hell did I do last night?”

“Started a fan frenzy, a shit storm, a kerfuffle, chaos. I’m on my laptop right now and I’m watching my notifications go off like crazy all of a sudden. I’m thinking that people may have figured out that I’m the only one that you follow, and they may suspect that it’s me doing this. Hold on, let me pull some asks.”

Your ask box suddenly had 596 asks.

“Are you pretending to be Rami?” “How do you know Rami?” “Are you Rami?” “Wtf is going on?” “Are you Rami’s girlfriend?” “Eat shit and die bitch.” “You know Rami and you didn’t tell us?” “I think you are a slut. You should probably go slit your wrists.” “THIS IS INSANITY! RAMI JOINED TUMBLR AND RANDOMLY FOLLOWED YOU? WHY YOU? MY BLOG HAS BETTER CONTENT!”

You just let out a deep sigh as you talked to Rami for a little bit longer. He agreed to come over later and you’d make him dinner. You read some of the anon messages that you started to receive and he just kept apologizing.

You told him your plan and he agreed that hopefully it would work, but you were unsure if people were willing to take the bait.

The post you made said this:

I, yourTUMBLRurl, swear that I am not the individual going around and impersonating Rami Malek on Tumblr (ItsMeRami). I do not condone that behavior, but I think that it’s also best that at this time to withhold any speculation about who this individual may be. If it really is Rami Malek then let him make that known when and if he chooses to do so.

You then hit your inbox and deleted the hundreds of asks that you’d received mostly anonymously some full of hate and others just curious.

Okay, I had to break this up again (PART THREE)

@the-real-ramimalekpeen @mrhoemazzello @xmxisxforxmaybe @txmel @spacedustmazzello @ramimedley @hissom1933

#rami malek #rami malek fanfiction #rami malek fluff #rami malek hilarity

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c0untb00z · 5 years ago

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I would just like to clear, I don't hate the BBC Dracula 2020 Show. In fact, I actually like the idea of Dracula being set in modern times like in the show, but I would like it a lot better if it wasn't written like a fucking reader insert fanfiction.

Don't get me wrong, I love me some reader inserts every once in a while but they're meant to be on Wattpad. Sometimes, you can find really fucking good fanfictions that could genuinly be movies, but this really just feels like someone wrote an erotic fanfiction for Dracula. It almost reminds me of a worse version of 50 Shades of Grey with less kinky sex.

First and foremost Agatha Van Hesling. I actually kinda liked her personality, how driven she was and determined to never give up, but she was literally created for a love interest. In Dracula by Bram Stocker, Sister Agatha is a nun that nurses Jonathan back to health, claiming he was 'sick in the head' as he ranted of what he had seen and warning others of Dracula. She doesn't even have a last name.

However there is a Dr. Van Hesling in the book, hes dutch(???) Professor that mentors and taught(????) Jack Seward who was in love with Lucy, who was fed off of and eventually killed and eventually undead by the means of the one and only Dracula. Dr Van Hesling plays a large role in the plot of the book. He has an open mind and was able to draw connections between things that some others couldn't, as he had access to more sources and could speak to most off the charecters involved. He's the first person to present the idea of a vampire, and Lucy turning into one. Thanks to Jonathan he was able to identify the vampire feeding on Lucy as Dracula and finds out how to kill the vampires.

So basically Agatha was literally fabricataed for the sole perpose of being there, to fall in love with Dracula or something.

I know we all are horny for Dracula. I'm horny for Dracula. Vampires are fucking hot but the sexiest part of vampires is that they ya know. Kill you and are mercily and heartless. The show does show that in a lot of parts and even decapiates a nun and yeets it into a gaggle of nuns which i fucking died at. But it also, humanizes him way to much, hes literally a monster. The scene in the boat with lord whats his name really portrayed that. It was really,,,, weird cause me being a kinky fucker I don't find the particular phrases of "you're going to need to be quiet now," and " youre doing so well" that creepy and if anything a little hot but looking at the circumstance and the look on that kids face, it was like r e a l y fucked up. Which is why i liked that scene. It showed just how fucked up Dracula is.

To be fair i did like Cleas Bangs acting and casting as Dracula. He had a certain charm that was ever so s l i g h t l y off. I heard people say he just 'made up an accent' but fuck you guys its a fucking danish accent you incolent twats anyways. He could be really funny at times and i actually apprecited it.

However the casting AND acting of the modern parts is absolute shit. Ep.3 is where i kinda gave up on the show and finsihed it for the sake of torturing myself. FIRST OF FUCKING ALL LUCY i cannot fathom how P I S S E D i am about Lucy. Why did they have to make her a phone obsessed basic asshole with no regards to anyones emotions besides her own and the extent of her personality is 'getting likes on socail media is all i care about because it makes me feel validated so im gonna wallo in self pity because i was obiously written by white man in his 50s that would have made me white if he wasnt forved to throw in diversity points" like shut the fuck up steven king.

Also lucy and mina never meet??? Theyre in different fucking time lines??? Theyre friendship and love for eachother was fucking golden how dare you rob that form me and give me a garbage bag full of shit with a shiny little bow on top in its place jesus f u ck.

The cemetary scene was o k ay i gues?? I liked the little nod to the book with the bloofer lady and the concept of random sprits being undead because of unfinished buisness. But this really just felt like it was slapped in the show for the sake of going on a date with Dracula in cemetary. I actually kinda apperacted it but it just felt awkward.

Also who the f u ck is Lucy's friend? The gay one??? Like,,,, is that supposed to Arthur???? His chatecter was so fu king weird and offset he just didnt feel like he should be in there. Hes literally just there for a-50-year-old-man's-interpretation-of-young-women-now-a-days verson of Lucy to have a gay best ffriend.

Ok i not even sure if i want to talk about Quincy. It just hurts. It physically hurts me to think about how d i r t y they did my baby. His charecter is the defination of american chivalry, just as great as regular chivarly but with a little extra cowboy vibe. Quincy is jist the biggest,,,, sweet haert,, like he asked lucy to marry him in his cool american cowboy voice cause he knew lucy loved it and it always made her laugh. And even when she turned him down becayse her heart belonged to arthur, he stayed. All he wanted was for lucy to be happy and all he requested was that they stay frirnds. Hes also invovled with taking fkwn dracula although hes not a main charecter percice ly as he doesnt have any entires in the book he still has an amaizing precence and sometimes while reading the book ill be readying one of dr sewards passanges and think "huh i wonder what quncys doin. I hope hes dooin good. Cowboy vibes n stuffs" amd boy dles he do that. Everh dracula film adaptataion robs us. R O B S U S of quincy morris best scene. In the middle of dr van helsing ranting about vampires( thats basically what half of the book is. I could write a 4p minute mono louge of his rambling jesus how does sweard take note of all this) quincy litterally just walks out. And nobodg really pays any notice beside glancing ag his leave and shrugging at one anouther and going back tl listneing tl van helsing explaining his vampire fan theories quincy moris , the quincy morris from texathe untited states of the amerkca the land and the free and also cowboys.stands outside of the bouilding and pints his gun up at. Dracula whos in the shape of a fucking bat eves ddopping outside the window and just fucking,,shoots it. Now he doesnt hit it cause thatt wouldnt be as fun as brutally stabbing the fucker witja wooden stake. But S T I L L. And the fucking bullet hits the window that everybodys in anprobably causes arthur to shit himself the ppoor boy. Can you belive that theh didnt fucking flim thatfor any dracul? Now i i under stands why not put in this adaptation because quincy is only mentionsed like three god damned times. And when theh DK mention him jesusnshit they literally jsut made him some popular jock from amwrica just to conter jacks white twinky ass and then they had him propose to lucy in the middle of a fucking night club and she says yes???? Lile ok jut throw Arthur out a window then cause cause fu c k him i guess. And then after lucy dies he jjsy fucking moves ?? The only thing thta makes this version of qincy quinccy is the fu king name and fact hes from america

Ok now jack fucking seward. He reminds me of when ylu forget you had a pb&j in your back pack so in the bos after school you pull it out cause yoyr hungry and yoyr mom put WAY to much jelly on it so now its like. All obsorbed into the bread and joggy and squished. Just sad and really white. They even had some kid call him whate bread and they werent fucking wrong. His obly personality traits were ' omg i love lucy but shes a hoe ;,,,((' and being connected to Zoe.

