#while you got these older kids making HISTORY making all this fanart

[lifeismarvelous]

SO TRUE DUDE

When the rc9gn Fanart was posted in 2014 from a deactivated account you know it is gold

[meruz]

hi meruz please tell me all your thoughts on outer wilds I am absolutely Living rn

HI oh my god i have so many thoughts. I think I'm gonna keep posting fanart so this definitely isnt gonna be my last word on the matter but wow what a game! um... idk if I wanna just type forever but I can give you at least a few key thoughts I had...

It took me a second to get into! I had been waiting for the switch port so I was really excited starting out but there were a couple early play sessions months apart where I was struggling with the controls and overwhelmed with the openness...I have a hard time with a lot of open worlds games because I just..dont have a lot of free time LOL. But I was complaining abt this to my brother and he was also having a hard time rly digging into the game so when he flew over to visit me a couple weeks ago I was like ok lets do this together (incentivizing gaming by making it social/co-operative). And we had a blast!!! it rly is the type of game you can play as co-op just by having someone else on the couch or on stream doin the thinking alongside you or bouncing theories off of. I do think he's a much better puzzle solver than me though lol (he works in research, so he's got that researcher brain), he made a lot of the leaps of logic way early while I was still turning things over in my head lmao.... AND he's better with the controls because he plays a lot of flight sims?! i think he got annoyed watching me bumble around anytime i had the controller. my sole contribution was doing the stealthy parts in the dlc because im stupid and consequentially lack fear.

I kind of grew up playing majoras mask and windwaker like that was the era of zelda games I was rly activated and engaged for as a kid and I didn't realize how much I was missing and craving that type of experience again LOL. I think especially with how I personally felt that tears of the kingdom was narratively and structurally a step down from botw... idk... i mean you can tell from interviews abt Outer Wilds that the devs clearly have a lot of affection for and thoughts abt the Zelda series as well and I think Outer Wilds was like such a good encapsulation of everything I loved abt those games and also everything I wish they would do lol!! IT ALSO kind of solved a lot of my pain points with open world games and did it in a way that was so elegant... like I think i initially recoiled at the openness but then when i started exploring and realized the scope and level of detail it rly clicked into place.. im just in awe.

umm i love every hearthian they were all so charming. it rly did feel like an older school of nintendo rpg where every npc has so much personality lol. i loved that every alien race in the game was some weird animal like the designs for all of them were rly good. i love that it was a "worn" universe and that everything looked old or used. I love astronomy and space and space concepts but I don't really like really lofty and impersonal/minimalist scifi so i feel like this was a great and accessible art direction for me personally. i especially thought the backpacking/outerdoorsy aesthetic was really inspired! I think "exploration" sometimes exists on a spectrum where one end of it can be really colonialist/militaristic LOL... UM which im not like. fully against i think it can be an interesting idea to dissect? but i feel like we see it a lot and it was neat to see this which felt like the complete opposite end of that spectrum. weirdly enough playing Outer Wilds made me immediately go and finally finish Firewatch right after but I felt a little spoiled I was like ehh..that was good but it wasn't Outer Wilds LOL.

i think a lot of the themes reminded me of lord of the rings/tolkien lore LOL IDK. I GUESS THIS IS LIKE BIG SPOILERS SO if you havent played dont read but like. the entire concept of being born at the end of a great and enormous world/age with a rich history and you only getting to see the end of it, living in the shadow of great civilization...keeping your humble home in your heart idk. but then also the new world being a song ... I'm a sucker. I love it.

yeah sorry only compliments. anyways yeah i want to do more fanart... soon!! hopefully!

[takaraphoenix]

I'm curious, how many fandom have you been a part in? How many shows you like that has no fandoms? What are your fandom history?

Oh, that is such a fun ask, thank you! Brace yourself, I am actually giving a way more detailed answer than you probably wanted.

So, first of all, it depends on what one's definition of "in the fandom" is. Because if I'd count every fandom that I have been a part of as a "spectator" - admiring fanarts and GIFs and reading fanfiction - daaamn, that'd make this a very long list, I think.

Generally, I only count myself as part of a fandom if I also contribute to it myself, because that means this fandom really sucked me in, while the ones I only read in are more... passing fancies, I guess? That's how it is for me, anyway.

So, by that metric, have a little history of Phoe.

My earliest fandom was Charmed, though... very much unposted, like, "physically wrote with ink in a notebook" fanfiction. But that was the first show that really consumed me; my walls were plastered with posters, all my friends who bought teen mags always cut the Charmed articles out for me (which, genuinely, so sweet), heck, I had Charmed bedsheets. Also my very first next generation, the kids of the Charmed Ones. But that was waaay before I even knew the term "fanfiction", I just liked writing so I thought "what if next generation though", particularly due to how important family is in this show.

In 2005, I wrote my first fic that I actually published, though... if it still exists on the internet, it's on an account I forgot about. Twas Yu-Gi-Oh! and Puppyshipping. That was when I was actually diving into fandom, as a shared experience, instead of, you know, faning for myself. Reading fics, exploring websites that brought fans together.

Ultimately, I ended up on Animexx (German fan site, hosting forums, fanfiction, fanart, doujinshi and a shit-ton of other fannish delights) and in the Beyblade fandom.

These two, by the way, went a little hand in hand together. Beyblade and Yu-Gi-Oh! were two of the big anime of the time, airing in the noon-ish block on RTL2 in Germany at the time. That shounen sports-anime genre always got the fangirls.

And the Beyblade fandom was where I really... took off, in a creator way. Wrote a total of 39 fics spanning over 200k words in the three years I was a part of this fandom (2006-2008) and drew a bunch of fanarts too. I joined a writer's circle - kind of a club - for the ship KaRe and that hugely factored into my productivity. We gave each other feedback, had fandom events, met up at conventions. Most of them were in their early to late twenties, some older, so I had a lot of mentor figures in my life there who taught me how to be a better writer. But by 2008, the fandom started to fizzle out, more and more of the writers I admired and was friends with dropped out of it and went on to other fandoms, so by the end, I was out too, because being one of the last ones standing was... frustrating.

I was a little... lost, after that. It's weird, when your very first fandom dies, because you never experienced that before, so how does fandom life go on after that? How do you get into a fandom?

I stopped writing for about a year, not really having a fandom to channel it into, when I watched Sky High in 2009. And oh boy. That movie inexplicably captivated me. I mean, not so inexplicable, there's a pretty boy with a tragic backstory in it, like... that's catnip to me, and he even had fire-powers, c'mon.

Which is kind of how I discovered fanfiction.net because a single movie did absolutely not get a huge following in Germany so I started seeking out English fics, even though my English was absolute dog-shit. But it inspired me, it made me write again. One fic, unpublished, in German, but it got me going again and it showed me that hey no it can be that easy, just latch onto something else that brings you joy!

It's also how or why I made my FFNet account; so I could leave proper comments on the Warren/Will fics I read.

By 2010, Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief hit theaters and it hit me, personally, hard. I loved that movie, the concept of modern day demigods and Greek mythology being real was just so good. Plus, elemental control, again. I love that stuff.

So I did the very untypical thing of buying the books. All five in one go. And I actually read them. I started writing PJO fics by 2010.

Heck, I started writing a lot between 2010 and 2012, for practically everything that caught my interest - Percy Jackson, Detective Conan (an anime I had been a fan of since the days of Yu-Gi-Oh! and Beyblade, only that this one was still going) were the two biggest, but things like Eureka, Transformers, Entourage, Jungle Book.

I started college in October 2011 and I, uh, well, I wrote my fics during class. Because lectures are just not... nah. They let me have my laptop in class? Hell yeah, I'm gonna write.

I had a good friend back then, a friend I made early on, who at one point noticed me writing during class and asked me if I actually post it online and I went hell no, because English is not my native language, heck, for the majority of high school (German high school spans from 5th grade to 13th grade, we don't have middle school), I didn't even pay attention in English and was fully content scraping by. I only really started paying attention in 2009 when Doctor Who saw the return of my beloved Jack Harness but not the return to the German screens so a girl had to make ends meet by watching it in English. So, yeah, though I shot to the top of my class in high school with the literal power of anime and Doctor Who, I didn't feel confident enough to post my stories on websites where actual native English speakers could read and judge them. But he kept nudging me about it and telling me that if I went through the trouble of writing them, I should share them with others who might enjoy it.

So, yeah, everybody say "Thank you, Andy" for actually making me post my fics by January 2012. Which, I just fully dumped all the fics I had written in the past two years within a short span of time. His motto of "if you enjoy it, others will too" really resonated with me so I posted everything.

And it... took off. DCMK and PJO, there was such a positive response from people, actual excitement for the fics I wrote, and I got that sense of fandom community again, answering comments and starting conversations and friendships with people, commenting on fics that I read and enjoyed. The other fandoms I wrote for kind of fizzled out because the shows ended and movies ended (well... stopped being good).

It was so different, being in ongoing fandoms, where the show still aired and the books were still being released. And I do consider myself someone who helped build up the PJO fandom, on the slash side anyway, because I wrote so much for a ship that was so tiny back then - Nico/Percy.

I'm still actively writing for both of these fandoms to this day, 12 years later.

And then came Teen Wolf in 2013. I started watching it during the hiatus between season 2 and season 3 and got really addicted and devoured all the fics I could and I thought "holy shit, this is going to be my next big thing" and then season 3 just... crushed... literally every single hope I had for the show. Don't get me wrong, 3B is, imo, the best storyline, but by then 3A had already destroyed so much. And season 4 kinda sucked, which put me off. And I straight up hated season 5 so I dropped the show and thought that's that, moving on. This was the closest I have come to actually abandoning a story since I left the Beyblade fandom, including the 10 years after this, because the show's quality drop had demotivated me so much, I put the multichapter fic I had started onto a... long... hiatus. I only continued it about 4 years later, when I started feeling so guilty about abandoning the fic that I said "Nah, I am going to rewatch this damn show for the sole purpose of finishing this damn story" in 2018. And I did! Finish the story, and the show.

Ironically enough, this year, Teen Wolf has sank its claws into me again and dragged me in deep. I mean, really deep. I wrote 30k worth of fics for it this month alone and just started a rewatch again. So, consider me officially back in this fandom.

2014 was when I finally caved and watched Kuroko no Basuke, which was hugely popular in the crowd of former Beyblade fandom members. And kinda got addicted to that. Fully did not write as many fics for it as I wish I would have, but I loved that show.

2015 saw me dipping my toes into DC Comics through the Arrowverse and, mainly, Leonard/Barry. This will, ultimately, kick off my interest in actually reading the comics, we'll get to that in 2021.

In 2016, I succumbed to the MCU. That lasted until 2020 when Endgame kind of, ya know, ended that for me. And, not gonna lie, the fandom experience here didn't really help me want to stay active. Sure, there were many nice people and the response to my fics was overwhelming, but... if your fandom is overly toxic about your favorite character, it's just kind of exhausting and at one point I was just tired arguing with antis too, you know.

But let's go back to what ran parallel to me still being in the MCU.

In 2017, I started watching Shadowhunters. A show based on the books whose movie adaptation I had already seen, and loved, in 2014. One look into Jace's heterochromic eyes and I sold that character my soul. I have written so many fics for this fandom since then, made some truly wonderful friendships (among them my best friend) and am still active in this fandom.

2018 was a bit of an experimental year for me, because I actually got my tumblr account in autumn 2017 and tumblr changed my interactions with fandom again. It wasn't limited to fanfiction and comment sections anymore, you could just... throw your opinions out there, reblog fanarts, GIF sets existed!! That was a game changer. I dipped my toe into a couple fandoms for like... one fic - Musketeers, Star Wars, Maze Runner (that one's fully on Dylan O'Brien btw), Imposters (absolutely fueled by the fact that tumblr gave me GIFs and I started making GIFs for this show and got much more invested than I would have gotten if I hadn't had a tumblr account), Dragon Prince. Honestly, I don't know how I feel about all that. Part of me is always frustrated when I go and throw one singular fic into the abyss and then move on, but at the same time I do enjoy stretching my wings.

Nothing really major to report between 2019-2021, I kind of just... continued on in the fandoms I was in already. I didn't have much space for new fandoms, the pandemic and changes in my personal life were Enough New Things, so I kind of clung onto the familiar.

So Marvel disappointed me by 2020, right. That factored into why, in 2021, I figured, why not focus more on the other side of the two only comic franchises in existence (sarcasm, I am aware there are more), since I was already watching and loving the Arrowverse and continuously writing fics for it. I started reading DC Comics, really diving into it and letting it consume me and started spinning my own Elseworld - creating this patchwork of things I loved in main continuity, many Elseworld stories, cartoons and the Arrowverse. That's still a work in progress, by the way.

