#you can have a character that is fat and a poc while also having their weight never be their only defining trait

[outivv]

I’m so disappointed with the natlan teaser because like. Girl. All of those characters would straight up look better if they had even the tiniest bit of melanin don’t even lie hyv.

I’m gonna go on a fat rant here so below the cut, fair warning because it’s messy as fuck I’m just pissed off

No because how are you going to straight up take the inspirations, and clear liberties from Aztec, Māori, Qichwa, Nigerian, Hawaiian, Native American, And Mayan (according to this image from @ HYVboycott on Twitter highly recommend btw they have good info imo)

And then you’re not gonna represent them in terms of their skin color??? Yes there are pale people in all these countries and pale people apart of these cultures, HOWEVER the vast majority of people, or the native people are not typically fucking white. I am white and I literally am darker than the majority of the genshin characters, even in winter when I don’t fucking tan. Like the genshin characters don’t even look ALIVE for Christ’s sake. Hyv are a bunch of cowards who take inspiration from poc, and don’t properly represent them, even in their other games like honkai Star rail. Boothill is Native American. Blatantly. “Oh, no he’s not!!” Yes the fuck he is, his entire backstory is based off of native people, he’s also part Hispanic because the original cowboys were Hispanic people called vaqueros, his home planet in the original CN version of honkai Star rail is literally two native tribes put together I believe. He is Native American, and Hispanic, and hyv TOOK that inspiration and that culture and then was too much of a coward to AT LEAST make him tan. Don’t even get me started on aventurine. So it’s not just with genshin that they do this shit, it’s a hyv problem as a whole, but with genshin it’s so like… common, and genshin has so many issues that make it feel like a cash-grab kinda game, and like the devs are just spitting in our face CONSTANTLY, especially when it comes to characters, and representation. It’s so depressing to see a game that at first had so much fucking promise, now just be such a fucking letdown after like what? 5? 4? Years? Like you’ve built up so much hype, and lore, and excitement just for Sumeru and Natlan not having any representation like fuck off. Hyv CAN fix these issues, they just don’t want to and they have expressed that time and time again by making dark skinned enemies, and enemies with dreadlocks. They know that they can, they just don’t want to because they’re too pussy. And it’s not because they’re a Chinese company, I mean obviously I understand that there is a complicated relationship with tan skin and China, HOWEVER that is no excuse because genshin, honkai Star rail, zenless zone zero, and honkai impact 3rd are all worldwide games and they need to appeal to their WORLDWIDE customers, and I’ve seen plenty of CN players fucking just as pissed off that there isn’t any actual diversity for like any of their games. Plus other Chinese companies have made diverse games, like Dislyte which I’m honestly a huge fucking fan of because of their diversity. Having diversity would BENEFIT hoyoverse a hell of a lot, but they are just trying to appeal to greasy old white men who are the same men who have a tantrum while making a reaction video to a game trailer and go “OH MY GOD SHE ISNT GOT ENOUGH!! LOOK AT HER!! SHE ISNT SEXY!!”, “OH MY GODDD THEY HAVE PRONOUNS NOW!! THE WOKE SNOWFLAKES GOT TO THEM”, and “OH MY GOD ASSASSINS CREED IS MAKING A BLACK SAMURAI THE MAIN CHARACTER!! NOOOO THATS NOT HISTORICALLY ACCURATE!!” Because they’re all pathetic, and that’s who hoyoverse is trying to cater to.

Okay I’m done, this went all over the place but I’m so pissed off so fuck hyv, give them the feedback they deserve, have a great day.

[penncilkid]

Been thinking about my experiences as a POC within fandom while also being an artist and how much that sucks sometimes. This is primarily in regards to the Redacted fandom, but could be applied to any other fandom honestly.

Proper "fussing" under the cut (for those who would rather not see):

Sometimes, I really stop and think about what it must be like to be a white person in fandom, especially when you're an artist. To see yourself reflected in the spaces you exist in all the time. There are some exceptions to this, of course. For example, lack of body diversity is just as much of a problem in my opinion (Like fat people exist. Disabled people exist. Fat, disabled people exist. You can draw them, y'know? /rhet) But generally speaking, it's not difficult to find designs that probably look like you. There will be blondes, brunettes, redheads even— It's everywhere you look.

I don't think most people realize how isolating that ends up feeling though.

Because it's not just the fact that most of the art/designs you'll stumble upon won't resemble you. It's the fact that the prevalence dictates how everyone else interacts with fandom too.

Do you know how much it sucks seeing a post saying "So we all agree that Asher's blonde, right?" and knowing that most people are thinking of a white guy and nothing else?

Or noticing how Alexis, a generally "hated" character in the fandom, is the only vampire most people are willing to make visibly brown?

How about the fact that Gavin, the "thrilling" and "sexy" incubus, has so many black and brown designs— But I can count the non-white Lasko designs I've come across on my hand?

People can do whatever they want. I've said it before, and I'll continue to repeat it when I make these rambles. If you want to make every single design you have varying shades of white and never stray from that, that's your prerogative. But for the love of god, I wish I didn't feel like I was fucking crazy for talking about how much that shit sucks to see as a person of color.

On top of that, do you know how frustrating it is to watch white artists get praised for generic diversity when POC artists have been consistently bringing forth such compelling, stunning designs to table? Like I see the kind of shit that gets praised in this fandom and what doesn't. Racial ambiguity or the slightest addition of a curl gets treated like it's revolutionary— And that's only if it's the "correct" character. It has to "make sense", right? The same way Sam has to have sun-kissed, golden skin even after he's been turned, or the way Guy has to be white because there's no way someone with that personality could be anything but.

Do you know what it's like to be filled with such a sense of joy because someone made a design where a character had your skin tone or hair texture or facial feature? Like, I genuinely have a strong reaction whenever I find a black or brown design in this fandom because they're so rare in comparison to everything else. And when I really stop to think about that, I realize how fucked up of a phenomenon that is.

I love the designs that I've made, but I've also noticed which ones "do better" comparably. I don't change much of anything with how I go about posting or promoting them. The only difference is that some of them fit what is considered widely "canon" in fandom. And the others... don't. I go out of my way to make every design POC in some regard, and you can usually tell visually even without the addition of colors. I'm not gonna stop doing that because I know why I started in the first place. But fuck, it does start to hurt seeing white artists with the same general white designs get hyped up endlessly while I internally debate if I should even make another character look like me or not. If it'll even matter to anyone but me.

Some days, I just really wish it didn't feel like shit being black in this fandom. I hate knowing that I'm gonna post this, and I'll probably get responses for other people of color primarily.

But maybe putting this out will help that pill get easier to swallow.

[aquaaquila]

My very long rant about The Owl House many will have issues reading

Felt like writing my hot takes within The Owl House and its fan base after witnessing some crazy drama all over the blogs I follow and followed:

First things first, I want to establish that there's nothing wrong with liking other ships that are non-canon or ships that are canon. We can all co-exist peacefully, but we won't if we're going to assume that shippers of other ships by default must be sexist or delusional or just the worst. There are plenty of bad apples among all the shippers here, but they're not necessarily the norm (though to be fair the norm usually enables the worst behaviors of such shippers). As a whole TOH isn't a healthy collective and could never be as this fan base is much larger than people realise (you can't have so many people invested with this show for the fan base to be supposedly chill, like Fat Chance).