Now last and definately least the god forbaden ending. Just thinking about it gives me a fucking head ache. So , jesus, zoe, who is agathas great niece or someshit, a d looks exactly like her (its literally the same fucking actress) is a detective lile scitist reasearching dracula. So dracula is illedatly attracted to her becasue he thinks shes like agathas reincarnation or soenshit. So he tries tk drink her blood at one point and spits it all out and pukes and sjit cause her blood is poisonous bevaise she has fucking c an c e r. So later we find out that draculas weaknesses ( the sun crucifix) arnt actually real hes just afraid of dying so he has like irration fears or some shit so for some fucking reason. They deside. Its a good iea to end the show with this:

Dracula fucking drinks all of zoes blood killing her and himself because her blood poisonus. And ghe fucking emd scene is them like,,, in the sun???? Or soemt hi ng??? And theyre naked and like presumably fucked and dracula says some shit like " its doesnt have to hurt" and i almost tore my wrist open wiith my teeth because of how shitty this ending is.

Not lnly is it disrespectful to zoe but agatha, agathas whole thing was K I L I N G. dracula she wanted him fucking D E A D she woULDNT FUCK HKM

And like just after finding out that he can be in the sunlight with out fucking dying and that crosses just make him umcomfortable or some shit he just desides to kill himself??? DUDE YOU JUST FOUND OUT YOURE PROACTICALLY MORE INVINCABLE THAN YOU WERE BEFORE AND YOU JSUT FUCKING OFF YOUR SELF ??? HE COULD HAVE FUCKING RULED ENGLAD AND SPEAD VAMPIRISM OLL LVER THE FUCKING COUNTFY AND WORLD KF HE TRIED HARD ENOUGH AND HE KILLS HIMSELF BECAUSE THEY WANTED A STUPID SAPPY ENDING

anyway if anyone actually goes through the effort of reafing my god damn eS S A Y about Dracula that i finkshed typing (im not gonna bother editing tbh) at 4 fucking am. Then thank you and please get a life

#vampire #dracula #dracula2020 #bbc dracula #bbc dracula 2020 #3 am essays cause im pissed #dracula bram stoker #bram stoker #draculaxreader apparnetly

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mrmallardsmobileposts · 5 years ago

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My Star Wars Shipping Hot Takes

THERE WILL BE UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SEQUEL TRILOGY IN THIS POST

TAG "#TRoS Spoilers" IF YOU WANT TO WIPE THIS POST FROM YOUR DASH COMPLETELY

THIS HAS BEEN MY SPOILER WARNING, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ABOUT STAR WARS SPOILERS

Finn/Rey should have been endgame, or at least brought up by Finn instead of the BS non-committal "I've got something to tell you" line they play with for the rest of the movie. Bring it into text and acknowledge it fully instead of using it for a few cheap gags and leaving it hanging.

They had great chemistry in TFA. They bonded really easily and got along really well, it seemed like Finn was chatting her up a little at times and by the end of the movie they're incredibly close. Finn puts his life on the line and gets fucked up by a lightsaber to defend her. John Boyega and Daisy Ridley played off each other really well, they had really good chemistry. I really ship it.

The only hitch, imo, is the total lack of screentime they have together in TLJ. Finn's plot just kinda went nowhere and he got a rehash of his "running away" arc in TFA, and I think the Rose Tico kiss was really lame and forced. While I can appreciate their eventual reunion, and within the scope of the movie it's not unreasonable for them to not meet again until the end, I really don't dig how much time they spend apart in TLJ from a shipping perspective and I don't think the Finn/Rose pairing is very good.

To address the elephant in the room, I'm not the most positive person about Rose Tico, but I'm chill with her and I think her character would have been fine with better material than she had in TLJ. Not trying to chud things up, here. The most extreme thing I have to say about Rose Tico, within the scope of this post I'm making, is that I didn't think the actors had that much chemistry to justify a romance, the kiss was goofy with the laser going off behind them, and while I don't disagree that Kelly Marie Tran got screwed over in TRoS, I'm ultimately glad that her and Finn are good buddies in that movie instead of partners. I'm not saying her reduced role is fine, just saying I'm glad that this pairing doesn't seem to be canon. I'm glad they're still close, though. Finn is definitely the heart of the group, pulling everyone together.

The thing about Finn/Rey in TRoS is that while the chemistry isn't there on the same level as TFA - partially due to the hatchet-job editing of the first half where people are barely able to vocalise a single coherent thought before the plot ushers them along to the next point - I felt like it still existed for a while. They teased it with the "I've got something I need to tell you" line from Finn, and then they never bring it up again. Like what the fuck, wrap up the plot point instead of dragging it out for the most painful humor of the movie and failing to resolve it.

This brings me into the Reylo portion of my post.

While I don't ship it, I refuse to hate Reylo. I've got a great write-up of my Reylo opinion on my main blog which explains why, if you search for "reylo". Basic point is that a lot of the initial backlash was predicated on assumptions that people were adamant would be proven true in the next movies, and those assumptions turned out to not be the case 4 years later in 2019, so I refuse to treat it like the pariah it was in 2015 for those reasons.

I'll admit that I really enjoyed the ending with Ben Solo. Adam Driver sells the difference between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren so well, and while I understand that he did a lot of bad shit and wiped out planets and committed space genocide and stuff - Darth Vader also committed space genocide and killed hundreds of people, and his body count continues to rise in supplemental materials. And yet he was redeemed by Luke, and was able to return as a force ghost despite the genocides and mass murders he committed as Darth Vader. There is a precedent for people redeeming themselves just before they die in the Star Wars universe, even when they do some really heinous shit. As such, I am not against this happening for Kylo Ren. Star Wars is just that kind of series, for better or worse.

My opinion of Reylo is that it's kind of like fanfic mode a lot of the time. It got really wacky in TLJ, and it got way more pronounced in TRoS. That's not necessarily a detriment, but it was what it was. I don't buy Kylo Ren and Rey as romantic interests necessarily, especially when I think their relationship is really, really odd and reminiscent of fanfiction cliches, but there's enough subtext for people to read into it and I don't really care if people like it or not.

If Reylo is the endgame ship, then that's fine. I don't necessarily like it, even as I acknowledge that problematic ships will always have their audience. A ship can be used as a force for good, as long as it isn't being used to actively promote abusive tendencies or like really gross shit.

Some ships are off limits, straight up. Reylo is dicey, but I don't think it's worse than a lot of villain shipping is - there's been room for edgy villain shipping before, and I think Reylo occupies that space now and has every right to. As long as people aren't encouraging people to engage in abusive practices through their storywriting, or pushing alt-right talking points and fucked up things like that through their writing, Reylo has enough wiggle room to be a perfectly ordinary pairing in the fanfiction community.

Saying that, though - here's why I prefer Finn/Rey.

He's a close, friendly and positive force in Rey's life, they shared the start of their journeys and they helped each other grow into the heroes they became. Poe spent most of TFA missing in action, and he only meets Rey at the end of the movie. Rey and Finn spend the bulk of their character moments together, and it's the character development from these interactions - spurred along by Han and Chewie, of course - that fuels their ascent into hero figures at the end of the movie.

Why don't I like Reylo more? Because the Kylo Ren stuff seemed like essential backstory stuff, whereas Finn and Rey's characters naturally got along like a house on fire. Kylo Ren also spends most of the time getting rain on his gloves through inter-force touching in a bunch of weird, forced, fanfic-tier scenes, whereas Finn and Rey hug and celebrate and bond through conversation, not trite, rigid backstory.

I can buy Rey kissing Ben Solo at the end of TRoS. I can buy her feeling love for Ben Solo, and finding it frustrating that she can't break through Kylo Ren to get to him. Fuck, in that ending scene where Kylo is explicitly Ben Solo again, Rey and Ben have actual, honest to god chemistry, and it's cute as fuck. But that moment took a lot of catching up to get to, and before her and Kylo showed any hint of affection together, Finn was her comrade in arms, someone who shared her victories and helped to further her growth, and vice versa.

Reylo has a pretty solid conclusion, I will certainly give it that. But I feel like the Reylo conclusion is steeped in that classic "I can redeem the bad guy through love" trope like the original Star Wars, except with a romantic angle this time. Ben's redemption didn't have to be with a kiss - it could still happen without the romance angle, but the romance is added in to distinguish it from the other Star Wars examples.

Ultimately, I think having Ben's redemption spurred by romantic love is broke, whereas Rey finding a buddy in Finn, having their ups and downs together, shielding each other from harm and becoming close through mutual shared experiences and proximity is woke.

