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#but I feel all the complaints at the movies also apply to them. & they’re doing way more to the theater industry than to the movie one
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wait are there people earnestly defending genshin by saying that dark skin just doesn't work in anime style?
oh that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Other stuff I’ve seen (on my own damn, very neutrally worded post even) are
-but but there’s light skinned people in the Middle East too they’re just representing them! (Ok and where are the dark skinned people? MENA/SWANA isn’t 98% lily white WHERE ARE YOUR BRONE AND BLACK PEOPLE?)
-no one cares lol (hm well there’s 1k+ notes on this and 25+ comments all agreeing this was a wasted opportunity, so clearly by statistical alone you’re…wrong. Quite a few people care actually!)
-china doesn’t care about dark skinned people so they won’t put dark skinned people in! (Holy xenophobia. Uh. Ok so china DOES have a serious issue w colorism+racism BUT it’s also not a racial monolith AND it also has some pretty diverse gatcha games already? For starters there’s arknights and dislyte, and there’s absolutely more. Don’t use an entire country to shield one company’s shitty racist decisions bc that’s ALSO racist)
- his skin is white bc he’s based off a fennec fox which has white fur (literally when has any kemonomimi design based the skin color off the fur and not the hair. Even yae miko FROM GENSHIN has pink fur and pink hair, her skin is independent of that)
-I personally am from that region and am pale so I do not see the problem (ok good for you? But tons of people who ARENT pale (or who are but wanted more diversity) are rightly frustrated that the first region where they had an honest reason to make more people dark skinned refuses to go darker that a cafe au lait. they aren’t doing this to rep light skinned south Asians or North Africans or whoever they’re doing it bc they don’t think it’s worth it to represent darker skin tones and YOU KNOW THIS. Don’t be stupid at me)
on that note, I’ve seen very similar trains of dumbasses run on other people who have brought up legitimate complaints on the outfits that the sumeru cast has been put in. It doesn’t matter how well they researched actual Persian dancer outfits or the effect western oreintalism and movies like Aladdin has had in it and the perception of their dance and culture, or their personal relation to it, or how they word it, a bunch of idiots will inevitably be like ‘well I think that the outdated inaccurate racist outfits that they referenced off of other gatcha games and jrpgs from the 90s is sexy and I don’t care about this so shut the fuck yo and stop asking them to do better’ and it pisses me off, honestly
Like really? Why is this so hard for people to understand? If you’re going to use real life cultures you have to try and be respectful of them-and the real life ones are often WAY prettier and more creative than anything a lazy sterotypes from the 1800s could’ve come up with. We can do better now and it looks better feels better and is more interesting and engaging so why are people so resistant to it? Why does it hurt their brains so much to think about the fact they aren’t the center of the world for once? Idk
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And for the record, before anyone gets any ideas, fgo is NOT better just bc arjuna and ashwatthama are actually dark skinned. You can’t say shit about how racist Scheherazade’s design is on twitter without a bunch of people who think masturbating to porn filtered with racial tags applied makes them culturally sensitive screaming at you about how you’re too easily offended and need to get over yourself; bc as we all know the hypersexualization and fetishization of dark skinned women isn’t a serious irl issue that is perpetuated by stupid shit like a gatcha game having its horny h*rem girl design tell you that you should just station her in your bedroom bc that’s all she’s useful for when you summon her! (THIS IS SARCASM)
Like ffs one side here is obviously more easily offended than the other and it’s not the one you think…
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heyitssashag · 1 year
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A few years ago, I started watching a movie called, Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. It’s a comedy/drama based on John Callahan’s memoir. I’m not sure why I didn’t finish the movie then. Occasionally, I have an attention span of a squirrel so I can only assume I was sidetracked by something shiny. I finally watched the movie tonight (it’s on Prime). It’s about his life dealing with alcoholism (and getting sober), then becoming a cartoonist after a car accident that left him a quadriplegic. It was pretty good and had a great cast. I found it actually inspiring. He went through a lot, managed to still make a life for himself while making others laugh. Pretty awesome.
I was first introduced to Callahan’s comics around 20 years ago when I used to watch Quads! late at night. It’s an adult cartoon that is a little disturbing. lol. I remember laughing my ass off because it was so warped and dark. There’s only 2 seasons and they can be found on YouTube. If you like odd ball, nasty humour, and cartoons, you’ll enjoy it.
Today was pouring with rain. Ella came with me to do a grocery shop. We headed to the bus stop with the rolling cart so we didn’t have to carry them. Much easier to roll them. lol. We went for a treat at a local coffee joint first then went shopping. I should have groceries delivered but the Save-On-Foods app is messed up. Did it once and now it won’t let me for some strange reason. I’ve tried on my phone, iPad and laptop. 🙄 So, I’ve given up. I know Thrifty Food’s also delivers but man, they’re expensive. When food has already doubled or even tripled in price these past few years, I’m not overly excited about paying even more when I don’t have to. …aaaaand that’s my crotchety old lady rant for today. 👵🏻 I’m starting to feel myself being sucked into that old-person wormhole where we start going on about, “Back in my day, we would buy a whole chickens for $3.” Which would then be a perfect gateway to, “Then we’d walk 5 miles in the snow backwards, up a mountain, barefoot.” I don’t want to be that old person. Nor do I want to yell at anyone to get off my lawn. That being said, my opinion on this could change abruptly. Why? …because I’m old. 😉
I did manage to do over 10,000 steps today. Not bad… for an old lady.
Tomorrow we’re staying home. My neck/shoulder/back pain isn’t quite as bad today as it has been these past few weeks but it still hurts. I’m hoping I’m on the other side of it, now. I have to lay down a lot but at least it’s not spasming. Smoking a joint then applying Voltaren and heat continues to help. 😉
I’m confused about Tumblr’s formatting. When I apply a break between paragraphs (to make it easier on the eyes to read), the spacing is not consistent. Some are bigger than others. It’s weird. Just another old lady complaint. It only bothers me because it’s not perfect but if I cared about perfection, I would be using a different program. I just needed to point this out in case it bugged you, the reader, as well. All 3 of you that read this blog. 🤣 To be fair, Tumblr is a microblogging site and what I write is not “micro” by any stretch. lol. This is why I hated Twitter. Being restricted to like 17 characters was impossible. (Yes, I’m well aware you get more than 17. I’m not that old.)
It’s Saturday night and I don’t feel like making dinner. I think we’re just having nachos.
…and now, for your clever gif. ⬇️
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dankusner · 2 months
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“The Zone of Interest” Is an Extreme Form of Holokitsch
Jonathan Glazer’s drama, set among the Nazis who ran Auschwitz, turns the horrors of the Holocaust into scenes from a marriage.
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A scene from Jonathan Glazer’s film “The Zone of Interest.”Photograph courtesy A24
With movies that are based on books, there’s no inherent merit in either fidelity or infidelity. What matters is the sense of freedom, of using a book to one’s own purposes. That’s the best thing about “The Zone of Interest,” the writer and director Jonathan Glazer’s adaptation of Martin Amis’s 2014 novel of the same title. Glazer transforms it drastically and makes it feel almost entirely like his own creation.  The novel is narrated by way of the characters’ monologues, and they’re mostly shtick-laden, performative voices—Amis’s novel plays largely like a variation on “Portnoy’s Complaint” with its prime complainants being fictionalized Nazis who run Auschwitz. I’m not a fan of the book, which strikes me as a near-parody of the Holocaust, with torrentially erotic eruptions of lust, jealousy, and absurdity applied to the sordid private lives of fictitious Nazi officials and mass murderers. (It also prominently features one Jewish character, Szmul, the leader of the Sonderkommando—Jewish inmates under orders to do much of the physical labor involved in mass murder, such as shaving hair, guiding captives to gas chambers, and shovelling out the ashes. Szmul’s voice, though written briefly and thinly, is lent a moving earnestness, but his destiny is the stuff of pulp fiction.)
Glazer’s film distills and transforms the novel’s premise into an altogether different story and tone. It’s a sort of narrowly bordered bio-pic, centered on the real-life Höss family: Rudolf Höss (Christian Friedel), a longtime Nazi and S.S. member who was one of the commandants of Auschwitz; his wife, Hedwig (Sandra Hüller), nicknamed Hedy; and their three daughters and two sons, ranging from an adolescent to an infant. They live in a gracefully appointed house just outside the walls of the death camp; the property abuts the walls, which, with their curved barbed-wire stanchions, are instantly recognizable. They live a largely ordinary family life: they picnic by the river, Hedy tends her garden, the children go to school; there are birthday celebrations and social gatherings. But some details stand out. Hedy does her “shopping” for clothing, cosmetics, and jewelry from among items confiscated from deportees.
(One friend found a diamond in a confiscated tube of toothpaste, declaring, “They are very clever.”)
On a river swim, Rudolf finds something in the water that makes him rush his children home and scrub them and himself thoroughly.
The ambient soundtrack of daily life is the barking of dogs, the shouts of officers, the screams of captive victims, gunshots, and the roar and smoke of crematoria.
(As Rudolf and one of his sons ride on horseback through nearby fields, amid yelling as prisoners are driven through the area, the son calls attention to the sound: “Do you hear that? . . . A bittern. A heron. A Eurasian gray heron.”)
The movie’s prime drama is the conflict between professional life and family happiness. Höss, considered a good manager, is promoted to a higher position and sent to the German town of Oranienburg (the site of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp). But Hedwig, who is happy in the Auschwitz house and in its surrounding rural landscape, pressures Rudolf to beg his superiors to let her and the children continue to live there in his absence. The unhappy Höss bids farewell to his horse (yes, to his horse: “I love you; I love you, my beauty”) and to Hedwig. He heads to Germany, alone, where he’s part of the beau monde but takes no pleasure in it, reporting to Hedy by phone that he hardly noticed all the aristocrats and notables at a fancy-dress ball because he was too busy imagining the trouble he’d have gassing everyone in the high-ceilinged room.
If this sounds borderline hilarious, it should, because the movie is an extreme form of Holokitsch; it’s this year’s “Jojo Rabbit.” Glazer’s movie is a presentation of nearly unfathomable horrors by way of bathos, alluding to enormities in the form of minor daily inconveniences. There’s conceptual audacity in the effort, yet Glazer doesn’t display the courage or the intellectual rigor to pull it off successfully; if he did, he’d have centered the movie strictly on Hedy’s and the children’s experiences and points of view, noting the hints and traces of the death camp in and near the house and amid the landscape. The movie would have shown Rudolf and his activities solely through their eyes, thus making their surmises and their doubts, or their willful indifferences, all the more conspicuous—the movie wouldn’t have noted any more details of the horrors than they did.
Instead, much of the movie follows Rudolf, not just in his family life but also in his daily business—but only so far. Rudolf sees and knows everything that goes on in Auschwitz and in the death camps over all, but Glazer shows him only involved in bureaucratic activities. He reviews plans for a circular crematorium that can operate continuously. He attends a meeting of concentration-camp directors who are exhorted to furnish workers for German factories, while also being prepared to receive—and, for the most part, exterminate—the many Hungarian Jews who are about to be deported from their homeland (as actually happened, in 1944). Rudolf is an eyewitness to the atrocities relentlessly perpetrated under his command within the walls of Auschwitz, but Glazer dispenses with the problem of dramatizing or representing—or even describing—them. In the process, he shrinks from portraying the horrors of the real-life Höss’s character, too, and, as a result, he trivializes them.
Glazer’s diminution of the perpetrators themselves is a cinematic reinforcement of Hannah Arendt’s notion of the banality of evil: of deportation and extermination as the product of the numbingly mindless routine of the bureaucratic mind. But just as Adolf Eichmann is now understood to have been no mere paper-pusher but a rabid antisemite who took to his death-dealing duties with enthusiasm, Höss wasn’t just a skillful technocrat—he was a longtime Nazi true believer, going back to the nineteen-twenties with decades of blood on his hands. (Amis at least gets that straight, albeit cloaking it in antic language.) There’s no room for rabidness in the movie, however, no ideological talk or overt hatred. There’s also no room for the victims: prisoners, serving as forced laborers, appear around the house throughout the film, but silently. They’re given neither any voice nor any point of view.
Still, Glazer wants to stress that the banalities in question are no mere banalities; they’re grim and grave. Unlike pretty much any other movie that opens with a family picnic in a charming riverside landscape, the movie begins with more than two minutes of a black screen, accompanied by music (by Mica Levi) so bleak that it makes Mahler’s Ninth sound like Carl Stalling. In other words, before the first dramatic image, Glazer has essentially proclaimed the movie’s deep seriousness, and his own. Lest any viewer get too lost in the bright-green weeds of the Höss family’s daily routines, Glazer punctuates the movie with hallucinatory sequences, with eerily expressionistic black-and-white, night-vision thermal images, featuring music like sepulchral belches from the Earth’s depths. In these scenes, a girl goes on solitary and secretive routines of gathering (seemingly where bodies are buried) and of depositing (of apples beside shovels where inmates likely do forced labor). At one point, an image of smoke whites out the screen; at another, closeups of flowers, accompanied on the soundtrack by horrible yelling and screaming, fade to an all-blood-red screen.
By gussying up such sequences as cinematic emergencies rather than as regular rounds like those of the rest of the film, Glazer again and again emphasizes that the film’s apparent ordinariness is faux—that these daily lives are indeed extraordinary and horrific, elements of a historic tragedy. Yet his blatant exertion to get that point across suggests a lack of confidence that viewers will get the point from the drama alone—and a fear that his dramatic choices indeed risk diminishing those horrors. The filmmaker appears to want it both ways—to make subtle allusions that are given meaning by vehement jolts, to avoid specifics while pounding out generalized emotions.
There are moments that suggest an earnest and substantial inspiration that, however, remains largely undeveloped. A girl appears to have found a folded-up sheet of lyrics, titled “Sunbeams,” by the real-life Auschwitz inmate and survivor Joseph Wulf; she plays the piano, as if inwardly setting it to her music, as its words appear onscreen in subtitles.
(Did she scavenge the poem in her black-and-white, night-vision wanderings? The physical practicality behind such a moment is exactly the sort of exalted ordinariness that virtually cries out for a straightforward, dramatically direct and detailed approach.) There’s a character who casually opens an abyss of a backstory: Hedwig’s mother, Linna Hensel (Imogen Kogge), while walking with Hedwig in the family garden beside the death camp’s wall, wonders out loud, “Maybe Esther Silberman is over there . . . the one I used to clean for.” (But then Glazer lays it on thick, with Linna’s complaint that she was “outbid” for Esther’s curtains.)
Glazer’s purely external depiction of Auschwitz—its outer walls only—is of a piece with his reconstruction of life in its vicinity: he keeps his hands clean.