2021 is also the year that gave me Shadow and Bone, a show I quickly got addicted to and wrote a couple of fics and still hate that I haven't written more for this show. I know I will, because I know I will rewatch this show and I will remain bitter about my OTP and I predict that I'm going to fall off the deep end and end up writing for it after all. I am reading fics for it though, still.

That's also the year I started writing Buffy fanfiction, because, again, thank you, tumblr. I don't think I would have ever written anything for it if tumblr hadn't shown me that even so many years after the show ended, there is still such an active and dedicated and beautiful fandom, filled with people who create gorgeous GIFs, interesting meta takes and silly shitposts. Love you, BtVS tumblr.

Damn, 2021 was a productive year for me. Because, mind you, on top of DC, SaB and BtVS, I was also still juggling PJO and Shadowhunters.

I also wrote a few Harry Potter fics between 2020 and 2021, though I did not (and still don't) consider myself part of that fandom, those were gifts for my girlfriend at the time.

In 2022, I started watching Fire Country and the show punched me in the face with a really good ship and though only a handful of episodes were out, I wanted to read fics... and there was not a single one... so I started writing them myself.

Honestly, not much has happened in 2023, because I had the most massive writer's block since leaving Beyblade and didn't write a single word in months. I still worked on DC, PJO, DCMK and Shadowhunters though.

And now we're here, in 2024, which sees my Teen Wolf resurgence.

So, I feel like that covers your first and third question. I don't think I can answer your second question though. Because I have truly consumed so many shows over the course of my life and I'm not... interested in "bonus content" - aka fics or fanarts or GIFs - for the majority of them. They're just entertainment that is running in the background while I write fics for the fandoms I'm in. The only times that I watched a show and wanted a fandom and didn't find one were Imposters and Fire Country, both due to having been really new back then. But other than them, I've been pretty lucky by getting attached to things with very active and often times even very big fandoms.

[bromcommie]

🤩🎯

Hi, thanks for the ask! :) 🤩 What led to your interest in the fandom?

Oof, boy. So, I mean, I was a geeky little kid and grew up loving the Spiderman and X-Men comics, so my interest kind of naturally progressed with the MCU boom of 2009 or whatever. As for Cap, I have to admit I didn't like him all that much at first - I'd only seen him in The Avengers and I think like many other people I kind of just viewed him as The Square Old American Imperialist Guy (thanks, Joss Whedon😒). It was only after seeing CATWS and retroactively CATFA that the floodgates opened. The interest was kind of on and off for a while, but it definitely spiked with time and I got into the Cap, WS, Black Widow and some other comics as well after that.

Idk when exactly I got into Stucky, because I distinctly remember having a phase of "why can't guys just be really really really good friends???" (I know, I know.) but between then and CA: CW I definitely fell in love with both characters and a) kind of went through my own awakening lol, b) started rapidly developing an unrelated but helpful interest in early and mid-20th century history and c) watching a shit ton of Cap edits on YouTube because I've always liked vidding. I eventually started making some of my own vids and fanart when my brain just woke up one morning and clicked into "oh shit. oh, not only is the premise of this story compelling on several levels, but these motherfuckers are in love in love" mode, and inevitably that also led to me starting to read fanfiction.

And that was just...a fucking revelation and a half. Because suddenly here were all these people writing heartfelt, compelling stories—sometimes heavy as shit, sometimes downright hilarious and sometimes just publishing quality—about everything ranging from grief and guilt and trauma to bodily autonomy and disability and queerness and self-worth to relationships with faith and nationality and community and intersectional identity to beliefs and morality and perseverance to violence and war and systems of oppression to different kinds of love and devotion etc etc etc I could go on literally forever. All set to a sprawling love story, all in a historical context I was interested in, all with about a million different perspectives you would never actually get to see on screen or on the page. I also fell in with a bunch of very passionate, nerdy queer people in college after, all of whom loved comics characters and shared these interests and had a lot to say on the overlap of the two, and well. I never really stood a chance, after that.

I guess ultimately what really drew me to it was the potential of taking material that was (I'm sorry, but let's be real) sometimes painfully mediocre-to-plain bad but with a great premise, and then projecting and exploring some really interesting and grounded and even vulnerable topics through the very fun sandbox that the more fantastical, epic aspects of these stories present—often in a subverted way and with mouthpieces (read: Stereotypical Empowered Bulky Macho Men) that you don't get to see in that light in mainstream media. And the Cap fandom really had (and has to this day!) an abundance of talented, curious people throwing themselves into that wholeheartedly and with such wonderful passion and creativity and care. So engaging with that as a hobby can be really lovely and inspiring and cathartic. And sometimes it's just plain lighthearted fun! I think the older I get the more I can really appreciate that.

Also, not to be super sappy or make it sound more serious than it is, but stories about goddamn superheroes overcoming painful, fucked up real life situations and aspiring to do and be better were a great comfort to nerdy Little Me, and so was getting to talk to people about the things I saw in them that meant something to me. I think Steve's character and origin—and the perspectives on it I got from other people—were just a big deal to my baby teenage brain during a time when I was starting to develop a real life social and political awareness and a sense of all the ways in which the things we do and say and how we stand up for each other matter. And as a grown-ass adult today, I still cherish that. And I cherish that even though I've matured and evolved and so have my other interests, I still got to come on here in the year of our lord 2024 when this particular hyperfixation suddenly came out of its long winter slumber and indulge in a comforting, creative hobby and stretch my writing muscles, and that I still got to find people to play in that sandbox with in a way that is extremely satisfying.

So there you go, and I'm so sorry. I have a lot of thoughts and feelings on this. Make of that rambling essay what you will.

🎯 Do you have a writing milestone you’re working towards?

In terms of fandom works, I really don't. I started writing fic just as a fun hobby for myself, and I never really thought of it in terms of goals like I do the original work I try to write, just because I think that'd probably take some of the fun out of it. I'm in a bit of a rut at the moment though, so I'd really like to be able to break out of it soon and post the next few chapters of orpheus I've been trying to work on, if that counts!

[sophies-junkyard]

Seeing the new PJO content has me thinking way too hard about growing up. Its crazy because it’s like…. I think that chapter of my life is over? Which is a BIZARRE feeling. It’s all pretty stupid to write out but I’m drinking coffee and staring out the window and don’t have class for another 6 hours so lemme scribble some thoughts.

I read the Percy Jackson books when I was the same age as the characters, and so whenever I look back on those stories I sort of… remember them as peers? I remember how much I related to them and looked up to them. It was the first story that ever told me my ADHD could be a gift, and that it made me just like my heroes. It was so, SO important to me. I JOINED TUMBLR for the PJO fandom! I made camp t-shirts and painted necklace beads! I learned to draw because the fanart inspired me. Those books were such an escape for a lonely kid. The characters grew up right alongside me, and eventually got older than me. So when I picture our trio I still picture people… more competent than me? People I would aspire to be. But seeing that trailer and remembering like… holy fuck they were kids. I was a kid. This is a faithful adaptation because they were TWELVE… where did the time go?

It’s just strange because if you scroll back through my tumblr you’ll find a kid who camped out for the release of HOH. Who saved her allowance for a year to get an autographed copy of the Blood of Olympus. Whose eyes would glaze over in euphoria at the idea of my favorite thing in the world coming to screen. At the idea of a new BOOK!! And from Percy’s perspective?? That girl would’ve exploded. This was HER blog! Push a few buttons and you’ll find her!

So how odd is it that… it’s simply not for me anymore. When I saw that the book was set in Percy’s senior year of high school, I had a tiny flash of disappointment. Obviously I can’t relate to an 18 year old, and I felt myself frowning. “Why isn’t Percy for ME anymore?” I wondered. And I immediately felt silly. The answer is because… I don’t need that world anymore.

They’re not making this show for me. They’re bringing it back for the next generation of kids who need those role models and those stories. When I watched the trailer I thought “oh that’s cool” instead of “oh my god I can’t wait!!” Because it just doesn’t make my brain light up like it used to. I’m never going to relate to it like I once did. Ever. And that’s okay because I’m not that kid anymore! Insane.

It’s not like the series doesn’t mean anything to me anymore. There’s a copy of The Lightning Thief on the bookshelf directly across from me. Its smooshed between The Secret History and a level 4000 Spanish textbook. It’s yellowed with age and shredded around the corners. The first sentence has been underlined repeatedly in smudgy mechanical pencil. There are about a thousand folded pages and the back cover is missing. I don’t remember the last time I opened it, but it’s moved with me for years now and I have no intention of letting it go.

Those stories and that fandom shaped me into the person I am today. I wanted to be brave like Percy and smart like Annabeth. I believed it was possible because I saw myself in them, and it turned out to be true. So while it’s sad to know those days are behind me, I’m so SO glad that other kids will get to have that experience. I hope these stories live on for decades to come.

I don’t really know what the point of writing this was. I think I just wanted to have these thoughts written out somewhere. A sort of acceptance that time goes on and things change, ya know? And to clarify: this is NOT meant to discourage ANYBODY from watching the new series or reading the new book. People should absolutely go back to the things that bring them joy, should discover new worlds to escape to, etc. live your life baby! Hell, I’ll probably end up liking everything PJO related that floats across my dash. Nostalgia is a powerful thing. If you read this entire post I hope you have a great day lmao.

[fellow-traveller]

A slight rant, I suppose. But it's more frustration than annoyance.

(under the cut because I don't want to spoil someone's day with this discourse)

I'm pretty much active in Twitter/X mainly because of the 1 Day 1 Hol Horse thing, but when I ventured deeper into the JoJo fandom, I realised the anti-proship discourse is just a huge WHY for me.

Like, why does this mess have to exist?

Why does one have the need to not interact with other fans in the same fandom, especially if they also share a similar preference?

Why can't everyone just like what they like, and leave what they don't, without harming actual fans, like sending death threats, trolling, doxxing, rallying hate etc?

To clarify, I've only known about this new definition of anti-proship about this year, when I got active again in the JoJo fandom. And it came to me in the form of being forced into a voting poll without my knowledge, and the fans that voted for or against my account labelled me a proshipper based on "problematic" fanarts from my Japanese friends and moots that I liked and shared.

It was the very first time I learnt what the bastardised definition of a proshipper is to these group of people.

Because during my anime/manga era, some good 20 years ago, proshipping basically means shipping whatever one likes and accepting that others may ship things one dislikes. We had terms like OTPs and NOTPs and BroTPs, and we use them freely to express love and acceptance, while also acknowledge what we prefer and what we don't.

Yes, there will occasionally be fans who will throw a tantrum about what others ship. They were the ones we call antishippers - the most intolerant of fans. They started ship wars, they send death threats, they doxx. They are the unhinged that most likely would kick a baby if given the opportunity.

Proshipper is actually a very positive word, and we love proshippers, because they're very tolerant, they work as middle men in ship wars, and by all things divine, most of them have really great artistic skills. Antishipper, nope, we don't want to be that. We hate that. We despise that.

But somehow the new generation seemed to shift the blame of all things bad on proshippers by changing the definition of it.

Depending on who you ask, proship could be a short to "proactive shipping", "professional shipping" or just "pro shipping" (as in pros and cons). All positive words. Now the new generation who most likely was never thought of how to explore fandoms at a young age, deemed proship as "problematic shipping".

The audacity to simply change the definition is palpable. Especially when I find out the kind of "problematic" things that they try to justify hating on.

Kids. Teens. Young adults. My dears.

Whatever "problematic" things you've seen in a fandom /ship /character now IS NOT NEW. It's not something that just happened to exist in a recent fandom to spite the younger gens. It has been there 20 years ago when I was underaged and older fans were making fanart of their favourites both "problematic" and not. Heck, probably way longer before for them as well.

If only you utilise some reading skills and maybe your library card, you can find the history of anime-manga was filled to the brim with "problematic" topics. It's a way of expression, it's a way of coping, it's a way of criticising certain factors like politics and people. Anime and manga has always been "problematic". That's a hard fact.

Virtue signaling especially if you're from the West is not gonna change that.

Also, I cannot stress it enough that fiction does not equate to reality. At best, it is an imitation of reality, in a form safe for consumption and indulgence that require no harm to real living beings. Once people can differentiate these, trust me, life will be so much easier.

While the definition of proship had seen a pretty twisted change, antiship didn't. They still did the same things, only now, the minors were dragged in.

Despite all, I won't deny there are absolute rotten eggs on both sides. There will definitely be proshippers who are so disturbing it scares even Junji Ito. There will also be antishippers who will do anything to spread more hate in the fandom, making it rather unlivable. And both sides have the capability to influence an attack on each other, or worse, take advantage of gullible, ill-informed fans, especially minors.

