#you mean I get blorbo AND your cool ideas all at once?!?

[gottaarc]

I love just scrolling canon x oc tags because I love seeing art of characters I enjoy and I also love seeing people's ocs. It's like the best of both worlds

[aboringredmop]

k still don't know how im gonna post the videos (YouTube? unlisted?someone please help) but I can't sleep so I thought it'd write down whatever I remember happening!

(edit: here's the full recording! )

Becky and Joe walked on stage wearing sunglasses and red leather jackets and threw 3 of the trio plushies into the crowd. didn't get one unfortunately but it's really cool some people got free plushies :)

they made this robot child called the Inspiration Child, who's clearly meant to be a nod to ai (can learn from our show and generate it's own content!)

they explained how they met (and had some dodgy animated retelling), and how they started with small projects like commercials and music videos, until they came up with designs of the trio (and a mysterious fourth fella)

they made the designs first, then made the set, then the song and finally wrote the script for creativity. red guy was just a red mop head with legs at first ("alien squid thing") but Joe put the red guy head on for shits and giggles once and Becky thought it was hilarious so they kept it in the show

they were really not expecting it to blow up, and when Sundance called because they wanted to show creativity Becky thought it was a scam caller lol

they talked about the kickstarter and the credit card fraud kid. the mailed him saying "hey maybe dont do that" but the kid didnt know how to undo it cuz he just found a website full of credit card information and went ham, so Becky and Joe had to contact kickstarter because people were pulling out of the funding because they thought the project was overfunded (kickstarter was very difficult to contact)

they also made (lighthearted) fun of nsfw fluffybird art ((no padlock 😔) "using OUR characters to act out their SICK FANTASIES" - Becky) and theorists, especially because most if not all of the webseries is just them fucking around.

Inspiration Child also says something along the lines of "wow what a cool show with a great message of how corrupt the media is. I hate the media!"

Becky and Joe had these rules to make the show as vague as possible (no pop culture references, no names, no swearing and way too much detail put into small things)(the duck guy drag queen absolutely obliterates the no swearing rule lol)

they talk about the pilot, how they focused too much on the story because they felt like they had to due to it being on the big screen now, and how it ended up ruining the atmosphere and such of the pilot. they did show the entire thing sped up but my phone sucks ass so I could not get it to focus correctly. I'll see what I can salvage so you people can dissect frames of your blorbo you're Legally Not Allowed To See (which is also the official reason we don't get the pilot)

also pilot concept art showed that Mean Steve is in fact just called Key

they showed a whole post-it wall full of ideas for the tv show. don't know how much I got on footage, but what stood out most to me were 2 episodes called Money and Christmas. Joe mentioned "clock in a wheelchair" specifically

also really fun fact. Becky made the Lesley suit during covid, and pretty much threatened Baker into writing a human character into the show to wear it. concept art also shows Lesley with a mask made out of the same fabric, don't know if this was part of the original suit tho

they showed Warrens old models (?). he was gonna be a wayy more ugly looking silicone pug-worm thing y'all got lucky with the bald fuck

lily and todney were directly based off of some cancelled show about two porcelain doll children with panda parents. do not for the life of me remember what it was called but Becky and Joe were very enthousiastic about it (UPDATE: Candy and Andy!)

international release of the show soon!

Inspiration Child talks about what he's learned and sings a little song, then generates his own dhmis inspired content of a cult meeting in a forest at night. the dhmis Discord server called this "potential new content" but I doubt it

3 cultists walk on stage, face the screen backs to the crowd, drop their cloaks and boom! drag queens!!!

they were not mentioned on the site or during earlier parts of the show at all so they were a complete surprise. I asked Becky about it later during the night and she said she really wanted them there, so she asked and they were excited to! hope this means more official content with them soon I love them

they dance to There's Three Of Us, then Duck lipsings the shredder song which turns into a techno remix while Red and Yellow dance during the background

then Duck and Yellow make out while Red tries to undress to the instrumentals of the Fucked Up Part of Creativity but can't get out of his suit on time before the song ends

the drag queens, Becky and Joe and the Inspiration Child walk around during the meet and greet later and I got signatures from all of them! except inspiration child he didn't have thumbs

the drag queens were so fucking funny. Duck adopted inspiration child and loudly yelled at everyone to "GET AWAY FROM MY FUCKING CHILD" (their duck voice is sooo good). yellow stood in a corner staring at a wall for like 10 minutes and red was constantly awkwardly hovering just outside the frames of pictures (and also could not see shit lmao)

Becky liked my shirt! (the one with the melting trio heads) said she handdrew it

I'll post the signatures and some more stuff tomorrow because it is. 5 am

edit Heres the signatures! yellow guys is Italian I think? and means hi I love you :)

(the liyskaen is duck trying to spell my name. they got pretty close)

[blueflipflops]

I saw the post you made about punk-flower and the patch sharing jacket and I just wanted to ask if you have anything specific that you would like to expand on as I plan to write a fic for it!

I’ve been in a writing slump for months now and you’re post just inspired me again finally so I just wanted to see if there were any more headcannons you had for this idea

This is the post I’m referencing btw!

Ignore the terrible crop job lol

Oooooh thats so cool! Sure!! Go for it!!

There's really not much for me to add other than ✨️vibes✨️and like a general direction/idea. But i do have a few so here's what i got so far:

I imagine that Miles was the first one to ask bring up the patched jackets (i don't really know what they're called) thing for like just a conversation starter at first but ended up getting geniunely interested as Hobie rants explains the whole thing. From its history where its originally a practical way of mending clothes but now means more to the punk culture, to how to stitch it in, picking the right jacket for it, etc.

He would explain each patch in his vest, what they represent, and how he got it. (Or Miles would ask abt it idk)

I like to hc hobie as decent enough at sewing to make shody patches with his own design. Its not good good but he's proud of them enough to show it off

Miles couldn't get his mind off Hobie's rant and some of the shoddy patches that looks so rough and like a snap away from leaving Hobie's vest and he can't get his mind off the fact that Hobie made some of his own patches which made him curious enough to make his own designs.

At first it was just drawings and doodles but then he got curious enough to try embriodery stuff. How hard could it be, right? He was wrong. Embroidery is very hard. (This coming from me who does embroidery for fun) But the learning process was fun enough that he continued on.

Rio absolutely caught him more than once, brings out her sewing kit, and gives him tips and advices like different kinds of stitches and how to fix holes on clothes, happy to have something they can bond over. (Would love to have more Rio content. She deserves the world.)

With his newly aqcuired sewing skills, he offers to fix Hobie's patch that was loose.