He models his vision of the Höss family circle, and of the Holocaust, on his own formidable artistic dignity.  The movie ends, pardon my spoiler, at the current-day museum that is Auschwitz. Glazer films employees cleaning inside a former gas chamber and in the halls and corridors where piles of shoes, crutches and other medical devices, and uniforms of inmates are on display. He seems to suggest that there’s such a thing as the banality of good, too, yet it remains similarly muted and abstract. He doesn’t deign to hear what the workers have to say.
An earlier version of this article misidentified a female character in two scenes of the film.
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starship2011 · 3 years
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Honestly for how much we complain about the Disney live action remakes being corporate & soulless & awful etc. we’ve been real quiet about the Disney Broadway musical adaptations which do most of the same crimes & take up the very limited available space on Broadway
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Into The Unknown, Part 26
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Previous
Marinette smiled as she gently took a sleeping Damian from Ava. The kid blearily opened his eyes, looking up at her, before slowly wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his face in her shirt. She pressed her lips to the top of his head, bouncing up and down lightly to help him get back to sleep.
It was cute.
What was less cute was what happened the next morning.
Marinette sighed, doing her makeup in an attempt to ignore Damian’s very loud complaints about how he wanted to have ‘pretty fingers!’, too.
Tim poked his head in the bathroom, a hairband between his teeth as he struggled to pull his just-barely-too-short bangs back into his ponytail. “Wha’s going on?” He asked.
He reached up to pull the hairband from his mouth, and Damian saw that Tim also had nail polish and his complaints, somehow, increased in volume.
Marinette sent him a tired glare that she knew didn’t feel as sharp without her usual winged eyeliner.
He gave her that tiny smile people do when they’re confused, all furrowed brows and thin lips. “Sorry?”
She stopped applying chapstick with a sigh. “Dami’s mad that his nails aren’t colorful, too.”
“Mad!” Agreed Damian, crossing his arms over his chest and turning his head as if he couldn’t even bear to look at them.
Tim smiled a little and leaned down to kiss Damian's forehead. “Why can’t we just paint his nails, too?”
She rolled her eyes just slightly. “Look at his nails, Tim.”
Tim winced when he realized just how difficult it would be to do the fingernails of such a tiny hand. But then he pushed himself up to stand properly, determination in his newly-unobstructed eyes. “I’ll do it.”
“If you want to, then sure,” she said. “Make sure that whatever you get is safe for babies, though.”
He nodded just slightly, pulling out his phone to start looking up what brand to get, and then he froze. His face lit up. “Hey, Mari, I can choose whatever color, right?”
Marinette’s eyes narrowed just slightly, she got the distinct feeling that saying yes was a bad idea for some reason, but she couldn’t really place why outside of a gut feeling. She shrugged and leaned close to the mirror to start doing her eyeliner. “Sure. People will complain about us putting nail polish on a boy no matter what color we choose. Go wild.”
Tim smiled brighter and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. “Great! You won’t regret this!”
She watched him leave, her lips pressed into a thin line. For some reason, she had a feeling she would regret this.
And she did.
She gave Tim a slightly exasperated look when her eyes landed on the bottle that he was shaking vigorously. It was a weird green-ish white that she recognized immediately.
“Really, Tim, glow-in-the-dark?”
He stuck his tongue out at her. “You said I could choose any color!”
“Luminescent is hardly a color,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“But it has a color.”
“Barely –,” she started to say, but then Damian caught sight of the bottle and lit up, clapping his hands together excitedly, and that was that.
The three sat on the couch as Tim painted the tiny nails of their child. The only sound was the phone propped up by Tim’s knees, playing the kid’s favorite movie to distract him in hopes that that would make him sit still. It didn’t work, obviously, Damian was still a baby. Marinette had him in her lap, her hands holding his and her fingers laced between her kid’s smaller ones to keep them from touching anything.
They blew on the nails afterwards to get them to dry faster. Marinette and Tim leaned over him, their foreheads just barely resting against each other’s. Tim was handling this with grace, too concentrated on making sure the nails came out fine. Marinette, however, was having trouble thinking about anything other than the closeness of their faces and the warmth spreading across her cheeks.
… or, at least, until Damian, tired of sitting still for so long, started trying to help them blow on his nails. Unfortunately, Damian was a baby, and babies don’t quite understand the concept of blowing on things. He ended up pretty much just spitting on his hands.
Marinette and Tim tamped down their laughter, because the kid looked very determined, but they shared smiles.
What might have actually been years later, the nails were dry enough that they figured it would probably be fine.
They released their kid and Damian was silent for a few moments, looking at his hands with childlike wonder (because, you know, he was a child). And then he giggled and held them up to show them.
“Look! Pretty fingers!”
Marinette pressed a kiss to his palm. “Very nice, Dami.”
Tim smiled and nodded. “That’s not even the best part,” he said, pushing himself up and heading over to the lightswitch.
Damian gave Tim an incredulous look, as if he couldn’t imagine it getting better than it currently was. But then he turned off the lights and the glow-in-the-dark aspect was revealed.
Damian gasped and the glowing lights began to blur as he waved his hands excitedly. “Look! Look! Glow!”
“Yeah, kiddo, they glow,” Tim agreed. He flicked on a lamp a good distance away so they could all see while also allowing Damian to enjoy the wonders of glow-in-the-dark things for as long as he wanted to.
She looked at the two of them and the smiles that were almost as brilliant as the nail polish on Damian’s hands.
She sighed a little, her lips tugging into a fond smile of her own. She supposed it hadn’t ended up being that bad…
~
Tim squinted down at his gear as he performed a maintenance check. He wasn’t really sure whether it was necessary, to be honest, because his gear had never gone long without use, but he figured it was kind of like cars and motorcycles in that, if you don’t use them for a while, they stop working.
Besides, Marinette was clearly very interested in everything. It was kind of cute how she leaned over his shoulder, eyes bright as she examined everything from his gloves to his utility belt.
“Don’t you have things like this?” He asked, his voice low. Damian was asleep in her lap and neither of them were particularly fond of the idea of waking him… or, at least, not until they were done examining dangerous gadgets.
She shrugged, waving him off. “It’s all magical, I don’t know anything about it. This, though, this is real,” she said, holding up his glove. She had bent the fingers to flip him off.
He rolled his eyes. “Classy,” he said, plucking the glove from her hands. He popped open the secret compartment in the ring finger to make sure that it still held the tiny blade that could be used to get out of binds.
“Hm…” she said. “Bold of you to call me classless when you wear a giant bald cap.”
He looked over to find that she had grabbed his cowl and cape and was currently playing with the lenses. He would have argued that, no, it wasn’t a bald cap… but then something else caught his attention… namely, the fact that Damian had mistaken the cape for a blanket and had wrapped himself up in it in his sleep.
Marinette frowned confusedly at the lack of response and followed Tim’s gaze, and then her mouth dropped open. She brought her hands up to stifle the tiny squeal she made. It wasn’t completely silenced and Damian shifted, much to their horror, but the sound only made him burrow deeper into the cape.
Tim was pretty sure that he was going to cry.
“Tim, if you don’t take a picture of this, I will kill you.”
He didn’t need to be told twice, scrambling to his feet and running to find his camera.
And, well, if Damian was confused as to why he woke up to a bunch of kisses and hugs, he didn’t seem all that upset about it.
~
Damian’s birthday party was small, with just the three of them.
Marinette woke up early in order to make him a cake based on that one movie he had been obsessed with. She decided to make the shy elephant character, both because it was his favorite and because she had the simplest design to make at such an ungodly hour in the morning. Regardless, she rather liked how it came out.
And then she promptly went back to bed. Neither of the adults had work that day – she had asked weeks ahead of time to get the day off, Tim was a freelance worker and therefore simply didn’t schedule any appointments on that day. Since no one needed to be up for anything, they saw no harm in sleeping in.
Damian chose to wake them around noon and Tim was the one to get up to help the kid get ready for his big day. Marinette smiled sleepily as she laid on her side, watching Tim set the table with plates and cups and napkins decorated with the faces of miscellaneous cartoon characters. Damian was on his shoulders, looking around at the apartment with interest.
When Tim started pulling out presents from where they had hidden them atop the fridge, Marinette decided it was time to get up. She started blowing up a few balloons. Carbon dioxide balloons, of course, not helium. That way they wouldn’t have to worry about fetching any from the ceiling… besides, Damian would have a lot more trouble playing with helium balloons than ones that were on ground level.
They opened presents first. Nothing too special, really. They had learned from Hanukkah: don’t put too much effort into getting babies presents, they will not care for longer than an hour.
So, he got a bunch of new stuffed animals. He was amassing quite a collection. Only three were allowed in the bed at once (usually Cat, Cow, and Koala, as those were Damian’s favorites), but the rest were piled high on a dresser across from the bed so Damian didn’t feel too bad about it.
Damian smiled, the animals all struggling to fit on his tiny lap.
Marinette brought out the cake.
(They had thought about getting candles, but decided against it. They had seen how much spit was involved with Damian blowing on his nails and, considering they actually wanted to eat the cake… they had decided that candles were for older kids.)
Damian gasped regardless of the lack of candles, blissfully unaware of what he was missing out on.
He pointed at the character excitedly.
“Elle!”
Marinette nodded, because that was probably the name of the elephant in the show… she didn’t really pay that much attention.
Tim smiled and pulled out the cake knife. He cut Damian a slice.
“Ah!” Said Damian, eyes wide as he stared at the hole in the character in mild horror.
(He stopped caring the minute he tasted the cake, though. Of course.)
~~~~~
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@unoriginalmess @hammalammadamdam @astrynyx @laurcad123 @927roses-and-stuff @toodaloo-kangaroo @queenz-z @imarivers8 @jeminiikrystal @adrestar @twsssmlmaa @literaryhiraeth
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hanibalistic · 3 years
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#67509E | HWANG HYUNJIN.
genre | fluff
word count | 1889
warning | appearances of vampire fangs, mention of blood sucking
tag | @fluffyskzclub​
note | i miss hyunjin.
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hyunjin pouted like he was throwing a tantrum—well, to a certain degree, he was throwing a small tantrum.
he curled himself around the fluffy blanket that you two left on the couch from yesterday's spontaneous movie night as he pouted at you bitterly. he tried to fit his tall body within the blanket, but his long legs awkwardly jutted out of the end corner, unable to bend enough to curl himself into a tiny ball. his head poked out of the blanket he draped around his shoulder and over his head.
"must you open the curtains all the time?" he whined with furrowed brows, lightly kicking his feet against the couch. "i hate the sun, you know that!"
you rolled your eyes as you closed the curtains after being drowned in his mindless complaints about the last half an hour. you had opened them so the plants could soak in some sunlight. you even took into consideration that hyunjin would be asleep for longer like he always does, otherwise, you would have never let the sunlight into your shared apartment. but for some reason, he decided to leave his stupid coffin earlier today.
to listen to the birds' chirp perhaps. that's the kind of leisure activity a hundred-year-old would like, you bet.
the same thing happens every time you open the blinds, which is that hyunjin does not shut up about him disliking the sun and how it weakens his vampirism as opposed to it actually killing him. he would not stop until you close the curtains and turn on the lights, which often made you scoff. not only was he annoying, for a vampire who was supposed to burn under the sun, he sure does speak of it a lot.
"we will need sunlight somehow, hyunjin," you said as you turned around to glare at him. "the plants you stole, from outside, in the morning, will need sunlight."
you emphasized your words to make sure he knew of all the heinous frustrations he has caused you. the puppy pout on his face, as well as the pitying glint in his eyes, only deepened with each emphasis of your voice, his body flinching and shrinking when he could tell that you were upset with him.
watching him, there was a rush of conflict brewing like bubbles in you. you weren't sure if you felt more annoyed or endeared about the fact that hyunjin, a not quite literally ancient but old enough to feel ancient vampire, gained such comfortability from you that he was fine with throwing a childish tantrum in front of you.
he looks cute, surely! he always does. but sometimes, you genuinely could not stand another second of him whining.
"stop yelling at me! you know what the sun does to a vampire!" he retorted.
oh, god—blah, blah, blah.
"yeah, a vampire that doesn't have an accessory of the sigil," you said cleverly as you moved over to him. you yanked the blanket off his body, ignoring his protest, and you pointed at his neck. "like the necklace you never take off!"
"i only got this recently! the witch would have never sold me this if you hadn't come with me," he argued, pulling the blanket around him again. "i'm not used to the sun yet, just let me have a little more time."
you pursed your lips together, your neck turning sour at his poor mumble as you softened. he did only just get the necklace—by just, it was about two to three months ago. however, while that alone may seem like a long period, comparing that to almost a whole decade of no sunlight, perhaps he really just needed more time to adjust.
but! zooming past the streets, leaving normal people wondering where the sudden gust of wind came from, and hiding in the apartment that leaves no room for any traces of sunlight was not the way to go about it!
"how about just a little bit, hmm?" you said then, suggesting a compromise casually while you walked toward the window. "take it little by little!"
hyunjin widened his eyes in disbelief as you moved farther away from him. he shook his legs in protest, his body moving animatedly on the cushiony couch as he protested loud and clear. "hey! you better not open the curtains, [name]!"
you grabbed the hem of the curtains, your mind occupied with calculating the correct amount you would flip open. it has to be a very small amount, to a point where the sunlight could only hit one leaf of the plant on the window rail, or just one square of your marble floor. it has to be the form of sunlight that could not hurt even a fly, so you could show him just how goddamn dramatic he was being.
"[name], i swear!"
"oh, bite me," you muttered under your breath.
there was a gust of wind—a familiar kind. it blew at the tip of your hair, making it waft around, and the hem of your thin shirt also danced at the breeze of hyunjin's vampiric speed.
blinking consciously, you loosened your grip on the curtains and turned around. immediately, upon feeling the heat of his face, you flinched back and closed your eyes to settle yourself.
"jesus–what the hell, hyunjin?" you muttered with a hand on your chest before you slowly opened your eyes.
hyunjin was glaring at you; no malice, just alluring intensity. his hair fell over his face prettily. the sunlight that he didn't seem to care much for now shone a soft haze over half of his face, making him glow and glitter naturally.