But if we stop lumping everyone into "proship dni" and "antis dni" lists, and openly, properly communicate and explore about likes and dislikes and preferences like old times, I'm sure complaints from antis like

"Why is this fanartist who draws / fan who like [insert ship] has to be a proship?"

"I like this fanartist's artwork but they are a proship, so now I can't see their stuff."

"There's not enough fanart of [insert ship/character]."

would be way, way less.

And I always wonder if these antis, who were mostly young teenagers of a sound mind, have a pending curiosity to explore something adult through fictional characters. Hence why, while they despise proshippers and anything not sfw, they still talk about it among themselves and draw lemony drawings, even to a detail I personally wouldn't share so openly. And why they still invade not sfw spaces even with a clear warning.

Because, I get that, I've been there, most likely as early as 12. Exploring sexuality is not wrong at that age, and it's already a correct method to use fiction for it.

But by pushing away people who had been there, who can actually help, is gonna continue making these antis be a hateful, intolerant bunch. And more easily influenced by actual real life predators.

And for the "proshippers", it's also pretty frustrating to see themselves being harrassed, blocked, and talked about behind their back from antis who never thought of maybe, just maybe, getting to know them first. Especially if they are not from the West.

So my advice to these antis and especially the antis who practically had no reason to be an anti, don't confine yourself into a small container and scream why it's too small. Fiction is there for you to explore reality and things that you can and will never do in real life. Exploring it is way better than suppressing yourself, as long as you know your own limits. Preference and discomfort are only evident if you communicate in a proper manner, not by bashing someone without them knowing and shift the blame of the discomfort you caused yourself on them when they had no intention to even present it to you.

We're in the same fandom. Sharing the same love for the same character and ships. I don't see why we should cut it down so meticulously just because one cannot separate fiction to reality.

As a pretty much seasoned anime-manga fan, especially in JoJo (I've been with the fandom since 2001, tbh), keep your mind open. Block and mute are always your friend if things get too overwhelming, but hatred shouldn't be the main motivator. Communication is key. If you want to know more, express your discomfort, discuss on characters / ships / fandoms...always communicate first. Never assume, never stab on the back. You might be surprised how helpful proshippers can be if you're just, for once, be nice.

That's all.

[fadebolt]

As someone who also got to experience the Hungarian education system (well, technically, it was the Serbian one, but from what I could tell, there isn't really a difference, which kinda makes sense with the history of north-Serbia), I feel like I should probably add my two cents to this, because it made me feel somewhat validated.

Gonna leave a "read more" here too, since you know, these are pretty heavy topics. Things I don't tend to talk about on this blog (and for a good reason).

So the claim that there's a normalization within our culture, of people engaging in more adult-oriented activities in way younger ages is absolutely correct.

I can't recall anybody mentioning a relationship with an older person, but I have witnessed many elementary school kids (generally 12-14 year olds) smoking, commonly drinking alcohol and openly talking about how they watch lots of porn.

Thankfully in my high school, the other kids were way more cultured in that way. The environment was way more pleasant, which I'm very grateful for, because elementary school was an extremely miserable experience, and I truly hope I'll never have to deal with such a rancid environment ever again.

Though there was one moment where my friends from high school have surprised me. Because when our class went out to cook and eat a big meal, as a way to celebrate our final year being over, we did a little drinking game with a mobile app that asks a bunch of questions. A lot of the questions were about more sexual topics, and I was shocked to see just how many of my classmates have actually been engaging with that stuff... and that they've been doing it for a while too (we were 18-19 at the time, so I still expected a few yes-es to those questions, but not from like, over half of the people there xd).

And what do ya know, one of them has literally gotten married a couple months ago. As a 20-21 year old. Yup, that just happened, I guess.

The thing that's funniest about all this, is that up until recently, when I started to frequently hang out around internet spaces, it never really occurred to me that there was anything wrong with all that. Because like... nobody ever questioned it. Sure, I did feel like it was a lil much a lil early, but I always thought that I was the weird one, and that I'm just developing slower, or not getting the hormones that everyone else does. Simply put, I just assumed that everything is normal, and that the problem was with me. (Which was usually correct when it came to social stuff... yay autism!)

And it weirdly makes sense that nobody questioned these things. After all, both Hungary and Serbia has age of content at 14, and we even have a few Romani people living here, who like to push things even earlier. (Like "Matisz Papa", the guy that became a grandfather in his late 20s, and speaks Hungarian very weirdly. Dude can still be found on YouTube, if anyone's interested)

So you can imagine my confusion when I start frequently going into the internet, and hearing about people saying how it's bad for 16 year olds to engage with adult stuff. It honestly felt as if I was seeing an alternate reality, or an alien species. And for a while, I was conflicted too, because I haven't actually seen anybody being damaged due to watching NSFW or having intercourse at a young age.

However, I don't imagine most damaged people would be open to talking about these things, and I have absolutely 0 personal experience to draw from (outside of accidentally stumbling onto NSFW images as a teen while looking through fanart, but like, that happens to everyone, and I don't imagine it as one of those things that causes permanent damage), so I learned to trust the internet a bit more in regards to this, and have come to understand that, yeah, maybe there is something horribly wrong with the culture that I was born into.

Unfortunately, I really don't know if this is something that could be fixed. The best thing one can do is educate their own kids about this stuff, to make sure they don't end up in a situation that can leave them hurt for life.

That's what my father did, any time my brother or I have brought up smoking, even in the context of a joke. He's been addicted ever since his buddies pressured him into it as a teen, and he fully understands the horrible consequences of not being careful with the cigarettes, and so he has done everything he could to keep us safe from this dangerous addiction.

You can't prevent everyone from doing dangerous and unhealthy things. However, you can influence the ones close to you and keep them safe, so that in return, they can keep others safe too. On some occasions, things really might be too far gone, but it never hurts to at least try. As people always say, "Be the change you want to see".

Or just pressure the government to fix some things. I mean, they're the worst in both Serbia and Hungary, so heck yeah, go do that too!

What's up with minors being completely comfortable sharing with everyone that they're dating with grown adults in their 30's????

[hannahhook7744]

Hannah Hook Verse masterlist part 1;

This masterlist contains informantional posts, tumblr wiki, applications, fanart, art, and fanfictions about my descendants oc, aesthetics, Hannah Hook, and her crew.

🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

Oc Fanfictions;

Happy Mother's day, Hooks;

Summary; how Zarina became a mother several times over.

The surprise adoption of Hannah Hook;

Summary; the story of how Hannah Hook came to be adopted written by my good friend @dragoneyes618 .

The troubles of parenting as a pirate;

Summary; here is a snippet of Captain James Hook's struggle as a father to his five kids-- Ginny Gothel, Harriet Hook, Harry Hook, CJ Hook, and Hannah Hook.

Neverland Club;

Summary; The story of how Hannah Hook joined the Neverland Club. Written by my good friend @dragoneyes618 .

Sisters, am I right?;

Summary: drabblet of Cj annoying Hannah. Written by my good friend @dragoneyes618 .

Everything has Changed;

Summary; 12 year old Hannah Hook gets invited to come with the core four to Auardon. This is her reaction.

The history's thick;

Summary, Ever since Hannah was little, she knew she was different from her siblings. Different in the way that she wanted to be a hero do the right thing. But it had never been a problem until she had come to Auardon and been forced to make the hardest choices of her life that left her heartbroken. Now she's stuck trying to control her powers while thinking back on her past with her siblings.

Happy Adoption Day;

Summary; Hannah Hook finds a baby and takes it into her crew as her brother.

My sister;

Summary; Hannah Hook's life with Cj Hook as a sister. Featuring the hook parents for @idontliketomatoesleavemealone and inspired by @dragoneyes618 .

Hey Sister!;

Summary; little snippets into Hannah's life as an adoptive older sister for her younger crewmates.

If Peter Pan was Hannah Hook's brother;

Summary; a funny 'what if' one shot that may or may not become canon.

The Failed Shovel talk;

Summary; The Hook siblings attempt to give Haul the shovel talk. It doesn't go as expected at all. Also featuring Peter Pan, Ginny Gothel, and an alternate version of Hope from ouat as half siblings who also take part in this ridiculous endeavor. Requested by @idontliketomatoesleavemealone and suggested by @dragoneyes618 .

The not so wicked stepmother;

Summary; 22 year old Hannah Hook gets to know her stepmom, Emma. An oc based on Emma from ouat with a few changes.

Fanged Cyclops' bad zoo trip;

Summary; Liberty and Herlando have a horrible date at the zoo.

The Pirate and The Dragon;

Summary; otherwise known as the story of how Treycor Zagreus Adonis Fae-Artoas and Hannah Artemis Hook met, and how their friendship expanded into the stuff of legend over time. Requested by @crimsonstar2096 who is the creator and owner of Treycor. Trigger warning; Violence and descriptions of injuries. Child neglect, etc.

How Hannah Hook won her ship;

Summary; How Hannah Hook won her ship. From Blackbeard. In a poker game. When she was 6. Barely a year after she got her hearing aid and glasses. A story Peter Pan has been dying to hear. Featuring Barnaby, an oc of my friend @saveme-storybrooke-potc .

Friends Vs. Bestfriends (oc edition);

Summary: my descendants original characters in various different situations. Trigger warnings; implied sexual content, swearing, Kidnapping, a pregnancy scare, and violence.

Dr Jiminy part 1;

Summary; in which Jiminy Cricket has a show like Dr Phil that also does parentity testing. Trigger warning; child abuse and a broken marriage. Swearing.

In Which Everybody Is Grounded;

Summary; Harriet is done.

I believe;

Summary; Hannah Hook meets North/Santa Claus.

Oc Incorrect quotes;

Upon Hope's Birth;

Summary; The name thing.

Ginny I have something to tell you;

Summary; James has a 'secret' to tell Ginny.

Oc Informational posts;

7 years;

Summary; Hannah has been gone along time.

I am an excellent aunt;

Summary; what the title says.

Hannah Hook's songs;

Summary; what the title says.

Hannah is so done;

Summary; Hannah's reaction to her siblings' actions.

Captain Changeling pets;

Summary; what the title says.

Hope's feelings;

Summary; what the title says but on magic.

Reactions to Cevon's marriage;

Summary; what the title says.

Why;

Summary; why Hannah was gone so long.

Hannah Hook tattoos and their meanings;

Summary; Hannah Hook's tattoos.

My oc ships;

Summary; the people who are together/will get together in my Hannah Hook story.

Hannah's 'voice' and physicality/characterization;

Summary; what the title said.

How cj feels about her name;

Summary; what the title said.

Storm Bringer crew contract;

This is the handwritten contract that Hannah Hook has any new crew members read and sign before they join her crew.

The ol' suitcase trick;

Summary; Hannah, Skia, and Luke pull the ol' suitcase.

Council meeting interrupted;

Summary; Hannah interrupts a council meeting.

Embarrassing first meeting;

Summary; Hannah doesn't realize she's met Haul's family in the most embarrassing way ever.

James Hook taught his five kids 10 important things;

Summary; The 10 things James Hook taught his kids.

Hannah Hook info;

Summary; This is a bunch of info about my descendants original character, Hannah Hook.

Questions answered about the crew;

Summary; what the title said.

Captain Care Bear headcanons;

Summary; future info about Hannah and Haul.

Hannah and Haul's kids;

Summary; what the title says.

Gaggle of children;

Summary; reaction to Hannah's gaggle of children.

Hope meets Hannah;

What was five-year-old Hope's reaction to meeting her big sister Hannah for the first time?

What Haul's family thinks;

Summary; what the title says.

Hook's descendants;

Summary; the descendant who looks most like James Hook.

Jasmine and Aladdin's reaction;

Summary; Amira, Jasmine and Aladdin's daughter, an oc of @descendants-extended , in my universe runs away to join Hannah's circus.

Oc Aesthetics;

My oc bedrooms part 1;

Summary; what the title says.

My descendants oc aesthetics;

Summary; what the title says.

My descendants oc aesthetics part 2;

Summary; what the title says.

My descendants oc aesthetics part 3;

Summary; what the title says.

My descendants oc aesthetics part 4;

Summary; what the title says.

My descendants oc aesthetics part 5;

Summary; what the title says.

Descendants ocs aesthetic;

Summary; the descendants oc aesthetics before I built more on them.

Hannah Hook's outfits;

Summary; what the title said.

Hannah Hook Outfit Board;

Summary; what the title said.

Oc fanart;

Fanart of my ocs;

Fanart of my ocs Part 2;

More fanart for my story;

My descendants tumblr wiki pages;

Darcy Aoratos Page;

Hannah Hook Page;

Haul Bjorgman Page;

Lucas Tremaine-Westergaard's page;

Skia Aoratos Page;

The Storm Bringer Page;

Actual wiki page;

Hannah Hook's actual wiki;

Oc memes;

Descendants Memes with my ocs;

Summary; memes of my descendants ocs.