Like really you can go from canon purists who will keep everything wholesome and silly but because of how starved the actual canon left them they will include a hundred different headcanons that are not in any way related to actual canon and still be upset as if the canon was threatened when you can just to agree with the headcanons alone. There's still, of course, an issue of canon purists literally rejecting everything that's in their mind is supposedly not okay because it strays away from canon in a more direct way. Then you will have Wittelore enjoyers who just love everything about Belos, Caleb, and Evelyn in various different expressions, but it can at times go to becoming lowkey colonist apologist territory along with pretty much-appropriating everything that applied to the character of color into these three when two of them canonically were never given a proper characterisation and Belos is not supposed to be just a victim that deserves grace but the very force that creates victims and the one to continue the cycle without remorse or second thoughts becoming the cycle itself, thus not making it any wrong to unceremoniously end it, though plenty of people will still have problem with it and wish the show validated Philip's feelings. However, you will also have POC defenders who will give the attention and love to characters of color they deserve and even the demon characters like King for example, and acknowledge how they're in fact the main characters while pointing out the clear white favoritism. But this can also go to an extreme territory where you will be called racist for actually finding white characters your favorite and still being interested more in their characters, which as I said is in fact incredibly extreme and disingenuous and also, something that will invalidate all the other good arguments by the virtue of this extreme being the underlying reason behind all of them and thus completely diminishing the problem because people will no longer take it seriously. Then you will have shippers of non-canon ships that are literally harassed by canon persists and were like that for years until they snapped and started to return the favor in the same way to the point of being delusional about how the canon pairings were not the original plan and how they actually suck and it's the non-canon pairing that should be canon which also further fuels the cycle and validates those who believe that somehow the shippers of other ships are after them specifically and how they mean o good when in fact they're the monsters they created themselves. This also leads to the infamous "critics" of the show who will pretty much hate anything within it to also inaccurate extreme that is based on assumptions born from the collective gaslight of some headcanons being canon, along with people judging the show on the surface and assuming things that were never the plan because they made a connection to something else they liked and got disappointed when those two things turned out to be unrelated (for example Hunter's arc being not like Zuko's arc when clearly it was never the point) and thus shushing away any potential criticism the show actually could get by the virtue of getting criticism that holds no water upon the closer look and thus makes people believe the show is, in fact, flawless or that the flaws don't matter in the slightest (when they do as they help improve future stories to not make the same mistakes and create something better). And of course, you will have people collectively gaslighting everyone around them that everything is fine and there's no drama in the show even though everyone hates each other here and fuel toxicity together by constantly drawing distinctions between "us and them" but never talking about how toxic it is.

Congratulations, we created our Emperor's Coven at home! This entire thing is pretty much the reason why I'm making this thing.

But back to the rest of the actual meat of this post, that was mere appetizer.

Second of all: Multishippers exist. Some people like both Lumity and Lunter and there are Lunter shippers who like Amity, me included as Amity's one of my favorite characters. It's disingenuous to assume Lunter shippers are by default lesphobic or just hate Amity. Heck, the reason Lunter shippers dislike Amity is less about her and more about the fan base's attitude. Imagine being constantly harassed that you don't ship mainstream ship by being specifically reminded that a specific lesbian exists, even if this isn't about her. You would be tired of her too because "good for her to be a happy lesbian", but Lumity may still not satisfy people as it's basically all fluff at this point. People are so overjoyed with them being together they hardly explore now possibilities of them going through something. At most, they will use green-haired Amity but people still will be waiting for green to turn into periwinkle, and fluff will just overwhelm anything else. And don't get me started on how both of them also end up being flanderised and dirty because of each other (as it goes both ways). People can just not vibe with that or be indifferent, but because people get harassed for daring to not love Lumity or Amity, they just end up hating it more. The issue is not Amity, the issue is Amity being the only option allowed. And gatekeeping people from enjoying other ships isn't ok. It really makes you feel like people erase aspects of their characters just to conform to a specific image of them and how can you accept something like this when the show is all about embracing weirdness and differences and not conforming to anything. Loving Lumity is a norm in this fan base, not a break with convention.

Third of all: I'm sorry to y'all but I think that considering Evelyn and Willow as literal parallels because they both fell in love with "Caleb" is disingenuous to both of them. No one would draw this connection if Willow wasn't romantically involved with Hunter. And while I don't disagree that Huntlow is goated and canon/semi-canon, their relationship is still left to interpretation and they are only implied to have a thing but not confirmed to be downright an item. We don't know 100% if they're dating, playing the long game, engaged, or amicably broken up. And that's great as both of their characters work in their own right and they don't need an established relationship to be fulfilled and people can interpret their relationship however they like, no need to throw pitchforks at one another. And Willow being dressed up AS A STEREOTYPE just doesn't help the case of her somehow being Evelyn's foil. Luz was dressed as an actual witch character (even if said witch is also not how real witches operate either, but it's still closer in meaning than Willow being dressed up as a devil as if Evelyn indeed charmed Caleb and he didn't fall in love with her like a normal person or that Evelyn was ever in the wrong to like a boy).

And as for Evelyn: please stop just summarising her up to Caleb's love interest for Titan's sake. We may not know much about her but we know that they did start as friends according to Dana's livestream and later on they would become parents to their child (if Belos didn't ruin it). Not only it's different from Huntlow as Huntlow didn't establish where they stand in their relationship at the end while it's clear that Evelyn and Caleb fucked, but Evelyn and Caleb had their love story that did take time (Huntlow at most is just getting started but for all, we know they could still break up in the future cause why not, it's their choice, first love isn't necessarily the only option). My point is that Evelyn's life didn't revolve around her love for Caleb alone so saying Willow and Evelyn are parallels because of them being lovers of our favorite white boys pretty much erases both of their characters. Evelyn's worth as a character doesn't end on getting pregnant, but also being a catalyst of all the events within the story, along with being a Clawthorne ancestor and original wild witch living between worlds.

Fifth point: this is where I bring Luz into this as the parallel, the infamous "Luz is Evelyn" everyone just loves to discard because it's only used as Lunter's argument and further making Evelyn only Caleb's bitch and nothing else, but here's a thing: you can use this parallel platonically to further spite Philip. People draw the connection because aside from having no romantic feelings towards "Caleb" (which is the only distinction between the two), Luz is also a wild witch (wild as in both wild personality-wise, wild as in everything Belos stands against (and side note: Willow being someone Belos wouldn't approve of is not a high bar because Belos would literally not approve of ANYBODY within our cast, so Willow's not special in this regard, heck Belos doesn't even know Willow all that much), wild as in using the very magic that came from the titan and wild as in a wild card that changed the course of history) that traveled between realms and came from another world (let's be real, Hunter is a witch from boiling isles, not a human from the earth, so Luz by a longshot matches the description better than Willow who's just a regular witch born in the demon realm to Hunter that frankly wouldn't be hurt or restrained by the coven system as she only uses plant magic from her bile sac and didn't go against the empire until season 1 finale and even then she didn't do it as a wild witch but child witch railing witches belonging to the coven to release Eda). Both of them also have loose association with Clawthornes as Luz isn't legally one but just a surrogate daughter of one and Evelyn's surname isn't known, the clan could've been established much later down the line or Evelyn's descendant married into Clawthorne's family, making Evelyn just an ancestor at best and distant at worst. I also already mentioned how both of them are catalysts to both the rise in power and the death of Philip while having massive guilt over it (Philip died on the inside as he killed Caleb, crossing the moral event horizon along with setting on the journey of destroying the entire realm. Plus I cannot imagine the survivor's guilt Evelyn must have felt over Caleb dying and orphaning their unborn child - which parallels Luz thinking she doomed her palisman by carving into an egg thinking it could never hatch because of how "she keeps on messing up constantly"). And of course, it's clear as day that Luz kickstarts Hunter's redemption arc by introducing Flapjack (and Evelyn did the same with Caleb, meanwhile Willow's only interaction with Flapjack is her giving him flowers on his grave; and it's worth noting as I doubt that Evelyn intentionally 'fixed" Caleb, much like Luz didn't intentionally "fixed" Hunter, though people sure love to think otherwise), making him question what he knows (a witch hunter falling in love with a witch - existential crisis is warranted, along with tones of guilt) and making him "betray" Belos (Hunter disobeyed Belos in HP and then questioned him directly in HM; Caleb "left Philip behind"). Like I'm sorry but Willow did nothing but wait till Hunter gets his shit together by himself (the only thing she actively tried to change his mind about is not judging a book by its cover but that's where it ends; she didn't call him out on doing the utterly terrible thing of kidnapping them to his cult nor anything else he did that wasn't morally correct) while Luz openly defied him and his worldview for him to come to his senses ("You're really going to take all those Palismen? I know what he does with them. I thought you were a good guy, but that was just wishful thinking" Hunter then proceeds to protect Luz from Kikimora, reveals his name, and lets Luz go with the Palismen just like that). Trivia: Evelyn also has brunette hair that is wild and tied back, Luz used to have them too early on but shorter, and currently they're curly.