What about Finn/Poe? Ship it if you want, it's all good. I understand why this ship was initially so popular, and while I don't ship it, I'm not the shipping police and I get the premise behind it. Poe/CrimeGirl? This was shoehorned tf in, but if you think it's neato, it's neato. Poe/Rey? I think they would make a terrible couple, but whatever. Poe/Finn/Rey? Everyone wins. Add Kylo Ren anywhere into the mix and you can have yourself a party, depending on your stance on the character. Make any of the characters gay, bi, pan, ace - literally whatever, outside of a few significant parameters just about every ship is valid. I'm not a hard-ass, shipping is fun and outside of some really bad shit I'm generally down for people having a good time. I just like Finn/Rey the most.

Also, Maz Kanata is really neat and I hope she gets more screen time. If her lifespan makes it squicky to ship her with the younger characters, that's your business and I understand and respect that, but frankly I would write a romance story about Maz Kanata falling in love in a heartbeat - I just don't know who. I've written Doctor Who fanfic where a 2000 year old alien woman dates a 21 year old policewoman from Sheffield, so as long as the right boundaries are respected, I think a Maz Kanata story could be pretty fun and non-problematic like with a Doctor Who story.

Anyway that's my Hot Takes post

byeeeeee

#tros spoilers #spoilers #star wars spoilers #star wars #reylo

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huynah · 6 years ago

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WANTED SHIP PLOTS.

lately i have been thinking about very specific plots for my muses and they aren’t exactly ones that i can just reblog into my wishlist or whatever but they are very unique to my girls. so i’ve decided to compile all of those plots here, in hopes that someone will see this list and want to do one, two or five. if you want to do any of the plots under the cut with my girlies, please just im me and we can go from there!! these are basically my ultimate ship plots for them that i will actually kill a man for.

**all lesbian plots are highly selective and will only continue if we plot things out extensively and i feel comfortable with roleplaying with you**

PARK AERI. 25. HETEROSEXUAL. MODEL/ACTRESS.

the classic arranged marriage/engagement plot. maybe the son of her father’s business partner? they decide it will be a good business deal for them (and ofc aeri’s mother would agree cause it will make aeri even more of a hot topic) and like maybe the guy needs to fix his image so they’re thrown together. the feeling doesn’t have to be mutual but aeri will probably hate him and make it known but she will also like warm up to him.

beauty and the bodyguard aka he’s her bodyguard and maybe she gets drunk one night and comes on to him but he just takes her home. but then gets cocky the next day and teases her about it and that will probably build up tension for aeri so they end up sleeping together. but then it happens again and again and it becomes a cycle until they’re left with figuring out what the hell they’re gonna do esp when photos are released by the press of the two of them being cozy.

aeri is lowkey a big nerd so maybe she goes to the one bookstore frequently and has kinda developed a friendship with the owner/worker and they’re like the only person in the world that kind of sees her being herself and idk maybe he asks her on a date and shes like *blushes*

literally any plot where she falls in love with a bad boy like maybe he’s a killer or a gang member but like she gets turned on by it because she’s literally the worst

LEE EUNJIN. 21. BISEXUAL. ASPIRING ACTRESS.

forever wanting roommate plots for her because it’s just funny and your muse will get a kick out of seeing her in her natural habitat failing to Function

tbh i wouldn’t mind something where she ends up dating a single parent? like eunjin is literally a child herself and if she really likes the person she will want to make it work even if it means putting on a diaper backwards or something

DO BORA. 19. QUESTIONING. MED STUDENT.

her first gay experience?? yes please?? like bora is the purest baby ever and like having a crush on a girl will be the softest thing ever and it would be so sweet if she had a girlfriend who kinda takes her under her wing and shows her the gay way. she will be the most flustered lil angel

i really want maybe a ghost/bora plot or something? she’s a clairvoyant and can see ghosts and she’s also like a magnet for supernatural things and has been all her life so it would be interesting for her to like idk fall in love with a ghost

literally any supernatural creature x bora ship makes me excited.

your muse works at the hospital she is interning at as an entertainer in the childrens ward or something and they cross paths often and their first unofficial date is them eating vending machine food at 3am while she’s on a 14 hour shift and then it turns to them sneaking into the janitors closet and her turning to them when she loses her first patient etc.

CHA MUHYEON. 24. HETEROSEXUAL. GOVERNMENT ASSASSIN/AGENT.

they both work for the government and are assigned to do an undercover mission where they need to be husband and wife in a neighbourhood to gather intel or something and they basically end up actually being a married couple and falling in love

a life as we know it plot where they went on a blind date set up by their friends who happen to be a couple years before and it was shit, they end up despising each other. flash forward and that friend couple are married and have a baby that they are the god parents of. those friends die in a crash and they’re left to raise their child.

childhood best friend who is like her bro that she gets fake engaged to just to shut her parents up and to make it seem like she has a normal life and it’s like awkward for them to kiss and stuff but ofc they end up falling in love.

a bad boy criminal who finesses her and she falls in love with him when working his case and now theres a major conflict of interest because oh no he’s really bad.

THEODORA. 26. BISEXUAL. MECHANIC.

roommates to lovers please and thank you. like they would have to be a bro kind of person for her to get along with and like imagine if they are both pretty broke so they only have a studio apartment to share with one bed.

younger!teddy moves in across the street for the summer with her family. falls in love with your muse for the summer but they need to part ways, only for her to be bit by a werewolf on the day she was supposed to leave. she needs to stay in town to be part of her pack so she ends up still living across the street and your muse is like ?? and she explains it. basically human significant other x an adjusting werewolf pls.

PARK NARI. 26. HETEROSEXUAL. EX IDOL/SONGWRITER.

maybe a boy that she grew up playing baseball with since that was pretty much her childhood and they reunite years later after she debuted and also fell from the spotlight as an idol idk?

a fake engagement plot between her and a work colleague since her mother is always pressuring her to be a wife and have kids so she decides to take matters into her own hands and fakes it to get her off her back. fails to realize she needs to actually pretend to be in love with this person and things get awkward at work.

maybe an old trainee/idol friend who she hasn’t seen since she debuted years ago gets signed to her company and walks into her office one day to record a demo for a song that she was working on. maybe the song was written about them. maybe she was in love with them??

MOON OCTAVIA. 22. QUESTIONING. ART STUDENT.

childhood best friends/neighbours who wave grown up together and have been inseparable since birth? like they have basically been dating all their lives just without the kissing and stuff: girlfriends have always been jealous of her or threatened even though everyone in town has accepted they are like this. going into college she gets into witchcraft and puts a love spell on him after realizing she has a case of Feelings. plot twist: the spell doesn’t work on them because they are already in love with her. also their parents are best friends too and provide funny commentary and her dad is actually surprised they end up together even tho the other parents have been rooting for them.

basically she’s the school’s big old virgin and gets made fun of a lot for it and maybe there’s a jock who makes a bet with his buddies where they are like “i bet u won’t be able to take her v card” so he starts dating her as a bet. but falls in love with her. lots of angst when she finds out.

okay but also something like buffy the vampire slayer where she’s like willow aka the witch and your muse is like xander aka the human friend and idk i have some ideas (may have lowkey written a fanfiction that was a the 100 x btvs cross over and that is what octavia is based off of)

another first gay experience would be great for this lil bean. she’s another one who would get flustered and shy over having a crush on a girl and stuff.

TEACHER X STUDENT PLOT TOO!!

ANDROMEDA LEE. 24. BISEXUAL. CRIMINAL.

an inmate x guard relationship like in s1 of orange is the new black but she doesn’t end up pregnant with a baby (or maybe she does who knows) and maybe they end up living happily ever after once she gets out.

someone she does shady stuff with who has kinda always had her back even though they have gotten in trouble doing things together but still.

good boy/girl bad girl but they find out that at heart she is actually a good girl.

#indie rp #indie krp #krp #open rp #wanted plots #sora is the only one not here bc i think she may be a singleship muse im not sure #ANYWAY!!! im gonna go to sleep but i hope to wake up to a lot of ims pls

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aroworlds · 7 years ago

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Aro-Spec Artist Profile: Alex

Today I have the delight of introducing Alex, better known to aro-spec Tumblr as @arotaro and @mutant-jojos!

Alex is a bisexual, half-Puerto Rican multi-disciplinary aromantic artist and creative with severe ADHD. You’ll find her prolific fanworks on AO3 as EmeraldTrash666, writing primarily for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure fandom. Her bold, colourful art for the JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Fullmetal Alchemist, Hetalia, Pokemon and Vocaloid fandoms is also available on Redbubble under the name StellaHagane.