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Hello! If you don't mind me asking, are you planning on watching House of the Dragon? I'm personally unsure about it. I was cautiously optimistic about it since D&D are not involved, but the recent casting news have been ugh disappointing imo. What do you think?

Hey anon! Sorry to say I kind of mind you asking because my inbox is still closed (to everyone except my secret Santas, which is why the ask page is accessible at all), but then I realized it’s possible if you’re on the mobile app only, you haven’t seen said note in my askbox, or my FAQ, or anything of the sort. And with older metas of mine being reblogged recently, it’s possible you may be confused. (I hope you’re on mobile only and not just ignoring my requests.) So I wanted to inform you of that... but also, y’know, I kind of wanted to make a post about the HotD cast anyway? And this ask is as good a prompt as any... so, you’re lucky, but please don’t push your luck. ;)

So, straight up: I currently have no plans to watch House of the Dragon. HBO is not getting any of my goddamn money, I don’t trust like that. And hunting down illegal livestreaming sites is a pain in the ass and I regret ever doing it for GoT, as well as regretting getting drunk every weekend enough to dampen my senses to ever tolerate that show. Yeah it’s different showrunners and writers, I know. It’s still (mostly) the same executives at HBO and even if the pervert producer is gone (or is he?), you know they still just want to sell sex and violence and dragons to an audience that thinks fantasy is for geeks.

Also, considering that Fire & Blood’s story of Dance of the Dragons has very little actual narrative or dialogue, and the historical record is deliberately untrustworthy, that gives them pretty much full rein to do whatever they like with the story and characterization and words without even being slightly obliged to GRRM at all. Furthermore, since the story is wholly political with virtually none of the magical side of ASOIAF (excepting dragons), and honestly does not have much in the way of themes or depth that main ASOIAF or even D&E has, I think it will be very hard for an adaptation to show even those brief sparks of quality that used to make me wistful GoT couldn’t be that good all the time and eventually just made me frustrated and depressed. Note I do like the history and characters of the Dance despite myself, despite its many many many textual issues, but I don’t need to see an adaptation, I have a very visual imagination. I don’t watch a lot of television to begin with, I don’t see why I should start again with this.

However, I’m not going to avoid spoilers or discussion, and I’ll probably follow the show the tumblr way, through gifsets and video clips and people bitching on their blogs etc. If, somehow, by some miracle of good screenwriting and acting, the show manages to transcend its source material, I’m sure I will be informed. And then, if and only if then, I may try watching. (Without, of course, giving HBO any of my goddamn money.) We shall see.

(Though I certainly don’t know why anyone in Targ standom would ever watch a Dance adaptation considering almost every Targaryen and everyone else in the story is terrible except Helaena and the kids, and considering how the story ends, unless y’all are gluttons for punishment? (I do not comprehend hatewatching, sorry.) It’ll probably be fun at first to see the adventures of those “precious silver douchebags” (to borrow a friend’s tag), but eventually rocks fall, everyone dies, including the girlboss you know you’ll hope the story will be changed enough that she succeeds. Just letting you know now, she won’t.)

That said. I’ve been following the casting news and I think the hate/fear/wild screaming is entirely overblown. Yeah, I know, but wait, just listen. On Friday I officially welcomed @naomimakesart to the “favorite character is now played by an actor who looks nothing like most fanart and is mostly known for wildly different roles” club. I still remember that day in September 2009 when my brother texted me “yarp”... and that right there is the thing. Yeah. Rory McCann looks very little like most pre-GoT Sandor fanart... but many fans grew to love him anyway. (There are some who never did, of course. And yeah the character went off the rails by the end, but truly, who didn’t. Having seen his audition, having spoken to him and heard him wistfully talk about book scenes he loved, I’m convinced if Rory had only been given Sandor’s actual scenes and such, he would’ve killed it. Sigh. Deep, deep sigh.)

And Rory isn’t the only one. Neither of the actors for Jaime and Cersei were considered “beautiful” enough at first. I recall very clearly people bitching about Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (about his nose particularly?) because they had wanted Tarzan-era Travis Fimmel to be Jaime. (Seeing people bitch because current-Fimmel isn’t playing Daemon made me laugh out loud for both BEYONCE?! meme -type “why would you ever cast him omg he doesn’t fit my headcanon Daemon at all”, and amazing amounts of fandom flashbacks.) Lena Headey was “too square-jawed”, “too mean-looking” (since at the beginning you should never be able to guess she’s evil), “too dark-complected”, “too mannish”, not at all attractive enough. (Tricia Helfer was the most common “but I wanted” for Cersei, btw.) And of course “they don’t remotely look like twins, ugh!” Note, there’s receipts for all of this, none of it is made up. (Unfortunately.) Those two actors are just the ones whose casting wank I recall most clearly, particularly because oh how the turn tables.

Also. You know, there’s a post with Matt Smith and Mark Simonetti’s TWOIAF Daemon going around with shrieks of horror... and I’m finding it maddening in a “am I crazy? am I  the crazy one???” way, because Matt looks like the painting. Their features are not that dissimilar.

Same deepset eyes. Same cheekbones of doom. Same thin lips. Same protruding chin. Same high forehead. Same invsible eyebrows ffs. Matt has a squarer jaw, and a longer more rectangular face, and a wider nose, but considering that Daemon’s features are not described in the text, and this is the only official ASOIAF artwork that shows Daemon’s face straight on, I can for sure see why he was probably shortlisted to begin with. And that’s not even getting into to his role in The Crown, which I’ve heard is very well played with politics and palace intrigue... and if you doubt Smith can play seductive/roguish and/or evil (depending on how you LARP as a Westeros historian), or look good with long hair... well. I do not want to watch the movie, but this trailer is disturbingly enlightening.

And as for Rhaenyra... y’all know this show is starting at the beginning of the story, right? When she’s a teenager? Not a voluptuous MILF? Yeah, Emma D’Arcy doesn’t look like a Magali Villeneueve painting (though who does, good lord), but you know who she does look remarkably like? Harry Lloyd.

Same jawline. Same nose. Same thin lips. Same sharp cheekbones. Notably, same kind of sharp cheekbones and deep-set eyes as Matt Smith. HBO evidently has a concept of a “Targaryen look” that’s a little bit quirkier than supermodel-Greek statue-gods on earth, yeah, fine. But it’s consistent, and they look like family, and that-- that is good casting.

And yeah, in a few months to a year or so, you’ll see them in costume and wigs and makeup, you’ll see them in motion and speaking lines, and go Oh. That’s different. Never mind. And while people will make fanart of the show depictions of the characters and those will probalby get popular, they’ll also keep doing fanart of their pre-show headcanons, and those too will be popular. (God knows when I draw or visualize book!Sandor, Rory does not come to mind, lol.) Either way, there’s no reason to panic. We’ll live.

(Though will we live well? Got to wait on the writing and showrunning for that, alas.)

[kihaku-gato]

AVTUALLY do you have a like guide on your OCs? Like quick and dirty who are they, why are they, what’s their universe etc etc. you seen yo have so much on them and how they fit in their world but i never really got a grasp on them and i want to know, well, everything

The quick and dirty… mildly challenging but not impossible, I’ll try to boil it all to bare essentials right here.

The World- Hoep

Not including AUs and Miscellaneous little stories/worlds there’s really only one fleshed out world for a good chunk of my OCs, which are in the “Hoepian universe” aka. the planet known as Hoep.

There’s a lot of details/lore for said world but here’s the short of it;

Fantasy setting, everyone’s a dragon. Almost everyone sticks to their human form cause most peoples’ dragon forms are… too smol. The monsters that caused humans before dragons to go extinct are still trying to do the whole planetwide extinction thing, some peeps try to stop it.

 Terra

Badass aloof athletic. Tournament fighter is her hobby but Mana Tech (or “magic scientist/craftsman” for lack of a better descriptor) is her career choice. Her battle style has a bit of a disciplined martial artist or military style to it. She is of a race of (literally) venomous/poisonous dragons, but does a bit to distance herself from any culture attached to that side of her, due to biological family abuse from an early age (well that and the whole “her father is a murderer and war criminal” detail), right to the point that she uses fire magic rather than poison or venom.

Due to the rough start she was a crybaby as a child, but after being adopted by a travelling fighter tournament champion, she started to make efforts on her own accord to be tougher and more like her adoptive mother. Though her mother did influence her badass aloof persona, I like to believe that Terra herself would’ve put her own pressure on herself to be tougher even w/o that influence.

This and that and she’s a little awkward socially. I’ve headcanoned her as Autistic but its one of those things I go on/off on.

She pays her bills partially through Mana Tech commissions (aka. commissions for enchanted clothes, armor, or weapons) as well as occasionally from the few tournaments she competes in.

 Kayla

Bubbly innocent lowkey powerhouse. Very bouncy and girly, a bit of romantic. She is last of her Clan of Monster Slayers (fyi there were three different Monster Slayer Clans that got wiped out). By instinct she is a good monster slayer to the point she took the job of monster bounty hunter to try to get by in her nomadic wanderings all the while not even training herself much to actually do said jobs.

She’s not really book smart, but definitely is attuned to emotions and intuition.

She holds up a very innocent rambunctious maiden kind of personality around people despite that violent career- it’s not so much as lie as much as it’s just the fact she wants to desperately hold onto her dream to be anything but a warrior. Settling down with a s/o, maybe starting a family, that’s what she would love to one day do so.

A bit of a powerful tank; half of it is all that hefty muscle hidden under the fat, the other half of it is her magical power being huge as well. Hard to beat being able to summon a lightning storm with enough build up.

She grows a crush on Terra when they initially meet. Rose-tinted glasses at the time saw Terra as a knight in shining armor.

  Demauria

Third image I had to include cause FRICK Shiro fanarts of Demauria are fucking gorgeous I die

Ice cold smol angry ball of rage. Despite being the shortest of the main roster, she’s actually slightly older than Kayla (some of it is genetic, but also some of it is that bad nutrition and improper magic usage stunted her body a little bit).

Like Kayla, is the last of her monster slaying clan. If that wasn’t bad enough though, Demauria lost family twice; her Clan, but then also her adoptive family as well (which got slaughtered by monsters). Between that and being raised in isolation (desolate arctic wilderness) she has a really bad time managing her emotions, which tend to then all lead to a response of becoming very angry as her emotions get out of hand. I could very easily see people calling her a tsundere (I even jokingly call her that) but it’s not a perfect label for how she is.

Her use of Ice Magic is both from her Clan and from being taught by her late adoptive father.

The one OC to be stubborn about preferring punk/goth aesthetic and very little else. If she wasn’t dealing with the mess she has to deal with (both in herself and the world itself) I would believe she’d be one to delve into Hoep’s history; both reading and studying the world’s roots.

While I’m not proofreading most of this ramble, upon nearing posting this I realized I should probably also explain wtf is with the pink haired vs the red haired with freckles versions of Demauria; like how Gaara (from Naruto) covers his body in a layer of sand for protection, Demauria does the same but with ice which is what causes the bluer hues and the hidden freckles.

 Riivar

Tall Travelling flirtatious entertainer. She’s ex-royalty from another kingdom (daughter to the King of Kennara). She severed her already rocky connection to her royal roots and took career choice of stage entertainer (a jack of many trades; singing, dancing, magical fire light shows, dramas, she dabbles in whatever she feels like having fun in) and struck huge fame. She’s also just is famous for being great with ladies in bed but shhhhh that’s not important.

In stark contrast to her royal roots she’s chill and very free-spirited and is much about having the freedom to do what you want to do in life.

 Harriet

Airheaded ship captain. Despite not being the smartest (she’s “sea smart” and has a lowkey theatre-kid mind but otherwise-), strongest, or prettiest, she makes up scrappy tomboyish charisma. Even in AUs she tends to attract a bit of a loyal crew that can move almost like an extension of herself.

Due to being the magnetic center of attention she can feel very ruffled/threatened when that attention she soaks in gets yanked away from her by someone else accidentally or otherwise (this is often the origin of a lot of Harriet’s animosity towards Terra both in canon and in AUs).

Like Terra, I lowkey headcanon Harriet to be autistic as well (funny for me, their Autistic creator to be so wishy washy on declaring it canon but that’s just how it is).

She was raised in a big family (lots of brothers), and was taught under the wing of a Retired-crimeboss who leads/directs her town’s Tournament Arena. Said ex-crimeboss trained her in “tournament legal” fighting methods but also taught her how to be illegal/dirty/underhanded methods where it be necessary for survival at sea. Before going to sea in her dream to be a seafaring ship captain she fought up the local tournament to become the tournament Champion to get her mentor’s blessing. Harriet had a random encounter with Riivar near Harriet’s “leaving of the nest” which both awoke Harriet’s adoration for women (“oh shit I’m bi”) and her idolization of Riivar to the point that she clumsily tries to mirror Riivar’s flirtatious mannerisms if she’s trying to woo a lady.