"those are some reckless words to say to a vampire," he said lowly, tilting his head to the side lightly as he arched a brow, "don't you think?"
your heart pounced.
the matter of blood, or just his general nature as a vampire, like his need to feed off of human beings, has only come up once.
he mentioned it to you when he was applying to be your roommate, having a foul plan to erase your memories in case the truth was not well-received by you. he told you that he has been a vampire for a while so he knew how to control his urges, therefore you would not be in any harm, and the matter was never spoken of again.
he held up his words. he has never discussed blood with you, he has never shown any blood-thirsty behavior at all. he acted like any other roommates you have had; being too loud at night, eating cereal in the living room and eyeing your bed-head with a judgemental gaze, knocking at your door and asking if you wanted to pick a takeout place.
if he used his powers less, you would have forgotten about his vampiric side.
why was your heart thumping then? was he too pretty for your own good? or was he standing too close for familiar comfort? or perhaps both?
you scoffed, making your thoughts vanish. "you won't bite me."
hyunjin softened in a way you couldn't catch. deep within the tender wash of his eyes was a sea of wildfires he hid behind closed doors.
you were right, he won't bite you, but he wants to, especially because the smell of your blood happened to be more enticing than others because he likes you.
the art of blood sharing (in a sense) is done between lovers; consider it like leaving a love mark, of a sort. it is an act of claiming and reassurance, and hyunjin has been wanting to sink his fangs into your flesh for a while so he could leave a bite mark.
but he could never do that. that was a desire trapped in his throat, urging to be let out and to be voiced, and hyunjin would not allow it. there were too many risks of unleashing the deep-seated yearning in his chest. it lingered in his head in withdrawal, cautiously threading through his mind to keep his urges contained.
he puts his want elsewhere. his want to taste your blood, to kiss your neck, has to grow somewhere, so he has to put it somewhere, and he puts in it his daydream which that manifests gently when he is with you, and ferociously when you were away.
"i won't," he muttered under his breath, to which you relaxed at. but then he grinned, and he opened his mouth to speak first, "doesn't mean i can't, though."
you widened your eyes when black veins draped beneath his eyes and his sharp fangs appeared. it was a terrifying sight, but you were only shocked to see it than scared. rationally, you reached your hands up and slapped your palms against his cheeks, startling him.
"hmmm... " you grumbled, sounding thoughtful as you surveyed his shocked expression.
the veins under his eyes retreated and the colors returned to his face. the innocence flooded back into him, bright and boyish, and he dared not move an inch under the pressure of your gaze—beneath your touch hyunjin is but a gentle boy hapless in love.
"ah...aah...wha–" he closed his eyes slightly and opened them with furrowed brows, confused and helpless with his head slightly tilted up. his words were muffled but jot too hard to understand. "[name]–why–uhh–"
you pushed at his upper lip with your thumb and looked at his fangs, wondering why they did not retreat with the dark haze of his eyes. then, ignoring hyunjin's muffled questions, you carefully poked at the tip of his teeth—razor-sharp, but very real.
he was whining again. his hands reached out to the hem of your shirt and desperately, as well as timidly, tugged at it. meanwhile, he put on a defeated face. as much as he would with your thumbs poking his fangs, that was.
"ahh, please stop–[name], stop touching my fangs–why," he feigned a sob, shaking his head as a blush reached his cheeks, "they're just teeth."
"teeth that puncture," you commented when you let go. the way your thumbs briefly smoothed over his top lip was not lost on him.
seeing his pout, you pursed your lips with faint guilt. rubbing the back of your neck, you shrugged. "sorry about that, i just got curious."
"it's okay," he waved you off quickly, "i was curious too when i first got them."
hyunjin looked at you when you giggled under your breath; soft, hearty giggles that tried to conceal themselves without the anticipation for his vampiric hearing. gentle, funny giggles that never once questioned his problematic past. lovely, adoring giggles that are here before and after he revealed who he is to you.
he came to your apartment begging for a home where he could be himself, and you allowed him safety with you.
"alright," you said with a curt smile, "i'm going to go change, need to get grocery."
"i–i'll come with!"
you seemed shocked for a moment, accessing him like a trick question. then you relaxed and nodded with nonchalance. "yeah, whatever."
he melted despite the lackluster reaction. it was the excitement that counted. smiling to himself, he twirled and twisted his body shyly as the sun shone from outside.
yeah. hyunjin truly is but a simple boy in love with you.
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sunseteyes · 3 years
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little habits they do when they say “i love you” — various
ㅤㅤ ↪︎ starring: daichi sawamura, kōshi sugawara, shouyou hinata, kei tsukishima, wakatoshi ushijima, satori tendou, eita semi, kiyoomi sakusa, kourai hoshiumi, sachirou hirugami
ㅤㅤ ↪︎ themes: fluff, gn!reader
ㅤㅤ ↪︎ intermission: as an apology to discontinuing my holiday drabbles, i give you my very last entry to my short series. this was supposedly just shiratorizawa and karasuno but i had a sudden attachment to sachiro hirugami so i just had to include the other three. anway, this is so long so i had to cut it, enjoy reading!
| inarizaki | seijoh | nekoma + fukurodani | karasuno + shiratorizawa + itachiyama + kamomedai |
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『• • • ✎ DAICHI says the words as if they’re the last time he’ll be able to say it. It’s because he often hugs you when he does, wrapping his big, strong arms around you or your waist, all the while leaning in to press a kiss by your temple before saying “i love you, darling” and going to work. He does that too when too are about to fall asleep--whenever he comes home early enough to see you awake, replacing the words with “goodnight, i love you,” with the same habits as he does whenever he goes for work. It would be so obvious for you--to which you had no complaints, by the way, although for him, he doesn’t even realize he was doing those until you tell it to him. he gets flustered for a bit, scratching the back of his neck while asking, “really? I do?” but he still continues doing them nonetheless. 
『• • • ✎ KŌSHI has a voice that just expounds his personality well, as if he was baking sweet cupcakes, cookies, or cakes with his words. no matter what his moods are, they always just sound so sweet, so sincere. “(y/n)?” he’d call, smiling sweetly at you before he finally says, “i love you~”. he’s also good at comforting you whenever you feel down or depleted, sort of like your energy or happiness pill, usually whispering them by your ear as you let him cuddle or hug you. the way he says the three words is so genuine and that he often has his way with that it feels like the sun just brought light into your world once again, and that sun is him. 
『• • • ✎ SHŌYŌ has always been confident, but it still makes him blush or have a flushed face whenever he says those three words. although that flustered state sooner disperses whenever he sees your reaction afterwards, his ego becomes filled with how he has the capability to do that. his face lights up and he sooner proceeds on being energetic again. occasionally, he laughs it off and/or gives you a hug--usually a huge hug, especially when there are no audience around him. because when there are, there are just people who like to tease him! sugawara, tanaka, ennoshita, tsukishima, he just has no escape from them! 
『• • • ✎ KEI doesn’t say it often, let’s be real. you could even count it with your fingers how many times he’d say it every month or two. however, with a voice or not, he says it in an indirect way. for him, saying “i love you” is not the only way to show how much he loves someone, or how someone could love. So he does it in an indirect way, purposely or not. he hugs you tight whenever he goes to work, knowing you’ll miss him too much--though i’m quite sure he’ll comment or tease you about it, but then, he’ll let you hold on a little bit longer, even if it makes him late to his schedule. he doesn’t have habits, but he has plenty of little things, too many to count. it wouldn’t matter if you can count how many times he says i love you directly, but his actions proves that he loves you, and that’s what matters. 
『• • • ✎ WAKATOSHI didn’t think it was necessary for him to say those three words daily. not only that, but he believes and he knows that he will not be able to express it in the right way. he is a perfectionist, and he knows how he could perfect something in a way he could do best. so in saying those three words, the way he could do and show that best is through gifts, or his actions. he usually gives you grand gifts especially when there’s an event such as your birthday, valentines, christmas, new year’s, anniversary, and he does monthsaries too! he always, always has a tag on them that greets you of the specific event and those three words. “happy new year (y/n). here is a gift to show you how much i love you.” and yes, sometimes most of the times the messages can be cringey because of course you’ll never expect them to come out of his lips! But then, he’s just trying his best to express to you his feelings and that is how he knows he could ace it. no pun intended
『• • • ✎ SATORI always has a smug look on his face and his voice sounds like one of a kid, as if he was teasing you—which he is, in all honesty, but he’s really genuine with them, believe him! sometimes, he even sings them. “(y/n)! i love you! i love you! i love you!” and he’s pleased no matter what your reaction is; a scoff, a flustered look, or a soft glare, he’s having fun just by seeing them. although, there are times when he sounds serious and it usually depends on your mood, because only he knows how to make you smile just by his “i love you”s. 
『• • • ✎ EITA has this sing-song voice whenever he greets you, and then he leans in and either presses a chaste kiss by your cheek, or he says “love you, babe”. he’ll have a slightly smug look on his face, a small smirk indicating how he had you fallen under his grasps. he prides onto how he could tease you like that, but he is also too prideful to let other people hear him say those words to you. and it’s not that he’s embarrassed, no, he’s just not comfortable saying it out loud, with how you also got him under your grasp. though he does say it when you’re in your shared room, apartment, or home, sometimes whispering to them whilst sitting comfortably by the sofa at a random moment in the middle of a movie. He doesn’t show it outside but he’s really romantic, so it doesn’t matter if others don’t hear him say those words. only you can hear it *wink*
『• • • ✎ KIYOOMI doesn’t realize it, but he removes his face mask whenever he leans in to say it. it’s not as if he purposely does it, it just makes him comfortable that he doesn’t have to say it twice just because you hadn’t heard it! that’s all there is to it, really! he’s going to be certainly in denial of it when you ask him, and even if he does try to stop himself from removing his mask, before he could, he’s already in the process of it. He’ll see you pout and ask for his “i love you too” and then he’ll just mutter it with a bit of hesitancy after a couple of seconds of contemplating, seeing as you would pester him or be mad at him sooner or later. he’ll soon get used to saying them to you and even if he knows he’s going to take off his mask, he just lets the situation be. after all, it’s not like he’s lying about it. 
『• • • ✎ KŌRAI always likes to show you off in front of everyone else, and it also applies with how he says how much he loves you. For him, it’s just the way it is. if he loves someone, he can show it to the whole world. so, whenever he gets the chance to say it, shout it, exclaim it, he’ll do so. It’s to the point that his teammates are so used to hearing him say “i love you” to you that they stopped teasing him about it since all they get from him is a “so what if i do?” pft. he may be pretty smug about it but it’s the truth anyway. 
『• • • ✎ SACHIRŌ is the type of guy who says “i love you” when he knew he messed up on something or when he senses he made you mad or irritated. he does admit he often riles you up in an unknowing way and whenever he knows you’re on the verge of snapping at him, he’ll playfully come by your side, ruffle your hair or hold your hand and peck you on your forehead. “now, now, (y/n), i’m only joking. I love you~” and yes, that tilde/wavy line symbol is necessary or else he wouldn’t succeed in his plan. nevertheless, no matter how playful he could get, he could still say those words without playing around, and it would be the sweetest thing in the world i swear. 
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shihalyfie · 3 years
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"Canon” and “not canon” in the Adventure/02 universe
This is something I want to talk about, because it has a certain degree of relevance to the question of what I choose to take into account in my analyses and what I don’t. I write a lot about Adventure and 02 because both series are ridiculously consistent over their 104-episode runtime, but there are times when things contradict or don’t quite track together, and I have to figure out how to best rationalize them -- which means I need to make arbitrary decisions on what to count and not count, and when one does make those kinds of decisions, you’re very liable to get the complaint: “but that’s not canon!”
Which always makes me think: who decided that? And in the end, this is something that I think extends beyond just Digimon; every fanbase for everything always wants to believe there’s a clear-cut answer to things that everyone’s supposed to follow in a canonical timeline, and things that fall outside it. And sometimes, for some franchises, that is doable, because official staff will actually say outright that “this counts, and this doesn’t.” But that’s not how Toei and Bandai work, and their modus operandi has always been to toss a bunch of often-contradictory stuff at everyone and go “figure it out yourself,” and I think at some point the fanbase really needs to acknowledge that this so-called clear-cut boundary of “canon” and “not canon” doesn’t actually exist at all. Or in other words, any assertion of something being “canon” or “not canon” in the Adventure and 02 universe is purely something arbitrarily defined by fans, and was never determined by official - which, conversely, has actually encouraged you to take as much as you want and figure out the rest yourself.
Before we begin, I do want to make clear that this is not about one’s personal canon based on one’s own preferences -- that is to say, if you’re going “I don’t consider this canon because I don’t like this/don’t want to work with this,” then that’s entirely your right, especially if you’re doing creative work and need to decide what to apply and to not to apply. (Although, as always, one must be conscientious and respectful of those who do like it and consider it canon, because everyone’s going to differ on this.) What I am talking about is when people take a substantial part of the franchise that they otherwise like, such as a movie or drama CD, see one detail that’s contradictory in terms of the timeline or lore, and take that as evidence of “yep, the entire thing’s not canon. We’ll just throw the entire thing out, then.” It just makes me think -- you threw out a perfectly good work for that?! That’s such a waste!
First of all, Toei and Bandai don’t work that way
In general, a lot of the contradictions in the series have a “right hand is not talking to left hand” problem, because as much as we would like to believe that a Digimon series is written by a single consistent entity, the franchise itself is a huge trade-off between Toei and Bandai, and a lot of things from Bandai -- spinoffs, crossover material, games, what have you -- don’t exactly have a stellar track record of being vetted by Toei anime staff. It’s pretty well-known that game portrayals of certain characters can be really off or have misleading info, and even V-Tamer’s somewhat guilty of it. So this is going to happen no matter whether you like it or not, and it happens with any long-running kids’ series that involves a collaboration between multiple companies like this.
Moreover, the traditional custom for Toei “side movies” (in this case, meaning things like the original movie, Our War Game!, Hurricane Touchdown, and Diablomon Strikes Back) is that they’re produced with minimal involvement from the original series’s core staff -- at most, the producer is lightly involved -- and are sometimes even worked on simultaneously with the start of the original series, so you often end up with a movie that’s impossible to fit anywhere in the series timeline because there wasn’t any communication with the two sides. And for that, it’s all too easy to dismiss those movies as “non-canon”, with the fanbase arbitrarily deciding that canon ones are canon because they fit -- but Toei itself has never taken this stance.
The other thing is that, given that Adventure/02 is famous for its ridiculous level of worldbuilding consistency thanks to its director Kakudou’s conscientious efforts on it, it means that as a result, anything not made by him was prone to running afoul on it, and it’s not like the stance back then was to just reject all of it wholesale. “Doesn’t comply with the lore” is so often equated with “not canon”, but Kakudou, the author of that lore, not only made no indication of invalidating or disliking those non-compliant things, but also conversely made an active effort to make those things relevant in spite of that! (See: Our War Game! below.) The official stance is to not deny those works for being noncompliant -- it’s just that Kakudou seems to be the detail-oriented kind of person who personally prefers to work with things that have a high level of consistency (he’s very quick to say “I wasn’t involved on that” whenever someone brings up something from said external materials, not in any condescending way, just “I wasn’t involved, so don’t attribute that to me”). In fact, one of the reasons there wasn’t initially a third Adventure series was that he had difficulty finding a way to adhere to the higher-ups’ pressure to keep all of these contradictions consistent -- so the official stance itself is to try and maintain all of those side works, and that it would be better to end the series itself than to have to do something like deny them.