She writes, she creates digital art and she dabbles in music, sewing and fashion design, single-handedly proving that there’s no such thing as too much creative awesome for any one aromantic!

With us Alex talks about finding the word aro, the power of fandom and creative fanworks, her love of aro Jotaro, the challenges of creating with ADHD, the struggles of being an aro gen writer in fandom and the importance of expressing our aro headcanons. Everything she says is absolutely on point, so please let’s give her all our love, encouragement, gratitude, kudos and follows for taking the time to explore what it is to be aromantic and creative.

Can you share with us your story in being aro-spec?

I guess in some ways my “story” starts out pretty typical. Got older, kept waiting for my First Crush™, never got it, started worrying and trying to force myself to develop crushes. I actually was in a relationship with another girl on a forum I was part of as a teenager, but eventually I realized that I didn’t really like her romantically, and the relationship started to become really unpleasant for me. I eventually felt so miserable that I didn’t even want to talk at her at all, even though we were close friends, but I didn’t want to break up with her - partly because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, partly because we were everyone’s “OTP” and I didn’t want my friends to hate me for ruining that. But eventually I did break up with her, and I’m happy to say she took it with grace and we’re still close friends today! (She’s ace and a great writer/artist herself, too!)

I was part of a very nice LGBTQ+ group as a teenager, but I could never figure out my identity. I felt really ashamed and alone. Whenever I brought up how messed up I felt because I’d never had a crush on anyone, everyone was like, “Oh, sounds like you must be asexual!”, but I knew I wasn’t, and that was the worst part. Even though I knew aromanticism was a thing, nobody ever talked about it. It was only ever in the context of aroaces, so I didn’t know I was aro. I thought I must have had some sort of mental illness or something, but certainly not a legitimate orientation, nothing to be proud of like everyone else.

During that time, I found myself connecting on a deep emotional level to characters like Alphonse Elric, Fujiwara no Sai, the X-Men in general (although I’ve been an X-Men fan since I was literally a baby), basically anyone who was somehow “different” from the rest of humanity, even though I never understood why, since I was a fairly privileged kid who had never experienced much bullying or anything. Weirdly enough, it was Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure that helped me realize I was aro and come to terms with it; I saw an interview with Hirohiko Araki, the author of JJBA, where he was asked what type of girls Jotaro Kujo likes, and replied that he didn’t think Jotaro liked girls. The obvious interpretation would be that Jotaro’s gay, but somehow, one way or another, I decided to go with the idea that Jotaro’s aromantic. Jotaro also happened to be a character I really related to for reasons I couldn’t quite articulate, so around the time I was 18 I put two and two together and was like ... oh shit…

Please click keep reading to continue Alex’s story!

Can you share with us the story behind your creativity?

I’ve always been weird in the way I’m very creative, but tend to kinda bounce around from hobby to hobby. Other people draw, or write, or sing, while I draw for a month, and then write for a month and sew for a week and play video games for a week, and then I draw some more, and then I try out something completely new, and then I write again. I think it must be an ADHD thing, idk. In any case, I’ve just always been really passionate about making stuff, whatever that stuff happens to be.

I’ve also always been very much fandom-oriented. Ever since I was a toddler, I used to dictate fanfiction to my mom (back then it usually involved Winnie the Pooh, the Powerpuff Girls, Godzilla, and my dog). I mostly draw fanart. I find that I’m not really capable of writing original stories, but I’m great at getting fanfics in character, and I love writing them. I love taking stories I already love and reinterpreting them, seeing what it would be like if the characters were put into different situations, etc.

Because of my ADHD, I really struggle with actually finishing things. I try really really hard, I really do, and I’ve been trying to push myself even harder these past few years. I’ve made progress, but it’s still extremely difficult, so I’m very sorry for all the projects I’ve abandoned over the years. Sorry I still haven’t finished the fic that was supposed to be done in early March. I’m trying, really. I promise I’m working on the next chapter of BLaD, too.

Are there any particular ways your aro-spec experience is expressed in your art?

Of course, pretty much everything I write is gen. Even if I include romantic relationships in my fics, I never write about romance, just stories which also happen to include some characters who might be dating someone. And obviously I always write Jotaro as aro! That’s really important to me. No matter which AU I’m writing, he’s always aro. (And autistic, but that’s off topic.)

I’m also not really into shipping because of my romance repulsion, but I ship Joseph Joestar and Caesar Zeppeli. The thing is … I’ve always viewed it as a unique relationship, sort of difficult to define as being strictly romantic or platonic or sexual, just kind of their own thing that defies words. That’s how I’ve always written it. I had the sudden realization recently that this strange view on the only ship I really actually like (at the moment, anyway) is probably due to my being aro, lmao.

What challenges do you face as an aro-spec artist?

People don’t read gen fics, and people aren’t interested in aro stories. That’s just the way it is. I do have some dedicated readers, whom I love deeply, but in general… I could post something with a deep plot, something funny and dramatic and witty and touching, something I poured my heart and soul into for months, and it’ll get very few hits/comments/kudos, while someone else could post the same generic 2,000-word romance fic everyone’s seen a dozen times over, with no editing or anything, and get twice the amount of traffic my fics do in half the time. It’s really crushing.

How do you connect to the aro-spec and a-spec communities as an aro-spec person?

I dunno… The aro community feels so small. Online, I have a small circle of aro mutuals who all kind of vent collectively, and I’m part of Arocalypse and a few aro/aspec Discord servers, but I still feel like there isn’t really much of a larger community to be part of in the same way that there is for other orientations. Offline, I’ve never met another aro, or even anyone who actually knows what aromanticism is prior to me explaining it to them.

I also don’t feel like there’s a very unified “aspec community”. As an allo aro, I feel very rejected by the ace community - not to say that I feel like I should be part of the ace community, since I’m not ace, but I feel like they throw aros under the bus a lot. I mean, we’ve all seen the “asexuals can feel love, just like anybody else! … oh, except for aroaces, I guess. But the rest of us are normal, so you should accept us!” rhetoric. Both within and outside the aspec communities, aros are rarely treated with the same priority as aces, even though we’re arguably in a much more difficult position than your average allo ace.

That being said, I’m glad there is an aro community at all. I don’t know where I’d be now if I were still questioning. Probably not in a very good place.

How do you connect to your creative community as an aro-spec person?

As I mentioned, there’s a general lack of interest in gen fics or sympathy for romance-repulsed people in general. It’s really difficult being romance repulsed in fandom spaces, because nobody cares about anything other than ships. There are very few gen fics, and even less that are a decent length, not abandoned, or cater to my specific interests, so I have to write my own. I don’t often have anything good to read; most of the big fics, the ones with cool plots and long word counts and ongoing updates, are ship fics. If I’m lucky, maybe two gen fics will be posted in one week, and maybe one of them will be longer than a few thousand words. Maybe one might even have my favorite characters. But usually genfics are few and far between, and kind of random in terms of what you’ll get. Sometimes I get so bored that I read ship fics anyway, and then I always wind up feeling really awful afterwards.

I’ve written, over the course of the past two years alone, over 20 gen fics. But whenever I vent that sometimes I’d like to actually get to read something, I always get someone telling me, “Well if you want gen fics, write some yourself! You have to make the change! You can’t demand people write stuff for you!” And of course, at the same time it’s totally acceptable to request ship fics from your favorite author, and if you complain that there aren’t enough fics for your rarepair, it’s seen as relatable and totally valid.

Fandom is just … really, really amatonormative, tbh. I hate it. I’m trying to make a difference (I did organize Gen Jojo Week along with my friend Rachel last year, and hopefully will again this year), but there’s only so much I can do.

How can the aro-spec community best help you as a creative?

Aside from reblogging my art and promoting my fics? Talk about stuff. Talk about aro stuff in fandom. Seriously! I know it seems obvious that aro people would like aro headcanons and gen fics and all that, but we need to talk about them more. Nobody outside the community gives enough of a shit about us to have aro headcanons, so let’s get them popular. Talk about your favorite aro headcanons. Talk about your favorite gen fics. Talk about how such-and-such character is totally aro; talk about how excited you are to see aro characters in fics. My dream is for aro headcanons to become just as common and popular as any other type of headcanon.

Can you share with us something about your current project?

This is old news to most of the people who already know me, but my current big project that I’ve been working on for several years now is Between Life and Death, a drama/horror/supernatural JJBA fic.

(WARNING: PHANTOM BLOOD AND STARDUST CRUSADERS SPOILERS BELOW.)