That's where parallel comes from. That's what Evelyn us to Caleb: catalyst of change. Yes, Luz isn't in love with Hunter, but we could headcanon away that Caleb would be merely an uncle of Evelyn's kid, who's going to stop us from doing that? We can even make it that Philip felt replaced by Evelyn by her being Caleb's "new sibling" just for the fun of interpretation of the character.

But even if we won't do that (as no one forces us) then we must remember that parallel characters are not 2 characters being one and the same. Evelyn and Luz would still be separate entities and there's no crime in that. Luz not falling in love with a blond white boy is fine because that isn't and shouldn't be Evelyn's defining trait. Evelyn's defining trait is kickstarting change in Caleb which kickstarts Belos's vendetta against Witches. Romance was a bonus.

My sixth point: Last but not least let's finally talk about the elephant in the room that is parallel between Philip and Luz. All interpretations are valid, if you're choosing to interpret them like that, it's your valid choice and opinion. But saying that it's THE thing that happened within the show is just not correct and let me explain why before you discard me altogether if you haven't already.

Luz projected into Belos and Belos took advantage of that.

There, I said it, that's the ultimate truth of the show, you literally cannot deny this isn't how it happened.

Luz pretty much only had Philip as a point of reference to someone who shared her experience of a human in the demon realm. However, if she got to know Caleb instead of Philip, he would be the one Luz would compare herself to him. Ironically, she would be more correct as both of them are humans who run away to the demon realm after being possibly rejected by the closed-minded society and leaving behind unpleasant reality and their only living family member who they didn't realize how much they've hurt for choosing to leave them for the world that made them happy and helped them flourish (compare starved Caleb in Belos's vision to Caleb living in the demon realm and introducing Philip to Evelyn before he decided to kill them,). You could even say that Luz is a fusion of both Caleb and Evelyn at once. But unfortunately, Luz doesn't know Caleb as well as the audience does, all she knows is that he used to be a witch hunter who fell in love with Evelyn but that's about it. She doesn't know that he even has a connection to the portal door or Clawthorne ancestry.

So with no one else as a point of reference, Luz is going to compare herself to Philip Whattabitch. She assumed that she must be as bad as Belos because she thought he sincerely thought he was doing everything for a genuine reason and not because he was just a douchebag. Sure Philips's motivations are complex, but they don't come from a good place in the slightest. The Titan himself literally asks Luz if she's drunk on Eda's apple blood for thinking she's just as bad as Belos.

Like seriously, Luz stumbled on the Isles by pure accident. It was never for a reason or a higher purpose. She was never "destined" to go there, but it was her actions and decisions that led her there and changed the world around her. She didn't know the reason why she landed on Boiling Isles because there never was any reason or a prophecy to justify her presence there as it was never needed. This is not the same as Belos who willingly went to the demon realm to both find his brother and destroy all the witches. Luz very quickly grew out of "I'm the chosen one" whereas Belos made himself a false messiah. Even the Titan said that she's not chosen to be given Titan powers by fate but for her actions and kindness she's given them to support her and it was her decision to accept them. Not to mention that she respected the Isles, the inhabitants, and the magic that was part of this world, while all Belos ever did was destroy, murder, and steal it all for himself.

The show doesn't tell you Luz and Belos are foils, the show tells you that Luz VIEWS herself as Belos's foil, but she's nothing like him. Even their respective hero complexes are different. Luz seeks self-improvement to find a community for herself to belong to. But Belos? Belos wants to get praise and glory for slaughtering "the evil". Those two are not the same because Belos doesn't care about anyone but himself while Luz is all about what other people feel and think about her and she sacrifices herself multiple times for other people's sake. Belos would never do that. Belos wasn't even happy that Caleb was actually well and healthy in the demon realm, in contrast to the vision where Caleb is starved and sleep-deprived because he had to look after him ever since they were little orphans, sacrificing his own well-being. But Luz would rather give up her own hopes and dreams just to not see anyone she cares about ever put themselves on the line like that.

At most, I can agree that Luz represents what's best in humanity and Belos represents the worst, but that is still an incredibly broad concept that just doesn't contribute much to the actual story of TOH which isn't about humanity as a whole. And I'm sorry but this parallel is just used to woobify Belos and villanise Luz, something that certainly is not right. Because even if you made Belos a hero and Luz a villain, they'd still be nothing like one another.

Even Luz's dynamic with Hunter is nothing like Caleb and Philip. Caleb and Philip grew up together and they were the entire world to one another growing up. But Luz and Hunter didn't even have each other when growing up, they didn't get to know them until their teens, and the first time they meet they were at each other's throats which is different from Wittebane brothers having a loving relationship early on only for Belos to stab Caleb. Arguably, even if liked the idea of Luz and Hunter being siblings, I'd be disappointed with how much the show didn't do anything with them and it's always the fan base that pulls heavy weight on them being sibling-like. Like Hunting Palismen is them not even being friends let alone family and it's still supposed to be the pinnacle of their sibling rivalry, even though they were actual enemies and Luz is just as petty and immature here as she is with Kikimora? Luz supposedly didn't go after Hunter after he ran away from the Owl House whereas she did chase King when he learned the truth in Echoes of the Past? Supposedly we never had an on-screen scene where Hunter officially becomes a Noceda? I'm sorry but I will take a "You're family" from Afro-Latina as not confirmation that I'm a sibling but a friend who is close enough to be as valued as a family member, especially followed by Willow's "You're one of us now" and preceded with Camila's "I'm a mother of six". Are Hunter and Willow siblings too now? Hunter didn't even get to be in a photo of the Noceda family in the epilogue, what kind of brother would that be?

Camila is more of a Caleb to Luz considering it was her who raised Luz through trials and tribulations, sacrificing her own quirks and encouraging Luz to do the same just to conform to the norms of Gravesfield. But quite frankly it's Luz who ultimately runs away because of a certain Clawthorne Witch leaving Camila behind. Hunter literally has no such story with Luz, unless you count him running away in HM, only to return to COTH a week later and then finally live under Nocedas' roof.

Even when Luz didn't like Hunter's guts, she would never kill him. And despite being dressed up as Belos in the nightmare sequence, there's never a parallel between Philip and Caleb, because truly this isn't their relationship. And while we're at it, the whole nightmare sequence is once again a play on Luz's insecurities and doubts, but none of them are the truth. None of Luz's friends blame her for what happened, none of Belos's crimes are her crimes, and Luz would never willingly destroy the Boiling Isles because she doesn't destroy the things or people she hates. Even Belos was not finished off by Luz but by boiling rain and her family.

Ok, I finished venting about everything that's been going on inside my head. Might add more on the way, but those were the issues that were bugging me so now do whatever you want with it.

[ninja-confession-go]

we should have more whimsy in this fandom. i feel like sometimes people get too obsessed with the idea that something has to be grounded in reality for it to make sense and while it can be fun to argue character appearances based on them being ninja or actions they perform, sometimes we gotta remember that they're teenage elemental ninja legos and their theoretical human bodies don't have to line up with how strong or anything they are

also there are so many different body types you can be strong and athletic but not super muscular. i think too many people who complain about certain characters (jay and lloyd specifically) being smaller or chubbier than others forget that like... fat people can also be strong... also it's a tv fantasy show their bodies don't have to be super accurate to reality... but maybe that's more of a pet peeve as a fat person than anything

and also all this to say that this doesn't let anyone off the hook for having no body diversity in their portrayals, but also that i think that sometimes people are so eager to be like i'm right!!! that they don't give others any grace, especially when people turn it into something morality based

and i think we can apply this to any type of headcanon. yes we should always do introspection on why we portray characters certain ways (for example i think that headcanoning jay as fat and then making him super food obsessed would be questionable, or portraying cole as fat because he's food obsessed) but that we should also give others grace and understand that it's just fandom and a diversity of headcanons can be fun and cool actually

idk, i just feel like especially recently there's been a shift to this weird headcanon policing and people will shittalk you or vague you if you don't subscribe to their interpretation

p.s., i also think we shouldn't erase diversity in canon. Like I think Arin and Euphrasia should remain POC regardless of hc because even if they're lego people there's obviously coding that's meant to be representative there and erasing that is questionable, to say the least, but also i'm not a poc so i didn't wanna focus on that too much since i'm sure the poc in the fandom could discuss it better