Which makes things very frustrating for the fans, of course, but nevertheless, that’s how it is -- even back in 2000, the right-hand-not-talking-to-left-hand phenomenon was this significant! And it would have been easy for official to step in and go “okay, we’ll put a statement out here that these don’t apply,” but no, the stance was be that it would be better to stop dragging it out longer and cancel a whole series than to deny those works, which leads us to the current situation. (Plus, think how insulting it would feel from a PR perspective if someone got attached to one of those “non-canon” materials only for official to come out and outright say “yeah this doesn’t count anymore”; we can name examples of this happening in other franchises that have understandably gotten a lot of people upset, and it would be especially offensive to do this right after said material had been released.)
Bolstering the concept of official staff’s very loose opinion of “canon” are the Adventure novels, which were supervised by Kakudou himself and written by Digimon episode screenwriter Masaki Hiro, and are non-compliant with Adventure timeline by design, because it’d be bad for the format to try and depict every single detail in the anime in the form of three novels. Several events are condensed or shuffled out of order, or even sometimes completely different (Koushirou’s incident with Vadermon goes very differently from the anime version). Despite that, this is said directly to be intended as a series of novels to help people understand Adventure and 02 better, and several details in Two-and-a-Half Year Break and Spring 2003 are incredibly consistent with it (namely in the sense of details meant to retroactively connect Adventure to 02, and other background details like Daisuke’s backstory). So you are supposed to do some kind of mental leap where you don’t take the contradictions around the actual events too seriously, but still accept the spirit and the background information you learn from it and retroactively apply it to Adventure and 02 -- and, presumably, that’s probably what you’re expected to do with everything else, too.
And this isn’t even getting into the fact that the anime itself has occasional contradictions and errors due to things like animator error or simply different writers writing different episodes -- the Adventure and 02 staff were certainly very detail-oriented, but they are human and of course inevitably slipped up here and there. How seriously do you take honorifics shifting from episode to episode in ways that don’t seem intentional, or the fact every background material refers to Osamu and Ken having a bunk bed and yet the actual episode with both of them fails to depict it? How do you deal with the fact that the Animation Chronicle is one of the most extensively useful post-02 reference materials with tons of production background info not revealed in the anime, and yet is infamously full of suspected typos that would cause some pretty massive implications if true, or all of those other Bandai and Shueisha-commissioned “side books” and other pieces of media meant to entertain the kids while the series was airing but clearly had no input from Toei staff whatsoever? 
In the end, frustrating as it is, the answer seems to be the same as ever: figure it out yourself.
The standards for what’s “canon” and “not canon” are way too arbitrary
Let’s look at a handful of things that have been historically dismissed as “non-canon” by the fanbase:
The Adventure mini dramas and Armor Evolution to the Unknown: Drama CDs that were generally dismissed as non-canon because they’re “too crack” to be canon (their writing style is of the “it’s okay to push the boundaries of characterization for the sake of comedy” sort, and it wouldn’t be until later when we finally got some more serious drama CDs). The latter is full of honorific inconsistencies, most prominently Daisuke and Ken still being on surname basis at a time they’re not supposed to be (due to the fact that it was released while the series was still being produced). But official word is that you’re still supposed to consider them canon -- and yes, that’s Kakudou himself giving official sanction to a drama CD that involved a massive amount of fourth wall breaking and a completely unexplained reunion between the Adventure kids and their Digimon sometime between 1999 and 2002 (apparently this wasn’t the only one, either). How is this supposed to work? Figure it out yourself.
Hurricane Touchdown: The funny part is that up until Kizuna validated Wallace’s existence, there was no actual consistent agreement on why this movie shouldn’t be canon (the Western side being “evolutionary form timeline violations”, the Japanese side being Wallace’s status as a Chosen Child prior to 1995), which really goes to show you how arbitrary all of this is. It also has a sequel drama CD in the form of The Door to Summer, which is also contradictory with Hurricane Touchdown’s ending, so we’ve got two layers of “it can’t be canon because...” -- and yet it has a lot of interesting Daisuke characterization, and, heck, the whole character of Wallace himself, that would all be rejected if you throw this out wholesale. Then Kizuna came along, and there’s a general sense of hesitation against easily denying officially-sanctioned “main” entries like that, which retroactively forced people to somehow skip past all that and accept it, just for the sake of Kizuna’s notability.
Diablomon Strikes Back: Similar to the above, it used to be constantly dismissed as “a non-canon fun movie” because of the evolutionary forms that appear in it, despite the fact that 02 itself established that it wasn’t that hard to restore evolutionary forms if you figured something out. Somehow, a ton of people treated it as such an impossibility that “they figured it out in the first three months of 2003″ would be a viable explanation, and yet official word is that of the second through fourth movies, this is the one that had the most amount of initial consultation with the TV anime staff! And then tri. and Kizuna came along and clearly had high-level evolutions in play too, and dismissing DSB on these grounds meant dismissing those by proxy, and a lot of people were too intimidated to do that and decided to retroactively validate DSB instead, after years of having dismissed it for this reason. Again: look how arbitrary this all is.
The tri. stage play: Mainly because its timeline of events doesn’t fit tri. at all (in regards to the reboot and part 5). This is a fair assessment to make in light of the fact that it doesn’t seem to work very hard to be compliant with the very series it’s branded with, but, funnily enough, it’s actually more lore-compliant with the original Adventure and 02 than the tri. anime series is, and yet the few minor contradictions it makes with the tri. anime series are sufficient to consider it completely kicked out of canon, yet those same people who declare it so aren’t as willing to hold the anime to that same standard just because it holds a more prominent “main” position.
On the other hand, let’s look at some of the things that have been more likely to be accepted than the above:
Our War Game!: Reading this is probably going to make everyone go “whaaaaaat?”, but yep: according to Kakudou, the second through fourth movies were all made without his supervision or involvement and thus have lore contradictions (although he also made sure to say that they’re very fine movies, too). We still haven’t figured out what the lore contradiction is, and so the fanbase considers it canon, and even 02 itself makes multiple references to “the Diablomon incident” in 2000, so you can’t consider this non-canon in the slightest...but yes, according to the official side, it’s actually got a contradictory incursion somewhere in there. There is one hypothesis as to what it is, and it’s such a minor thing that no fan or even official member of staff would dare deny the movie for it, but it still contributes to how arbitrary this entire concept is: Kakudou didn’t want to give anyone (except Miyako, who’s based off a real person) canonical birthdays or blood types for the sake of preventing horoscoping, but Sora’s birthday is portrayed as being around March in the movie. And yes, Kakudou himself refers to this as being something that only happened because he wasn’t involved. (Remember what I said about him historically being quick to disclaim involvement on anything he wasn’t involved on, regardless of how much of a minor detail it is, yet doesn’t necessarily intend to deny the work entirely due to it?)
Tag Tamers: A very vital part of Ken’s backstory that establishes a lot of context behind the Dark Seed and the elusive Akiyama Ryou, which also does not make sense with 02′s timeline and characterization at all, presumably because Bandai and Toei weren’t properly communicating on what kind of details they needed to iron out for this. But of course, all of us would like some explanation to Ken’s backstory, and we have to apply some kind of logic as to how that makes sense, and I’ve yet to see people declare Tag Tamers (or any of the other WonderSwan games) as entirely non-canon as a result.
tri.: For obvious reasons, it’s a “major entry in the franchise”, so people are generally more averse to dismissing it so easily (or, at least, for reasons that aren’t related to pure preference), but I find it rather ironic that Kizuna’s the one that got all the attention for apparently being lore non-compliant, when the exact same lore points mentioned in Kakudou’s reasoning as to why it’s non-compliant (along with a ton of things that actually were in Adventure and 02′s text) are gone against even more regularly and prominently in tri., whereas Kizuna still goes out of its way to adhere to most of these and only seems to have incurred a contradiction in terms of originally intended ideology, and, possibly, its extensive use of the aforementioned movies. (Recall that this got brought up for Kizuna specifically because Kakudou was initially consulted for it; he wasn’t involved in tri. to begin with at all.) See above on how people’s unwillingness to write this one off so easily despite everything ended up retroactively dragging DSB into “accepted canon” territory; that’s how arbitrary this entire thing is.
Then, tied to all of this and making it even more confusing is Kizuna, which, again, putting all issues of personal preference aside, is basically being torn back and forth between all of these whenever you try to apply one of the above arbitrary standards. It’s allegedly lore-noncompliant with Kakudou’s lore and thus lacks his involvement, but it does have the involvement of original series producer Seki Hiromi who was known to be responsible for the series’s original human drama themes (including the premise of 02 itself) and personally vetted the scripts so that everyone could be properly in-character and the original themes still intact; it’s supposedly a “main” entry to the point where people will stop denying older works’ canonicity because of it (see Hurricane Touchdown above), but, legally speaking, is actually classified in the same “gekijouban” category that the first four movies and things like the Tamers through Savers movies are; the staff will say to hell and back that the 02 epilogue still holds (and the movie makes abundant retroactive references in both worldbuilding and themes to it), but many people out there will still insist that the movie ending that way means that (like with DSB above) “they figured it out” between the movie’s ending and the epilogue is apparently some kind of impossibility, and either the movie is non-canon or the 02 epilogue is invalidated now. (My personal stance on this is that the epilogue itself provides the answer to how they figure it out if you look closely at the movie’s themes, but that’s a tangent.)
The point I’m trying to make is that regardless of whatever stance you take on all of the above points, this is all extremely arbitrary, and these fanbase rationalizations on why this and that isn’t canon are constantly contradicting each other, shifting, and occasionally based on really meaningless things. And, again, it’s fine if you’re saying that you don’t consider this or that canon because you personally dislike it or where it went, or you find it difficult to work with, or between two contradictory things you prefer one or the other (I certainly have my fair share of strong opinions in this regard) -- but it would be better if we all admitted this and went “I just don’t consider this canon” instead of acting like there were ever some universal consensus or official backing.
"It didn’t happen this exact way, but something resembling it still happened”
So, we’re in this uncomfortable situation where we’ve been handed a ball of knots and have to work with it (a very frustrating situation especially for fanfic writers), and I have to personally say that I think all of this comes from people having far too inflexible of a concept of “canon” and “not canon”, especially to the point of rejecting a full-on perfectly fine entry just because of one timeline issue. I honestly think it’d be better if we could rather take a certain stance close to the Pixiv dictionary wiki’s view of how Wallace can appear in Kizuna: “(some version of) Wallace exists in the timeline of the main story.”
Right, so: Hurricane Touchdown is contradictory. The evolutions don’t work at that point in timeline, and Wallace shouldn’t be able to be a Chosen Child from before 1995. Those things don’t work with Adventure and 02′s timeline and lore. However, let’s look at the following story: let’s say that, between 02 episodes 14 and 15 (when the movie first screened), while school was on break, Daisuke and his friends went on a summer adventure to the US and met a boy named Wallace, who had a struggle regarding one of his partners losing his sanity, and bonded with him and helped put his partner to rest. No part of this contradicts 02 at all. There we go! So we can safely say that some story that mostly resembled Hurricane Touchdown happened in the canon timeline. Some of its details weren’t exactly the way they happened in “the movie we, as the audience, saw” -- but something that substantially resembled the movie still happened in the universe of Daisuke and his friends. And you can apply that same logic to Tag Tamers, or any other vital canonical but ostensibly contradictory material -- the media that we as the audience got may not accurately reflect the events in universe, but there’s absolutely nothing saying that some more timeline and lore-consistent alternate version didn’t happen in canon instead.
Moreover, even Adventure/02 itself gives you a bit of precedent for this concept -- namely, the fact that the final episode of 02 reveals that the entirety of Adventure and 02 is part of Takeru’s novels. It’s a pretty common theory that there might be differences in the way “the story we got” was presented, versus how they actually happened in the world Takeru lived in -- of course, Takeru certainly went out of his way to remove as much bias from the situation as he could, but you can hardly say that he, as a human, would be completely free from it, and he himself even admits that everyone he consulted had differing opinions on the events in question. And not every single piece of Digimon media has the Hirata-Hiroaki-as-Takeru narrator, which means that perhaps it’s not entirely out of the question that the different takes on the stories that the Tokyo Chosen Children went through in their youth would not be entirely consistent with each other, depending on who’s telling it. But that doesn’t mean that those events necessarily didn’t happen at all, just that some of the details were different from what we as the audience saw.
In the end, I leave the rest to everyone else to figure out -- as I said, I think this is a decision everyone will have to make for themselves, whether they’re a fanfic writer picking and choosing what to include for the sake of a coherent fic, or whether they’re just expressing a preference to not have to think too hard about or work with something they’re turned off by. (And in the case that there is someone who expresses their dislike of working with something and doesn’t want to consider it canon, I think it’s very rude to give them grief for that, and conversely, if you don’t want to consider something canon but encounter someone who doesn’t have as much of a problem with it, it’s very rude to try and expect them to change their opinion to yours.) But I do think it would do well for all of us to have a bit more of an open mind and a creative attitude towards these kinds of things before trying to shove everything into a “fully canon” and “fully not canon” binary.
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blouisparadise · 4 years
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Upon request, here is a rec list of bottom Louis fics with everyone’s favorite trope - sharing a bed! We hope you enjoy this list. Happy reading!
1) Just Like Live Wires | Explicit | 5427 words
Harry climbs into Louis' bed when he's cold. Louis pines.
2) Been Gone Way Too Long | Explicit | 8836 words
“This can’t be happening,” Louis says, banging his hand against the window. “This seriously can’t be happening right now.”
Things like this only happen in the movies. Things like this don’t happen in real life. There’s no way that he’s seriously been snowed in. There’s no way that the heating is broken. There’s no way that it’s going to take upwards of twenty-four hours and probably a lot longer for the storm to break and someone to come and rescue them.
“Just sit down, Louis,” Harry sighs from somewhere behind him. He sounds miserable, like he’s already feeling the cold.
Louis whirls around and points a finger at him. “Did you plan this?” he demands a little hysterically. He regrets the question as soon as it’s out of his mouth, but he thinks he’s got a valid point. It’s not like this storm just came out of nowhere - it has to have been on the news for a couple of days, at least. Plenty of time for Harry to have canceled this excursion.
3) I'm Trying Not To Make A Sound | Explicit | 10452 words
Louis thinks he could die right there. He can’t feel anything but the tingling sensation all over his skin. He’s throwing away all his past thoughts on trying to be straight and denying his reactions towards other men, he just wants more of this numbing feeling. Everything else is a long lost memory, can’t think of anything else besides, wow, this feels incredible.
4) Enjoy The Ride | Not Rated | 11103 words
The one where Louis, an omega more than tired of being treated as lesser than alphas, is forced on a road trip by his beta besties only to meet Harry who might just be the alpha he never knew he wanted.
5) Cuffed | Not Rated | 15254 words
What would you do if you were handcuffed to your enemy for 48 hours?