The plot of the fic is that Dio wins at the end of Stardust Crusaders, and after realizing that he has no hobbies other than harassing the Joestars, he decides to bring Jonathan back by sticking his head (which… we’ll just assume Dio preserved for plot purposes) onto Jotaro’s body. Obviously, Jonathan is NOT happy with this arrangement, but it also turns out that Jotaro’s still alive, just not in control of his body. He can still use his stand, so he essentially uses Star Platinum as a sort of proxy for interacting with the environment around him, even though he only comes out when Jonathan’s alone since he doesn’t want Dio to know he’s alive.

Basically, it’s the story of a depressed vampire and a traumatized ghost. It’s a very introspective fic; most of the story consists of conflicts between Dio and Jonathan, and Jonathan and Jotaro struggling to come to terms with their new existences - Jonathan being unable to reconcile vampirism with his personal morals, and Jotaro having one hell of an identity crisis while also mourning the deaths of his friends and family. The plot is picking up, though, and there is an end goal in mind, as well as an eventual sequel!

As for where the story-in-progress is at right now … well, the next “stage” of the plot is hamon training for Kakyoin and Avdol, which will be fun. This chapter also includes several dream sequences, including an extended appearance by Mary Joestar (Jonathan’s mom), and a very serious and dark scene which I almost ruined by having dream!Will Zeppeli refer to Jonathan as his padawan. Yeah.

Have you any forthcoming works we should look forward to?

As mentioned, I’m working on chapter 9 of Between Life and Death! And working on and off on some stuff for the mutants AU. Most recently, on a whim I rewrote the lyrics to Handbeat Clocktower by MOTHY to be about Jonathan Joestar. Somehow this went far enough that I’m making an actual UTAU rendition of this “parody”, and hopefully it’ll be done sometime in the next few weeks. I’m really having fun with it and I hope people like it!

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lwbluedice · 7 years ago

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Masterpost for my Stories and Ocs!!!

A spoilerfree list of most of my Ocs and stories (reuploaded here on my main blog)

Includes:

- Name of the story and state it’s in

- short summary/facts

- Character names

If you want more information abt any of them(like a description or a pic) or abt the stories, just message me/ ask me! Also feel free to ask me to draw them ( for example in the color scheme thing or sth)!

Note: The stories are all written in german so if you don’t speak that language i can’t send you the original documents but i can try summing them up for you!

I bet this is not everything and i will add stuff but yeah!!!!

Hotaru (first draft is finished)

- Abt two men that are linked through a surgery called “synchronisation”, which basically connects their minds and bodies, so they are forced to work as a team. Ea is an ex-soldier and Cain was a hacker, but due to the fact that they can’t stand each other, they also didn’t share their pasts with each other. To pay someone to unlink them, they become bounty hunters and kidnap the girl Ai and her robot Subaru, which is one of the old military robots, called Hotarus (high technologised, operating, transforming, artificial intelligence, ranger units). They are connected to a human ranger and can transform into what the ranger wants them to transform into.

The Hotaru headquarters exploded 10 years ago and since then the Hotarus are super rare on the black market.

The two men plan on selling both the girl and her robot and let’s just say it all doesn’t work out that well.

Ai Hoshino

Cain Bishop

Subaru

Dr. Chandra Natarajan

10 A

10 B

and other synced pairs

George Watton

Asha Watton

Elaine Bishop

Christopher Bishop

Haruto Hoshino

Shiori Hoshino

The Pleiades. A Hotaru Unit.

Atlas/ Emmett Hunter

Maia/ Ilya Neverwinter

Elektra/ Hailey Gray

Taygete/ Daiyu Ghou

Alcyone/ Charlotte Gryffith)

Caelano/ Sora Aurora River

Merope/ Imogen Harrington

Sterope/ Elizabeth Bresley

Additional Characters for the (maybe Sequel) in which the grown up Ai will try to find out who attacked the Hotaru Headquarters

- Skya

The day the world turned white ( first draft is finished, working on it)

To stop global warming some scientists basically caused a new ice age. On the long run this might be very effective but the former countries, now sectors, are hit by strong ice storms, called snow white. To stay safe huge bunkers, the Safe Cities, were built and the local fauna and flora were stored in Arks, to preserve them.

Usually an alarm sounds before all citizens are brought into the SCs, but this time Reese and her best friend Yuki dont manage to get to the vehicles on time and are left behind. They seek shelter in a private bunker outside of town that Yuki found out about recently. Suddenly a group of boys their age knocks on the door, because they were also left behind and followed the girls.

Al, the brothers Eli and Isaac, Gil and Henry become the new bunker-mates and the group has to survive one year in the bunker, until the storm is over.

( I have a blog for this story, just search for The day the world turned white! There are pics and some posts for example abt which patronus/spirit animal the charas have!)

Reese/ Therese Wells

Al/ Alexander Glover

Yuki Sarah Brooke

Eli Green

Isaac Green

Gil de Santos

Henry Summers

The Sun will always rise (The sequel, probably forever unfinished)

About a group of rebels, the Sun Children, that are sworn enemies to the government and its ways to cope with Snow White.

Takes place abt one/two years after Tdtwtw.

Lucy and Aidan are kicked out of an underground organisation that stays in the cities underground system during the storm phases and the two wander around in the snow until Michael and Rin pick them up and bring them to the Sun Children. From looking into the snow directly to maneuver, Lucy has turned snowblind.

Yeah the plot is… not 100% existent.

Characters:

Lucy

Aidan

Michael

Kate

Gil

Finya

Rin

The XII Games ( First book is finished, i started the second one, unfinished)

A story abt spaceships that let slaves fight in games, if they win a certain number they are “free”. Cassidy makes it and is sold to a women, Trisha, that takes her home onto her home planet, where Cassidy lives a nice life and learns abt her heritage. One year later she meets Tobias again and she and Trisha are brought to a planet that is basically the universes capital. Cassidy has to take a more important role in the uproar of a war, than she ever imagined.( The cast members are mostly human looking but are other, non human, races)

Cass (Cassidy ) E’ Alandril

Tobias

On the slave ship:

Neala

Sam ( Samuel)

On Anterra:

Trisha Willowrish

Max ( Maxwell) E’ Alyndral

Lukas

Tori

Khorr

Keri

Wil

Quinna

On the Space sparrow:

Zach ( Zacharyas) Gryaan

Benj ( Benjamin) Bottledom

Rashka Hyrelian

Oreadh Urunna'ur

Butcher

Kagrim

Kyluur

Irian Ashcott

On Capital Estellar:

Galea ( Galeandrih Fiyur’ Ihal)

Iyal

Wren Fawell

Luasia

Luminor the Shining

Fallen Angels ( A trilogy, one and a half books were finished, reconcepted)

We don’t talk abt this but it was one of my first stories i truly wrote.

Abt fallen angels saving the world or sth. It’s super clichee and just ugh.

The newer version would cancel some charas and make it abt rebalancing Darkness and Light in the worlds. With a more diverse cast and also different magical races. And a way less creepy Adam.

Eve/Evelyn White

Adam

Peregrine/Perry

Ray/Raven

Sera

Colin

Robin

Raphael

Ky/ Kyron

Gabe/Gabriel Frost

Bree/ Gabriella Frost

Indigo ( haven’t written it yet and i don’t know if i ever will, but have drawn stuff. I lowkey wanna see this as a comic)

A story abt a clan of shapeshifters, called Indigos. They are basically human that can shift into dolphins and their clan lives on an island near Australia. Its a modern story and the gang consisting of our local gay dolphin girl Keerie, her cousins Akash and Arjuun (younger brother, older sis), and Ky ( adopted as a child, japanese heritage, a different breed of dolphin idk) lives their “normal lives” with lots of shenenigans and drama.

Some day Keerie falls in love with Navy, the daughter of the owner of the local Aquapark (that the clan suspect also does illegal stuff like snatching wild animals).

Keerie

Arjuun

Akash

Navy

“Neo Alcatraz” ( reworks of a very old story)

To put it simply, there is a pack of scientists that bionically enhance children and send them off to different countries to basically be local superheroes. Our gang was kinda left behind bc the countries rather took the newer, better versions and here they are now, a bunch of supernatural teens facing the (not so) everyday struggles of life.

Atalanta

Chi

Callie

Lee

Victor/Konrad

Gemsona (just art)

Larimar

- has water powers and her backstory bases on my private/old Squads life story and a lot of me thinking of drawing music videos for her but never doing it

Anthea (art and headcanons)

- my Dnd Oc

The Bender Girls ( art and headcanons)

- basically some Avatar the last Airbender Ocs i made once

Daiyu

Hotaru

Yura

Sündenfall / Sinfall (short story)

A short story i wrote for a competition which is basically every crime series but magic.