Though she holds herself to be graceful (her ability to ballerina spin for her water-magic attacks would fool anyone to believing that) she has a bit of a fumble-klutz streak in odd moments; the missing tooth in her smile was from tripping headfirst into the ship deck after a successful brawl against a rivaling ship crew at sea where she didn’t even acquire a scratch during said brawl (most AUs find similar ways to cause her to get a lost tooth in her grin).

You’d think her shipcrew would be a band of pirates but that’s mildly off the mark despite the well-matched aesthetic; she does not seek to steal, so she gets her ship’s maintenance paid by a blend of discovered sunken treasure/artifacts (some which she keeps for shiny keepsies) and the odd cargo/trade delivery to various places.

 Anne

Shy gentle beefcake. Same boat as Kayla and Dema in that she is the last of her respective monster slaying Clan (while Kayla was a kid and Dema was a baby when that happened to them, Anne had it happen to her in her tweens). In the fleeing for her destroyed home she eventually ended up in the great deserts where she was adopted by one of the nomadic desert dragon clans. Being lava magic (the magic her bloodclan specialized in) is similar to earth magic she quickly learned of the earth/stone golem techniques from said desert clan. While she’s capable of using lava magic she often uses earth magic first till the lava magic “warms up”. At some point she ran off to try to avenge/reclaim the town of her lost Clan from the monsters and left quite a mark on said monsters (not w/o getting scarred up physically and mentally herself though).

After that encounter rather than delve further on the monsterhunter role or return to the desert clan, she wandered around confusion of what she should do only to somehow end up in Harriet’s crew in a chance encounter. Before meeting Harriet she was getting money by a mix of selling baked pastries and shiny gems/minerals she prospected with her earth magic.

I’m still bouncing around on a lot of her motives and personality (the first conception of her she was a bit of a battle hungry warrior- not anymore, she softer now) but for the moment she’s pretty quiet and shy despite being so big and strong; she’d rather have a calmer life and embrace a more feminine style in how she holds herself, but she too busy having Destiny/Responsibility of being a monster slayer breathing down her neck despite not wanting to involve herself in those things.

 I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good down and dirty of the main OC 6 but I hope it is. I’d mention a lot of my other OCs (Hoepian or otherwise) for their sum ups but most of them are short story characters or support characters at best, or just pretty faces with little personality at worst.

[darkfalcon-z]

So you want to write a fic/draw fanart about Sun Wukong, but you don't know anything about macaques? I'll share some interesting facts with you I found in the internet (I'm not a primatologist/ethologist, so take it with a gain of salt) there is this cool youtube channel that is mostly about Rhesus Macaques, but you may get bored soon watching because those guys are mostly chilling, eating and grooming all day long and the don't do anything dramatic. Also be warned there are a lot of monkey channels that are essentially animal abuse. Stay away from those - if the monkey is a pet it's animal abuse, if a lot of accidents happen to the monkeys that's staged and it's abuse as well. I’m just writing down things you may want to play with in your fic or art.

Side note: this should be obvious, but if you want to write a fic with Wukong you actually need to do the research into Chinese culture and history.

Now back to macaques (it's mostly about rhesus or I'll specify otherwise):

- they have matriarchal society, girl children are preferred over the boys, because the boys would leave the natal group one day, usually when the dominant male decides that he doesn't want them around any more. If the boys grow up too big the dominant male may by too weak to kick them out on his own and he'll have to wait for the support from the females. Smarter and bolder boys may be kicked out earlier, because dad sees them as potential threat. Meek sons of low ranking females may stay longer because they are not a threat/not related to the dominant male.

- there are more females than males in the troop. The males that are the part of the troop usually outrank most females because they are bigger. Outsider males, who only drop by to visit or to mate have lower status, though. So you are in a cushy position if you secure yourself a place in a troop, but if you are a lone male not so much.

- girls inherit status of their moms, they are just below mom in hierarchy, but their place in ranking drops when their sisters are born - younger daughters have higher status.

- youngest daughter of the dominant female becomes next queen. To become the boss the male needs to kick out the previous top male and to gain approval of dominant  female. Only the top male in the group can mate with the queen and the pair is supposed to have babies every year. I’m not sure how Wukong would fit in a sexual politics on the group, given that he’s most likely ace. Figuring it out may be one of the plot lines in the story.

- lesser males defend the troop on behalf of the top male, who only fights if the things get really serious.

- top female is the leader for life, top male is replaceable.

- status of females in the group is relatively fixed but your status drops if you have multiple boys in the row, because no one is is going to support you when the boys leave. Having multiple daughters boosts your ranking because they'll have your back. Being in the good graces of resident males, particularly the dominant one won’t hurt you either. But you need to be careful, if you become too bold the high ranking females will put you in your place.

- higher ranking members take food before lower ranking ones, they’ll take your food away if you eat out of rank. Even from your cheek pouches.

- you generally chill with macaques of similar status.

- higher ranking members will discipline lower ones, but they are usually more tolerant towards the babies (except if a baby takes a desirable food out of rank).

- macaques sleep in trees. They also huddle together.

- rhesus don’t eat meat. If you left them meat they won’t touch it/will drop it as soon as they realise it’s meat. They only eat insets, mostly ones they’ve picked while grooming. Long tailed macaques eat meat and shellfish.

- When we are at that long tailed macaques can use stone tools to open shells. It’s awesome but also kind of a problem because long tail macaques have voracious apatites and they will eat as long as there’s food so they are in danger of bringing to population of shellfish to extinction and forgot their technological advancement as a result. In contrast rhesus only eat as long as they are hungry and they will leave even the most attractive food when they are satisfied.

- rhesus eat fruit, seeds, nuts, shoots, flowers (particularly nectar), occasionally leaves and they can eat human food like bread as long as that food doesn’t have meat in it. I’ve seen rhesus eat spoiled milk :/

- they also eat soil, they do it because sometimes plants they eat have toxins and soil helps with that. Also nutrients possibly.

- they have very clean fur. The spend a lot of time grooming (1996 adaptation got it right). You want to romance a potential partner, you groom, you spend time with your family, you groom, you sit alone, you groom yourself, you want to persuade other monkey let you babysit her kid you groom her and then you groom the kid when she finally lets you, you want to make up after a quarrel, you guessed it, you groom. You are a lone bachelor and you’ve met your old auntie, who used to babysit you, you groom. It is all purpose social interaction that also keeps lice and tick of your fur. Macaques don’t generally get flees because they sleep in trees, while flees hop on their hosts from the ground, but they’d rid of fleas any way with all that grooming.

- other multi purpose gesture is showing the rump. You do it to say you’re sorry, to ask for something (usually for other monkey to let you babysit) and when you are flirting. The other monkey make hop on your back to show domination, accept apology or reconciliate. It kind looks like a copulation from afar.

- lip smacking is for showing affection and signalling you want a hug.

- open mouth stare signifies aggression (I think 1986 Wukong does that, when he faces his enemies (?), but I haven’t seen that in other on screen performances).

- yawning with teeth exposed is also aggression/threat (without teeth it’s just yawning).

- barking sound is also a threat.

- showing teeth in a grin is stress/apology.

- they scratch themselves more when stressed (and it’s depicted in several JttW adaptations).

- those guys may steal your food, steal a bag if they think it may contain food and even steal your other possessions in order to exchange for food (or sometimes just to play).

- they know if they show up with a baby in their arms they are more likely to be fed by humans. But at the same time they don’t like humans near their babies.

- macaques get redder during mating period (that is winter), males with more and darker red marks are considered more attractive by females.

- baby season is in the summer.

- girls are usually more developed at birth and grow up faster.

- yearling girls are super interested in the new born babies, boys are usually less interested but they help out sometimes as well.

- nearly all females love babies. They may not want to give the baby back if they are babysitting.

- usually both moms and dads prefer daughters. But there are exceptions because those monkeys are individuals, some actually prefer little boys. There are also females, who don’t like babies that much and little girls who are not interested at all in their younger siblings.

- if a baby dies a mom or babysitter can carry it for days. Sometimes they even carry around miscarried foetuses. They will groom the dead baby as well. Apparently if you’ll try approaching mourning mom other troop members will attack you.

- rhesus males don’t practice infanticide, because the females only get in oestrus at fixed time of the year, long tailed macaques supposedly do to make the oestrus come faster.

- most macaques figure out their own reflections relatively quickly.

- they love how to swim, they are good swimmer and they like to high dive. But they can overestimate their abilities and it’s not rare for them to drown.

- Macaques are somewhere around 2 feet tall (generally shorter than a human toddler, standing up they’d probably reach to your mid thigh depend how tall you are) Sun Wukong is 4 feet tall, that’s as big as modern 7 year old, perhaps he could passed as pre teen in Tang period because people used to be shorter in the past and it took longer for kids to grow. Anyway he’s small for a human but huge for a macaque.

- now for sexual dimorphism (people with trans head-canons take notes, I’m not telling you want to do, but only what you can play with):

- males are bigger and with bulkier shoulders (Wukong is huge anyway, so this one may not be so important),

- males have longer (more prognostic), squarer muzzles and bigger fangs (all male primates have significantly bigger fangs than females save for humans), females have shorter and rounder faces, you can more or leas tell the sex of an adult from the face after you’ve watched them for a while.

- females tend to be redder, both on face on on the buttocks. Older females tend to be redder than younger ones. Males get redder on the face and balls during mating seasons. Males often have only red marks on the upper part of the face, some just look as if they are wearing red eyeliner. Meanwhile a lot of females have whole faces red. I suppose female also get redder during mating season, but it’s not that obvious.

- lactating females have sagging beast, they are visible but usually not particularly big. Females, who don’t lactate don’t heave breasts. They may still have long nipples (in contrast all males I’ve seen have small nipples).

- males have quite big testicles comparatively to their body size, the balls reach almost to their kneed during mating season (when the macaques is on all fours at least).

- like most mammals they have penis bone.

- mounting time is less than 8 seconds for rhesus but the mount multiple time during the same event. Male hops on the top of female and often supports himself by holding her shins in his feet. Female often reaches back grab him with one hand.

- bonnet macaques are known for homosexual behaviour (they are known as the bonobo of macaques).

- Macaques are supposed to have periods but also oestrus cycle?? apparently

- it seems like all rhesus with leucism are female (??) or at least the condition occurs much more often in females. Those monkeys have golden fur and transparent nails. Usually leucistic monkeys are low in group ranking. You may include this fact if you want to write an underdog story.

- usually rhesus fur is combination of light grey, light brown and orange. Head and shouldered tend to be greyer, lower back and legs tend to be more orange, forearms tend to be darker grey, while the belly is much lighter than the rest.

- the winter coat is longer an thicker.

- Rhesus macaques typically have dark nails. They have nails, not claws. In fact almost all monkeys and all Old World monkeys have nails. Hand looks very much like humans. The thumb is just a little shorter and the palm just a bit different shape but you’d be hard pressed to find any hand resembling that of a human even among other primates, you’d get cebids and maybe great apes and that’s it. Actually macaques have closer thumb to finger ration to humans than other great apes.

- macaques do not knuckle walk like apes, instead when they walk on their flat palms.

- the hand does not resemble cat paws at all. It is not padded like cats or dogs’ paws. It looks almost like human hand but with hair on the top.

- needless to say macaques are very dexterous. Their hands are optimised for object manipulation.

- they have longer feet with pointy heel and opposite big toe.

- it’s not rare for rhesus to have brown palms even though they have light pink faces.

- rhesus have relatively short  tails. Also no Old World Monkeys have prehensile tales (but you don’t have to draw, just have fun, heck I draw Wukong with long tail even though I think he’s supposed to be rhesus).

- the limbs are also relatively short with arms being shorter than legs.

- those guys are incredibly resilient and can survive losing a limb or two without human medical intervention as long as there are no predators in the area. They can also heal open broken bone.

- also while they discriminate against macaques with golden fur, the don’t seem to discriminate against monkeys with missing limbs or many other deformities.

- oh, yeah, about that, they care for injured macaques or at least if the injured one is their sibling.

- macaque bites aren’t very likely to pierce human skin (zoo keepers claim)

- but be warned you don’t want macaques saliva or other body fluids anywhere near your person because over 80% of their adult population (and about 25% of juveniles) carries monkey herpesvirus B. It hardly cause them any harm but mortality rate in infected humans is over 70% (at least that we know of, fortunately it does not usually spread to humans, there have been only about 40 cases on the record, all in the lab setting). Important note: this virus spreads sexually. Wukong may carry this virus without being aware.