.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Children's media can absolutely and does radicalize kids when written correctly,it's just that shitty bigoted adults in fandoms deliberately misenterpret their messages and trick them into believing they're canon and that's how we got here.Bleach had Ichigo be a goth punk dude who's a fantastic older brother and choose his female love interest because she's his best friend and he finds her weirdgirlness to be enchanting which is good rep for us because being punk is about nonconformity and so is the fact that he never joined the military system his species was largely a part of because he didn't give two shits about them but over half the fandom is convinced the mangaka is a 'sellout' and 'pandering' for not making him essentially a paranormal cop for the sake of pairing him up with the fem mc that he has a familial and queerplatonic relathionship with as confirmed by the aformentioned mangaka

Pjo had Percy hate the gods as much as Luke does and act on it too but directly TO them instead of grooming younger halfbloods to work for him as soldiers and in fact he basically adopted every one of them he came across as his siblings and pseudo-kids and this is explicitly framed as why he's a hero and Luke's evil but you see nonstop erasure of his anti-corruption and anti-authority mentality and direct action despite being his core character traits to make him more palpable as an 'average fantasy protagonist' when the point of him is that he's not normal in any way

The Owl House had 3/5 of it's mcs be poc with the two white ones being an autistic and ocd lesbian and the other a disabled boy with zero conventionally physical traits that're never made out to be ugly and the protag is an inmigrant afrolatina girl while the big villain is a puritan colonizer and every single ship on the show is queer including the m/f one and the token white boy has almost all the important characters to his arc being black and the only one who isn't is a fat asian girl who's also disabled but the HUGE amount of positive rep in the show is deliberately taken out of context for bad faith critisism by a bunch of 20/30/even 40 year olds who've never written actual good stories themselves and this includes them adoring and gushing over the colonizer guy while dismissing the poc and women in the cast as irrelevant

Across the Spiderverse had an EXTREMELY black in every way character literally named SpiderPUNK who makes his beliefs clear in every single one of his lines and isn't all talk for a single second but he's reduced down to 'annoying edgy older brother figure' and made to listen to Taylor Swift and go to Hot Topic and called 'obviously a skater boy' and every other poser punk trope in the books

Atla had Aang and Katara be a gnc boy of a lesser known type of asian race and Katara a brownskin native girl that reclaims femininity for herself with their character drives being to save the world with Zuko's arc hammering it in again and again that while he always had good in him,he WAS evil,he DOES have a lot of bad traits and that made him do a lot of bad things and THAT'S why he needed a redemption arc to be a hero but Aang gets called racist for following the buddhist belief that in-universe he was sole remaining follower of that killing humans is bad,Katara gets adultified and stripped of her actual personality to make her just 'hashtag relatable teen gurl' and Zuko gets infantalized and upholded as the least problematic character in the whole show

And my last and not quite like the rest example is Harry Potter,including the spinoffs and fanon.Everything in it is neoliberal bs and the fandom just made it worse-Oh,the house that's a metaphor for fascism and white supremacy legacies?They're just misunderstood little babies and every minority-coded🥺The lower class family who canonically were Jkr's best attempt at good people that still flopped?Awful homophobic bastards😡All the female characters?Perfect slay 'You can't sit with us' girlboss,precious little baby angel who can't tie her shoes without her reverse harem's help or manipulative self-obsessed hyperfemme pick me,those are the only three categories they can ever fall in.Marauder's Era not only existing but being very,VERY popular is nothing but whiteness-What is there for you to be attached to there exactly?With the canon cast i can least see why you'd have nostalgia but M Era is literally nothing.You just CHOOSE to pick a franchise that's violently bigoted towards basically everyone and who's creator actively influences and helps caused that hurt irl oppressed groups instead of making ocs since you're already building them from scratch anyway

It's not the fault of actual good creators and especially not kids in fandom that grown ass bootlickers couldn't accept that their precious 'escapist comfort media' isn't apolitical at all instead of absorving it's messages like they should have since they have no care for other people despite insisting how kind and unproblematic they are

[quartermera]

Things to know about tagging fanfictions

Canon convergent means you follow the essential plot lines. This can be used to write a fic set before, after or during canon, but the main elements need to remain the same. Examples: character deaths, the beginning and end of canon etc.

Canon divergent means you change essential plot lines. Keeping a character who dies, alive in your fic is canon divergent. This tag is often used in combination with others such as "X lives" or "Everybody lives".

This means there is no point in tagging the same fic with both canon convergent and canon divergent. Canon convergent refers to specific plot points, not just the general universe. It is the default for fics to take place in their canon universe, unless specified otherwise.

Speaking of, these fics set in non-canon universes are called alternate universes, AU for short. These are your typical "what if they went to high-school/college/the coffeeshop together" stories.

While on the subject of AU's, I will take the chance to speak of something else than tagging. Recently in a fandom I was active in, I was surprised to see plagiarism claims. However, these were thrown around much too fast in my humble opinion. Remember that when writing for a fandom, in particular big ones, you will be working with the same characters and mechanics as potentially tens of thousands of other people. What will make your work special is the way you combine certain elements, mixed with your personal style. Countless stories have similar plots if reduced to their bare bones. Don't be offended too fast.

Now I am addressing the OC and Reader Insert writers: learn to differentiate the 2.

OC's, or Original Characters, are the ones with a name, description, back story etc. As soon as your characters has a name or a detailed description, they are an OC. No point in tagging both OC and Reader in order to get more clicks, people will just leave if it does not match what they are looking for. Also OC's are not cringe. I remember a time where Reader Insert fics were the cringiest and look at us now.

Reader Inserts are meant to remain as neutral as possible. This means no name, no description, and as vague of a backstory as possible. No one wants to read about them having "luscious, long, blonde locks" if their hair is none of those. It breaks immersion.

And if something is a necessity for the plot (example, stories targeted at short/tall/fat/skinny/white/poc readers), mention it in other tags, the summary or the warnings section depending on your platform. A quick "short!f!reader" won't hurt anyone.

And vice versa, I encourage you to specify when a reader you write is gender and/or race neutral. As there is so little work targeted to POC and genderqueer or male readers, such works are gems and you will be thanked for it (I know I have been).

Since I made a post saying we should teach the kids how to tag, here I am. Yes, I am aware of the irony of this sentence when I myself have only reached the ripe old age of 23, but what can I say, I have been in fandom for a decade. Also these are just 10 points bc I don't like to make my lists too long and they are my main grievances/pieces of advice.

[genericpuff]

I hope you won't mind this in particular because I have no way of posting this anonymously to the critical community outside of making a burner account but I'm hoping that maybe you could share this as you're well respected in the community and may understand where I'm coming from.

It has become increasingly uncomfortable the way I've seen some people in the community comment on Psyche's design. I'm Black, and while I have my issues with the way she's been introduced, her entire character arc, or the fact that she was made into a token character for diversity points, I still find the way part of the community discusses her increasingly uncomfortable and nearing anti-Blackness at times. Really all I want is for non-Black criticals to please be more mindful of their criticisms when it comes to her character. That's all. Some comments are starting to become hurtful, like her current hair being called ugly (which I get isn't done in more creative styles but puff ponytails are a thing Black women wear often) or just the fact that she's Black now at all, she was always brown, the only thing that really changed was her hair texture and eye color. And repeatedly seeing things like "She looked prettier before" when she isn't ugly or "I liked her hair before" it's...uncomfortable, which hurts because I really enjoy this community full of creative and intelligent people. 💔

That's all, thank you for taking the time to read this.

Ouu, this is a great post with some great points, thank you for sharing! I don't mind people sharing their takes through my inbox if it gives them a safe outlet to do so, just so long as y'all don't mind me responding to them!

CW: this is mostly just a very sensitive post regarding race and culture representation in LO so just be aware that this one miiiight be heavy and/or triggering, please please please if anyone has anything to share in response to this just let me know, these discussions are important to have but they can still be emotionally draining and I don't want to make anyone feel upset or invalidated by this lil' essay post!!!

So obviously I can't speak on this as a black person BUT as an Indigenous person, I feel like I would be in your same boat if Psyche were being drawn with Indigenous/Mi'kmaq traits and I saw people going "well she looks UGLY now and she was PRETTIER before." So I can empathize with you there in that regard, people's takes can be a little rough around the edges with this kind of topic.