Harvey is immortal, he dies and is revived, and solves crimes through it. Paige is basically his assistant and the case they are on is abt a person that kills magical beings and “arranges” the victims fitting to the seven sins.

Ilya Winter

Harvey

Paige

Delphi

Sphinx

The concept charas, that had a different storyline ( they were basically a team of magical beings that would solve cases… rather unconventional.) I considered reworking them into the new Fallen Angels concept:

Ilya

Harvey

Timothy

Worth mentioning:

Project Alpha (script, some art):

The script for a shortfilm i once made with my friends. A school class has a plane crash and only a few students survive, they all embody a different character archetype (the sunshine, the soziopath, the smart one etc.) They try to survive and are put through weird psychological mind experiments like the trolley problem.

To be honest, the concept had and still has a lot of potential and we just hadn’t the opportunities to rly set it the way we anticipated. The shooting day was super fun, though! Still laughing about the outtakes

Astral Chronicles (some art and a few chapters, unfinished)

A story Idea i still like but probably wont write like this because of copyright problems. Its basically a giant Crossover.

Its abt people who have an Astral( mostly a literature figure) they embody when they are dreaming. Their body stays in bed and is vulnerable but the Astral can basivally run around and has special powers. If the Astral dies, the person wakes up but i think when the body dies the person dies too? idk.

The Protagonist embodies Alice and there are also the White Rabbit, Peter Pan, Tinkerbell usw.

There was also some kind of conflict? I dont remember.

If i would ever rewrite it the Astrals would be embodiments of the Zodiac signs.

(does this even fit?)

The Fanfiction thing i wrote abt Peter Pan/ Jack Frost

- like i have tons of short drabbles and the start of a fanfiction and honestly i liked the ideas i had a lot

The ones we better not talk abt:

Part Hunter

Basically there was a being named eternity/aeterna that was shattered into oarts (like in TRC)

and chosen ones have to reclaim them.

The ones that basically die are turned into guardians, like Time and Space ( they had animal companions they were fused with i guess)

Melody is the current part hunter and has a tragic love story, her animal is a tiny horse thing??????

Idk

basically a long story in which i used my dreams as base for the episodes

The nameless story

Actually super interesting but too many charas and a too tiny will to draw action scenes or write them.

Like its based around a super popular game in huge spheres/buildings and the teams wear some anti gravity outfits and shoes and can walk on the walls and shit and can basically attack using elements/illusion/ conjure monsters idk.

And the main team had an opponent team that basically specialized in the 25272 other elements and some day they just fused teams idk.

There also was some prophecy shit abt the anchors, ppl that can control all elements the same???? Idk

Element guardians

- basically four teens that control the elements and do shit together

- at some point i gave all of them dragons

- still thinking abt this sometimes

- The originals:

Luna: the shameless self insert , earth, pony girl, bland blonde i think

Katy: Air, best friend, bubbly

Dan: The jock. Fire

Nick: The emo. Water

At some point Katy became Skye and Dan and Nick got other names but yeah-

Talent Academy

The story thats basically a ripoff of Alice academy. Like a school with hierachie between the students and ranks and shit and different houses and the students have powers IDK

If you read through all of this, bless you for showing interest in my stories ;) And hey, if you want me to rant about any of them, just send me an ask or a message!!!

#masterpost #ocs #my stories #my ocs #stories #list

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kindofsharethat · 8 years ago

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so last night people were sharing stories of how they became larries and i thought i’d make a big (emphasis on big) ol list of them because i found them really fun to read

I've been a 1D fan since 2013 and my sister and i always thought that l&h looked so good together but only the bromance and we're like "omg larries destroyed their friendship poor eleanor 1!1!1!", then in 2015 the "i'm gay pretty unfortunate isn't eleanor ?" happened and i was like WHAAT???? and i ended up searching more and more about larry (bc it was the only thing that came to my mind) and i found the videos and then i told my sister and then here we are.

I became a larrie because someone in my dash who rarely post about 1D posted the first louis/fred pic and tagged it babygate. So I went looking into the tag and found everything. I had doubt but then i saw the moment where H touch L arm and i was in! I actually became a fan of the music after. I've done everything in reverse with this band! But when i entered the fandom in feb2016 and i was hopping to see it all end like a month later! But hey, still here! And loving it mostly! End it!

it was 2011 and my friend told me she had found a really good song and the singers were so cute, she showed me wmyb video and i spent the whole day listening to it and then in the evening i wanted to find out more about these 5 guys. i started watching video diaries ans i was looking for the next one but i accidentally clicked "best larry moments" video aaand the rest is history

I became a larrie after aimh tweet hits 2m and everyone on all of my social media started freaking out even though I didn't follow any 1D blogs so I started search about them and now I'm here also at that time I was kinda homophobic 'cause I live in russia and grown up in middle eastern family and now I'm proud lesbian who knows a lot about LGBTQ+ history so thank you to my larents and 1D for making me gay lol 🌈💕

i was a fan since 2011 but didnt know about larry bc i was young and didnt have any social media but around 2013-2014 my friend showed me the "are you and louis dating" vid and i was like the mr krabs meme bc i just couldnt understand why larry would have to be covered up so i went home and watched "why elounor is fake" videos and my eyes were open and ever since that day ive been a larrie and i regret not knowing sooner but im here now !!

i saw the daddy daddy cool tweet and was like dude that's the wrong type of daddywtf? & I hadn't heard about a pregnancy? then a week later I had read the treatise and had a side blog and watched all the freddieismyqueen videos & was in way too deeeep lol. I've never been around when they weren't on the break even, I'm so confused about how I got here but now I can't escape 😝I had never even listened to their music before but then I also did that and was like damn they're so good?!

I just remembered going out once and being quite tipsy when DMD video came on so I pointed to Louis and Harry and said 'they're in love, but shh nobody can know' and one of my friends looked at me with a WTF?? expression on her face and said 'but I thought that was common knowledge'. Mind you, she still doesn't even know their names, let alone anything else. That was around the time bg was still a fresh wound and I'll never forget it bc it was so nice to hear it and also my hangover was a bitch.

I got interested in 1D right after their last concert, like right on Halloween. I became a Larrie that very same day too, right after i read Dan Wattpad's infamous "Harry and Louis hate each other". I saw articles floating around saying how they were enemies, reason for Zayn leaving...blah blah. I was sceptical, then i came across the famous OTRA hug, and i was like, no fucking way they hate each other, not with how they are hugging. I then delved into YT and discovered freddieismyqueen. Bless.

I joined july 2014 (2 months after they 've passed my country ouch) and was instantly hooked because this shit is like crack. Today I'm the darkest larrie that exists preaching the word for everyone who'll listen. I can WAIT for their CO because I have a party prepared? I literally have a wine since 2014 in my cellar that I'm only going to open the day they're free, I have nauthical theme stocked for the party. My friends just know that they have to come and that I'll be crying the whole month!!

weirdly enough i became a larry cos of that stupid channel 4 documentary id never heard of larry or gay shipping or whatever before that and i saw that and i was very mr krabs meme and i looked into it saw that it wasn't evil and gross like they were portraying it and never turned back

I joined the fandom in late 2012 and I wasn't a larrie but I wasn't an anti either i just hadn't looked into it but then i remember during the confirmation of bg on gma i felt bad for harry and i didnt really know why and I was surprised by my own reaction. Then with bg going on I started to realise that none of that could be real I did my research and I've been a larrie ever since :)

I joined the fandom in 2012, used to think Elounor was real but just because I never looked into it and I knew some people thought Larry was real at the time so I checked this insta page that debunked Elounor and I have no regrets 💙💚

When I become a 1D fan, in 2012, I liked elounor and I liked Eleanor unfortunately. I was not that into fandom things so I wasn't paying attention to details. But my whole view changed in 2014 when they came to South America for the WWAT and all those rumors in Argentina with the hotel room and Brazil that was an experience and I was like "ok something is happening here between them" and here I am, 4 years later and going strong as a larrie. I'm on the winning team 😌💅🏼

I became a larrie when my friend first introduced me to fanfiction. I read a larry one and was totally amazed by it. After that, I switched between het ones and larry ones, but always came back to larry. After that, I simply became obsessed with the pair, something that made me fall in love with the band and all of them. I watched the dairies and everything, and just saw how clear their infatuation was. Tumblr and a lot of other sites just simply proved the theory even more. No regrets ❤

i became a larrie late novemeber after a month of being in the 1d fandom. i watched freddieismyqueen videos and other proofs for hours everyday (especially over thanksgiving break)

I wasn't even a fan of 1D, but while I was looking for pictures of them to do a collage for a friend, I found one in which Louis and Harry were looking at each other and, damn, I can't explain what I felt, I just knew it. So, I was trying to figure out if I was the only one thinking there was something between this two, and it turned out I wasn't! I discovered tumblr, and I spent 3 days reading post, watching videos and proofs and...here I am, 3 years after, being the larriest larrie

I became a 1d fan when uan tour had just started and like. I watched all the damn youtube videos in about a week and I noticed that in the video diaries on the stairs they were so ~cozy, and they were so Extra™ on stage and hl weren't like that with the other boys. They just emanated the feelings I suppressed: Ultra Gay. And yeah. That's how it Began for me

I became a larrie when I watched the behind the scenes of wmyb and Louis was saying "I've gotta say it" and Harry was all over him and hid his face in Louis' shoulder and said "no!"