Then he showed Hobie the very first patch he made which was a very simple sunflower (or something else if you want) and

Hobie was very normal about that and trying to be casual like: "Can I keep it?" And it flusters Miles like "Uh, yeah, sure. I guess. I mean if you want it—"

Hobie then decided that Miles is his new go-to patch repair guy just so he can spend more time with him

Miles uses a really old jacket from either his dad or his uncle Aaron or heck even from his mom or maybe even from his grandparents. (your pick) Because he knows that you just dont do that on a new jacket! That goes against its whole purpose!!

When he shows Hobie the jacket he intends to patch up, Hobie got so exited that he rips off a patch from his vest and gifts it to Miles to "start him with" or something.

They gift each other patches that reminds them of the other

And yeah. That's it. Thats all I've got haha. Link me up on the fic when (? Or after? Srry idk grammar haha) you get to write it. Really very excited to read how you write my current favorite blorbos!! 💕

[zeravmeta]

It's kind of intersting where you are saying this is a wake up call to recgonizing fgo's subpar gameplay because on my side it's very much just "we don't like servant coins" for the most part. Heck the fact that nobody has gotten to point of realizing you can do all this with three stars which lasengle active making five stars worse is another werid development. I've only seen only a few comments talking about if you're f2p these things aren't really relevant. Not that I don't agree fgo biggest weakness is that once you get burn out on the gameplay outside of few boss battles you aren't getting any enthuism back imo. And currently the only thing lasenagle does it just repeatedly buffing units through different ways rather than introduce unique gameplay meachnics that go against the normal grind set like Eli quest and Grailfront(In my personal opinion I think the greatest issuse is the fact that doing these things would equlivant of having a consistent ongoing event that need to be updated and I think you need a whole team for that for speicifcally that.) But the fact people angry more express that they care enough about the gameplay to get angry about the lack of acess to it because of basically a pay wall or well I haven't seen many people connect the dots to the gameplay itself being at fault. Also i couldn't tell from reblog what did they backpeddle again? It seems like they were already planing to revise the servant coin distrabustion and the fact they are expressing they openly said going to give the coins back and with eases adds more to the idea than takes away imo.

I kind of wanna address these points a bit just to make a larger point abt why this anniversary and the servant coins thing rings hollow and sour for a bunch:

I wouldn't say 'wake up call' is the right words, but rather 'this was the straw that broke the camels back'. As broken as FGOs gameplay is, something i will begrudgingly credit it for is that all content IS clearable even by low rarity units. Even the hardest challenge quests from things like fest events or certain story fights can be cleared from a full 3* and lower + 5* friend support comp. So of course, then begs the question: If gameplay isn't the main reason to summon (unless you're a tierlist slave for efficient farm comps for Some Reason), why summon at all?

Well, for your faves, of course. FGO gives you a ton of resources and shiny buttons and knobs to make numbers on your blorbo higher, meaning that the whole point of these extra resources is just to sink into a favorite character and get to experience the story with this talking png on hand to be your friend/lover/hater/slash/etc.

Servant Coins were a broken whale mechanic on inception due to being strictly gacha dependent, not only in how you acquire servant coins but in how little return there is for getting said servants. Summoning for a 5* is already infamously terrible, but not only do you need them for grailing above Level 100, but also for append skills? Realistically, the only reason to go for these resource sinks *is* for faves, and in fairness some dedicated players/whales save a whole bunch of sq just for their one/two favorite guys (regardless of if they actually get them lol, you can save over 1K+ and still not even get a single rate up servant). It's very likely that some of these people Did save all their sq to then have all the necessary servant coins to ultimate max their favorite guy.

but to then ask even more from them, to sink even more into the most infamous gacha in all gachas just to maybe have a chance to marginally improve them? That was just a slap in the face. Mind you, a lot of people talk about how these latest appends are actually the most gameplay defining in how they can lower skill cool downs, which is def a huge buff compared to other appends/stat buffs and even skill buffs, but that type of discussion misses the point that this was one of the greediest changes ever done, especially for a game whose base gameplay hasn't really been improved, optimized, or significantly changed in any way.

You can tell even the devs knew that Servant coins were a broken greed mechanic from inception, since they had retroactive refunds for 4-5* servants (but not 3*s. grr) and from the outcry of this anni they walked back some of the changes and even gave out a second overall refund of servant coins, but ultimately this is another bandaid solution to the core issue: FGOs gameplay just isnt fun.

People put up with FGOs gameplay to get to read FGOs story, and we're just at the point where it's not getting to be worth it anymore. The visual novel masquerading as a gacha is being killed by its own status as a gacha.

The truly frustrating thing is that there *are* legitimate ways of playing FGO which CAN be fun, specifically challenge quests and Grail Fronts. Those are the two types of play that actually make FGO's gameplay work to an extent, and yet these types of changes are just never made in any permanent way. Past boss fights are locked forever, previously cleared challenge quests are lost forever, they just do not repeat these gameplay opportunities, and this goes hand in hand with another issue, one which I would say is the true root of all FGO's problems:

They fucking lock past story content

When me and other mutuals are heeing and haawing about having event reruns/a compendium, it's not just to talk about FGOs story being good, because it is! It's to make it so that newbies aren't fucking locked out of the MAIN GODDAMN REASON TO EVEN PLAY THIS GAME. IMPORTANT STORY CRITICAL EVENTS LIKE THE KNK COLLAB, GUDAGUDA EVENTS AND MORE ARE JUST LOST FOREVER TO YOUTUBE STORY COMPILATIONS BECAUSE THE BASE GAME DOES NOT HAVE ANY SORT OF COMPENDIUM FOR THESE PAST EVENTS.

Event Archives just WORK. You can look at so many modern gachas these days and see that they all have event compendiums for events they will not rerun, and the reason is simple: FGO popularized the idea of using a gacha to tell a story, so gachas put more stonks into their writing and dont limit that Very Critical Component Of Why People Would Play Their Game To Begin With.

But for some fucking reason, FGO just does not. Really think about this for a moment: People have put up with a near decade of terrible gameplay and corporate gacha greed just to read FGO's story. It's fucking good! But that's just not gonna be enough anymore when Type Moon is now using their fucking Das Rheingold of gacha money to make new/remake vns. For all that people talk about FGO story burnout, I flat out disagree: People do want more FGO story, Samurai Remnant is a huge fucking testament to that and a major component of why I want an FGO console release, to be FREE from its gacha ball and chain.

People just don't want to have to put up with a terrible gacha system anymore to experience that good story.