- they have cheek pouches so collars or clothing that is tight around the neck is bad for them. If you put collar on a macaque they wouldn’t be able to eat properly because they usually put their food in the pouches and then gradually swallow.

[gayregis]

I've listened to the part where Geralt talks with a very ill Cahir about Ciri and vengeance... it was one of the most emotional parts of the book by itself but also thanks to your take about the lost innocence of Ciri ! I felt it thrice hard in the feelings! Also, do you have thoughts on the declared love of Cahir for Ciri? Personally I see it as disturbingly romantic, let's say. Thank you for your commitment to the books and sorry to bother you

omg thank you for the ask. first of all i have to say you’re not bothering me!! tbh i have been loving getting asks because it gives me an opportunity to like bring more discussion to the witcher community... 

i feel like although reblogging pretty gifs of characters/landscapes from tw3 and any good fanart i can find is nice, my FAVORITE thing to do is write or read a really long textpost about the witcher books, i really like the discussion aspect of fandoms where people post their reactions and opinions to the content they like, because you get a bunch of shared reactions and differing opinions.

so no this is NOT a bother at all, and its nice especially to get asks about topics that i have strong feelings about but have not made posts about yet, like this one

ok, as for the actual topic: i hate forced heterosexuality, so you KNOW i hate that canon cahiri! it was out of line from sapkowski and imo, it came out of absolutely nowhere in tower of the swallow, it wasn’t something built up to or foreshadowed at all, so it felt not only weird in context but weird for sapkowski as an author.

my main problem with canon cahiri: i think it’s super creepy!

first of all, let’s discuss the age difference. cahir in baptism of fire is estimated to be “not over 25,” which i see as putting him around 20 to 25 years old, and i usually take the median of this which is around 23. while this “not over 25″ comment is said in the context of the hansa to remark upon how young cahir is (i believe it’s thought of by either geralt or dandelion, and geralt is around 60 years old and as a witcher he looks 45, and dandelion is 38 in tower of the swallow), and how cahir is described as a young man in time of contempt to illustrate that he has a sense of innocence to him as ciri cuts him down, his age gap with ciri is super innappropriate for anything to occur between them, since she is 10 or 11 during the massacre of cintra (as stated by geralt in something more), so she would be around 14 at thanedd, and 15-16 during baptism of fire to lady of the lake. so sapkowski deemed it fit to pair a 23 year old man with a 16 year old girl. this isn’t the first time he’s done something like this, what with essi being “not over 18″ and shani also bein around 18 / college age, and yennefer canonically looking around 20. listen, the man has some messed up values when it comes to women’s ages. we have to take it upon ourselves as people who like the not-weird parts of canon to understand how worldviews and personal biases affect one’s writing, and change it for ourselves to make it right so we can continue interacting with it, if we so choose (tldr: retcon some shit when it’s fucked up in canon).

now, before someone argues that “it’s fantasy medieval world, medieval relationships between men and women were just like that,” believe me, i am aware. i study ancient greece/rome and men who were in their 30s were most often paired with women in their teens as part of their arranged marriages. that is how their ancient societies functioned more than 2000 years ago. the issue is that this is a fantasy world, in which societal norms and laws do not have to conform to real-life earth history, and this is the work of a modern writer writing in the 1990s. it’s not “just how the times were,” it’s deliberately choosing to include an age gap like that to be something canonically acceptable by their society/ies.

also, one could argue that the age gap would be fine once they are older, like, when ciri becomes an adult she is already medievally-style betrothed to cahir so they start dating when she’s like 20 and he’s like 27. eh... that’s still an uncomfortable age gap, at least for when they’re in their 20s. people in their older 20s have more life experience than people in their younger 20s. but at least it wouldn’t land cahir in modern-day jail.

it’s still just an uncomfortably large age gap, and if you think about it, it’s even creepier considering that cahir met ciri when she was a helpless child around 10 - 11 and it just makes the bathing scene excruciatingly creepy too if you put it in the context that he eventually would fall in love with her. it even begins to not be about strictly age, but about life experience, development, and power imbalance within the relationship. i mean, he did literally kidnap her.

cahir in tos calls ciri a “woman” when she is like, 15 or 16 (with the rose tattoo) (to anyone reading, please don’t come at me with that “the age of consent is 15 in poland, just because it’s 18 in the US doesn’t mean your laws and culture apply to everyone” ... please do not try and justify this with laws, legality is not morality. only saying this because i’ve seen it in other posts). like.... hm! don’t like that! she is a teenager... he is in his 20s... this should not be occuring.

sorry for the loooong explanation, but every time someone brings up the subject of age gaps on tumblr it turns into crazy discourse with everyone trying to justify it.

but yeah, CANONICALLY cahir would have been 16-21 (median 18) when he met ciri at 10-11, and 20-25 (median 23) when he declares his love for her at 15-16. that’s ... not good ... to put it more into perspective, these are their ages on a traditional school system path: a 18 year old is a high school senior, an 11 year old is a 6th grader. a 23 year old has been out of college for 2 years, a 16 year old is a high school sophomore. ITS NOT GOOD

my other problem with canon cahiri: it’s boring and contradicts sapkowski at his own game.

all of the witcher is about taking fantasy tropes and inverting them, like you can’t have some random peasant kill a dragon, you’d need a professional, and also guess what, the dragon isn’t evil but a dad trying to protect his wife and child.

all of the characters in the hansa (as well as the four main characters of geralt, yennefer, ciri, and dandelion) are inversions of the tropes they represent. for some examples, milva’s trope is something like the hot action girl who only exists to be the only girl in the company and to be sexy eye candy. instead of falling into this, she is actually an action girl, not bothering with sexiness and appeal to the gaze of a male audience but a “get shit done” type, who also dresses and acts “like a man.” regis’ trope is all vampire tropes ever. he/vampires in the witcher doesn’t/don’t fall into any of the traditional european vampire myths like burning in sunlight, needing to drink blood to stay alive, being disdainful of humanity, having aversions to garlic, belonging to a super-secret orderful society that lurks in the shadows and controls everything like puppetmasters, etc... instead, he is the epitome of redemption arcs and overall “goody-goodiness,” understands humanity perfectly and does things out of his good nature. i already talk about regis too much, so i’ll quit it. 

cahir is an inversion of every knight trope ever, particularly the evil knight. he scars ciri’s memory as a night terror, but actually is not ... a bad person. he’s just some guy, pressured by his family and his society to do what he saw as an assignment like a college kid might see their final essay assignment posted on canvas. except you know. the final exam was to kidnap a girl. and he got an F on that and failed the course (ie got thrown in prison). ANYWAYS, cahir is meant to be this inversion of the knight tropes, so WHY, WHY, WHY make him become the knight trope of being the one to romance and to save a hapless princess? if we’ve learned anything about ciri, it’s that she’s the inversion of the princess trope! she KILLS PEOPLE. she ALMOST KILLED CAHIR. she can defend herself and kill for herself, she doesn’t need the knight trope going to protect her! 

heterosexual romance as the Big Reason and Motivation behind all of a character’s actions is tiring, annoying, boring, and not well-thought out. it’s so base and not unique, it doesn’t fit in with everything else about the witcher.

how i would fix it: not make them fall in love.

cahir already HAS a motivation to find ciri and to help her. he needs to APOLOGIZE. he needs to say, hey, i’m sorry i kidnapped you and ruined your life, i made peace with your dad, he doesn’t wanna kill me anymore, i can only hope that you can forgive me too after i SET THINGS RIGHT. 

as opposed to regis’s arc (i swear i am not playing favorites with regis, i just tend to compare and contrast regis and cahir’s redemptions because they are quite different yet they join the hansa side by side so they’re bound to be compared), cahir actually can find the one (not many) people he wronged, and set things right on his own accord, not go forth with a larger mission to assist all humanity, or whatever.

i think cahir also had this WONDERFULLY UNDERUTILIZED anti-imperialist message as part of his character that pains me to see being swept under the rug for some cheap lame romance story. sapkowski already created some anti-war sentiments with the battle of the bridge in baptism of fire, and he tried to create anti-racism sentiments throughout the book/at the end of lady of the lake. anti-imperialism fits with the rest of the saga as a message.

the fact that cahir was instructed by his family to hate the northern kingdoms, despite the fact that they were related to northerners, is really profound as something to happen to a character, and holds a lot of meaning in today’s society. the fact that he broke, finally, after he lost ciri, just completely lost his mind and had to be restrained because he was wailing so hard, because of the pressure that this society put him under to succeed and achieve pride for his family, is such a great example of the tragedies of society. then he speaks out against his leader and is jailed... and yet, after this, he gets to learn from his mistakes and redeem himself as a good person, and his character has developed SO much. he is not doing what his country wants him to do, he is not doing what his family wants him to do. he is doing what he wants to do because it is the RIGHT thing to do. that already is such a powerful message, he doesn’t need anymore character motivation!

so yep that’s my thoughts on why cahir is a good character asides from all that forced romance biz

[brightblueinky]

Long winded ramblings about a Bronycon video

So I’ve seen some hubbub about a YouTube essay going over the history of the Brony fandom up until the last Bronycon. (You can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fVOF2PiHnc ) I just got around to watching it today and I was...somewhat confused by some of the stronger negative takes I was seeing floating around Twitter, and I’ve been in a “fandom discourse” mood lately so, hey, I thought...why not talk about it. The first part of this was originally going to be a Twitter thread until I realized Twitter wasn’t going to let me keep going on the thread so I gave up and decided to put it here instead (lol) so it’s probably going to be a bit choppy since I was trying to keep it readable for that format.