But I'm willing to give people the benefit of the doubt most of the time when these topics do come up because a lot of the criticisms aren't aimed at Psyche specifically being black or having textured hair, they're aimed at Rachel for suddenly retroactively retconning Psyche from being a dark-skinned/brown Mediterranean woman into a black woman.

Like, straight up, what pisses me off about how Psyche is treated is simply how she's been drawn as 4 different women of color over the course of the comic. Having a hairstyle that changes often is one thing (literally every character in LO lacks consistency) but her hair texture and length is constantly changing (which isn't something you can just change on a whim unless you're Persephone LMAO) AND her skin tone has flip flopped between, again, dark-skinned/ woman and black woman. In some panels she's outright orange which is... ech.

Now, take this with grains of salt because I have no source on it, but I've seen claims that RS once stated she "always wanted to draw Psyche black, but didn't know how to." Besides the fact that this sounds outright lazy (it's not hard to learn how to paint skintones that are not your own, Google exists) it also seems like RS trying to paint herself as "progressive" which she's done for a LOT of things beyond just POC rep (ex. fat rep, mental health rep, etc. all things that she's butchered or misrepresented entirely but still pretended like she was doing well).

Again, I'm giving a lot of benefit of the doubt here and I'm sure I'm gonna be proven wrong on this (I welcome it if there's something I've blatantly missed here, educate me in the comment section below pls) but when I see people say Psyche's hair is "ugly" in the newer panels or they "prefer her old design" I don't see it as them saying the hair style or texture itself is ugly or that she, in and of herself, is ugly. Often times people will short form it to "it looks ugly" especially in the faster-paced discussion circles, but really more often than not they mean "I think the way RS is trying to draw her just isn't good." Especially considering how low effort and lip service-y it feels. Like, Psyche's hair rn is literally just a giant texture brush pressed onto the screen and her skin tones are just brown + brown set to Multiply.

And that design is a far cry from where Psyche started.

Like, these are LITERALLY not the same women and while some might say "well maybe it was after she became a Goddess-" nope, she looked like her S3 version when she turned back into a mortal from nymph form, except she had an entirely different hair texture and skin tone.

None of this is to invalidate anyone's feelings regarding this criticism and how it's delivered. There doesn't need to be an intent to hurt for something to be hurtful. The purpose of this post is more so just to explain my own interpretation of where these criticisms come from (as someone who's had them myself) and how I interpret them as a POC. I don't think anyone's trying to be intentionally malicious to people from the POC community (though they can be blasé) especially considering a lot of the people talking about it are black themselves. No one person is a monolith for the entire community so while some are fine with how Psyche is being drawn, others aren't, and I think both are valid in their own ways. Often times it can come down to individual experiences and what people are used to seeing in media when it comes to POC rep and that's something that will vary per person. I've definitely seen conversations revolve around something being racist towards the Indigenous community that I couldn't care less about because it just wasn't something that I found offensive due to my own upbringing or what I'm used to seeing in media. Doesn't mean I can't still be educated on why it's hurtful to others, though!

All I'm gonna say on it is that, personally, I don't find anything inherently wrong with any of the designs on their own, there's nothing ugly with any of those looks. If they were all each their own character, I'd be down for it, absolutely. It's just the fact that all these designs are for ONE character. It's a shame to see Psyche robbed of any consistency even more so than every other character in the plot, and it very much feels like a case of a white New Zealand woman trying too hard to win representation points (and yes, that's a hot take, but it's a small hill I'm willing to die on because we all know RS' history with this sort of thing at this point, she's not good at hiding it lmao). It feels very low effort and obligatory, like Psyche is just there to check off a list of mandatory representation rather than be her own character with her own goals or traits or motivations.

And, REAL hot take, though it isn't really related to the majority of this post, I have to point out that it gets even weirder/ickier when you remember the fact that nymphs are treated as lower class in the narrative and Psyche... becomes a black-coded nymph... who works for Aphrodite as a servant...

(sigh how was this any better than just doing the OG myth, Rachel?)

Anyways, that's all I'm gonna say on that. That is, again, my personal take on it but I obviously can't speak on behalf of the black community or people in it, most of what drives me nuts just has to do with the lack of character consistency and the feeling that RS is just phoning shit in. The designs on their own independently from one another are fine and I don't think that's what most of the criticisms out there are annoyed about anyways - we're all just tired of seeing Psyche morph into different POC rep characters every other week.

Thank you for taking the time to write and voice your opinion on it, it's definitely a topic that can veer into nasty territory if not treaded carefully but it's one that interests me in talking about because POC rep is important to me, whether or not I belong to the specific culture that's being represented. I know I would be in the same boat if it were concerning Mi'kmaq characters.

And by all means, if y'all think I'm just spouting shit out of my ass or speaking completely out of turn, tell me in the comments or in my asks, this isn't a discussion with one simple clear cut answer or solution so I'd love to hear your own takes o(*￣▽￣*)ブ

[alistairssock]

Every day I grow increasingly disappointed and mad that the body options in BG3 are so limited when it comes to their bodies

I complain a lot about all the male companions having rippling abs (first off: why??? second off: the hell¿¿¿). While most the female companions have hourglass shaped bodies with uber perky tits facing the sky. Except Lae'zel and Karlach. Lae'zel being weird and lanky yet strong, gitting her being githyanki and a warrior. Check. It's good, I really like that about her, it makes her interesting and unique. Her tits are even slightly diffrent than the others. Karlach? I could never slander Karlach. She's perfect. Hope she can continue to piss off whiny gamer boys who are afraid of muscular women taller than them. Or awaken something in them. Either option is fine.

But the main thing that bothers me is that we're living up to this insane beauty standard that is so implimented into our society that it's so to speak impossible to un-stick from video games. It's a sick and twisted cishet gamerbro fantasy, rubbed into our faces. It's lazy and boring, and lacking of flavor and I'm so so tired of it. And don't get me started how unrealistic most their bodies are compared to what they do and how they've lived and who they are. That could easily be a whole other wall of a text post.

Thing is, I wouldn't mind this as much if the 'standard' bodies were just one of many options. If these body types were just one of many and not the default on every single character model. There could be a custom option/sliders to adjust the character's bodies to your own vision and preference. Though, I do wish it would come with a lot more diverse bodies to begin with (baseline for npcs, and that isn't much to ask for, they clearly have the power, but are not willing to wield it). Hell, even a height slider would be good. Not all player/non-playable characters abide to the standard set body options; that is simply ridiculous when you think about it.

It does however bother me extra much because it's such a cowardly trap both Dragon Age - and probably also other fantasy games (and let's be real, most video games in general) - and now Baldur's Gate fall into. Men are square and burly, and women are hourglass shaped and dainty in comparison, no matter the race option (cough, cough I'm looking at the dwarves mainly). Dare i say The Ideal Male Body and Sexulised Version Of What Most Women Look Like. The only two genders. They do have given us muscled options, for which I'm grateful. But they are mostly just "would you like to be bigger and taller?", and that's it. Essentially same body, just streched out and slap some muscle in it, no problem. But seeing as it's in a fantasy world very much like our world (as in...people are people, living their people person lives), there should be a lot more bodily diversity. Fat people should exist, and they shouldn't be limited to antagonistic characters. We all see why that is wrong and fucked up, right?

It is progressive in it's ways, of course. The fact you can mix and match genitalia to body is a huge plus in my book. Pronouns are also super epic. Not much to complain about on that front, not many gives us these options. It's a small step for gaming, a huge step for humanity, or whatever.

It might be a lot to ask for to have options that include and embrace every aspect of the human experience. I do want more disabled characters in all shades and colours, I do want more fat characters in all shapes and sizes, I do want better and more hair for poc characters. The list goes on forever. So while I'm grateful for what we have and know and acknowledge and mourn it's not a perfect game by far (by wishes and just as a fact), I do appreciate what has been offered us so far. I just need to get this all off my chest, air out some thoughts

[grumpydevilfellow]

I just finished Rain Code for the Nintendo Switch so I thought I'd give my thoughts on it. For those who don't know, Rain Code is a bizarre and unique detective game. This game is best played as blindly as possible, but if you like solving mysteries then of course this game will be perf for you.

The mechanics are fun and easy. There's no hard mode so it's tuned so it's challenging but no so challenging that no one can beat it except expert gamers. I will say the tutorials for like a couple of mechanics could've been explained a little better, but even without it you're gonna figure out what the game wants you to do eventually with minimal problem.