[basedkikuenjoyer]

Aftermath

This chapter, 1124...it really didn't feel that different than the last two. It starts here with our opener. Morgans here takes on a very similar role as Buggy did in 1122, and we're still unpacking the immediate worldwide reaction to the transmission. Importantly, Luffy's gonna end this chapter with a good reminder none of it was very important to him, but Morgans starts it with a good lesson in why it should to a degree.

It's cool seeing Vivi roast him over lying, but this right here is the essence of why shaping your story matters. Buggy could take the moment and make it work for him, Vegapunk was so disconnected he realized his message might stir panic but didn't do anything to ameliorate that. Morgans is setting up Luffy the same way Sabo was. This story should rattle worldwide faith in the government. As is though, it could just end up being a tale about Luffy massacring a beloved figure worldwide. This time I don't really think the opener casts as long a shadow over the rest of the chapter, but it's now something becoming a pattern with these past few chapters. But let's get to the real meat of this one:

Talking with IRL blorbo from my blog Fallensnowfan really helped with this one but it's so stark when you see it in the actual chapter. There's this very interesting juxtaposition in the fallout of Vegapunk's death. Lilith picks up on the conversation we saw with the VegaBoys last time, a theme we've explored throughout with them. What does death mean when you've split yourself into seven parts and have a giant brain floating in a vat?

Well, here we have some interesting answers to this question. Lilith pops up and makes this big show of trying to cheer up Luffy. Get him past these feelings of failure. It was a very sudden shift but it does feel earnest, even if it reminds me a little of Carrot in WCI's End Roll. As earnest as Sentomaru and of course Kizaru. For one, we've talked about how these spotlight moments remind us of Wano's bigger ones. "Have you ever had to kill your best friend?" Well, the Akazaya Nine know that feeling. Especially Kin'emon & Kiku who had to take on the dirty work with Kanjuro.

But man...what a moment. Even Akainu cracked a little and realized he stepped over the line. Seeing Kizaru actually shaken for once too. The little flashback helped cement it as does this amazing shot of him watching all that work go up in flames. Simply put though, Kizaru/Sentomaru clearly don't feel the same way as Lilith here. Which is why part of me has to wonder if Lilith's just putting up a brave front. It's interesting Usopp raises the question of what exactly makes her the "evil" one, which is an idea we never really answered.

And of course, we do end off on what certainly seems to be a final note for Egghead Arc as a part of this story. I do have to say, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that. Lilith feels well primed to pick up that New World thread we've talked about going forward, I could certainly see this shaking out in a way where we maybe have a chapter or two away from the Straw Hats to finish off this story and give some people like Drake a moment in the intermission. Then head right into a perfectly straightforward Elbaf arc. We could even do that interspersed with clearing up some of Egghead's lingering mysteries...

But there's still enough weirdness to make me wonder. One thing I've thought for a while is that if the Giants are already here, they can tag along for a bit of island hopping. On some level it's kinda weird to keep them and Bonney and Kuma and Lilith floating around but we of course don't know what Elbaf's story is so it could easily have a place for all that. What it really comes down to for me is that, as it stands, Elbaf really has no apparent conflict set up. Which could work if it's a Zou-type arc where we reset our course or something. But if say...something happens and this group gets blown off course I could see that too. Use an intermediate arc to set up something to do on Elbaf.

Of course, this final panel gives us something to think about too. Who is the mystery silhouette? Sadly we'll have to wait for a break week to really know the next steps. Which means I have a decision to make too. I get the feeling enough people like these writeups for their own sake, but the original intent was to maybe do a little bit about the next arc reflecting on where it ties up Wano themes. Hence "Post-Wano Musings" and I could never keep that hyphen consistent in the tags. Didn't expect Egghead to keep giving me a lot to talk about there. I also just kinda thought it was funny to call an entire arc as long as Alabasta "Post-Wano."

We still have a lot of oddities and through lines though, and those could easily be left hanging as we get to Elbaf. I think my plan is to switch it up and just make normal chapter reviews when we reach a new island, Elbaf or otherwise, with a new tag. I'm leaning towards "Massive Musings" for now, but maybe something better will come up before we get there.

[koi-pond-tears]

Headcanons I love even tho they go against my main beliefs for these characters

Ace/Aro bakugou. Idk why but I just. Love it. So much. Like yes lil dude be free!!! Fuck nobody!!! You never needed bitches!!!

And especially the headcanons where he's like. Absolutely clueless about love. Like Mina will ask "so bakugou what's your type?" And he just looks confused n goes "?? You mean my blood type???"

Izuku and Katsuki being brothers. Like not literal brothers by blood but they have that brotherly bond. I actually do ship dekubaku but this headcanon is still very dear to me and I think in another universe it could work.

Like it's so funny imagining them fighting the way brothers do or being mean to each other but also having each other's backs and protecting/defending the other. I love that for them

Idk why but asexual todoroki just. Wow. I love him

I feel like he would still want a romantic relationship just without the sex part. Like he's totally cool with kissing or cuddling bc cmon there is no way in HELL this boy is not absolutely touch starved.

I feel like while Ace bakugou thinks sex is gross and is repulsed by it, ace todoroki is just indifferent to it. He doesn't rlly care or have any feelings towards it. Like ok bestie go smush your peepees together while I watch the entire Beverly Hills Chihuahua franchise

As much as I love my blorbos bakudeku together I have to admit the idea of izuku being the token straight friend in a class full of the ell gee bee tees is so fucking funny to me. Like he doesn't understand the lingo and is absolutely sweating his balls off trying not to say something offensive and it's just hilarious. He accidentally uses she/her instead of they/them once and almost commits seppuku ( a japanese style of suicide which includes disembowelment)

I'm sure he includes everyone's pronouns in their description in his notebook to make sure he remembers what to use

Nonbinary jirou just. Fits. Like idk what anyone has to say about that but look me in the eye and tell me that bitch doesn't put on a binder

They're an enby and also bisexual bc I am correct about everything.

Trans kiri just works.

If deku doesn't grow up to be tall as fuck then I will literally have a meltdown

does he not look like the tall lanky nice friend that can't even say fuck??? Look me in the eye and tell me that. Do it.

Eri grows up to be really tall

Like idk where this comes from but to me she's just. Tall. Girly doesn't get you things from the top shelf she IS the top shelf

Also I personally don't like the eri x kota ship, I think it's kinda weird to be wanting these whole ass 6 year Olds to date, idk but it makes me uncomfortable

I saw a post once that said that Ochaco would be an active memelord (back when that term wasn't cringe) and oh my god. No. This bitch wouldn't know anything.