6) Up For It | Explicit | 18223 words
The one where Liam is Mr Organised, Zayn is too perceptive for his own good, Niall is a compulsive matchmaker, and Harry and Louis might just have the surprise to shock them all.
7) Holiday Greetings (And Gay Happy Meetings) | Not Rated | 18417 words | Sequel
Note: This fic has no smut, but it has omega Louis. The sequel has smut.
The one where Niall's dead car and and a foot of snow conspire to force Louis into spending time with an alpha he hates.... or does he?
8) The Aurora Zone | Explicit | 19633 words
The one where Harry is busy crossing off his bucket list while Louis is busy falling for the guy he's supposed to hate.
9) I Wanna Be More Than Friends | Not Rated | 20721 words
The one where Harry’s an alpha with no sense of smell, Louis’ an omega who isn’t allowed to scent his best friend, and that’s all they’ll ever be. Obviously.
10) Etched In Salt (Is A Cathedral Of The World) | Explicit | 24417 words
Note: This fic has BH mentions. It is also locked and can only be read by AO3 users.
Louis asks for very few things in life, and they are: to solve cases, to keep bad people from doing their bad things, to get good coffee, to go home to a spacious apartment with nobody else in it, and to manage his stupid telempathy powers with minimal interference. And now he's stuck in a tiny cabin in a snowstorm in the middle of god-awful-nowhere with Harry Styles. Because of course he is.
11) Like A Siren In The Night | Explicit | 25868 words
“There is an infestation in my home,” Louis hisses, righting himself quickly and pushing his way past Harry, heading directly for the kitchen. He’s rather haphazardly dressed himself, a coat thrown on over a loose flannel shirt and black pants, slippers on his feet.
Harry resists the urge to sigh, closing the door and trailing behind him slowly. “What kind of infestation?”
For all he knows, Louis is going to claim that there’s a ghost infestation. Harry has no idea what the end game is here – all he knows is that Louis has found at least three complaints a week to bring up since he’s been living on Harry’s property, and he’s been living here for six months.
It’s way too many fucking complaints, is what Harry is saying. Especially when most of them are ridiculous to start with.
12) Always Come Back To You | Explicit | 28682 words
“I’ll do it,” Harry offers brightly. No one even blinks. “I’ll do it?”
Louis sighs irritably. “Shut up,” he orders, tossing a pillow in the general direction of Harry’s face. This is a terrible time for jokes, especially Harry’s lame, old people ones.
Not that it was an old people joke. Just that most of the time Harry’s jokes consist of knock-knocks or terrible puns. The type of jokes old people like, Louis’ pretty sure. His nan always finds them hilarious when Harry tells her one.
Harry bats the pillow out of the air without even blinking. “Be reasonable, Lou,” he says in his most reasonable voice.
Louis is perfectly reasonable, thank you very much, and he’s also frustrated and upset and tired and he really wants to punch something. Maybe he should have held on to that pillow a little longer.
“You’re not gonna fucking do it,” he snaps. “That’s the last thing I need.”
13) We’re Not Who We Used To Be | Explicit | 30611 words
“Harry…” Louis’ voice catches in his throat, thick with tears threatening to fall out, so he coughs to clear it before trying again. “Harry is Liam’s best man?” “You didn’t know?” Harry is standing at the entrance of the garage, mouth slightly open and face pulled together. He sets his bag on the ground and puts his hands on his hips. When he does that, he looks just like the Harry that Louis remembers (and loves, he thinks with an aching heart). “I’m sure I mentioned it,” Liam says, but Louis can tell he’s lying by the way he chews on his lower lip and twists his fingers together. “You’re all a bunch of dick heads, I’m getting in the car.” Louis isn’t sure if he’s being unreasonable. He has no idea what the protocol is when your ex-boyfriend shows up after three years and nobody bothered to give you a heads up. He’s pretty sure he’s allowed to be upset about it, even if it’s only for a bit.
14) Blind From This Sweet, Sweet Craving | Explicit | 31170 words
"So, I guess we'll go?" Louis asks later, when Harry has calmed down and eaten his weight in Chinese food. He plays with this chopsticks, spearing another piece of chicken and pops it in his mouth. "I mean, I wouldn't mind. We could make it an adventure."
Harry observes him, watches him seated across from him on their old living room carpet, with a container of food on his lap. He's fidgeting, avoiding meeting Harry's gaze–he probably knows that Harry's mad at him for ruining the one chance they had to get out of this situation. And he's not wrong, Harry is definitely very mad. Harry wants to strangle him and castrate him and smack him upside the head.
But he's also Harry's best friend, and despite everything, despite all the fuck-ups and the plot twists and everything just not playing out the way it should, he'd still rather be stuck in this situation with Louis than any of the other boys. He's got Harry's back, and in a weird, abstract way, he knows they'll be able to get out of this situation, together.
Harry sighs. "We're going," he says resignedly, his shoulders slumping.
Oh well. There are definitely worse ways to spend the weekend than pretending to be engaged to his best friend.
15) Welcome Back From The Friend Zone | Mature | 32584 words
The one where an idea to create a fake wedding with the sole intent to receive gifts from billionaires took a turn no one, but also everyone, saw coming.
16) Let Me Feel Your Heartbeat | Explicit | 34572 words
Harry is 98% sure Louis hates him. So he feels like his bewilderment is justified when the omega offers to help him through his rut.
17) Close To Nowhere | Explicit | 34589 words
Louis and Harry are psychics who kind of hate each other. They go to Tennessee to investigate a haunting.
18) Playing To Win | Explicit | 36732 words
Big Brother UK alumni Louis Tomlinson and Harry Styles are selected for the UK vs Australia All Stars series with a massive one million dollar prize in the offing. They’re both fit and smart and would make a great alliance... if only they can stop their feelings from getting in the way.
19) If I Stay | Mature | 37226 words
Harry and Louis agree to a temporary arrangement that Harry can't seem to walk away from no matter how many times he tries.
20) The Space Between | Explicit | 39917 words
Harry Styles is the alpha rockstar who can’t sleep and doesn’t know why.
Louis Tomlinson is the omega PhD student who helps him figure it out.
21) Strangers In Love | Explicit | 42207 words
Louis wakes up to find himself in a marriage with the last man he thought he'd ever end up with.
22) Tangled Up In You | Explicit | 45152 words
Harry blinks once. And blinks again. And says, his voice dangerous: “Niall, did you get me a mail-order bride?”
Because what the actual fuck. It kind of looks like Niall’s just purchased a person. For Harry.
Niall blinks back at him for a few moments, before throwing his head back and howling with laughter. Harry throws a pillow at him. Hard. “No, what the fuck, Harry.”
“A prostitute then?” Harry also doesn't want a prostitute.
“Of course not!”
“A stripper?”
“No!”
Damn, he’s running out of ideas. He settles for launching another pillow at Niall’s head. Niall bats it away easily, still laughing. “Stop!”
“What did you get me, then?!” Niall must hear the tinge of hysteria in his voice, because he’s pulling himself together, trying to stop himself from laughing.
There’s still a big grin on his face, though, when he says, “I got you a professional cuddler.”
A professional…what. “What?”
23) No Going Back | Explicit | 56102 words
Sales reps Harry and Louis are bored with their jobs and their lives. After meeting at a conference in Cardiff they hook up, have a few too many drinks, and jokingly apply to become remote lighthouse keepers. Six months, just the two of them, looking after the southernmost lighthouse off the bottom of Australia. It’s not like their applications will be accepted. Right?
This is the story of how one choice - a left instead of a right, a go instead of a stop, a yes instead of a no - can change the future forever and that sometimes, taking that leap of faith, is worth the risk.
24) Waiting For The Tides To Meet | Explicit | 59873 words
Soulmate AU. Everyone is born with heterochromia — one eye is their own eye colour, while the other is the colour of their soulmate's. It's only when they meet their soulmate for the first time that their own eyes match properly. After a hazy night at a frat party, Louis wakes up to blue eyes and the shocking realization that he had met his soulmate, without any sober recollection. Seven years pass where Louis comes to terms with the fact that he'll never know who his soulmate is. Then one fated summer, a beautiful green-eyed photographer arrives at Louis' workplace, with promises of endless laughter and a familiar feeling in Louis' heart.
25) Swallow The Knife | Explicit | 76158 words
“You came,” Louis says, still breathless, clinging to Harry, uncaring that his sweat is getting all over Harry’s presumably clean dad shirt, or that he’s making Harry hold up all of his weight.
“Of course I came,” Harry says. He shifts, one arm curled underneath Louis’ arse, the other spreading wide in the middle of Louis’ back. “If I ignored you every time you pissed me off we would have stopped being friends a long time ago.”
Louis already knows that, of course. It doesn’t do anything to stop the pleased squirm in his belly every time Harry proves it, though. They fight like nobody’s business, both of them too stubborn to pull their punches when they’re arguing, and it used to get them in trouble, but they always make up.
Adrenaline makes Louis loose-lipped, and they both know it. He tightens his arms around Harry’s neck, buries his face in his hair. “I missed you,” he confesses, quiet. “Doesn’t feel the same up there by myself.”
26) Waiting On You | Explicit | 76584 words
“Vampires,” Louis says with disgust, glaring over at the vampire who is noisily slurping from the woman’s neck nearby.
Zayn gives the neat fang marks on Louis’ neck a meaningful look.
“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Louis finishes, ignoring Zayn when he rolls his eyes.
Louis takes a long sip of his milkshake, presses his fingers against the marks on his neck, and definitely doesn’t think about the vampire who left them there.
27) Perfect Storm | Explicit | 80230 words
What do you do when your best friend asks you and your (now) ex to be the best men at his destination wedding? You can either tell him the truth, tell him you’re not together anymore, and deal with the consequences, or you can pretend you’re still together and roll with it, just pray you don’t spiral. Fake it ‘til you make it. You know, for the sake of the wedding.
Harry and Louis choose the latter.
28) Nothing Worsens, Nothing Grows | Mature | 102528 words
Another roadtrip AU featuring Harry as the misunderstood hipster, Louis as the bitter psych major, Liam as the one with the secret boyfriend, and Niall as the one who just wants everyone to be happy.
Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.
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tortoisenottortoise · 3 years
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Am I the only one who likes seeing muscular women in media more than muscular men?
Alright so, this one will probably end up much shorter and a little more ranty than I'd like, but this is kind of personal so be fairly warned. 
 Recently I've seen a few complaints about the new He-Man show and honestly, I fully understand and empathize with them. Whilst I haven't fully seen the show, from what I've viewed I can personally speaking agree (or at the very least understand) where most criticisms come from. I think it's incredibly shitty that the writer basically lied to his audience about how the show would run. Now normally I'd be fine with a twist such as He-man dying, but he's an important part of the show and the way the marketing & merchandising for it was running kind of comes across as him basically using He-Man's name to get people into the show. I also feel like it's fine to view Teela as obnoxious and annoying, nothing about her personality-wise seems likable to me. I also heard a few complaints about Orko's (I think that's his name, don't crucify me) backstory and how his character was handled.Yet as the title suggests one that didn't stick with me was the criticism of Teela and a general trend towards the criticism of women in media as being "masculine". 
I've heard over and over that Hollywood representing strong women by giving them masculine traits is a bad thing and yet... I kind of don't get it? It feels odd to say, almost like I'm the dumbest man alive for admitting something which most people on the internet seem to be so sure about, yet I just don't understand where this is coming from. I've seen this thrown at She-hulk, Wonder Woman, Abby, and many other characters, yet when inquired it usually loops back around to, "Yeah they have muscles", and that's about it. This type of criticism in specific seems to overly focus on the appearance of said characters. It's the one critique I just can't get behind and it feels like at best it's a shallow criticism that fails to get its point across, and at worst it's actively demeaning to women who desire to or show masculine traits. But first, let me break this down into sections.
Section 1: Muscles =/= Masculinity (In my opinion at least)
Oh boy, I feel like this is a section that might rustle some feathers, but I'm going to try and explain myself best as possible. I simply do not view muscularity as a feature that is inherent to or should be inherent to men. I'm not going to pretend as if muscular men aren't more saturated in media and art, nor as if they're societally treated as masculine, but one of the reasons I fail to understand this criticism is that I see muscles beyond the horizons as being just a masculine trait. 
I believe that muscles should instead be seen as a sign of hard work and determination. As someone who's currently trying (and struggling) to stay healthy and fit, it's much harder than a lot of media portrays it to be. It's a test where you push yourself to the limits, not just for the sake of doing it, but so you can improve as a person. Whenever I go to the gym and see a muscular gal or guy walk by, my immediate thought isn't, "how masculine" or anything like that my thought is, "wow! They worked hard to get like that, I should work hard as well!". 
This interpretation tends to feel like it's just simply taking a piss on people who actively work hard to achieve higher levels of strength. Especially when society places and enforces these unrealistic standards onto people. If you don't have a six-quintillion pack nor can bench press a fucking house then you're worthless, of course, that is unless you actually attempt to pursue said standards which in that case you're automatically dismissed as cheating your way to gaining your muscles instead of putting any work in. And that's just for men who often don't have to deal with traditional idiots who are stuck in the year 1950 where I can't walk on the same street as them. My skin crawls when reading tweets from older men talking about how weightlifting women are "ruining their fertility" and I absolutely hate it when people in my life treat these women as if they're mythical creatures from a fairy tale, or when females who have trained to such a degree are simply dismissed as being inferior. 
Obviously, I don't think the people who say this are like that, but whenever I hear this type of critique I can't help but think of the culmination of all these experiences I've gone through. But then again, this might honestly just be because I'm personally attracted to muscular women.
  Section 2: Body type diversity
  Another reason that I tend to like muscular women in media over muscular men is simply due to the sheer oversaturation of muscular men. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem if anybody likes muscular men. I totally get wanting to shove your face in between some man titties or get inspired by their physiques. In all honesty, almost everything I said earlier can directly apply to men, but one of the reasons I bring up body type diversity is that there tend to be much less muscular women than men. I
f anything, I'd have to say that muscular men are almost treated as the default when it comes to things like superhero comics, movies, video games, anime, etc. In a similar vein, the default for women tends to be slim and curvaceous, you get the drill. Whenever someone who doesn't fit into either body type shows up and isn't treated like a joke/gag or a character to rip on, I can't help but be happy about it. As much as I have no clue wtf is going on with TLOU2, I can appreciate that Abby's portrayal doesn't seem to exist solely as a joke meant to demean women for working out. I'm excited when an anime protagonist is a fat character who can go beyond just being a "fat guy" and is treated the same way a normal person would be.
 Regardless of what you think about whatever trait you're criticizing, there's probably someone out there who fits it. If you're not into it or dislike it, then that's fine, but I'd rather have that expressed than it being actively made out as a harmful trope as opposed to just literally another body type that some women have.