Rain Code is all about diving head first into the mystery labyrinth and using Solution Keys you picked up along the way to unravel the culprit's true nature! They're very exciting and fun.

The music and atmosphere of game were stunning. A city where the rain never ends highlighted in neon lights and even holograms. During my entire playthrough I never got tired of the music once. It was always a vibe.

Downsides? Ugh.... Kodaka has this reoccurring thing where he shows his true colors when it comes to certain types of ppl. Namely fat ppl and ppl of color. I'll never understand why someone who really pushes societal norms with his writing to challenge capitalism and advocate for acceptance of homosexuality would also have such bigotry towards others.

Now I know that sounds pretty bad and trust me I 100% hate it, but I can at least say it's not in your face all time. I won't excuse it, but at least I can ignore it for the most part while enjoying other parts of the game.

Minor Spoilers

I'll give credit where credit is due and say he actually had a couple decent fat characters despite also having a couple of bad ones. His take on POC especially Black people though is just disgusting and I'd rather not dwell on that subject too long. Thankfully the instance happens in the shortest chapter. I sincerely hope Kodaka will change his views to be less racist although I understand that's generally how the Japanese view my ppl lol

End of Spoilers

Overall a very enjoyable game. The characters are wacky and refreshing. The twists are insane. I already expected something huge but I was not prepared at all for the big reveal lol. Def worth a buy.

[mr-orion]

I think a lot of the trans community and lgbtq+ community is misogynistic. And while we can all point out the way it is misogynistic towards the women, we never point out how it is misogynistic towards the men.

I'd like to add that misandry is an incorrect interpretation of these things. To say that I am experiencing "misandry" would be a bad faith argument and show that I do not know what misogyny is. It would show that I do not know how misogyny can benefit women while hurting men. Misogyny is the oppressor of all, while misandry is an unlayered concept meant to divide the oppressed.

Here's just a list of misogynistic things that trans men deal with in the (lack of) community:

Hatred towards masculinity. Exclusion. Only femininity can be good because women are inherently less violent and don't hurt people. Expression of masculinity means you cannot be trusted.

Lack of respect towards feminine men. Femininity is bad, and men should be ashamed to love feminine things. You cannot be both at once.

Lots of berating. Men deserve to and can handle abuse because they are strong.

Criticisms of other trans individuals, primarily women, are seen as misogynistic. Can also go for other trans men.

POC Men being excluded from conversations of gender dysphoria repetitively because they are seen as "more passing." Not only misogynistic, racially motivated.

POC Men being seen as toxicly masculine because they have adopted neutral behaviors of their communities or race. Once again, racist and misogynistic.

POC Men percieved as feminine or non-passing despite culturally transitioning to being masculine and being seen as masculine in their culture.

POC Men seen and treated as dainty and feminine despite developing many traits that are very masculine.

Not being taken seriously because we do not voice our own abuse nor do other trans individuals advocate or believe us.

The uwu-fication of men because we are seen as the "softer" version of cis men.

Mens surgically created genitals being described as weird looking and disgusting.

Lack of knowledge on what a hysterectomy actually does for a person during sexual intimacy.

Assumption that men are inherently overly sexual because they are men or not sexual at all because they are afab. They have no agency in their sexuality because gender directly decides a persons wants.

Preferential treatment to desireable looking men. Reinforces that appearance directly decides the amount of respect you give a person.

Men advocate repeatedly for womens struggles but are ignored because they are now men.

Advocating for mens struggles is treated as feminine struggles erasure.

Intersex trans men being incorrectly categorized against their wishes.

Assumption that a cis or unknown man must be trans because he is slim and sexual. Additionally, the assumption that a fat asexual man must be trans. A direct play into desireability and almost fetishization. Seriously, how often do you see the jock type of character headcannoned as trans with people being receptive to it? It's almost to indirectly say that only "undesirable" men can be trans. This is not a call to remove those types of people from trans representation but to instead add more types and address your biases.

Assumption that men want to neg their female bodies. It's expected that men hate their bodies because they're feminine looking.

The expectation that men should participate in misogyny because they are men.

There's a lot of trans masc erasure. People care a lot about trans women because they take the brunt of bigotry, it's expected. Women deserve to be listened to. Despite that, though, it's almost as if trans men are expected to be okay with suffering. Heck, if I didn't acknowledge trans women in my post and this hit a wide enough audience, a large amount of trans people wouldn't listen and assume I'm fighting trans women. There's this weird expectation where if I ever say anything about being miserable as a trans man, that means I don't think trans women have it worse or bad at all.

Many people assume that when trans mascs point at themselves, we want to take from women. No. We just want you to also pay attention to us.

[tang3r1n]

are there any rules for making requests? like what you will and won't write about, how many characters we can ask about, if asking for more characters affects how much you write, characters you will and won't write for, any preferences for readers you'll write about like male or female, dom or sub, etc? stuff like that. feel free to include anything you want. sorry for all the questions, just want to be sure before sending anything and there wasn't any rules linked on your pinned post. thanks!

AAAAHH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS, IM USING THIS AS THE BASIS FOR MY RULES PAGE WHEN I FINALLY MAKE IT.

(fr though i have wild and sporadic writing bouts, think like once a month i MIGHT be up for organizing my blog 😞)

but YEAH. okay so going down your list;

i write for anything that isn’t scat/vomit, incest and variances, or anything involving underage/animals. hard kink limits for me are shit like cheating and the like. other than that it’s pretty much a free for all

imma go ahead and say the limit would be 5-7 if it’s a hc style post (‘who eats ass’ for example) and 2-3 if it’s like a poly thing (like law, luffy, and kidd all liking one chick ig). literally anything influences my writing style and i bounce from one idea to the next at lighting speed so the more precise a request, the better i’ll be at understanding where i need to go with it!

i feel i pretty much can find damn near any character attractive coming from someone who thinks Charlie and Alan from Smiling Friends are hot as shit. my main focal points will always be anime since…idk they’re easy to write for lmao. my biggest eye-catchers are One Piece, JJK, MHA, Haikyuu (timeskip only cause yeah), AOT, Dorohedoro (my underrated love), One Punch Man, and Sakumoto days, but feel free to request anyone and if they tickle my fancy i’ll write a little smth smth <3

i’m honestly more of a verse irl and i flip a LOT in my writing. one smut blurb is reader chiking the shit out of a guy and the next is them whining and crying while they get spanked, it’s all up to the audience and how i particularly feel at that moment!

i’m an afab fat reader blog, gender is more loose as i’m fine writing for both masculine and non-binary presenting readers as well, but i feel weird writing for a body type/genitalia that i don’t possess. the same goes for other specifics like black or poc readers, disabled or autistic readers, and readers with very specific niches like ‘lolita’ or smth. i try to keep all physical markers neutral as i am pasty as SHIT (never refrencing skin tone or hair texture, using ‘feeling hot in the face’ over ��blushing’, stuff like that so anyone can read) and i stick pretty heavily to using fat/plus size descriptors. that being said, unless the request is specifically for a fat reader or i specify it as a plot point, the reader’s weight will NEVER be a focal point and anyone can imprint on them as they’d like.

also, i tend to forget very quickly and get side tracked a lot, so PLEASE LLEASE PLEASE do not feel afraid to check in and be like ‘yo girl get on my shit’ trust me i’ll understand!!

also, the more i like your request, the more ill write, i literally spent like 7 hours STRAIGHT on a sir croc smut once all from Nasty’s ear worms she gave me<3

[bibi-likes-to-draw]

People Comparing Earthbound to Undertale

I do not know how others within the fandom feel about this, but I personally do not like it when people compare Earthbound to Undertale in order to make either passive aggressively criticize it, or to praise Undertale.

(Cutting here to not clog the timeline!)

First and foremost, I do not mean this to disrespect or put down Undertale or its creator, Toby Fox as that is both hypocritical and not the point I am trying to make. I love both franchises dearly and am an active member of both fandoms. It is just exhausting to see so many people put down one of my favorite franchises by using one of my other favorite franchises.

Firstly, when I see people make this comparison, it is usually in a sort of review of ether, at high usually used in negative reviews of Earthbound. They do such in order to critically analyze one or the other and come to a conclusion about its quality. While I can understand why people may use comparisons in order to judge a product’s quality, I do not think that the way people use it in this way is in any way good or productive.