She has a fucking flip phone I doubt she has access to motherfucking twitter

I think she'd be like Izuku where she's just absolutely clueless on the lingo and slang and feels left out when her friends reference memes she's never seen before

And even if they do take the time to send her one or two she wouldn't understand it

I also saw this in a different post but tsuyu listens to asmr

Tokoyami too

I love the black Mina headcanons but I'm filipino and so starved of representation so I'll just pretend she's half pinoy but grew up in japan so she doesn't really know much of the language (you'd be surprised how many of us don't speak our native language despite living here all our lives)

Himikos eyebags come from the many long nights she spent as a villain doing literally anything else but getting a good night's sleep. Like I know in the backstory episodes we see her with the eyebags as a child, but when I first watched the show I just assumed that that was the reason she had them, and I'll stick to that till I die

Mirio is autistic. Do not argue with me I am right.

[qqueenofhades]

hilary, I really love talking about history with my friends but sometimes I talk about a historical person that I'm interested in and my friends act like just because I know things about a famous historical person I support everything they did. even when I know they know I don't support slavery, racism, sexism, etc. how do I keep from losing my cool when they do this?

Look, I have no idea where the "if you talk about anything complex/consume this material/think about it in any way, YOU TOO MUST SUPPORT IT AND BE PROBLEMATIC AND BAD!!!" mindset came from, but I honestly and deeply wish it a very killed with fire. It's the same anti mindset where if you read Morally Impure Fan Fiction, you are Morally Impure, but apparently now extends to... learning about the literal entirety of human experience? Why does this not surprise me, while also making me want to put my head through a plate glass door?

Once again, I don't know what people think historians DO, but I can assure y'all, it's not sitting around talking about how Totally Great [fill in the historical person, place, or thing] absolutely was, and how there were no problems with it ever and everyone should just be like, totally down with it, man. (Tubular.) In fact, the practice of academic history is often directly focused, especially nowadays, on identifying these problems and previous interpretations, putting them into context, and discussing how they happened in the first place. Considering that we're suffering from such a profound crisis of historical ignorance, both deliberate and inadvertent, and have seen how that manifests in current events (which are just the history happening right now), I am... boggled that "we shouldn't talk about anything because it was Morally Problematic!!!" is, indeed, getting serious play. Once again, it's the anti-intellectualism that is just as rampant on the left as it is on the right, while dressing itself up in different language and pretending to support different goals. But either way, any critical philosophy based on "we can never talk about things that went wrong/people who did Wrong Things in the past" is absolutely dead on arrival as any use to anyone. Ever.

Obviously, there are complexities in how to approach this material, and I personally don't think that historical figures, especially complex ones, should be "fandomized" or treated just as Cute OTP Blorbos or sanded down to fit a sanitized fictional box (unless they are explicitly fictionalized/being used in a fictional context, and even then, yeah, it's good to keep the background in mind). It's not that this is wrong -- after all, historians get into this line of work because they have Big Thoughts and Many Feelings about historical people/places/things and want to work on those in a variety of contexts -- but it's a little uncomfortable, at least for me. That said, it's still not inherently wrong, in any way, to be interested in/want to talk about people from the past. They're human, for god sakes! You are also human! They are your ancestors! Of course you, a primate with higher reasoning and anxiety, are curious about them! You want to know their stories and consider their circumstances and ponder why they did things, including bad things! If you can't do that, shun other people from doing it, and therefore you are completely cut off from your species' entire backstory and have no frame of reference for anything at all, you're going to end up an idiot. Guaranteed.

Anyway: yet again, people talking about history (or fiction, or anything at all) in a complex way that takes into account the fact that uh, people have never been perfect in their entire existence does not mean that the person is Bad or Supports All The Evils of Human History or whatever. I'm not sure what this attempted-gotcha "don't you know they were a bad person!!!" is going to accomplish, other than giving someone the same kind of fleeting self-righteousness high that comes from Being More Correct On The Internet (or wherever), but like... if you like studying history, and they know you like studying history, I don't know why they would think you don't know that, unless you tragically failed to post a 50-page disclaimer first. And it's stupid, and it's juvenile, and it's not useful, and I think you're entitled to say much of what I've said above, in whatever amount you please, because yeah. Sheesh.

[mushiemellows]

OP ask game: 1 and 4?

1. Which major character do you think is most likely to die before the end of the series?

So I don’t actually know if it’s clear, but this is actually the origin story of how Franky of all fucking characters became Blorbo #1 for me. I genuinely think he sits in the Prime Killability Zone, so I’m trying to stake my territory early. If I had to compare his position to anyone it would be Wash from Firefly/Serenity. Like the Joss Whedon that haunts my brain VERY MUCH against my will says that Franky is supremely killable. Right at the start of the end. 1) he is liked in general enough that people will go aw that’s sad maybe the stakes are real for everyone else (a tension bar that will need to be established for the last fight to have teeth) but he’s not SO well liked that there will be a backlash if he dies (I know that like. Sanji’s not getting killed off. They don’t have the guts). 2) his dream’s just to like. Physically get them to Laugh Tale. So once they’re at Laugh Tale he’s kind of got no where to like, go? He did what he set out to do, which means they can totally kill him off in style. 3) he really hasn’t had much of a character arc since the timeskip, though I do still hold out that egghead’s got one more trick up it’s sleeve for him. But I think that the culmination of his character being fully self-sacrificial would be like, the last big turn in his development. 4) oh my god I just had something huge written out and then this app glitched in the formatting and I lost it all ACK. Okay. So this is going to sound biased from like, a shipping perspective, but I do genuinely mean this more neutrally. Killing off Franky helps oda to dodge the Frobin bullet in a way that still feels emotional. I know Ods’s rules on ships. He knows them. But also, he’s definitely injected quite a lot of his own heteronormative social biases onto this character. They’re “Mom and Dad” for a reason (even if I myself argue with that interpretation of both characters, it still seems to be the dominant reading of how they interact with their sphere)(but clearly a lot of the “frobin proof” is like, Oda’s subconscious utilization of the little world around him. He does not leave his house much, and he goes for easy to reach tropes, generally. The whole “if any ship has a chance at becoming canon it’s frobin” idea I see floating around stems from a similar place). And how do you develop a slightly older male character in your Gender Propaganda Text that’s always One Man Step ahead of everyone else? Where is he to go developmentally in his mid-to-late-30s? You pair him off, you put him in a relationship. But oda can’t do that because it breaks his rule. So the one major Quick and Easy way to develop this guy any further is off the table. But if they leave things wink wink vague and then kill him off, they don’t need to address that grey area. Not to go on a whole ship tangent lol. But I do genuinely think that’s the easiest path to the corner he’s written himself into with this character. Just kill him!