  Section 3: Muscular women inspire me more
Ok so, we've now blown into a full-on personal experience, buckle up boys, girls, NBs, anything in between, and I feel like I'm forgetting someone so apologies! But yeah, muscular women in media tend to be a lot more inspiring than people seem to give them credit for. This comes down to a mix of both the qualities I outlined earlier in what makes the characters inspiring but also plays into the idea of body diversity. 
One of the traits that make amazons seem more inspiring is their inherent rarity/lack of screentime. As I stated earlier, whilst I do enjoy my fair share of man-titties, it kind of gets to a point where it's more depressing than inspiring when all you see is just super-models shoved in your face whenever you walk into a theater. If for every Goku I could find ten other guys who were on the chubbier side then I'd be able to take more from when I see Goku and other characters with his body type, yet it's so saturated that it no longer becomes something to aspire to, but simply the norm.  It's not that you can work to become muscular or skinny with hard work and effort, you have to be muscular or skinny unless you want to be deemed a failure. Being chubby often isn't presented as a starting point but just treated as a defect. As someone who spent years battling with my own self-perception, that's just not a good message to get across.
Now, this obviously isn't to say that people can never make muscular characters. After all, it's their story so they can put whatever they want in it. The aim of the game isn't to stop people from making a specific type of character, but to encourage a diverse set of people to make a diverse set of characters. This is the reason why I view muscular women as so inspiring. Instead of coming across as just "the norm" or "the standard" they stand out from the crowd and despite knowing what they have to deal with, are still ready and willing to work out and improve their bodies. They had a goal in mind and set time aside to achieve said goal, that's something I can get behind.
  Conclusion:
This will be another short section, but I just wanted to mention it because it caps off my thoughts on this post in general. What originally started as me just not getting the reason why people disliked Teela's design somehow turned into a passionate rant and I'm A) not sure if it fits on this particular subsection of the community, B) scared I'm going to get ripped to pieces, and C) somewhat unsatisfied with all that I said. At the end of the day, this probably won't be seen by too many people, but to those who do see it, I hope you have a wonderful day. I just wanted to talk about something that was near and dear to my heart and hoped that I made it clear why I view things the way I do. 
P.S: Can we stop having this double standard where we act like women whose arms show the slightest hint of definition are "unrealistic" whilst men can look like tree trunks and be considered normal and healthy? please and thank you!
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eggdesign · 3 years
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Finding your audience
Part 3 in my like + reblog series.
In part 2, we discussed the results of part 1 and what might be better to focus on instead of the like to reblog ratio. In this post, we’re going to dive in deeper into that! These tips can be useful for reaching to a wider audience or trying new theme types outside of your comfort zone.
Like the other posts in this series, it is pretty long, and will have a summary added in an update. 
Sections of this post:
Who is your target audience?
Blog Type
Blog Theme
Blog Features
More tips
Who is your target audience?
In order to reach whatever your goal is for your theme, it’s important to understand who your target audience is*.
Some questions to consider:
What kind of blog does this theme suit best?
Is your preview ‘themed’ in a specific way (aesthetic, fandom, etc)?
Does it have any special features specific to certain blog types (fansite, blog members section, commission page, etc)?
*A small disclaimer: you do not have to do any of the things I’m about to list below. Ultimately, make themes you want to make + how you want to make them. These are just tips if you are stuck and want to reach more users.
These tips can also apply if you are perfectly fine with your current audience but want to get better at making previews!
Blog Type
Look at whatever theme you’re working on, and think about what kind of blog type will use this theme the most and make it look the best. 
If your theme has 3 columns, odds are your posts will be on the smaller side and won’t look as good with text heavy blogs. In this case, you should make your theme preview appeal to blogs that usually don’t reblog text heavy things like aesthetic blogs and art blogs. Try to be consistent with your posts so that it’s clear what blog type you are going for. 
If your theme has a lot of image based elements (whether it’s sidebar, header, or other image placements), you should go for blogs that reblog/make icons + graphics. This can be blogs that feature fandom gifs/edits, rp blogs, kpop blogs, etc. They will be more likely to have a good eye for images that go well together and fit in with your theme’s design. 
Blog Theme
While not every blog has a specific theme it follows, a lot do have something they primarily focus on! They might not be particular when it comes to choosing their theme, but they will be more likely to choose something that features the thing they post about. 
An example of this happening is my theme Facade. I included a fandom post that I didn’t even realize was from that fandom, the aesthetic just matched the theme perfectly. The theme got reblogged heavily from that fandom, and got a lot bigger than I was anticipating! While this one wasn’t intentional, almost all of my most popular themes are using this method. 
The easiest way to do this is make your theme preview feature things you are interested in as well, or are familiar with. The more familiar you are with a fandom’s ‘aesthetic’, the easier this will be to incorporate in a theme’s design, plus it’s fun to do when you’re passionate about it! 
This can be picking a sidebar + header that features characters/actors, or featuring edits + fanart from that fandom. This works well if you want to appeal to that fandom but also want people outside of the fandom interested as well. 
You can also go all out and make something directly inspired by a fandom. Video game inspired UI, using fonts from movies/tv shows, incorporating album covers in your design, are all ways to feature fandoms in your themes more directly.
Keep in mind that this option might make you lose audiences that are not part of the fandom, so if you want a more universal appeal, option 1 might be better. .
Try to look for blog themes/fandoms that have a strong community but aren’t really featured in themes. This doesn’t mean you can’t release a theme inspired by a very popular community, but your theme has a higher chance of getting lost in a long list of already existing themes. 
Blog Features
Some users have specific things they look for in a theme because of the type of blog they have. These things might not appear in your average theme, so they’re more likely to be on the lookout for specific features and pass on themes that don’t have them. 
Writing blogs are a good example of this. These can be fanfic writers, studyblrs, or just language/writing blogs in general! Lots of themes are geared more towards photo posts, and previews will often reflect and highlight these over text posts.
If you want to appeal to this group, make sure your preview highlights text posts, and that your text post styling really stands out. One complaint I’ve seen from this user group is that a lot of theme posts are too small for what they’re writing, so themes with larger posts and larger text will appeal to this group more. 
RP blogs are another example. Similar to writing blogs, but usually come with a different set of needs. RP blogs have a lot of replies, so having dashboard captions might be a better option than blockquotes for readability. Sometimes they include icons in their replies, so make sure your themes support smaller images in posts and won’t stretch them out. They also might look for members + muse sections, rules sections/popups, and places to add custom graphics.
More tips
One thing that is universal in all of these options is doing your research. If you’re trying to appeal to a wider audience than what you currently have, you might have to step outside of your comfort zone. 
It’s never okay to steal someone’s design, but do study other blog themes that your target audience uses. This isn’t really about the design of the theme, but what features they have. What do these blogs have in common? Do they share color schemes, font choices? Do they prefer sidebars over headers? Do they like simple or complex themes?
These are all things you should consider when making a theme for your target audience. 
Going back to blog themes, I would personally avoid intentionally going after what is popular just to increase your note count. If you’re not really into what you’re making, it might start feeling like a chore and draining to make. You also run the risk of it feeling ‘empty’ compared to your other work. The extra notes aren’t really worth that, in my opinion. But if that doesn’t bother you, by all means go for it! Just a warning as someone who tried that for my 2nd ever (and since long deleted) theme because I was new. 
Finally, if your target audience is small, your note count might reflect that. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing! If your target audience loves your theme, then it is still successful!
I’m also saying this to not get discouraged if your theme doesn’t go beyond a smaller group. That doesn’t mean it was a bad theme, your audience might just be really niche, and that’s ok! 
However, if you want to change that, then hopefully this post has been helpful!
In part 4 I will cover reaching audiences that might not be actively looking for themes
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devintrinidad · 4 years
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So Uhm, CAW anon here. I haven’t been into Hetalia for years. But I feel like talking about a few things I noticed back in fandom a lot that I didn’t see at all in the canon manga/anime (though Hetalia itself is just a fanfic of history. I’m only focusing on character and relationships present in the canon series). 
Ok a lot has probably changed since the last couple of years in fandom. But back then I saw a lot of depictions of the FACE group: England and Canada not having much of a relationship. France and Canda being the closest while France and America aren’t close at all. America and Canada having a strained if not dysfunctional brotherly bond. Canada having no backbone and being a sad sack all the time or just being a pure angel with no flaws. America being too childish.
I’m going to try to remember all the canon bits to back me up. But I’m mostly curious if there’s anything off and your (most likely much more up to date and informed) thoughts. 
Canada and England have a pretty good relationship from what I’ve seen. We’ve sen plenty of material of England being present in colony Canada’s life. He used to cook for him too (poor Canada) and Canada spent almost about the same amount of time with him as America did. Later on Canada chose Enlgand over America when the colonies revolted. He didn’t want to pick a side but in the end he did. He fought against American troops. Was there when England was heartbroken over the fighting. He even acted as a strategist, using his knowledge as America’s twin brother to use America’s weaknesses against him (sending surrender papers inside a basket of food. America was so hungry it took George Washington telling him to resist to not take the bait).  Later on when America and Canada were trying to mend their relationship. Canada would get so nervous and have England talk for him all the time instead (which only confused America). England did it without any fuss despite any issues he and America might still have. Overall Canada recalls having a good childhood and England was a part of that. The two might not be as close as America and England are, but they have their own history and bond both are very comfortable and happy with each other. 
America and Canada. Fans I ran into often focused on America and England’s dynamic history. But the North American brothers have a lot of their own turmoil and strength to them as well. While Canada might,moan about being invisible and such. Canada also remembers having a very fun childhood with America. So much he remembers how sad he was when America grew up much faster then him and couldn’t play with him all the time like he used to. When Canada told America he didn’t want to fight, only to choose England, America felt betrayed. He loved Canada and wanted his twin brother to fight for freedom with him. Their relationship went pretty sour for a long time. But the two did end up trying to be mature later on in life and congratulate each other despite how annoyed they are at how different the other is. 
From there we only get brother goodness. They can bug each other a lot. Canada takes for granted everything America has done and gone through, things that have also been good for Canada. While America likes to mess with Canada and act pushy with him. They do like to horse around and spend time together. Despite their differences, they’re probably the closest siblings in the world of nations. They’ve gone through their bitterness and still chose to be close brothers in the end. They like to play sports together. They like to use their appearances to mess with England who can’t tell them apart like France can. They call each other on the phone a lot. They have a joint Search for Santa Claus operations every winter. America respects Canada’s opportunity and ability to easily get along with others. He also takes Canada’s concerns very seriously and offers reasonable and helpful advice such as how to help his citizens get along. Canada’s opinions must mean a lot to him since Canada is the only individual to make America cry in despair when he went into his 3 hour insult rant against him. Despite his complaints about his personality, Canada looks up to America as a big brother who he always goes to for comfort or help. He respects and admires America a lot and trusts him as his closest confidante (after his polar bear. Not that that bear is ever helpful). Overall America and Canada have their downs like every sibling pair has. But they also seem to have a very strong and stable connection where they can act like brothers and best friends. Sometimes I think it’s easier to imagine America is closer to Canada then he is to England. 
America and France. Back then these two didn’t get a lot of attention. Which is strange because there’s tons of material of them interacting throughout the centuries. France used to cook for America when England wasn’t around (I bet when Colony America said English food was as good as French food, some thing broke inside France. The reason America started disliking English food is because France made it his mission to salvage some of his tastebuds. Xp). France has been the only FACE member to stay by America’s side without conflict. Both of them obviously had a close bond since France gave America Lady Liberty and you could see teasing and ruffling America’s hair like a big brother. The two hang out a lot. They go to Maid Cafes together. They seem to have lunch together all the time at conferences since France is always looking for America to go eat together. They apparently also have sleepovers a lot and like to compare different genres of movies. Whatever issues their people can have with each other never seems to affect their personal interactions. France is the big brother of love and that’s sometimes a running gag for jokes. But he really seems to be like a normal big brother figure for America. He often worries about America and Russia’s scary relationship and chides England for raising America to be weird. In a deleted strip, France is preventing America from drinking alcohol because he’s too young (being physically 19). It also gets a bit heartwarming when you recall the Joan of arc strips where France meets the reincarnation of Joan and she’s an American. Almost like America is now taking care of Joan and giving her the opportunity to be free and happy in ways she couldn’t before. 
Also while it’s not part of their dynamic. It’s always interesting that when the author wanted to show the Nation’s personal relationships with humanity. He always chose America and France. The supposed happy go lucky airheads who often gain a affectionate yet somber (to even downright tragic) experience from it. 
Overall America and France have a nice quiet and stable relationship. You could say while England raised America as a colony. France was among the mentors to America on how to be his own Nation. 
I think that’s it. Again my memory might be foggy but that’s what I can recall. =P
~~~
WAIT A MINUTE YOU’RE ALSO A HETALIAN??? AND YOU NEVER TOLD ME???
Okay, I’m going to prioritize this ask/submission thing first because wow, you’re a Hetalian and Hetalia has a special place in my heart. First of all, I’m kind of flattered that you think that I’m up to date for this, hahaha. I’ll have to tell you, while I do know a lot about American history, I’m actually more of a fan of the Itabros, hehehe.
A few tumblr people that I know specialize in Hetalia and have already posted FACE dynamics a lot in the blogs are, but not limited to: @historihet  @stirringwinds and @ellawritesficssometimes. I’m not sure if Ella is still active, but there’s a lot of content that you can browse through if I’m not thorough. Also, again, the list of tumblrs that have been associated with FACE are definitely more than I can imagine, those are the three that I follow and know off the top of my head.
To @historihet @stirringwinds @ellawritesficssometimes, I love your interpretations and love for history! If I say anything inaccurate or something you don’t find to your liking, please inform me! I don’t want to spread misinformation and I’m just so excited to talk about Hetalia to my dear Anon Friend :D 
If you’re reading this, I hope that you all have a wonderful day! And keep up the great work with your own analyses/fanart/fanfiction/etc. You guys rock and keep the fandom alive. :D
Anywhoozles, what you said here is fairly accurate. FACE definitely has its up and downs. Assuming that you haven’t been active in the fandom since... let’s say 2012-2014ish era, you might have noticed that the common bonds are Canada and France (platonic), France and England (rivalry/lovers/enemies), and the most concerning relationship America and England (brothers/rivals/lovers???). What you said in your analysis really applies within the sense of what is considered to be manga/anime canon, not necessarily historical canon. 
In historical canon (if you want to go down that route), FACE is one dysfunctional mess if you want to consider it as one family unit. Every one of them at one point has been at each other’s throat at one point (whether it be at war or just snubbing the other because of politics). 