For one thing, drawing such direct comparisons of one thing to another not only does not give the full picture, but can be misleading about the quality of it. For example, if you compare two things, both of high quality, but ones is only slightly better, without your knowledge of the entire market of said product, any of the small,insignificant shortcomings the slight worse one has will seem like much larger detriments than they actually are, as there is not a proper understanding of the market as a whole. Hence, such comparisons are not productive.

And the other reason I dislike this, which troubles me much more, personally, is that it brings it down and dieters people who may have greatly enjoyed the game otherwise. This effect mostly stems from the the negative framing of Earthbound as a result of the comparison, most of the comparisons go something like “They have X in Undertale and it is so good that It would make you wish that X was in Earthbound” or simply “Undertale is better than Earthbound” thus feeding into a negative perception of it preventing potential fans from playing it.

This is not to say that it is perfect game, because no game can be, as we are humans and humans are not perfect. But it also lacks any sort of critical analysis of it’s problems, such as the potential perpetration of racist and anti-Semitic from the portrayal of the Runaway Five as well as other POC characters in the game, or the fat-phobic portrayals of Porky and his parents, fitting into the fat bastard trope. But they aren’t saying, for the most part, “Earthbound has X issues that Undertale does not” but are rather saying “Undertale is better than Earthbound” without stating the issues presented.

I just think that it is overall just not fun for people to be putting down another thing that I love with something that I also love, in addition to the less emotional reason I have already stated. I just don’t want it be a competition, because it’s not. At the end of the day they are both good, and I greatly dislike that one being better makes the other bad, because it’s not fair and is a mindset that creates a lack of critical thinking and media literacy.

[mushiver]

I haven't been a movie nerd even ONCE on this account. Here's my top 10 movies in 2023

1. The Lord of the Rings (trilogy)

IT STILL COUNTS AS ONE

Can't go wrong here. There's fantasy, action scenes, friendship, romance, badass dialogue, comedy. There's refreshing masculinity where men are close friends, fight for each other, die for each other, kiss each other on the forehead, sing, etc. The Aragorn Arwen romance is sweet and isn't overblown, and the main theme is to fight for good. If you're tired of anti-heroes and want a clean good vs. evil, this is it. The downside is not having poc representation and only 3 important women, but they are extremely awesome and play pivotal roles. If you've heard about LOTR for forever but never actually seen it, here's your sign.

2. The Lego Movie

This movie sells itself, but I have seen it maybe. 40 times. And I could quote it from start to end as a kid. It's funny, has crossover characters along with the main ones (like Batman, Superman, Gandalf, Abraham Lincoln, Han Solo), lots of references, and the main message is that you're special in your own way. It's very autism coded, I think

3. Jaws

Classic man vs. monster, and it's great if you don't watch thrillers and need something "dip your toes in." While the majority of the town goes all rambo trying to kill the shark, the main characters are the opposite. The chief of police is ultimately empathetic and wants to stop more people from being hurt, Matt Hooper is a shark expert "city boy" coming along, and Quint has a boat that needs to be bigger

4. My Cousin Vinny

Vinny is a lawyer taking a case to prove his cousin didn't murder a clerk, but he's the worst lawyer in existence. He forgot everything he learned in law school, can't stop wearing a leather jacket to court, and his fiancée saves him most times. It has some of the most quotable lines and 10/10 I recommend to Alabamans for the southern jokes

5. Knives Out

A modern "whodunit" mystery that shines the most because it's a comedy. The main character Marta is the only one who thinks she knows what happened, but she pukes every time she tells a lie. Benoit Blanc is also the most iconic detective to me and one of my favorite characters ever

6. Tommy Boy

This has a very similar tone to My Cousin Vinny, but it's a road trip movie. After Tommy's dad dies, he and Richard (a jerk coworker) try to sell autoparts to save his company. They're the worst salesmen in existence, but ultimately are creative and pull some shenanigans (Tommy and Richard go from rivals to buddies). It's from the 90s and not very chill with the r-slur and some fat jokes, but it's ultimately a feel-good movie if that isn't a dealbreaker for you

7. Jurassic Park

Like Jaws, another classic pop culture movie. The score is so good, and they make a world full of dinosaurs have the same magic feel as the wizarding world. It's an adventure movie with great action scenes and characters. (This is a trope I love personally but) Alan Grant is a grump who doesn't like kids, but later he looks after them. Ellie Sattler is one of my favorite characters ever, and Jeff Goldblum lays on a table. Survival movies are fun 10/10

8. Joker (2019)

DROOLING OVER THE CINEMATOGRAPHY. It's such a well-made movie, and you never know entirely what's real with unreliable narrating. It makes you feel for Arthur and understand his actions while knowing he made the wrong decisions in the end. Some think it's negative for mental health representation, but it can be used as a cautionary tale for the ways mentally ill people are mistreated and how the events that led to the start of the film weren't his fault. Ultimately, I think it inspires more empathy, and it's a piece of art

9. Signs

I'm a sucker for the "everything makes sense in the end" trope. A lot of people didn't like the combo of two supernaturals (the existence of God and aliens), but I don't think it ruins the movie. It centers around a family struggling with the death of their mother (or sister or wife, depending on the character), and the ex-priest dad had lost connection with his faith. He happens to find it again because of an alien invasion. Normal Tuesday

10. Arsenic and Old Lace

From 1944, it's a weird movie and the acting is iconic. Mortimer is trying to get to his honeymoon, but when he visits his aunts, he finds a dead body in the house. It's a comedy involving shenanigans, avoiding the police, and an uncle who thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt. (It's a bit outdated as far as mental illness goes, but Mortimer's goal is to put his family in the care of a mental institution rather than shipping them off or telling the police.) As a drama queen, I also appreciate Cary Grant being a drama queen

10 honorable mentions: Lego Batman, Napoleon Dynamite, The Goofy Movie, Clue, Psycho, Marriage Story, Into the Spiderverse, Avengers Endgame, Dead Poets Society, Muder on the Orient Express. Swag thanks for reading

[sailorgundam308]

Maybe I should shut my mouth already, but this is my little space to vent and digress with stuff I need to keep bottled up elsewhere.

BG3 brought me back to fandom spaces after more than a decade and, while I know this could be just a generation gap thing, there are stuff I keep reading about or that sms throws at me randomly that is pretty annoying and even disheartening. Lots of younger/new people are engaging with the Forgotten Realms lore for the first time and it’s awesome. But I forgot how impassioned and intolerant fierce parts of fandoms can be.

It rubs me the wrong way how people in general tend to simplify things in order to either justify themselves or feel secure in regards to the world - which is a terrifyingly complex, irrational and nuanced thing we have absolutely no control over. Over the years I’ve surrounded myself with people that are fine with not knowing everything, not understanding all that’s going on, and who are okay with admitting there are things we’ll never grasp, points of view we’ll never have the authority to speak from. But the internet isn’t my bubble.

In regards to BG3 fandom - but I’d risk this is valid for a lot of places in and outside fandoms - there’s a lot of simplifying, flattening and denial of other experiences. The diehard straight folks at BG3 Reddit freak out because characters are pan, BG3 steam incels freak out because the women are “ugly”, BG3 tumblr users freak out (ironically) also because characters are pan, but in reverse. It’s a bit too much, especially when a lot of the fuel for divide is our own headcanons (which, let’s remind ourselves, can’t be wrong or right cause they exist for our personal entertainment and fantasy). Not to mention the game canon itself purposefully leaves a lot to be inputted by the player so we can head-customize our experiences. It’s the magic of rpg.

Still, there are these heated discussions that I can’t help but see stemming from simplification and labeling of things. This is shit that imo should not be happening still. I’ve mentioned here before how I dislike that people bat an eye on a character and, for example, decide what sexual orientation they should have. Generalizing, Shadowheart is straight because she is pretty and petite. Karlach is a lesbian because she is muscular and curses. Astarion is gay because he is slender and flamboyant - and so on. Mind you, they could very well be - but that is not the point. The point is passing judgement onto people based off appearance or demeanor alone.