4. What do you think the One Piece itself actually is?

Real. Hahah no but I’m of the opinion that it’s going to be something fairly simple. My bet is like, a cool looking coin thing, something that Shueisha Entertainment can mass produce in plastic once OP is over. Like, this whole thing is about toy/merch sales at the end of the day, so it makes sense to me that the function of the one piece is to be infinitely merchandisable. Small, simple design, keychainable, printable for a sweatshirt, could even make a plushie. A single sort of gold coin thing opens up quite a lot of easy possibilities, even if I myself find it kind of…boring.

That, or it’s got something to do with the hat. A second, smaller straw hate to put on the first. Hahaha.

[howlsofbloodhounds]

for the ask meme:

you are seriously a really cool person. i actually think of you as similar to my librarians in the local library because of how knowledgeable and insightful you are at certain topics (especially the chromatic crew :D) and the archives you have on canon are insane.

i love to hear you yap about the best bois, how you want to put them through so much misery and how you want to put them on their healing journeys. always fun to read your takes, and i hope you discover more amazing things in the future!

(also we are secret moots but still i'm too anxious to go anon off. maybe one day...)

~ crowshipping anon

Ahh thank you crow!! I’m so glad we’re moots and hopefully one day you’ll feel comfortable going off anon if you ever wanted to! (not that you ever have to. it’s perfectly fine to remain anonymous if that’s what makes you more comfortable or is just a preference /gen.)

And you are also so knowledgeable and creative!! I love hearing from both you and delta anon in my inbox, I love reading all the paragraphs of creative ideas and headcanons!! And also your fanfic is just so good??? I’m constantly rereading that first chapter. /gen

And also it telling that I once considered working as a librarian when I was a kid, or as a writer. idk about it nowadays but it sure was an idea! I do have a thing for compiling and sorting information I’ve noticed. Right up there with making lists.

And I love all my blorbos, which means they must burn before I allow them to heal 🙏 💕. (And sometimes I will explore the idea of them getting worse *coughkillercoughcough*)

[burr-ell]

Also the whole religion bit of fandom criticism is particularly strange, kinda from both ides of the debate imo. The idea that presenting the prime goods as actually evil and Asmodeus is secretly a good guy, wrongfully accused, is somehow an "establishment" stance, when the actual establishment vs anti-establishment stance is literally baked into the traditional dnd theology in the form of the alignment chart, where the explicitly aren't the same thing as good and evil, but rather co-aligned.

That said, I do find the fact that people default to blaming the "culturally christian atheists" as the once primarily vying against the prime gods being good. Atheism specifically is about not believing in divinity at all, not about the perceived mortality of any excising divinity. I really feel that it comes more from lazy media criticism, believing that the "subversion" inherently makes it more clever, occasional annoying reddit atheist aside. Anyway, sorry for dumping theses in your asks. :V

Nah, you're good anon! This is interesting stuff (and I like getting CR asks :D).

To be clear, the reason that I view the fandom debate as a discussion of establishment vs anti-establishment is that a lot of the "what if gods BAD" ideas are presented with a very Twitter-esque anti-authority burn-it-all-to-the-ground attitude; that is not to say that I actually think that's what the totality of the argument is, just that that tends to be the veneer. (And to be fair, some of my perspective on this is colored by Fire Emblem Three Houses discourse, where this is also usually framed around "the system" when it's usually for the reasons we're discussing, but I don't want the lines to get blurred here.)

So I think a lot of the reason why people making these claims with that attitude aren't engaging with alignment is because there are also gods who are chaotic good or neutral and lawful evil; I think a lot of the criticism of the gods is mostly just like, people being mad at Pelor and projecting that onto all of the pantheon. The notion of this actually, canonically being an establishment vs anti-establishment scenario falls apart because I don't think you can really make a decent case for why Sehanine or Avandra are more "establishment" than the guy who runs a wholeass death city built on rigid laws and power structures. I mean...why, because they're considered Good and Asmodeus is considered Evil? Yeah, that tends to happen when one side fights to preserve life and the other side rules over a plane dedicated to the torture and corruption of mortal souls.

That doesn't necessarily speak to whether or not the Exandrian pantheon playing the tropes straight is a good thing, I'm just saying it shouldn't have been a surprise when Calamity Part 4 dropped. We saw what the Nine Hells are like. We saw what Tharizdun did to Yasha and what its influence did to Cognouza. We been knew.

I think you're correct in that most of this ultimately comes from poor media criticism and wanting the subversion of expectations because it would be cool, but I think it's also because people don't want gods who were occasionally not accommodating to Blorbo Of The Month to be validated as "good". I tend to try to be as inclusive as I can to people who have suffered religious trauma, because I always want to respect and affirm that (especially as a religious person, but also because it's just the right thing to do), but I think it's also true that many people who propagate those ideas are not themselves sufferers of religious trauma but are willing to use that as a shield if it's available. And like, notwithstanding the fact that "the god you thought was good is actually bad" has been done often enough that it's no longer a subversion...guys, don't we have entire seasons of HBO's flagship show and half of a bloated cinematic universe to tell us why we shouldn't just subvert expectations for the hell of it?

And I'm not saying that needing everyone to immediately validate your blorbo and/or ship or else they are badwrongproblematic is a sign of emotional immaturity (it is), but I am saying that this attitude crops up most often in the same college kids whose idea of real activism begins and ends with "burn it all down".

[i-like-yoongi-a-latte]

The year is coming to its end so it's time for my silly little love letter post 💕 I hope this year has been good for you, or if it wasn't, I'm sending hugs bc same, but hey we made it through! I hope next year brings you kindness, good energy, rest and overall happiness 🥰

Happy New Year lovelies!!

These are not in any order, you're all very important to my tumblr experience <3

♥ @taetaestykookie Marrissa my new bestie to yell about BTS with!!! I love following your bias crisis and making your friends/family members become fans! Even though you live far away and timezones suck I'm so happy to be able to randomly send you stuff in like three different apps all about the same thing... I wish cute Tata/Cooky stuff finds their way to you! Thank you for being my friend, I appreciate you 💝

♥ @washyourdamnhands Kinga, the person who's like a warm comforting hug! Always sending me nice videos and making me smile, I adore you 💕

♥ @asgh0sts Danny, I loooove seeing Exo on my dash and that's because of you, also seeing old Shinee photos makes me cry (but in a good way you know). You also gave me good advice once and I felt so happy!! I've also been thinking about Valentine's Day cards already, and I've been meaning to ask you if you want to receive one from me, so let's say this acts like a question for you and a reminder for me hehe. Thank you for being my friend!! 🧡

♥ @danhalen A person who makes me smile, Reny! The thought of you makes me warm and giggly, I really love to send cards to you (I hope the card that's on its way comes home to you safely!!) and I really appreciate you for being my friend!! 💘