We have:
1. The Revolutionary War (England vs America)
2. War of 1812 (Canada/England vs America, with special emphasis in 1814 because Canada burned down America’s White House if I remember correctly)
3. The XYZ Affair (I’m pretty sure it was a snub in diplomacy??? which actually started a war???)
4. The fact that American promised to help France in their own revolution, but Washington said no because we’re still a new country and all that jazz (...I know this because of Hamilton IF YOU’RE ALSO A HAMILFAN I WILL CRY)
5. And like the entire history of France/England is just its own thing
As you can probably tell, FACE... I think was just a  term for the fans to make this makeshift family dynamic that is cute in some respects if this was like a human au, but definitely a cluster of effs if you imagine them as eldritch abominations that were brought to life because of human imagination. 
Like, the dynamics can go in so many directions if you want to choose one aspect of history over another. 
In @stirringwinds, they often write/draw about America as this Prodigal son who happens to be like the Crown Prince succeeding his once proud father. (America turning into a superpower after the World Wars and the English Empire just kinda dismantling itself because of everything.... OF COURSE THAT’S AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION, PLEASE DON’T KILL ME FOR INACCURACY!
Whereas for another tumblr, @historihet they portray the USUK relationship as more of a ship. Like, the whole brother relationship that is skewed in the anime/dubs/subs (this is due to the fact that some fans take the whole older brother thing too literally because in Japan, you call your elders/peers that happen to be older than you via polite endearments) is more of a... I’m not gonna say paternal, but it was more of a mentor thing? I’m not sure, I haven’t interacted with them much, but I’m pretty sure they ship it. Plus, their art is so amazing and they’re obviously a fan of history because wow, their head canons and their art is so beautiful and detailed.
As for the whole France and Canada relationship, I think this can be further elaborated via @ellawritesficssometimes. I remember reading that France and Canada, while having a similar relationship to England and America, it wasn’t that close or as heartwarming as many fans make it out to be. If you follow Canadian history, I’m pretty sure Canada was under French rule for a sort time before becoming part of the English Empire. Like, Canada was part of the Empire for a longer time than under France. This means that France wasn’t always there, England was. You can further read between the lines about the English/Canadian relationships, especially if you consider the fact that America fought an entire revolution to get away from England because of neglect on England’s part and on Canada’s part.... all he had to do was ask. 
Soooooo....
Overall, I’m glad that you told me that you were part of the Hetalia fandom. It’s nice to see that the fandom is still alive and kicking, hahah. That reminds me, I’ve got to finish my series concerning Italia Veneziano, oops. Just wondering, but why did you want to talk about this? Not that I mind, it just seems out of the blue... 
Thanks for the analysis and your chat! I hope that you have a wonderful day! :D
Please don’t tell me you want a FACE fic, hahahah. XD
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snarkwrites · 4 years
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-- about my writing --
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I’m currently taking requests / asks for headcanons [ can be either NSFW or just in general or a specific idea ] or fluff/filth Alphabet letters. These are the only requests I plan on taking. If you send me prompts / one shot ideas.. I won’t do them, sorry.
To see what the questions are for the fluff / filth alphabet, see [this post]
[ To my thots anon whomst I love with every cell in my body... Your thots are all going to fall under NSFW headcanons so please.. By all means.. Feel free to send me all the thots you want because I really really really really really enjoy writing them!!! Also, you can find the thots you’ve sent me on my nsfw masterlist, they’re not going anywhere. They were so good I had to add them to a masterlist somehow, I couldn’t resist. At everyone else out there, the same applies to you guys.]
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So.. Here’s the thing.. I’ve decided that I’m going to be taking 3 kinds of requests. Those are as follows: Headcanons { filthy, fluffy or themed specifically at your choosing }, fluffy alphabet and filthy alphabet letters. These are the only kinds of request I answer so don’t send me prompts / one shot requests or ideas unless I specifically say otherwise.
Bearing the above in mind, I have some guidelines.
I’m only accepting headcanons (nsfw / fluff / specific theme &/or reader), fluffy or filthy alphabet letters. If you send me one shot ideas or prompts, I’m going to delete them because I don’t do one-shots.
One character per ask. I don’t care how many asks you send. But I ask that you only send one character per ask because that makes things a lot more simple for me.
You can send up to 4 letters in each ask if you’re asking for either version of the alphabet. Be sure to let me know whether you want filth or fluff or a mix of both. IE, you could send me something like this; character name - a, b {filth} & j v {fluff}. I’m not saying your ask has to look exactly like this but it does need to clearly state which version you’re asking for. The format I just did above was just the easiest way that came to mind for me.
The more precise you are with the headcanon requests you send, the better I can tailor them to you. If you just want an overall NSFW headcanon or overall fluff, that’s totally fine. But if you want a specific scenario ( friends to lovers, date night, weddings, the sky is the limit here) you need to tell me that. The same goes for if you want a specific reader (POC, plus size, sick, shy, virgin, imprint, etc) then I need to know that. It’s like I said.. The more specifics you give me, that’s more I have to work from.
As far as headcanons go, the things I won’t write are rape, incest / huge age gaps between reader / character. I’ll only write abuse if someone is getting their just desserts at the hands of character on readers behalf. Any asks containing rape / incest / huge age gaps are going to be deleted.
All asks must come to my inbox. I don’t take requests through DM or in comments on a post. If it helps, my anon is on, so you can request to your hearts content.
If the ask box is closed, this means I’m currently not taking headcanon or fluff/filth alphabet requests. This will also be noted on my blog bio and possibly a post stating why/for how long. Anything sent in after the ask box is closed will either be gotten to the next go around or it’ll be deleted, depending on the situation.
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First of all... My content is meant strictly for adults. I do write some things that people underage can safely  read, but that is not always the case. I realize that I can’t stop minors from reading my work, but I can tell you outright that I’d rather you skip over it if you’re underage and it clearly states that it’s not written for anyone underage. Again.. I can’t do anything to stop minors from reading my NSFW content beyond just choosing never to post writing on the internet. And I don’t plan on stopping, so.. yeah.
I put warnings on everything. Reading those will definitely save you time and upset. If you keep reading something I’ve written and it upsets you in any way, I’m sorry but I can’t help. I warned you. You chose to take the risk -and most likely, you chose to skip the warning I gave before the post even started... It’s strictly on you now. It’s out of my hands. Any complaints or things of that nature are gonna be laughed at and deleted out of my inbox because I’m not here to argue or censor myself. I’m not your parents, just a peer. If you as a minor choose to look at me, an adult adjacent person, as an authority figure of any sort... First of all, why? Ya’ll.. no.. please don’t. I’m a hot mess, okay? To look at me like any trust worthy authority figure is... A huge error on your own part. Secondly, please don’t. I’m here to enjoy my favorite fandoms / post content for them. I’m not here to please people / censor myself and my content to make everyone else happy... Let me repeat. I put warnings on everything I post. If you keep reading and you read something you’re not supposed to this is now solely your own problem. Sorry, I guess?
I’ve seen other adults saying that they block minors on here. While I’m not gonna do that.. I will not tag minors in my NSFW content knowingly. If I find out you’re a minor and I’m posting something NSFW for a fandom you’ve asked to be tagged in, I will not be tagging you. Sorry. As much as I say I’m not here to parent you and I’m just your peer and you need to think of me like that instead, I’m also not willing to risk anything, either. I’m truly sorry in advance.
While I’m talking about tagging people / my taglist...If you want me to tag you in my writing, you need to be on my taglist. The taglist can be found [ here ] or you can dm / send an ask telling me you want to be added and I will be more than happy to do so. Don’t be afraid to ask me. I don’t mind at all! 
Every now and then, I’ll tag my friends in things I write. If I tag you in something and you don’t want me to, let me know. I won’t do it anymore. I’m not here to overwhelm or annoy anyone and I don’t want to come off as pushy, either. SO.. if you’re getting tagged or whatever and you want me to stop tagging you, all you have to do is let me know.
If you’re not on my tag list (or I don’t know you well enough to know whether you’d potentially want to read something) I will not be tagging you. If you’re a minor and I know for sure/think  you are and it’s smut, I will definitely not be tagging you.
Content I’m not willing to write or  you probably won’t find here: Incest and Rape. Those are my hard no’s. Just the thought of writing something like that makes me feel gross. I’m also not going to be writing huge age gaps in romantic stories either. (the closest I’ll come is like.. 18/19 and up to 24...) I mean absolutely no offense against people who can and do write things like this, I just can’t? 
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American Horror Story; tate langdon, ben harmon, kit walker, kyle, dandy mott, jimmy darling, james patrick march, michael langdon, xavier plympton and night stalker.
Arrowverse; oliver queen, john diggle, slade wilson/deathstsroke, barry allen, cisco ramon, ray palmer, mick rory.
Bands / Celebrities; ask before sending because I haven’t done many of these and I’m still adjusting… Off the top of my head I’ve written for / feel comfortable with Nick Groff (ghost adventures), Jon Bernthal.. There are lots of others but alas, I’d stretch this out so badly if I added too many more names.
Boondock Saints movie; Connor Macmanus Murphy Macmanus & Rocco.
Breakfast Club movie; John Bender.
Castle Rock tv series; Dennis Zalewski, The Kid.
Criminal Minds; Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Hotch, Tobias Hankel & Adam/Amanda.
Crybaby Movie; wade walker.
CSI tv series; Greg Sanders, Nick Stokes, Warrick Brown, Gil Grissom, Tim Speedle, Ryan Wolfe, Eric Delko, Danny Messer, Don Flack, Mack Taylor.
Dazed & Confused movie; Randal Pink Floyd, Mike Newhouse, Ron Slater, Fred O’Bannion and Kevin Pickford.
DC Cinematic; Digger Harkness.
Detroit Rock City movie; Tripp, Lex, Hawk and Jam.
Fast & The Furious series; Dom Toretto, Han.
Four Brothers movie; Angel, Jack or Bobby Mercer
Friday Night Lights tv series; Tim Riggins, ,Matt Saracen, Landry Clarke, Bobby Riggins, Vince.
General Hospital tv series; Sonny Corinthos, Jason Morgan, Johnny Zacarra, Dante Falconeri, several other of the guys on here…
Ghostbusters 80′s version movie; Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler , Peter Venkman, Winston Zeddemore.
Gotham tv series; Jerome Valeska, Jim Gordon, Joker, Riddler.
Harry Potter movies; Sirius Black, Severus Snape, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Neville Longbottom.
Horror movies various; Billy Loomis/Scream, Charlie Walker/Scre4m, Wade/ House of Wax, Tom Hanninger/My Bloody Valentine + others. Trust me, there are... So many others. I just didn’t have the brain power to think of them all at the moment.
Law & Order tv series; Barba, Carisi, Stabler.
Lucifer tv series; Lucifer Morningstar.
Luke Cage; Luke Cage, Shades Alvarez.
Marvel Cinematic; Bruce Banner/hulk, Captain america/steve rogers, bucky barnes/winter soldier, eric killmonger, hawkeye/clintbarton, thor, loki, pietro maximoff, venom/eddie brock, starlord/peter quill, ironman/tony stark, wolverine.. I’m a marvel ho.
Mayans MC tv series; Angel Reyes and Ez Reyes.
NCIS tv series; Anthony Dinozzo, Timothy McGee, Marty Deeks, Greg Callen.
On My Block tv series; Spooky Diaz.
Punisher tv series; Billy Russo, Frank Castle.
Riverdale tv series; Jughead Jones, FP Jones, Reggie Mantle, Sweetpea, Archie Andrews.
Shameless tv series; Lip Gallagher.
Sons of Anarchy tv series; Jax Teller, Chibs Telford, Clay Morrow, Juice Ortiz, Opie Winston.
Stranger Things tv series; Jonathan Byers, Billy Hargrove, Steve Harrington, Jim Hopper.
Star Wars movie series; Han Solo, Kylo Ren, Ben Solo, Poe Dameron, Finn.
Supernatural tv series; Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Crowley, Benny Lafitte, Kevin Tran.
Teen Wolf tv series; Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall, Derek Hale.
The Crow movie series; Eric Draven and Jimmy Quervo/Wicked Prayer.
The Lost Boys movie series; Edgar Frog, Allen Frog, David, Michael Emmerson, Sam Emmerson.
The Outsiders book/movie; Two Bit Matthews, Dally Winston, Darry Curtis, Soda Pop Curtis, Johnny Cade, Steve Randle.
The Walking Dead tv series; Daryl Dixon, Shane walsh, Rick Grimes, Negan, Glenn Rhee.
The Vampire Diaries tv series; Klaus Mikaelson, Kai Parker, Kol Mikaelson, Jeremy Gilbert, Damon Salvatore.
Twelve Rounds 3 movie; Detective John Shaw.
Twilight movies/books; Jasper Hale, Emmett Cullen, Jacob Black, Paul Lahote, Embry Call.
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I’m gonna be honest here. I post on my own time, at my own pace. Some days I post constantly, sometimes it’s days or even weeks, and occasionally, a month before I post anything. So.. Now ya know.
If I’m not on and posting, odds are I’m busy, taking a break or whatever. But I’ll come back! I always do. 
Basically, what I’m saying here is I have no set posting schedule. At all. I post what I want when I’m in the mood to do so. Just something to keep in mind when you’re asking for headcanons / nsfw alphabet letters with characters.
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tisfan · 4 years
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I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently; between the @bannedtogetherbingo2020 kerfluffle and the BLM protests 
(one thing that I’ve been doing recently that seems to annoy the living SHIT out of my fellow White People is correcting “riots” to “protests.” 
“Were you near the riots --” “I did not attend the protests, but I did donate to the medical fund for the man who was injured by removal of the statue on High Street.”
This seems to drive people absolutely batshit, and I will continue to do it. These are not riots and if they have similar characteristics with riots it’s because cops are treating everyone not even like criminals, but like hostile enemy forces.)
Mostly what I’ve been reading about is the difficulty that POC fans have in getting their voices heard in fandom. That the history of fandom is primarily the history of White Fandom. 
(this is long, so there’s more under the cut - I also tell stories A LOT so brace for personal experience asides)
I’ve been thinking about comments I’ve seen by black and brown fans about trying to get away from racist stories on A03. And trying to figure out if there’s a way to give people what they want -- a way to tag posts/topics/writers/ships on a permanent block list. I know I’ve spoken with several fans who have extensive filter scripts when they go looking for a new read and that shit is EXHAUSTING and doesn’t work necessarily on mobile devices.
I, for instance, have QUITE A LOT of stuff blacklisted on tumblr because I find P*nnyW*se the Creepy Teeth Demon to be horrific and I do not want him on my screen. And the movie’s name is IT for fuck’s sake. I can’t blacklist the word “It” and still expect to see any content at all. So, thinking about how much trouble I had keeping PWCTD off my screen gives me some sympathy to how hard it’s got to be to filter out something that people aren’t even tagging! 
I mean, honestly, most of the time that people tag a fic TW: racist, they already KNOW the character is acting in a racist manner and they’re condemning it. When people don’t realize the character is racist, or a word, or a trope is racist (mystical black character, for instance) they don’t tag it as racist because they either don’t know, are unconscious of their own bias, of they don’t care that it’s racist. 