Outside BG3 this reads as our daily encounters with ideas like: fat people are lazy, immigrants are uneducated (or less educated), hot girls are dumb, being slender is a desirable feminine trait, being muscular is a desirable masculine trait, poc are poor(er). Do some of these prove to be true on a case by case basis? Yes. Do some of these prove to be false on a case by case basis? Also yes. The fact is that some of these ideas are entrenched into the way people view the world. And that includes me and you. Even if you and I personally don’t do this, it doesn’t change the fact that a vast majority of people still do - and many of them unknowingly.

So when a niche community divides itself further to pass judgement onto fictional aspects of a game that is intentionally left so open to interpretation, to the point it creates feuds, it’s quite disheartening. It’s can’t be helped, perhaps, but it just plain sucks.

What specifically prompted me to write this, despite it being a ongoing feeling for a while, was the discussion around Halsin’s status of survivor/his backstory. And, again, there is a bias there that some people might not even realize. Astarion is the ideal victim in this regard, because he is the portrayal of fragility and attractiveness mixed in the right measure so his trauma can elicit sympathy and a sense of protection in many of us. Whereas Halsin isn’t necessarily the face of a traumatic experience for many. Not only physically (buff guy gets attacked?), but these two relate their experiences to us players differently, and act differently towards their trauma. It made me think again of the flattening of characters. This one can be a victim because “look at his face”. But this one? Not so much. It comes across as dismissing the “non-ideal” impersonation of that type of trauma.

Risking some oversharing, it’s the type of attitude that is putting me off from and isolating me within certain fan spaces - because my personal experiences are not quintessential “enough” for some, and my interpretations aren’t either. I’m in the lgbtqia spectrum but I’m not quite the “right kind of queer” (or, as some put it, fake queer, which is hilarious if nothing else). At least, my interpretation and depiction of queerness and gender within my favorite characters is not the one that is welcome in the spaces I tried to reach out to.

Far from me from claiming the epitome of trauma, but I’ve had my fair share. And I assume a lot of people have, too. So a little empathy or sympathy goes a long way, in reminding us our views (on headcanons) do not mean others’ are invalid.

How nice would it be that, instead of blurting out our first impressions because they are ‘easy’, we’d take a minute to just check if we’re saying what we’re saying out of an over simplistic view of things? Or, better yet, sometimes we don’t need to get out of our way to invalidate someone else’s experience. It’s mostly headcanon after all. Unless an idiot is going ‘round shouting nazi, racist, xenophobic, homophobic or misogynistic shit, there’s usually a way to turn around and leave them be (otherwise, fuck em up please and thank you.)

[poorks]

I know I also say this a lot but geniunely thank you for being so queer positive and fat positive and positive towards poc and just overall embracing diversity!!!! Far too many people in this community are bigots so it's a breath of fresh air seeing someone who's more than happy to show those from all walks of life ^^

i was really deep in the preg community for a while and it like. destroyed me a little. i would feel incredibly unsafe and people wouldn't listen to me and so many artists were like. blatantly disgusting about so many things. ive seen so much horrible shit that i don't need to go into any detail on

so fuck all of them this is my space where i can be a preachy little sjw bitch and if you don't like that i dont let you be gross and weird to people while expressing your fetishes you can suck my dick and choke on it 💚

and as i've said before, i don't give a flying fuck about seeing myself (white, thin, conventionally androgynous) represented anywhere. i would much rather have actually interesting characters than try to reflect my own life experiences

[papirouge]

Ugh, believe me, i was also cringing at many of the comments on those threads. Supposedly, theres this trend of redhead characters being changed to being black, like Annie, Starfire, Mary Jane, or April from the ninja turtles.

Oh, and speaking of such, they were also whining because april is gonna be black in a new TMNT movie... She already was in the newest cartoon, but they wanted her to go back to being white. Also, whining about her being fat and unattractive. We're talking about a kid here, since shes younger in this incarnation, so why even care if shes hot 😭 I bet half these dudes dont even care about TMNT... To be fair, the TMNT fans did raise some hell when shredder was gonna be white in a movie, since hes originally japanese, but i doubt they're even the same ppl.

The little mermaid thing is just very sad. I feel specially bad for the actress, specially after finding out shes just 19! I hope shes just ignoring the comments, because some people can be really cruel. Even some latinos were against the decision - i think theyre quite divided, but many were making racist memes and all. I guess we cant always relay in 'poc solidarity' or whatever.

Another good point you raise is how the japanese and many other east asian countries don't care about the white race or sees them as equal (once a friend of mine actually got targeted when she went to Korea). Also, I remember reading somewhere that the japanese public liked the appearence of younger white people, basically pre-puberty, but disliked the adults, specially the men as they lose the 'soft features' from infancy.

And youre right, i really shouldnt be visiting these places: they only make me sad or angry. I dont know why sometimes i cant help but hateread those threads. When people are behind a screen, they really can spew the most vile shit thats on their minds. Like they always say, just dont read the comment section...

As I already said: every single person remotely bothered by the skin color, sexual orientation, gender or attractiveness of FICTIONAL CHARACTERS is way too old to watch/play whatever show or video game they are from. Period.

That being said, I think there's a psyop of Black characters being shoved into random thing to get White simpletons mad and seethe about White erasure. Of course, they'll never bother looking into WHO produce those show or pick these Black artists to be featured in them..... Whites need to sort between each other their obsession to use POC as props for their agendas.

Black people never bothered about The Little Mermaid or TMNT like that....sure, this (positive) representation is great and that's why the community got hyped (and let's be honest, seeing some Whites seething fueled even more fire bc one thing we Black ppl be good at is being petty lol) but to act like Black people/wokistan are actively trying to erase White people, heterosexuality, masculinity or whatever is ridiculous. Again: they have to go after the higher-ups responsible of those casting choice (not Twitter randos) - and chances are they arent Black, non-straight or female¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Taking a peep at top companies CEO entirely debunks the oppression complex narrative of antiwoke acting like the statuquo was under attack.... It's not. They just want to play the victim - while pretending to fight wokistan victim culture 🙄

Halle is perfect to play a mermaid. She had those slightly alienish features (her eyes are quite far apart lo') but still conventionally pretty. I can hardly think of any actress having the same energy. Maybe Ana Taylor Joy, but she's now botched and is an anachan which may sparks controversy if she ever gets casted in a Disney production....

And I'm absolutely not surprised to see Latinos hating lmao Latinos are huuuuge negrophobe and I'm side eyeing them so bad whenever they try to leverage their non Whiteness calling White "gringos" when they are themselves pale and are descendants of European colonizers in south America 💀 I mean look Argentinians priding themselves "not looking like a Disney movie" (= not visible Blacks in their population).....those people Looooove aligning themselves with White whenever it comes to diss Black people. Therefore Black people are extremely distrustful of Latinos anyway ; we see how they treat they darkskined citizens

POC solidarity is a myth. Unmelanated non-Whites hate actual people of COLOR, and all races look down on Black Africans...That's why I'm foremost defending MY people.

Yeah, there's this misconception of thinking that bc they dye their hair blonde and wear color contact, East Asian want to 'look White'. i think they definitely fancy the diversity of White ppl's phenotype such as the eye and hair color, but for pretty much all the rest, they cater to their own specific beauty standards (especially when it comes to bone structure and face proportion). White people tend to favor sharper bone structure while Asian are all about rounder and softer ones. I don't think Asians look up White people face structure (that make them look older and faster). This contrast was really striking with Kotakoti stunts in japanese magazines where she looked so out of place : despite her dolly blonde hair and blue eyes, she still had those strong adult Westerner features which were so different from her japanese pals' 🥴 (more soft and rounder)

East Asian beauty culture is hysterical though, and even though Asian men have softer features than Western men, their obsession with 'softness' compels them to look more soft than they naturally are. Ultimately men regardless of their race are men ; if Asian men were naturally looking like soft potatoes they wouldn't need to resort to all these procedures to look like that🥴 Men with square jawline botching themselves to have egg face shape is a crime against humanity btw. (square jawline are beautiful on both sex imo♥️)

And the internet isn't a safe space for Black women. There was a stat showing that Black women were more at risk of online harassment compared to any other demographics..... Social medias (especially Twitter) literally feed off your anger (for engagement), so thread lightly. That's why Tumblr is my favorite social media ; it's mostly an image board, and my dash is only curated with what I choose to see.