♥ @sepastian-ahoey the Sepe to my Teukka, or should I say a demon for making me get new interests.......... I'm feeling like I'll be following the F1 more next year... We also have a Max document date already planned so I'm waiting for that!!! Thank you for being my friend and tolerating all the rants about kpop that you don't know anything about but still kinda do, I promise to listen to your rants in the future too 💞

♥ @firefighter-diaz oh the broken blorbos.... The reason why I listened to Taylor's new album is this person right here!!!! Also I adore you, sending me postcards from cool places and all 🥺 also helping me with my silly questions and making me feel happier and also making me feel like my jokes are funny! remember hun, coaches don't play!! and!!! I will always listen if you have something on your mind ❣️

♥ @chanstopher Dreamy!! The reason I became even more obsessed with Chris's nose!!! As a nose enthusiast™ this was very nice. I could probably write essays about your talents, but like even if we don't talk much here, I really really really appreciate you. You're so kind and lovely, your art is amazing, you make gifs super fast and they're so pretty every time, and when you show the original coloring vs yours I'm always like h o w. Also I'm still giggling about your kind comment to my Leebit <3333 annnd I love to read your little posts about Chan's room when I can't watch it myself! and I also remember saying I'd show you my paintings but I haven't painted - I drew a horse though - but I'll try to remember it when I paint hehe. I wish all the best for you, may Chris bless us you with cute selfies that show his adorable nose 🥰

♥ @ambivartence Siyuan, the lovely person with who I can have fun ask game answers with! How do I even start. Every time I see your art I smile along the wiggly lines, I try to find little hearts and when I do I feel so warm!! Your art is so warm, I can't explain. Also your Seonghwa and Hongjoong live rent-free in my head, and it's also one reason I should get into Ateez more! You're so kind and lovely and I love to read your tags on posts!! I adore you 💝

♥ next I wanna say thanks to the gc, @fangirlinglikealoon & @heiskasmiro, you make me smile so much you have no idea!! No matter what app we're using to communicate, it always feels so nice to see your names appear in my notifications! I appreciate you so much, just know that 💘💘

annnnd here are some other lovely people that make me smile just by seeing their urls <33

♥ @reedskz ♥ @suklaakuppikakku ♥ @trashkingdom ♥ @joel-farabee ♥ @juhollamago ♥ @diazactually ♥ @yjbg ♥ @finnishhockeyelf ♥ @lily-blue-blue-lily ♥ @bortuzzzzin ♥ @thewestishharpooners ♥ @thosedaysthatwill ♥

[eccentricmya]

how are you so Normal about silm. Literally I am sitting here, so depressed I can’t eat, drawing Them again and again and you’re just like. Oh here I’ll vilify Maedhros. Now I’ll paint him in a nice light. Why don’t we discuss it over coffee. Like Maedhros isn’t some figure who’s emotionally and psychologically a part of your personal identity I don’t get it. How are you so cool about all this. The world is falling apart

(oh by the way I think your blog is great).

Oh thank you! 😊

You pose a great question. I was thinking just yesterday if I'm not passionate enough for the fandom lol. The answer is maybe that I've mellowed out over the years. Though I still get obsessed with new things from time to time and want to read and see everything related at once! Much like you are now, I suppose.

But why are you depressed? Because of how Silm is or is it related to your artistry? For both I would say, enjoy the process! I know it's easier to say, but truly, the best part of fandom and creation is the fun you have here away from real life. If you make yourself stressed because of it, then it stops being a comfort and becomes a burden instead- at which point, I find myself turning away from that fandom or abandoning the fic idea.

Tolkien though, is like home to me. It's nothing new or exciting like some attraction at a fair; it's the same characters, the same story, but it feels relaxing rather than boring because of the familiarity. And when you're relaxed, it is very much like sipping coffee!

Let me give you an example... in Uni, I used to chug my coffee so that I could have more of it. If I finish one cup, then I can have 3 more! And the amount of time I got to experience the taste of coffee back then was around half an hour. Nowadays, I drink just one cup, which I savour for half an hour. I'm still spending the same time on my coffee experience, but now it is in a much more healthier manner.

Fandom is like that. The characters and story we love is not going anywhere. You are not going anywhere. So take your time. Take a walk with your favourite characters, instead of running after them. Let your heart decide the path you walk, instead of sticking to the already paved road. I swear you'll enjoy the journey far more this way!

As for having a crisis over our favourite blorbos? I cried buckets when Thorin and Fili and Kili died. I was so distraught that I had to wait in the parking lot of the theatre before I could ride back. It is normal to have attachment with characters, no matter how fictional they may be. But I do not think a single character can define your personality. Rather, it is your personality that gives meaning to a character you love. We're too multifaceted for it to be otherwise.

The same goes for characters. They're complex too and can have a multitude of traits that we may or may not vibe with. This is why we can have vastly different views or headcanons about them. Fiction is the realm of possibilities, we should embrace them all! And if someone else's take conflicts with mine, I can just go "oh, they're in a different universe of the multiverse; we can co-exist."

Sorry it got so long, I may have rambled off-point... your ask made me contemplative hehe. Thank you once again! Have a nice day! And remember to eat please!

[nammikisulora]

Writing Tag Game

I was tagged by @cobalt-knave, thank you! :)

Answer the questions and tag a few people you think would enjoy it!

What original characters (could be background ocs or main characters of an original work, etc) are you so tempted to write more with?

Aaah, my abandoned darlings Jennevi, Darrian & Tylan, main characters/primary supporting characters of my original fantasy work I still hope to return to sometime. When brain stops saying no original only fanfic 😅

What is one work you’ve written that you wish had more readership/comments? (And link it!)

Good question! Maybe this is a weird choice, because it got a lot of engagement when I was posting it, but I'll go with A Tale Not To Be Told, my first big foray into Mechs fanfic. It's been a few years since I wrote it, which means it's pretty much forgotten in this small fandom, as well as buried by all my newer fics.

What’s one work you’ve written that you wish was podfic’d?

No idea, actually! I probably wouldn't listen to a podfic of my own stuff, but it would be super cool if someone did it - any of the fics!

What’s one work you’ve written that you wish had fanart?

Hmmm… Another very difficuly question xD I can't pick, lol. Either A Tale Not To Be Told, Lifestock, or some whumpy body horror for Inside Threat, I think. But any time I've seen art inspired my fic is amazing <3

What’s something that you don’t tend to write but love to read?

I write what I want to read, lol. Right now I'm trawling through the entire AO3 tag for Wolf 359 without any intention to write anything for it myself, does that count? 😅 Another answer is a more general "well written in-character smut", but that's… well, I write it, but I prefer to read other people's because I'm not very good at it, I guess x)

Pull a line your proud of from your current wip.