So first of all, my background, so I can be completely honest about where I'm coming from and try not to portray what I'm saying as like...an end-all-be-all take here, because I don't wanna do that. I was never really an MLP fan. I watched the first season of FiM and really enjoyed it, but I didn't really engage with the fandom because by that point I'd gotten to where I didn't spend much time in huge fandoms. So I can't come at this from the perspective of an MLP fan. When I’m addressing the fandom here, I’m coming at it as an outsider in the sense that I am not a MLP fan/brony. What I AM going to do is come at this from the perspective of something of a "native" to fandom. I've always been a geek. I've engaged in online fandom in some form or another since I was about 8, which was in the mid 90s. I've been around the fandom block. Actually, I can even say that I used to lurk on 4chan a lot and I saw a lot of the early Brony discussions there. I also watch @JennyENicholson's videos, and yeah, there's been times where I've been bugged because we had a disagreement of opinions and felt like it was a little harsh. She's got a dry sense of humor and sometimes it's hard to read when she's joking and when she's being genuine. So like, I wasn't surprised when I saw some hubbub from some people online about her doing the video about Bronies. Not at all. But I gotta say...I am really surprised by some of the more INTENSE takes on the video after watching it?? The LARGE majority of the video is @JennyENicholson covering this fandom from an INSIDER'S perspective. She was an MLP fan before FiM, she was active enough in the fandom to be a BNF. A huge, huge amount of the video is positive and nostalgic. In fact I now wish I HAD been in the fandom! It seems like it was a lot of fun! The only thing I felt was maybe harsh in the video is I think she gave the impression that being "furry" is exclusively a sex thing, but by the end she talks about furries being a community that's a very inclusive, kind community with a lot of queer people, so even then I think if you're really paying attention to the whole video you're not going to come away with the idea that the furry community is bad. Just maybe could've had more nuance earlier in the video?  So from glancing through mentions of her in a Twitter search (which is definitely not going to be a perfect sample) from what I can tell there's like two things that people seem to be upset about with the video: 1, the idea that the fandom is "dead" and 2...just...Body Pillows. So let's talk about the dead fandom thing first. As I mention, I have been in fandom a long, long time. Although I (usually) shy away from big active fandoms now, I started off in bigger ones--Sonic, Pokemon, Digimon, LOTR, etc. The two fandoms I currently care about the most, though, are definitely fandoms that tend to be called "dead" and were never HUGE to begin with (Princess Tutu and Chrono Crusade). I think I can count on my hands the number of ppl who actively discuss or create fanwork for CC.   So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I've been on both sides of the coin here. And let me reassure Bronies: "Dead", while maybe too strong of a label for what it actually means, does not have to be a negative thing and you don't need to defend your fandom from it, IMO. I think the "dead" label simply means that interest in the fandom has cooled, the number of active participants is significantly down from the heydays of the fandom, etc. And I don't think that's an unfair label for brony fandom from what I know.   If there was a large scale replacement for Bronycon then maybe it'd be unfair, but...yeah, if you're losing your large hubs for the fandom community, if the flow of fanwork and discussion has slowed, I think "dead", as it's used, isn't an unfair label.   But again, I don't think this is a bad thing! I'd imagine that even the current state of the brony fandom is larger and more active than the Princess Tutu fandom at its greatest heights. It's a pretty relative term. It doesn't mean nobody cares, or that you can't still enjoy it! All the "dead" label really means is acknowledging the change in a fandom. It's not a bad thing. I might be 1 of ~30 writers for Chrono Crusade on AO3 but I still have fun writing fic and I still get hits and occasional positive comments. It's not bad. Just different. Okay so now let's talk about the body pillow thing and oh man, is this going to be a minefield, lol. Let's first talk about my personal lens I'm going to come at here... I've created NSFW fanwork. Some of it taboo. I'm also (somewhat) a part of the "proship" discourse on Twitter which is basically a community of people that push back against another community of "anti"-shippers who feel that some ships are problematic (because of character age, power dynamics, etc) and shouldn't be shipped. (I think that simplifies a lot of the discussion on both sides but it’ll do for the purpose of what I’m getting at here, I think.) At its worse this debate has lead death threats and suicide attempts. I have seen people get treated abusively for fanwork (sometimes NSFW but not always). (And I also want to add that while I think the major component of the pro-ship discussions on Twitter are anti-harassment, there’s been some ‘edgy’ types who think that it’s fun to harass antis with NSFW fanwork and the like and I want to make it clear that is ALSO ABUSIVE AND NOT OKAY.) Basically, I want to say I'm sympathetic to a knee jerk defensive reaction over NSFW fanart. Okay? I can get why people might want to push against criticism of stuff they enjoy/create, and that there’s an element of possibly being harassed for fanwork you create. But the thing is, I don't think this is really the attitude Jenny is taking in the video. She lightly mocks NSFW stuff and body pillows, but often describes it as "harmless" and "fine". The only time she's critical of it is when she notes that sometimes body pillows with suggestive poses could be on display at conventions where young kids were present--at a con celebrating a show MEANT for young kids--and that probably shouldn't have been allowed. She's not saying you can't buy a body pillow, or create one. She didn't even say that while discussing body pillows of characters who were 10! She expressed personal discomfort, but the only restriction she really suggested was "keep this out of the sight of minors." And I don't know why that would be a controversial take. I read lemons when I was younger so I'm not going to sit here and act like it's going to completely ruin kids lives or anything. But I ALSO think it's appropriate to have boundaries for sexual materials for kids (or anyone who doesn't want to engage for whatever reason). I want my stuff to be clearly labeled as NSFW, with tags being clear about the content, so people know what they're getting into. I’ve grown to care about this even more as I’ve gotten older. I don’t really want to know about minors reading my nsfw fanfic or anything. I’m not going to, like, parent them and shame them if they do, but I don’t want to engage with it, I want my stuff to be labeled, and I am DEFINITELY not going to put it on public display at a place where I know kids are allowed, ESPECIALLY not when it’s work based on stuff MEANT for children! I mean, I grew up in a fundamentalist Evangelical household and I will rant at you for hours about how damaging I feel that environment was, and that I don’t think kids and teens should be completely shielded from sex, etc. But that doesn’t mean that having boundaries in place is a bad idea, especially when minors are involved. I also think that boundaries are good just for the sake of consent, too? I’m not saying that someone accidentally seeing suggestive art is the same as them being raped, please don’t conflate it like that, but if people don’t want to see it for whatever reason they should be given the opportunity to make that choice as much as possible. The stuff that Jenny mentioned brony conventions would do (requiring stuff to be sold under the table, or having late night hours for the dealer’s room where 18+ merch could be displayed and sold) seem like really good policies and pretty similar to what I’ve seen at anime conventions I’ve attended (although occasionally some stuff that was maybe a biiit more suggestive than I’d be comfortable displaying in public...but hey, my local con allows kids but also makes it clear in their rules that it’s mostly geared for 13+ attendees and that it’s up to parents to decide what’s appropriate for their kids, and I think that’s fair). And yeah, I know, nothing that Jenny showed in the video being displayed at Bronycon was 100% explicit, just suggestive. She notes this in the video herself, saying that yeah, it doesn’t show genitalia, etc...and as I’m writing this I think I’ve maybe rambled too much about NSFW fanart when most of the stuff we’re talking about here is more “suggestive” than straight-up porn, since that’s probably muddying the waters a bit. But I gotta, gotta, GOTTA address the sentiment I saw multiple times on Twitter in response to her video: “Dakimakura/body pillows aren’t sexual and to say that is orientalist.” I...what? What the fuck? Okay, again, I’m going to make it perfectly clear what my background is here so that I’m not claiming to have some expertise that I don’t have: I am white. I am VERY white. My parents did the DNA test thing and the most “exotic” thing that came up is that my dad is 3% Spanish. Not latin american, I mean from Spain spanish. I am sooooo fucking white. I’ve studied a LITTLE of Japanese culture in college classes but that wasn’t even my field of study (Communication major on a Broadcasing track, minor in Theatre) so I’m not going to tell you I’m an expert on Japanese culture. I’m just a weeby geek that grew up in anime fandoms and never really stopped consuming Japanese pop culture. I have a very limited experience with Japanese culture. I am NOT an expert on what is and isn’t orientalist. I know I’m really hammering in this point here but I think it’s really, really important that I make it clear that I shouldn’t be used as an expert on this subject. But what I DO have a background in is someone who has engaged in Western fandom of stuff from Japan from a young age, I did spend a lot of time on 4chan, this is NOT the first time that I’ve seen some form of an “this isn’t sexual at all and you’re just a PERVERT” discussion about fanservice and...okay first of all, I highly doubt anyone saying this is any more qualified to define what is and isn’t orientalist than I am. I think this is bullshit and it feels like an attempt to make your opinions more legitimate by implying people that disagree with you are some form of bigot. (And look, I was a sheltered, insecure, stuck-up teenager in fandom, part of the reason I feel like I can recognize this is I totally pulled the same shit. I am not going to act like I have never tried to pull this and that I’m a pure innocent woke intellectual who’s never said something foolish, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let it slide, either.)

While writing this I googled ‘dakimakura’ to make sure I was spelling it right and noticed that Wikipedia does note that the origins of this style of pillow are sometimes used by Japanese kids as something like a security blanket, which I’m guessing is where the justification for the argument is coming from, but let’s be intellectually honest here--body pillow covers being sold at a convention aren’t primarily meant to be a security blanket for kids. And, okay, maybe you have a body pillow cover with a character on it that isn’t exactly in a sexual pose, just laying fully clothed on what looks like a bedsheet background. But I don’t think it’s an unfair argument to say that even THEN it implies a sort of intimacy, right, possibly a desire for a romantic attachment? Like, sharing a bed with someone doesn’t have to be sexual or romantic, I used to share a bed with my brother in hotel rooms when we were kids, but I’m also not going to share a bed with my brother and then hug him closely to my body no matter how he’s posed or what he’s wearing??? And look, maybe a body pillow isn’t ALWAYS sexual but to say it’s NOT sexual, which kinda implies NEVER, is so disingenuous. The top result I got when I searched for “anime body pillow” is a shop that includes categories like “18+ body pillow” and “sexy body pillow” and also SELLS FAKE BREAST INSERTS FOR SOME OF THE PILLOWS SO YOU CAN SQUEEZE THEIR BOOBS (obviously, NSFW link: https://www.dakimakura.us/ ) Like, COME ON, I don’t think it’s orientalist to say that something is sexual when Japanese people are actually selling body pillows they label as 18+. The second result even has a second for pillows you can insert sex toys into. And yeah I saw the guy saying “masturbation isn’t sex!” and sir at BEST you have a very narrow and incorrect definition of sex as simply being intercourse and, again, at worst you’re just being straight up dishonest. In fact, I’ll straight up call myself out for this. There’s a fanart body pillow of a fictional character I’ve considered buying several times! (Not porn but still probably NSFW link: https://www.etsy.com/listing/701912275/dakimakura-hypnosismic-doppo?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=hypnosis+mic&ref=sr_gallery-1-4&organic_search_click=1 ) Is this porn? No. You can’t see much. But on one side of the pillow he’s got his shirt untucked, you can see a bit of his stomach, and his fly is undone and you can see the band of his underwear peeking out. This is sexual. I’m not wanting it to like, get off on it, exactly...honestly it’s maybe a bit ironic, and a lot of wanting a body pillow in general is I like sleeping hugging onto something but I have a different sleep schedule from my husband I find him too big to hold all night and too warm in the summer anyway. But I’m not going to tell you that me wanting this PARTICULAR pillow case isn’t at all sexual, I know what I’m doing, I like the character and think the drawing is hot. I’m not saying don’t buy body pillows, okay? I’m not saying don’t sell them. I don’t think Jenny is either (she literally OWNS ONE that she shows in the video!!!). But don’t act like there isn’t ever anything sexual about it existing to try to defend their existence, okay? You don’t need to be a fucking coward about it, and you especially don’t need to say it’s racist if people call out something as being suggestive when, well, it fucking is. And I think it’s totally 100% reasonable for someone to say “hey I don’t think it’s a good idea to display suggestive art around kids, especially if it’s depicting young characters.” TL;DR -- Chill, guys. CHILL. Your fandom is getting smaller and the term people use for this is “dead” but that’s not a bad thing, you’ve still got the fandom, you can still enjoy it, there’s definitely no need to take personal offense over it. And enjoy your body pillows, but don’t be disingenuous about the fact that they can be suggestive and try to act like anyone that calls it such is racist, that is such bullshit. Like what you like, other people’s opinions of it is not automatically a personal attack on you, there’s no need to jump to being defensive every time someone says something vaguely negative about it. Chill, fandom friends. Fandom ain’t bad but it also doesn’t need to be the center of your identity and you don’t need to lash out against people for daring to have opinions about a thing you like. You especially don’t need to act like other people are perverts for noting something being suggestive. Chiiiiiiiiiill.

[quiltwork]

How my traumatic childhood affected my sexuality

So I’m not entirely sure how to go about this, but I used to be gay and trans, and probably a so-called “gay Christian” if u can call it that. To be honest, my abusers were more of that title than I ever was. 

My history leading up to it was rough. When I was 11, I was sexually abused by 2 of my friends who were girls. They were 12 and 13, in middle school, while I was still in the 5th Grade. They wanted me to be quiet and hurry up, don’t tell anyone. No reason why. We slept together watching a sex toy infomercial. I never told my family out of fear I’d be rejected for being bad and disgusting, and be thrown out on the streets. These girls were popular at their school and I went to church with them whenever I spent the night with them in their town. Their friends hated me and would bully and exclude me when they came over for parties. I didn’t want to feel the grief of the sexual abuse that night so I told myself I would forget about it, and it actually happened. Amnesia set in, like it did for every other trauma.

By 12, I was emotionally neglected by my mom. She was busy with work, the house, my unstable abusive older sister, my grandpa, everything but me. I had no real friends so I stayed inside with my technology addiction. Tried grabbing mom’s attention with my interests, never worked. I would daydream that I was a lonely orphaned crying fairy under a waterfall, who was going to make friends the next day. I drew myself and tried to feel good about my developing body, that when I showed mom and my sister the picture, my sister, jealous of my body and any time I could talk to mom, shamed me for the way I drew my body. That it wasn’t good enough like hers, but she was an adult and I was a child. It culminated into another fight between her and mom, with mom almost losing a finger and running off to the hospital, leaving me with my suicidal sister attempting to take her life again. 

By 13, I was confused about my sexuality. Started liking girls and women and not knowing why. Tried telling mom about it, and she’d avoid the topic and tell me not to talk about it with anyone. An old friend who went to my birthday party developed a “crush” on me then. This friend was a Sophomore in high school, while I was a 7th Grader. She grew up in church and saw herself as a gay Christian. She knew my relationship with mom sucked, and told me, “I think I know you better than your mom does, sweetie..”. That was the beginning of her grooming. Of her dressing me up, doing my hair and makeup and taking me out. Teaching me ballroom dancing. Showing me gay pedophilic manga, how to ship same sex friendships in cartoons and anime. Pushing me to continue obsessing over an abusive gay pedophilic cartoon couple. Walking me over to the high school’s Gay-Straight Alliance Club. A Club run by a lesbian Christian woman completely cool with teaching her kids that it was alright to be sexually attracted to inanimate objects like tourist attractions, cars and probably animals. My grooming abuser basically taught me that God loved me and made me gay, so I should ignore those who are “hateful”. 

I came out by 14. There was a girl who was obviously bi curious who kept flirting with me, so I developed a love addiction for her. Did everything in my power to get her to date me, and when she eventually gave in, she started cheating on me with multiple guys. Didn’t know it was her doing it, so I fought them off, or tried to. I had to make sure she wouldn’t leave me, that no one would take her away, that her mom wouldn’t separate us or the school, or else I’d be all alone. She was hypersexual, so I did everything she wanted, even BDSM just to keep her. Even though I didn’t want to and it made me at times very uncomfortable and anxious and dissociative, I kind of liked it anyway. It was a trauma bond. It was what I was used to. 