Same like that previous anon i hadnt even considered two guys being more than friends bc of where i grew up. But just watching proof videos of them for a while i kind of realized how in love they were. Thats when i started thinking about how different and colorful the world actually is compared to what I've learned from the people i grew up around

I became a larrie when my friend and I would watch their video diaries together, and I would see the way h&l acted with each other. I mentioned it to my friend and she was like yeah, Larry, and she showed me one YouTube video so I spent weeks watching every single one I could find, all these years later and I've come to accept theres no way to crawl out of this 😂

are we sharing larrie stories? my friend became a fan early 2012 (and a larrie) and was adamant on making me on too, and I finally gave in summer 2013. I rmr the day after TCAs that year, niall tried to do a twitcam and idr how but some article got written abt the twitcam that included a link to those 'you just have to pay attention' videos. I marathoned them all, and it was that arm moment that zayn failed to hide that #sealed it. though my friend gave me the skinny on haylor back in 2012~

i was like a super casual fan since their first album. my friend introduced them to me cuz she was crushing on zayn. i just knew their music but not actually them. i became a larrie during weedgate. weird timing, i know. i saw it on the news and got curious about what was going on. saw the video then got to know about the boys individually through past vids. i started from the very start from the xf vid diaries. those two, not subtle AT ALL. and well, the rest was history.

i was in entirely different fandom back in 2014, but one of my follower turns into a liam stan and starts to post about 1d and there was a post about how harry and louis can't touch each other and i thought that was really weird weren't they bandmates?? then i started digging around and stumble into a treatise blog. here i am now hahaha

I got into this fandom because of my best friend. She showed me week 4 diary video... and I was like are those two in a relationship?? I pointed at louis and harry and she said no why? And I was like I don't know they seem cozy together and I pointed out that harry was staring at louis lips... she didn't believe me first but now she is a larrie😂 So basically I got into this fandom knowing larry is real

I became a fan of the boys 4 years ago. I read about Larry and that fans believed they were together so I went on YouTube and saw some videos and read some stories (I think it was here on tumblr??) and I immediately believed they were together. There wasn't a particular moment for me, it was a lot of things. Probably, above all, the way they looked at each other. They never looked at someone else so fondly. And 4 years later I keep saying the same thing 💖

for me, i always thought louis was gay from way back in 2011 but i didn't really think of harry's sexuality cause i wasn't like a stan i was just a casual fan [which is why it confuses me when people say that if larry isn't real, louis is straight and horrible, no...he still gay as hell babe]. anyway i became a larrie cause i used to really follow celeb gossip and when the news dropped, gossip sites/tabloids kept mentioning harry and larries everywhere so i decided to investigate and...here i am

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fuckyeahexofics · 8 years ago

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Hey i just wanted to ask a kinda touchy question. I really appreciate the fact that you ban fics on your blogs such as noncon and shotacon ect. I feel like fanfiction writers take this free speech thing too far and dont understand how damaging such things could be to peoples perceptions on sex and the unhealthy outlook certain things have! Ive always read fanfictions but im starting to feel uncomfortable with the smut ones particularly. (1)

(2) I understand writers disclaim at the beginning of a story that the stories are works of fictions but at the end of the day these are based off of real people and avalible for the public to read. I just find it kinda bad to fetishize a person, you know, wether its their stage persona or not? Its kind of violating i feel and probably very uncomfortable for someone to read their body being used a certain way to the enjoyment of a large audience.

(3) Anyways im just curious of your opinions since I respect your past ideals! Wanted to get into fanfic writing myself and im not coming for anyone just sometimes i stop myself and think i would hate for people to write about me like im a sex object in smut and get off on that in many cases!! But i dunno at the same time people would probably do it in their heads anyways. I dunno. i find romantic stories to be a different case,im touching more on the vivid sex scenes you know?

Warning: OP’s blog is a porn blog, do not click if you do not want to see.

First of all I just want to say that there’s no such thing as one genre that’s better or more worthwhile than another. People are allowed to like and enjoy different things, and change their likes and dislikes as they go along in life. I hope everyone is clear on that point. Free speech is just that, you are free to write and say what you want- and others are free to tell you that you’re full of shit.

I also want to address your false equivalency you make in this ask because frankly it is not what we stand for in FY!EF at all. Smut is not equal to nor represents shotacon or noncon. These are separate issues that exist aside from smut itself. This is why we don’t recommend them, because there is something illegal about them and at their core, morally repugnant. Are we the morality police? No, but it’s our blog and we will only post content we feel comfortable with. And we are very comfortable with smut.

Additionally, we (the fandom) have no right to judge what is “healthy” or unhealthy for another person, especially a fellow member of the fandom or for the idols that fanfic is written about. Fanfic is not a surprise to celebrities anymore, they expect it and in Korea they are trained to deal with shipping. Do you actually think ships exist by mistake? They are a marketing ploy to sell more albums and bring in more fans. Fanfic, at least in the US legal system does not rise to the level of being libel or defamation. Legally, it is a grey area and will likely continue to be so indefinitely.

Idols don’t have to read fanfic about themselves if they don’t want to, we are not forcing it upon them (unless you’re one of those people who posts HUNHAN FOREVER on Sehun’s instagram…then you’ve gone too far.)

Next! I want to address what I see as the underlying issue in your ask, because at the end of the day its not about smut vs romance, its about the fetishization of gay men (and all queer relationships) by a largely cis population of women. For the purpose my argument I’m going to focus on gay men.

Warning: Admin Aeryn is going to swear a lot.

A lot of fanfic is written by a younger audience, some of whom don’t know any gay people IRL and their exposure to gay people is through popular media such as yaoi anime, fanfic and popular bloggers. Media exposure does not mean you know or understand the gay population, doesn’t mean you’re qualified to speak on the behalf of gay folks or are even qualified to write about them.

But hey! That’s what the internet is for. We can write what we want, right?

No, not really.

Fanfic does not exist in a vacuum and I think what some of your discomfort seems to be is just that, the fetishization of gay men into certain roles or stereotypes that are inherently flawed, degrading and uncomfortable. Example: Baekhyun is a whiny bottom bitch slut who cries and begs Chanyeol for his massive monster dong. *

That’s pretty much the plot of the majority of Baekyeol smut fics out there. So what’s the problem in there. Well first, that Baekhyun is a slut and that being a slut is bad. Nothing wrong with being a slut. Next, the assumption that because Baekhyun is SHORTER than Chanyeol, he must always bottom (equating being gay with being a woman, and thus degrading both gay men and women in the same blow). Crying and begging in sex are also associated with stereotypes from heterosexual porn where the woman cries and is called a slut and begs the man with the monster dong to fuck her.

Being shorter does not mean a man will bottom for another man. Potentially having a smaller penis than another man does not mean he will bottom (not all men are size queens). Who tops and bottoms is not based on height, attractiveness, or muscle mass (all gender stereotyping, sexist, misogynistic). Not to mention all these “qualities” (ew) that writers base their fics on are exclusionary of transmen and transwomen. It is inherently fucked up.

But! Fetishization doesn’t end with sexualizing one person and stereotyping them into one particular sexual role. It also exists in the way you’ve made gay romance your pedestal where no “icky gay sex” exists. You’re essentially saying you have a problem with gay sex, but gay romance is fine. You are still guilty of the fetishization I have discussed up to this point. You have fetishized gay romance and excluded the sex because you don’t like it. Whether it’s because you’re coming to realize how fetishized and ugly the kpop fandom can be or because you’re inherently uncomfortable of dicks in butts because of homophobia, I can’t say. But I do challenge you to look at it deeper, because right now, it looks real bad.