He must have eyes again, because he’s crying. Boiling tears drip down his face, sizzling, gleaming. His throat feels full of broken glass, but he screams right through the pain. And his arm… the metal feels white hot and freezing at once, and the thin strands stretching from it all through him have turned razor sharp.

Guess the fic! ;)

Who is a character you love writing (original or fannish)?

No one's missed my somewhat excessive attachment to Jonny d'Ville, have they? 😂

Do you want/take writing requests?

Not specific requests, no. But I do love to brainstorm and bounce ideas! So please hit me with your thoughts, I love to chat about my blorbos :D

What’s one of the nicest comments you’ve received on a work?

Whelp, can't choose here either! But I do love love love love LOVE long comments pulling quotes from the fic that resonated particularly with the reader, or ones that really tell me that Yes, YES! You! YOU GET IT! <3

What’s an idea that you are beating back with a shovel but keeps coming back stronger?

Every ficcy thought I come up with xD It's a losing battle though...

Obviously feel free to ignore this, but if you feel inclined:

@mmaurysiek, @thebloggerknownasgeeknip, @flowers-all-around-me, @hairasuntouchedaspartoftheamazon, @kenanda

[the-90s-music-colosseum]

its funny cause i give my parents updates on this tournament, and the only frame of reference they have is the bands/people i'm into generally. (my mum says "well, you should be glad i don't know who you're talking about because that would mean i'm trying to be hip and cool" lmao). anyways

i think its soooo funny because like. my parents obviously know who oasis is. i have a poster i got from knebworth 22 in my room (place of pride for real), and i've played them in my care a LOT. my mum has a very vague idea of who HIM is because i've got a shirt for them (heart pentagram is such a sick design and i will die on this hill). i showed the two of them to my mum and she was like "obviously liam. the other one looks too much like a girl." and on one hand it was like "you don't understand." but on the other hand, validation. cause like. yeah. liam's gorgeous obviously. but then like. i showed her other picture of ville valo cause i totally voted for him (i'm so sorry liam but how could i not) and she GOT IT.

anyways, dad's upset mariah carey won because "she sings that hideous christmas song and anyone is better than her" and also, he's of the opinion that i should have immediately wanted to vote keanu reeves instead of holding out until i knew who he was up against (still not over liam vs. ville valo the ultimate betrayal and sadness lol)

dad's opinion is also that axl rose should win the next round solely based on the fact that he knows who he is, but really, what does he know, cause he made fun of me rooting for jarvis with my entire being.

idk where i'm going with this sorry. i love this tournament, and hilariously i'm more invested in this than the original bracket, but that's cause my most beloved albums got eliminated soooooo quickly (seeing the same in the 2000s bracket and i tell myself that my taste is just more niche rather than bad)

-from the very tipsy anon that sent something in quite awhile ago. very sorry that you only get these very long winded anons when i've had a few

n.e.ways. this blogs great and i got a kick out of you saying you'd integrate the trent reznor fuck or be like teenage girl thing into your belief system.

also, i agree with the anon that said than radiohead man aged real nice where as damon didn't. given, i last saw him with a mullet, and thought he aged like spoilt milk, but radiohead man (remembered his name Thom! aged real nice)

also, as much as creep is like the stereotypical radiohead song and kinda considered overplayed, it UNDERSTANDS ME and also me as a teen. props to him. idk if i can bring myself to vote for him though (not cause he's kinda weird looking - odd looking people are HOT ok) but cause i had a devestating crush on a guy who was obessed with radiohead and he literally told me that i give off "emotionally unavailable vibes and its cool to make friends with someone so similar to me" and it ruined me emotionally for a good like 5 months)

also, props to oasis for having supersonic as one of their top songs, cause hell yeah Give Me Gin and Tonic! literally my drink of choice lmaooooo

once again, very sorry for very long anon, had another g+t while writing this (that makes 6!)

have a very good evening! i adore this blog! and i think youre hella cool and i could never imagine trying to rum a tournament and answer all the asks that you do (there's reason i'm anon unless i have the amazing urge to send pics in aid of my very special blorbo)

<3

omg no this is lovely actually

Apparently my blog has already met the parents?? I'm so proud ahaha and your parents have some of the funniest takes. I love reading these long asks, it's like a sneak peek into the minds of my viewers and honestly means the world to me. Enjoy your gin and tonic, anon, and a wonderful evening to you as well <3

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hello there! I think I’m one of those peeps who appears to have just randomly ended up here bc my blog is many things, but it is not primarily a kotlc blog, and I show up and like your posts once in a blue moon - I’ve been lurking in the fandom tags for months (and whenever I’m in a lurking phase I’m always hesitant to like or rb things because anxiety is mean) after not really interacting with keeper fandoms for years (I think your analyses were some of the first posts I came across when I was rereading the series) and seeing other people post about my gay elf blorbos is so wonderful :)

Also, getting to the point here - I stayed up past 2 AM reading your fic because it was just. Anskdkfjdklsjf. Incredible. The stars-space-dark-light and finding each other motifs were so poignant and TIERTICE PROPOSAL (especially Prentice being the one to initiate affection and reminiscing and everything because Tiergan is so scared of getting so close just to lose him again and just. Oh my god the tenderness) and Tam rescuing Wylie from the light and them becoming brothers (brothers!!!!) and Linh and Rayni making amends and FAMILY and love and I absolutely love your writing style and this is just sleep deprived gushing but tldr: your blog and writing are wonderful and I hope this doesn’t come off as too weird! -🐳 (not sure if you already have a whale anon?)

Hello! I do not have a whale anon yet! Lurkers and not quite involved people are wonderful, it's so cool to see people who enjoy the same things I do even if you haven't made it practically your entire personality online. I'd put you in the "kinda unexpected but understandable" category, where I wouldn't peg the blog as a kotlc blog but they're involved in enough middle grade/ya fandoms that I can assume they partake in keeper casually.

There's just also this other category of "unexpected and I don't fully understand why you're here." This happens with like poetry and art aesthetic blogs run by adults, where they don't seem like someone who'd read keeper? And that's why most people follow me? But who am I to know their interests? So it perplexes me sometimes. I assume it's gotta do with my popular sibling post or something

But! back to your point! I am so sorry you stayed up late but also so flattered by that at the same time? wdym my silly little fic was worth losing sleep over? that does mean you got to read the fic at the same time the fic was set at though! I think that's fun.