At 15, I didn’t want to be a girl anymore and came out as a boy. I didn’t want to be doing anything sexual anymore either, so I was asexual. I very obviously was running away from my sexual abuse/grooming and the objectivity it placed on my female identity, but I thought starting my Freshman year anew was the best idea. My girlfriend began to back off after I finally told her I don’t think I can kiss and touch like this anymore, but I didn’t fully realize it. She wasn’t allowed at Homecoming, so my grooming abuser jumped at the chance to take me as her date without my consent. Only found out it was a date through the corsage via my cousin. My grooming abuser was now a Senior. I kicked off my high heels and ran away from the creepy dance floor of grinding bodies where she wanted me to be, and found my school friends and hung out with them until she found me, acting depressed and saying she was going home. My girlfriend avoided me to cheat in the bathrooms, even on my 16th birthday, so I broke up with her. 

2 other things: Our GSA Club went downtown for a vigil for dead gay kids, and my grooming abuser used it as an opportunity to dance with me at the square in front of everyone. She also got me to tell my “transgender testimony” to her class to try to brainwash them too, and it actually worked and I deeply regret it. I was her trophy she worked hard to win and would show me off and use me to further her agenda. 

At first I spend my 16th year depressed and subconsciously searching for a rebound. That rebound left me when I told her I was asexual, too. Then, I went crazy. Was I not good enough because I couldn’t make out and have sex? I tried a one night stand to prove my worth with a curious friend who decided at the last minute she couldn’t go through with it and left me there on the bed. I went home hating myself for being broken and not knowing why (amnesia), that I should give up on girls because I can’t make them happy. I became bitter at a world that only loved you for what you could give to it. I went into Fight mode, angry yelling and protesting at whoever and wherever I was. I dated a sweet boy who didn’t last long due to life’s circumstances so he had to move for his dying brother, dated an older guy who would avoid me or sleep on our couch. At this point, I saw myself as genderqueer and panromantic. 

On my 17th birthday, my grooming abuser came over unannounced. I wasn’t planning anything and frankly, didn’t want to be bothered. She would not stop pulling and tugging at me to go out with her, I kept saying no, and we went on this way for hours. Until at last she tried to guilt trip me, saying, “I just wanted to make you happy...” and left. I ran away from my abusive school to a career high school for my last 2 years, with a lab full of girls and one boy. I thought it was the best new experience I could try having the best friends I always wanted. They sort of liked me, until I let one of them know about my past. Then they immediately began to exclude and bully me in the halls. I stood up for myself, and they hated me and started glaring at me. After graduation when I turned 19, they started cyberbullying me for a year afterward. I became agoraphobic and lived in psychosis delusions that they were watching my every move and knew where I lived and would find me eventually. 

Within that first year out of school, God was calling me to Him. I’d always loved Him since before I could remember, so I went with the feeling. He called me to check into His Word about if being gay was actually alright, and I found out it wasn’t, and it shocked me. I couldn’t reconcile what I read with what I was taught, so I wrestled with it. Why was it bad, why why why? He didn’t give me the answers at first, he let me wrestle for a time.

On my 20th birthday, I drew gay shipping fanart, and that was the day the Holy Spirit held heavy on my heart that what I was doing was wrong. I felt oddly bad for what I did, so I went to Him with an idea: If He truly felt like it was a sin, then I asked Him to change me and I’d avoid all appearance of it for a while until then. If it wasn’t bad, I figured it wouldn’t go away. He would let it be because it wasn’t a problem, and I’d be okay with it. So I repented for 3 months, came back to check, and the feelings were gone. I saw beautiful women as creations of God, as my sisters. I saw those same sex friendships in cartoons and anime as just that, friendships. I was amazed, and eventually told God to reveal anything else I had been blind to, completely grateful for what He had done.

And He started to lift off all of my amnesia, leading me towards trauma and addiction recovery with Him 💕 So, if you haven’t heard it yet, that’s my story 😊

[theliterarywolf]

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime  via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I... 

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub. 

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece. 

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse. 

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him. 

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these: 

Exchange 1 - 

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was... 

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

[not-a-space-alien]

hey its me again wall of text sorry not sorry

k i saw your little treatise justifying zadr and yknow its a cartoon its not the worst thing ever of course nobody is gonna sue you for reblogging fanart or burn you at the stake or w/e and im glad you decided to open yourself up to a differing opinion but zim IS portrayed as an adult. there was even an unfinished episode where zim’s childhood and growing up training from start to finish would be shown so by the time of the pilot he is definitely a full grown developed adult by irken standards especially if hes a former member of an elite military force like the invaders. jhonen has said that the irony and sad comedy of zims character is that hes a grown ass man and a war veteran to boot who VOLUNTARILY goes to an elementary school every day and throws hands with an 11 year old boy who should be well below his notice because he’s that pathetic and desperate for validation that he’ll stoop to seeking it from a child. it also sets up a dynamic between them where dib is CHALLENGED by having to go up against an adult with way more experience than him while dib is just a child, so when he wins its more meaningful, which is a common trope in childrens fiction that an underdog young hero has to take down a powerful adult villain.

jhonen might joke a lot but he’s serious about this part of the characterization of zim and dib and he even went to great lengths to make dib look and act more like a kid in ETF (more emotional and naive, designed to look smaller/softer, going in depth with his relationship to his dad and sister and needing his dad to protect him at the end when he’s too overrun to fight alone) just to drive home the point of how young he is. it was a very deliberate move and jhonen knows what hes doing ESPECIALLY since he also left zim pretty much unchanged and also includes gags about zim’s relative maturity like animating him briefly grimacing because his joints are sore and the part where he pretty much gestures to his crotch and goes “theyre afraid to look at ALL-A THIS”. like you would not see jhonen do that sort of joke with an underage character ok. dont confuse his social awkwardness and self deprecating/trolling humor for not knowing the difference between right and wrong and not acknowledge when he means something sincerely because he doesn’t just clown on people and troll ALL THE TIME 24/7 hes a human, and times have changed with more awareness on issues such as the grooming of minors so he can go back on things he may have said in the past that he doesn’t agree with now or said by mistake. he has said enough times that zim is older than any human alive that its safe to take his word for it by now. judging by the one strip he did in JTHM about johnny murdering a pedophile who was about to prey on squee i think his stance on protecting kids is pretty clear. also i wouldnt put it past jhonen to have redesigned membrane to be more chaddy looking to divert the adult fandom’s attention away from dib and throw the fangirls a bone but thats a whole nother can of worms lol.

and the justification that zim is immature so hes essentially on dib’s level is a reversal of something lots of kids hear from either creepy or ignorant adults who tell them theyre “so mature for their age”. no matter how emotionally mature you are it wont ever compensate for the number of years youve been alive so that’s not very sound logic, and even in fic where theyre both adults it’s still pretty weird because it doesn’t erase their history where zim knew dib as a kid. that’s sort of like a grownup waiting with bated breath until a kid is “legal” so they can start dating. kinda like when jacob imprints on bella’s newborn daughter in twilight then having it handwaved away by saying he’ll wait till she’s grown up, which understandably drew a huge amount of criticism. it’s a loophole that might be mildly acceptable in some cases but the context leaves it colored with a residual ickiness that sets off some red flags for me and a lot of other people.

also you said zim is an alien and therefore the situation itself is unrealistic, but the reason invader zim’s writing resonates with people is because zim is written with very HUMAN emotions and motivations and part of the humor again is how irkens despite being aliens from another planet mirror some of humanity’s worst flaws such as being petty, gluttonous, willfully ignorant, arrogantly believing they are special and better than everyone else, easily manipulated by propaganda, all too eager to greedily colonize other societies etc making them not so different from us at all. so the premise out of context might not seem realistic but the idea of a sad burnout adult who doesn’t realize how humiliating it is to be consistently outsmarted by a kid less than half their age IS realistic and applicable to human interaction since we’ve likely all met someone like this before at one point in our lives for example a schoolteacher who has a personal vendetta against one or more of their students and has nothing better to do than antagonize them, or a really dumb parent that you fight with a lot.

another thing, i know you and other fans probably have a lot of sentimental value and nostalgia attached to zadr because you probably shipped it back when you were a kid yourself and you cant be blamed for something you liked as a kid, but youre an adult now, and you have to listen to the portion of kids in the fandom who dont like zadr and say without question that the age gap makes them uncomfortable. those kids ARE the priority. we’re grown up now and we have to put our feelings aside for them because that’s part of being responsible and mature. i feel like zim himself is a pretty good example of how not to act at our age [shrug emoji]

and anyway a lot of the same elements of zadr can be explored with zadf just as well with just as much potential for cute moments and as a bonus is it’s not creepy

You do bring up some good points, and I’m not saying you’re wrong...  But honestly I’m still not convinced.  I mean, stuff that Jhonen said, the thing is even if it’s the author saying it it’s still outside of canon, that’s the reason why Neil Gaiman got flack for Good Omens because they didn’t write an actual kiss or hug or hand-hold between Aziraphale and Crowley yet Neil Gaiman went on Twitter saying they were queer representation.  I still don’t really put much stock into what he says because the unfinished episodes and Jhonen’s commentary don’t really change the dynamic that’s actually in the show.  And again...Jhonen said if there were going to be romance in the show it would be Zim/Gaz, so he’s either a huge hypocrite or doesn’t view Zim as being incompatible with Gaz.

I do think it’s much better when Dib is an adult and it just makes more sense, and I actually do prefer zadf to zadr and if i were going to ever write fanfiction or make fanart it would probably just be zadf, just because i know this does have some stuff to think about and I totally respect that you have a different view of it, but i honestly just don’t see it that way.  The analogy with Jacob imprinting on Bella’s child in Twilight isn’t really the same thing honestly.  The author in that situation tried to make it not......that....by saying that imprinting isn’t always a romantic relationship thing, and that Jacob would be more of an older brother, but honestly that doesn’t really negate the impact of grooming that kid would have with Jacob around.  The idea that Zim would somehow be grooming Dib seems really silly to me although you’re right, I think his characterization in Into the Florpus has evolved somewhat especially with regard to Dib wanting to get his father’s approval, but again Zim has parallels with that in trying to please the Tallest.  the world-building and characterizations are inconsistent and scattershot at best.  Like no, zim isn’t waiting for him to turn legal, that’s absurd, they’re nemeses coming at each other then learning to be friends.  You’re right that that doesn’t have to be zadr but I still tag it as zadr so people can block it if they want to.

Like, I’ve seen people ship Zim with Professor Membrane instead of Dib.  That seems very weird to me.  that professor membrane would have a relationship with someone who literally goes to his son’s elementary school and who doesn’t know anything at all about human behavior and emotions.

I feel like with this discussion people don’t really understand the problem with age gaps. With age gaps, it’s not a matter of mature/immature, it’s about development.  A ten year age gap sounds like a lot right?  a 25-year-old and a 15-year old would absolutely have a predatory “relationship.”  But a 35- and a 45-year old, that’s perfectly fine.  Having a difference in age doesn’t automatically make the relationship unhealthy.  so if Dib is 25 and Zim is [whatever the hell aliens years i still don’t really take Jhonen’s word for it bc he’s not consistent], that’s doesn’t mean it has to be bad.  The thing about telling minors they’re “so mature for their age” to try and convince them that a person interested in them isn’t a pedophile is that we know a human being who is 15 isn’t developmentally at the same level as a 25-year-old regardless of their behavior.  What is Zim?  All we have to go on is how he acts, and he acts like Dib is an equal match, it’s not “he’s immature for his age,” it’s very unclear.  Raw number of years isn’t the ultimate decider, for example in DnD lore elves reach maturity at, like, 100 years old so a 25-yo human trying to get with a 50-year-old elf would be predatory to the young elf even though the “younger” one is technically twice as old as the human.  Do you see what I’m saying?

I also don’t really buy the idea that Invader Zim’s writing resonates with people because Zim is ~~so human~~.  The guy steals a bunch of kid’s organs in one episode and flies into a tantrum over the slightest inconvenience.  You have to be reading really deeply into it and dig into some old internet archives of things Jhonen Vasquez has said to paint it as realistic.  You can do some interesting things with it wrt like, Zim being defective and starting to experience human emotions but that’s mostly fanon.

Well, you’ve given me some things to think about, thanks for explaining your side to me.  I’m still going to tag things as #zadr so people can block if it can’t plausibly be categorized as zadf.  I’m not actually making any fan content for Invader Zim so the point is kind of moot, but if I ever do I’ll definitely take this into consideration.