-admin aeryn

* this post is not intended to be an attack on baekyeol shippers

#admin ques #faq

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pankopop · 8 years ago

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Sono Chi No Sodomy

Renegotiating Gender Politics of Anime and the Complex Queerness of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m a dumb baby newcomer to anime. And I’m not gonna pretend that I have any authority at all here. I think letsplayer Arin Hanson once tweeted about “The Weeb” being like chicken pox – you’ll be okay if you get it early but if you contract it in your twenties you’re basically doomed.

When I was 13 I never let my sister off the hook for being into Inuyasha. One day, I walked into the anime club at my highschool and just belly laughed at the dorks who dared to enjoy things. I’m a recovering fuckhead, and boy do I feel bad about the assholey things I thought and said.

The sneerishness stemmed from this idea that ALL anime was sexist, racist, and sexually obsessed with underage girls. To me, the entire country of Japan was ideologically written off as an ethical dystopia. That was when I still thought of myself as a real hard manly masculine boy, with long hair and motorhead on loop loud enough to drown out any opinions but Lemmy’s. I had things to prove! Boycott Japan! I’m very insecure!

Of course, things have changed (I hope). It took me many years of hurting and deriding really wonderful people to come to terms with how fucked up my thinking was. Studio Ghibli flicks became something to share with my partner, and then I happened to sit in on a pal watching subbed Attack on Titan. I had realized how much incredible stuff, how many fantastic worlds I was missing out on. How I didn’t need to worry about authentically being my true analog self if I was just fucking enjoying something.

***

When I first heard of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, it was through the tweets and tumblr posts of femmes and queer folk. That should have been a tell…

I had previously looked into the entirety of the Fatal Fury anime films because of cartoonist/roadwarrior/bisontaur Coelasquid waxed on about the pretty bara boys. That was kinda my first introduction to enjoyably dumb thousand-punch-a-second anime, but I was more interested by the way in which Coelasquid read into the schlock, seeing more complex narratives and richer characters than at face value. I began to see this blatantly masculine-centric misogynist text as more complex than what was intended.

Fragile and Close to the Edge were cornerstones in my musical childhood, so the roundabout meme (playing on the first couple series’ “to be continued” sepia freeze frame) was enough to get me interested. Also, I had just finished One Punch Man, and that left a big ol’ fist-shaped hole in my heart, so I was down for some new hyper weeb fighty fights.

Eventually I took it upon myself to find some Jojo episodes, starting S1E1. I got about six episodes in, and kinda lost interest. I think I got to about the episodes that involved the warriors devout to Mary queen of Scots. I can’t remember exactly why I fell off the wagon (anime Queen Mary really spoke to me). I probably had shit to do, and life gets in the way. Excuses excuses.

It was around this time that Lego Bionicle had received its half-hearted and ultimately futile reboot. By way of a 4chan /toy/ thread I came across the tumblr bionicle fandom, and then was redirected to someone’s twitter which had some fireemoji 100emoji fireemoji shitposts. She also posted jojo stuff non-stop. Which was cool. I didn’t mind not “getting it”; it was all so absurd that it was kinda just a joy to have on the feed.

It also piqued my interest as to why someone so into a weird niche robo-tiki fandom would be into this big boy barafest. In Bionicle, there were very few female characters. The extant few were actually pretty well written, but this left a big population of masculine heroes with a fandom hungry to ship romance into. I remember one person posting “If they didn’t want bionicle to be so gay, then why did they write men almost exclusively?”

“Alright”, I thought. “If they’re on the same wavelength regarding avatar-but-robots, Jojo might be cool.”

So I picked up where I left off, and was hopelessly hooked. I finished part 1, was admittedly chuffed by some pretty fun plot twists, and I absolutely got into Joseph Joestar in the part 2. The outfits, posing, and artistic obsession with lips, hips, and eyes were all so decadent, and the absolute disregard for toning it down really got me into the series.

Simultaneously, I was watching Steven Universe and absolutely adoring the story for its inclusive, positive social activist platform and it’s kindness. Each episode basically became my time for cry. I was also finishing up a cultural anthropology degree that would sustain that allowed me to unpack all the self-loathing I had as a teenager. I came out of that degree a kinder, more open minded person.

I was in a mire of anti-bigotted pink futurism. So why the fuck was I so into this show about big muscular boys punching big muscular boys? Well for one I started realizing things about myself but ALSO:

In some sense, the absence of women as plot characters had left the shipping possibilities open. As previously mentioned: all men, all gay. I noticed hard aesthetic resemblance to hyperbutch homo-ero british and American schlock portraits of the 60’s and 70’s. In many ways, yes, it is a male power fantasy. But in other ways it is absolutely a bergerian spectacle of pecks and soft lips and sad eyes and thighs and midriff and chiseled V. It’s an animated pinup mag.

I saw more porn of the characters than battle portraits. The fanart knew what was up. The fanfiction was dripping. Jojo is so sexually charged, and more importantly, sexually charged for a specific audience.

Now you could probably write a paper drawing a lineage from Charles Atlas through the dark ages of comics and into jojo, but I feel that’s more of an artist-centric industry perspective. The fact that Jojo sits comfortably in Shonen Jump, with a reader base insistently for boys, raises some exciting questions. I mean, it’s definitely not classically bishounen - there’s no accessible femme softness playing into romantic hetero dating scenario.

I think what, in the very least, feels revolutionary about Jojo is its unapologetic, unspoken, and hard sexualization of male forms. There’s really not a lot of actual fighting going on - so much frame time is spent ogling these tight bodies. You know this sexuality is for someone, and that someone is heckin’ queer and/or heckin’ female.

Furthermore, this powerful sexual decadence is fairly uncommon for non-hetero male eyes. It’s cruder and far more raw than your average bit of media meant to titillate boy-lovers. I can really only think of Magic Mike XXL as an equivalent.

This isn’t what your average dudebro wants to be. There are examples of male power fantasy you could point to, but deep down you know: jojo is for the loins of the spectator. There’s something incredibly subversive about putting the power of sexual spectatorship in the hands of women and queer folk. Tailoring to that spectatorship.

Yeah okay. That could just build off of the cliché of the big beefy hunks that naughty suburban blondes get flustered over after their 4th glass of white wine. But hear me out: Jojo’s not at all getting his beautiful body out of this queer reading.

For example: there’s a theme of piercing in Jojo. Bits of wood and shrapnel in bodies, the Pillar Men’s betrothals to Joseph (which y’know, gg ez), Dio’s obsession with fingering people’s necks… etc. Unlike the invincible bulletproof armour-bodies of Superman, Goku, etc etc, these bodies are fleshy and soft. They are vulnerable, even if the character himself is stoic enough to tough it out.

Men’s bodies, in the patriarchal scheme of things, are not supposed to do that. They should be hard, to pierce the bodies of the subjugated (read emasculated/females) that defy them. But here we are, Araki, with the men who can be penetrated, curiously burning gender roles and expectations with violence in a very violent narrative. Far from subtle, sure, but it’s nothing to ignore.

If the Jojoboys were really just a heteronormative eye candy for thirsty women, I don’t feel like male penetration would have been as pervasive. The male would be doing the penetrating, but no real males would be penetrated, especially not the protagonists.

To build on that, the garish, revealing fashion doesn’t point to male power. There are no massive pauldrons or chestplates, everything is laid bare, sensuous and exposed. These adjectives tend not to be associated with hegemonic masculinities. Nor is the world of textiles and high fashion seen as a socially acceptable male venture, as much as a trivially feminine pastime. There is genderfuckage abound in this hard boy cartoon.

***

I overheard someone talking about how they tried watching Jojo and they couldn’t understand for the life of them why any self-respecting femιnist would be into this mess of tropes. I’m not gonna argue against that. The whole argument for Jojo as a progressive show sounds like someone covering their ideological ass. I’m in no way suggesting that Jojo does the same work for femιnism that shows like Steven Universe and Avatar/Korra might be doing.

The point I’m trying to bring home is that I came of age thinking that anime was inherently sexist. That idea came from a whole lot of not listening to the people who were actually experiencing real sexism. Especially in those incredible cultural circumstances where the distinctions between content creator and content interpreter become blurred, it’s always worth it to investigate what identities, intentions, and libidos are involved. Something that seems like run-of-the-mill propaganda might actually be backfiring in a more progressive direction than media with actual progressive intentions.

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