Thank you for all the compliments!! i love the consistency the different motifs bring to each story, it feels like they're all intertwined in a deeper way. Like they're all on similar wavelengths in ways they can't even recognize but we can from the outside. It's so satisfying to write.

And the tiertice proposal! now they can be true antenna husbands <33. Was nervous to write their dynamic because I will be honest, I did absolutely all of it from memory and that memory was not very strong. Did not really pay attention to them at all when reading. And then when I realized "hey I didn't pay attention to them at all maybe I should double check what their dynamic is" I was too far into it and decided no we're winging it. If I just make this really good people will be too busy screaming to notice if they're out of character. I'm very glad I went ahead with my idea to add it (a proposal was NOWHERE in the original plan) because everyone seems to enjoy it if not find it absolutely adorable.

Yes!! Tam rescuing Wylie from the light! I hadn't even realized at first the meaning that could be found in that, I wrote it and only later realized that Wylie had been trying to get away from the light about found comfort in Tam, a shade. But I think it's an interesting comment on the importance of family to the two of them and the bond they've fostered, how something that can be seen as so threatening (all the things in the dark) can be utterly meaningless when it comes to someone you love. They're brothers and fiercely love each other, and it transcends expectations and social norms and they do it so casually. They fell into that life together, and I am. Endlessly fascinated by them.

Then there's Linh and Rayni!! Full disclosure I wasn't a huge Rayni fan going into this fic (she was fine, but I had more appreciation for her when she was Glimmer), but she grew on me. I admire how unapologetic she is, how thoroughly she's cast off her care for what other people think. I'm working towards being like that, but am not nearly as casual about it as she is. That whole section was an experiment with them

and don't worry, none of this comes off as weird at all! I think a lot of people fear they're weirder than they are, and if they are weird they should embrace it more :). I'm absolutely flattered you like my writing style though, so lucky for you I have no intention of stopping writing. Telling stories is so fulfilling I have zero desire to stop! so thank you for the encouragement, which I will use as writing fuel whenever I start up my next project (which is the dialogue prompts, but breaks about to be over and I just wrote that other fic so I'm chilling atm)

[nevermindirah]

🦋🎈📡 (and a kiss 😘)

Beijos para você! (I'm being so normal about not falling down a rabbit hole about tu vs você right now djksfjdasfjds)

🦋what are you most insecure about when you post a fic?

Are people gonna like it?? (Do people like me??)

Then once I wrangle my social anxiety brain worms back to their rehabilitation corner, I'm wondering about whether the things I was trying to communicate with the fic seem to be coming across to the people reading. Do my understandings of these characters ring true for other people? Did the things I thought were poignant or funny or hot actually feel that way to people who aren't me?

🎈describe your style as a writer; is it fixed? does it change?

I've been told more than once that I have a very distinctive writing style for smut. At first I just blushed my face off whenever I heard that, because oh my GOD I am publishing pornographic writing on the internet!!?!?!? and people are READING it!!?!???!!!?!??? Now that I've had some time to get used to it, I take it as a badge of honor, even when anxiety pokes through that maybe not everybody means it strictly as a compliment. You know what it's a style and it's fun and we're embracing it!

More broadly, my style has definitely changed since BoN first ate my brain. There are some elements of my older fics that absolutely make me cringe now, like the rapid-fire pov shifts (sometimes in the same sentence!) and the explosion of French pet names. No shade on those old fics, I'm glad I wrote them, and I'm glad the people who still enjoy them are enjoying them! It's just that looking back on my older stuff confronts me with how much less practice with writing fiction I had two years ago than I do now.

One element of my fic style that hasn't changed and I doubt ever will is my tendency towards complex, multi-phrase sentences. My professional life has required too much writing about legislative details; at this point it can't be reined in completely, even when I try.

A thing about my style I'm hoping will evolve in the future is I want to learn more from writers like you who are writing so beautifully and effectively in English as a second language. Using my high school Spanish to write anything more complex or poetic than "Booker piensa que Nile es hermosa y tiene razón" (Booker thinks Nile's gorgeous and he's right) feels impossible to me. But English has a much larger vocabulary than Spanish for a bunch of historical reasons, and I have access to several (but importantly not all) registers of that vocabulary for a bunch of personal as well as structural class-and-race reasons, and the significance of word choice as an element of style probably operates differently in a language like Spanish with its relatively smaller vocab inventory so that means other stylistic choices I'm completely unaware of are probably doing super cool things to express the layers of meaning I've been taught to lean on word choice to accomplish in English — this is an enormous area of comparative linguistics but one small example of the ways we can shift our writing styles to more effectively express our ideas to people with different linguistic frames of reference. All that's even more interesting given the staggering diversity of language experience among our immortal blorbos. I don't know what particular stylistic changes might be in the future for me along these lines, it's just a thing I'm thinking about.

📡why is writing and sharing your writing important for fandom?

I love that you asked this because it gives me the excuse to say fandom is important! It's part of our lives! Hobbies we do for fun and stress relief aren't The Most Important Thing In the World but they're still part of our lives and part of the world and therefore what happens in fandom matters! Nile Freeman is a fantastically rich, complex, well-drawn main character and she deserves tons and tons of fandom content about her, and I'm a part of that and so are you! Fuck yeah!

I also really cherish my part in building Jewish Booker. The overwhelming majority of Jewish representation in mainstream US movies and tv comes through filters: Jews in the 19th and 20th centuries being pushed into the entertainment industry by several European countries' discriminatory policies and that tradition carrying over in the US despite legal equality, Euro-descended Jews being model minority-ized by the post-WW2 US that very much did /not/ involve itself in that war to stop the Holocaust but chose to frame itself that way after the fact, lots of individual Jews' family trauma and internalized shame and fear of the next wave of antisemitism around the corner, etc etc. The result is most US media that includes Jews is made either by Jews who feel enormous pressure to represent our entire people in a way that's perceived as palatable and nonthreatening to white culturally-Christian people or more often by non-Jews who've absorbed decades of iterating carbon copies of what previous generations thought was palatable. US Jews invented comic books and the superhero genre and yet the first MCU property to have an explicitly Jewish character was the 6th tv show in Phase 4.

There just isn't much mainstream content about Jews in my country, one of the two places where most of the world's Jews live, made by Jews who uncomplicatedly like being Jewish and don't have big economic and cultural pressures on them to represent all of us in Certain Ways. Wow, I didn't realize this rant was building up in me until I started typing. Anyway yeah I get to be honest about what Jewishness means to me and what I think it would mean for Booker and share it with people through fandom with just a little teeny tiny bit of a filter (my own internalized stuff) compared to the many layers of mess that mainstream content has to go through before it reaches non-Jews all over the world who consume US media and who may or may not know many Jews personally.