In the same manner, Person A who’s writing fic they know is dub-con will tag it, and Person B who thinks stalking someone and climbing in their window at night is romantic will NOT tag the same scenes as dub-con.
Which doesn’t make it any less jarring when I suddenly run into a fic that I would absolutely count as noncon/dubcon that’s not tagged for it. The intentions of the author don’t matter TO ME at that moment, what matters to me is that I’m trying to breathe while the romantic interest on my eReader is saying “aw, that’s so sweet.”
So, there’s multiple questions that come up for me -- I’m not a computer person, so while the A03 code is available for use, I wouldn’t know what to do with it if I tried. 
Is there a way to tag something from the outside? An overlay or side program (like an Xkit for A03) that would allow people to permanently blacklist certain tags or authors, tropes, etc? I know there are some hosting sites (unfortunately with ads) that basically funnel stuff from A03 to a reader. There was a big kerfluffle about it at the beginning of the year because OMG, someone is making money off my fanfic! protip, no, they weren’t. they were making money off someone else’s desire for a custom skin. The material itself was never leaving A03, it wasn’t stored anywhere else. A03 does not currently have a phone app and they don’t plan to have a phone app.
So, would it be possible for someone to write a phone-app that did a custom filter for the material. Blacklists are certainly possible, right?
Because here’s the thing; a lot of people who are racist don’t know that they are. Or they don’t care that they are. I have personally had a couple of hard conversations about racism (I’m not even going to call it “unconscious racism” because I am a grown-ass adult capable of reading, so if I act in a racist manner, I’m going to fucking own it. And apologize for it. And try to do better.) in my own work -- whitewashing a character at one point, using a quote from a black woman as a title for a story about Wanda. I’m still not entirely convinced that a Jewish/Romani woman is “white” in any sort of traditional sense. That said, I’m not a POC and I’m going to listen to the person who’s upset because of my usage and not my own feeling of “I don’t really think Wanda counts as white.” This may be partially because WANDA is whitewashed as shit in the MCU and a lot of people in the fandom do not read comics.
That further said, I made the changes as requested and apologized for it in the work/notes. And felt very uncomfortable when some of my white friends said “I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” I’m not sorry I had to deal with it. I wish I hadn’t DONE it, but I am glad that people felt comfortable enough with me to call my on my bullshit and I was able to make corrections and amends.
Still-- All of this boils down to: People are not going to, in good faith, tag their own fic as “don’t read this, I am racist.”  
Everything that gets done on A03 -- which is an Archive -- is voluntary by the author. A03′s policies are pretty much “tag to warn” or “tag that you’re NOT tagging to warn.” The only action A03 takes for inappropriate tagging is to ask the author to update the Warning to match, or choose not to warn. If there’s no compliance, A03 will assign the fic “choose not to warn.” But that’s the extend of their policies.
We all know this history; no censorship. Censorship is a slope that leads to fanwork disappearing. Because here’s another fact: it doesn’t matter what the intention is of censoring a story; that censorship is going to be applied badly. 
So, if A03 was going to ban racist fic, how long do you think it would take before the reporting system was flooded? Even legit reports of racism are going to take a while to read through, judge, contact the author, wait for possibly updates or retractions, and then removal.
A03′s staff are volunteers, and I understand there aren’t very many of them. There are six MILLION works on A03. No one could hope to read them all with a careful enough eye to catch all instances of harmful texts.
And we all know what’s going to happen: it’s easier to delete all stories that get complaints, rather than read them.
So, Fan A gets Fan C’s fic taken down for racial stereotyping and Fan C tells all of her friends, who go on a crusade to report every single one of Fan Q’s fics in retaliation (not because Fan Q did anything “wrong” but because they happened to post a blog about racial stereotyping in fandom) And we’re right back to strikethru.
Yet, censorship is one of those things that makes me very, very nervous. Do I think a white boy who writes a self-insert rape fantasy novella about violating and murdering Zoe Quinn should be allowed a platform? No, I don’t. (And neither did Amazon, who took it down fairly quickly once it was brought to their attention. But that’s only one case, where there are probably thousands of books that are personal attacks and are left merrily alone.)
There are a lot of books on the banned book list. If people thought they could get away with it, those books would be unpublished, unpersoned, black bagged. 
We all know that the rules get applied badly, by the people with the biggest mouths and the loudest complaints. So banning content on A03 does not seem to be the solution.
(Personal story time again, just skip this if you want.)
I came into fandom backward; I was a traditionally published erotica / romance writer first and moved into fandom after the collapse of several small publishing houses for various scandals that I won’t bore you with but you can look here if you want more information. 
Several years ago, I was in an anthology that i was Very Proud of, and I really like the editor I worked with, wanted to work with her again. She sent me a premise for submission that left me cold. Which is to say, she wanted to publish cuckolding stories. 
[x] <-- warning, that link is REALLY harsh and filled with some real WTF moments, from someone who’s pointing out the racism inherent in the system.
Especially when you consider the Mandingo aspects of the fantasy, it’s easy to see why just the existence of it is repulsive.
I declined the invitation to participate because I was deeply uncomfortable with the subject matter. 
I’m not saying that to get praise for my behavior. 
Because when the subject came up again about two or three years ago in some fandom discourse, I sided with my friends who were defending “no censorship, no matter what.”
(End of personal aside.)
Despite my personal feelings about the issue (ew, this is icky and racist and horrible and I would never write it) I still believe that I don’t have the right to say what someone else can write, read, or enjoy.
I’m trying to find the path between “this sort of reading material is harmful and I don’t think it should have a platform,” “this should be heavily tagged to avoid upsetting people,” and “there are people who feel that way about gay, non-christian stories as well.” And what’s more, I’m trying to find it in a way that doesn’t stifle authors’ voices.
Even with my idea of an overlay, that’s putting the burden on the people most affected-- someone would have to rate stories as “racist” or “not racist” (and even then, it’s seldom that clear cut. Microaggressions abound.) and the people best capable of doing that would be readers of color. Which hardly seems productive. Or fair. 
“Don’t like; don’t read” is often the calling card of fandom writers. I’ve said it myself. That’s what the fucking back button is for. But when I say it, I mean “I don’t want to hear your wank about Tony Stark in my inbox” not “I don’t want to be called out for racism when I wrote a story.”
https://ggmadeit.com/blog/why-i-cant-just-knit-the-story-of-a-black-knitter-during-civil-unrest/ -- I’m including this link because this piece really made me think. I can’t ever put down being a woman. I can’t read or watch horribly misogynistic work without being upset, and I have trouble sitting in the room with my male friends who insist on watching it and want to say “it’s only a movie.”
Being black is part of someone’s life. It can’t be erased just because it’s not convenient. Just because it interrupts your good time. It shouldn’t be put aside because “it’s just a story.”
As fans, we have to do better.
We all know what it’s like to be pushed out, to be made second best, to be asked when we’re going to get a real hobby, when are you going to grow up, why did you spend money on that merch? So we need to reach further. 
I don’t have answers. And even if I did, I’m not the one who needs to give them. What I need to do is listen to the people who have answers and HELP THEM get what they need.
We need to do better. We need to BE better.
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noctuascion · 4 years
Note
Got another cryptage prompt if you feel like writing 💕: there’s been quite a lot of Mirage taking care of Crypto, so I propose to you Crypto taking care of Mirage 👏🏻 Elliott is either sick or injured or just feeling particularly depressed and Tae helps comfort and help him. Does his best to cook Elliott some food, make sure he’s comfy and resting, tend his wounds/get him some tissues/cuddle him. Just crypto loving and taking extra care of his boyfriend when he needs it 🥺
Mirage deserves to be pampered as well. Crypto wouldn't mind. But thank you for the prompt!! I'll totally write this for you. 💞✨
--
Elliott Witt is a brilliant man. He could explain the intricacies of his holographic tech without issue, discuss other types of technology with an expert mind, and was capable of tricking his opponents with a well-placed decoy and hiding within the shadows.
Elliott Witt is also an idiot. He's nearly caught the entire kitchen on fire, broke Park's incredibly expensive laptop (he definitely paid for that in numerous ways) by tangling his legs in a blanket and falling on it, and his moments of stupidity are only doubled whenever he's on a team with Octavio, which causes issues aplenty with whoever they're paired up with (Park is usually the unlucky third member, and he always ends up just on the verge of hitting them with a rock).
Perhaps that is why Elliott had ended up where he currently is, put on temporary bedrest due to a broken ankle, a sprained wrist, a couple broken ribs, and a minor concussion.
Octavio had been trying a new stunt out just outside the drop ship. Ajay had yelled at him not to, but the daredevil didn't appear to care any. The stunt consisted of avoiding an arc star whilst riding a grocery kart through a ring of fire as he was holding a watermelon. Frankly, absolutely no one understood why he was doing that—just that he was doing that.
Surprisingly enough, though, it all appeared to be going as planned, the jump performed almost flawlessly and the arc star avoided without much issue with the watermelon still intact. Octavio just hadn't thought about Park and Elliott coming home early from grocery shopping.
The look on Park's face when Octavio collided with Elliott at such high speeds was enough to rival a man who just witnessed a bomb go off in a hospital.
Elliott couldn't quite remember everything that happened. He remembered Park kneeled over him, trying to keep him from falling unconscious. He had no idea where Octavio was, what happened to him, just that he was in a lot of pain and that, for some reason, Park looked a lot like an angel, haloed by the sun above him. It was definitely the image he wanted to die to.
He was still unsure if he fell unconscious or if he just didn't remember anything, but he definitely remembers waking up in the hospital wing, Octavio laughing beside him as Ajay angrily scolded him for being irresponsible. It was all fun and games until someone actually got hurt—and someone innocent at that.
Park had been at his bedside, watching as the two argued, but he immediately moved to look at his boyfriend when he woke up. He looked relieved, asking if he was okay, the typical worried boyfriend things.
Taking up a bed in the medical bay didn't suit the trickster, so he was very carefully moved to his room, where he could get rest and ease the anxiety he felt being around so many needles and beeping machines.
The trickster was laid out in his bed, watching TV. There wasn't anything interesting on, so he wasn't exactly retaining any actual information provided on the screen. There was a strange aspect of the whole thing that felt… lonely, like he was forcefully isolated. He got visitors (everyone signed his cast—well, except Revenant, Alexander, and Park), but he still felt all alone in his room, nothing to keep him company aside from his merchandise.
Company soon walked in his room in the form of his boyfriend, the man carrying a few bags that contained whatever he purchased from the store, sporting a tank top and slacks that gave him a lazy but cute look. Elliott preferred tank tops on his lover: it was easier to hug him without a big jacket on; plus, he had cute arms.
"Hey, sugar smack," Elliott greeted, trying to shift into a sitting position without causing pain. The grunt and grimace of discomfort was enough of an indicator that it didn't go too well. "Ow. Okay, not trying that again. Uh, whatcha got there?"
"Try to sit still. You won't get any better moving like that." Park set the bags on the floor beside the other's bed, sitting on the edge himself. "Here," he then said, rustling through the bags, "you haven't eaten today, so I brought you stuff."
"'Stuff,' huh? What kinda stuff?"
"Food stuff."
"… Not butt stu—?"
Park smacked a hand over Elliott's mouth, letting out a sigh. "No. You have broken bones and a sprained wrist and you still think about that?"
Elliott gently pried Park's hand away from his mouth with his good one, sporting that usual charming smile of his. "When am I ever not? But, for real, whatcha got, shortcake?"
Rolling his eyes, the hacker slipped his hand out of the trickster's and returned to the bags. A vine of washed black grapes was produced, followed by a bottle of chocolate milk that had Elliott feeling better already.
"Oh shit. Choccy milk."
"… Yes. Choccy milk."
He set the bottle on the nightstand, holding the grapes up and plucking one from the vine. Before Elliott could reach out to accept it, the hacker surprised him by gently pressing it against his lips. There was a notable look of surprise on the trickster's face, eyes widened with brows raised ever-so-slightly.
Meanwhile, Park's face was growing more and more like a tomato, his usual look of sheepishness creeping onto his features. Initiating romantic gestures wasn't the hacker's forte, lacking any real knowledge on how exactly to do it without looking like a bumbling idiot, but every effort was enough for Elliott. It made him smile, even when the other messed it up completely. He wasn't perfect, as much as Park wishes he was, but it never mattered to him.
Right now, all that mattered was indulging in this sweet gesture provided, opening his mouth up to invite the berry inside. Before he bit into it, he decided to tease the other a bit by nipping on one of the synthetic fingers belonging to his lover. As expected, he pulled away almost instantaneously, face scarlet and glaring at the amused trickster.
"You're gross."
"Mmhm."
"And you're weird."
"Yup."
"… You're the worst."
Elliott chuckled, chewing on the grape with satisfaction drawn all across his visage. "You're so cute."
"Eat your grapes, you idiot."
For a little while longer, Park fed the other, Elliott eating up the attention (and food) without complaint, content to not have to lift a finger. He also drank a bit of the provided chocolate milk, but Park hadn't helped him drink it, probably because Elliott can only see that ending with it being poured all over his shirt.
After the small snack, the hacker leaned over Elliott's prone form, hands reaching up to gently cup his cheeks, and pressed a small kiss to his forehead, the trickster relishing in the affectionate contact so rarely given by his shy lover. It was always enough to make him smile.
"Gibraltar was making lunch for everyone," Park said once he moved to press his forehead against Elliott's, thumbs gently rubbing against his cheekbones. "I'll grab you something from the kitchen, okay?"
"Make sure you grab something for yourself, baby." Elliott's hand moved to gingerly wrap around Park's waist, his own lips pressing a kiss to the other's nose. "Just 'cause you're watching after me doesn't mean you shouldn't watch after yourself."
"I will."
"Good! 'Cause, if you don't, I'll get out of this bed and throw you back in the kitchen until you eat something."
"And hurt yourself more?" Park scoffed in amusement before finally detaching from the holographic expert, rising from the bed. "I'll be back in a moment."
"Be back quicker. I already miss you." A dramatic arm laid over Elliott's forehead, head tilting back slightly and expression displaying a faux sorrow. "It's so lonely here without you, my love."
"Whatever you say."
Elliott watched as the surveillance expert left the room, leaving him to relax in his mattress and enjoy the rest of his chocolate milk.
It took awhile for Elliott's injuries to fully heal, for his wounds to mend, but, the entire time, Park was at his bedside, providing food, company, and whatever care requested of him. Once he was healed and feeling better, however, Park had immediately offered to go out on a date (he never invited the man out for dates!) with the other, his voice, and Elliott, not one to pass up such excellent opportunities, requested the movies.
It wasn't a perfect date by any means, since Elliott accidentally walked into a glass door that caused his nose to bleed, but Park was there, tissue in hand, and holding back his chuckles Elliott wouldn't trade the man for anything in the world; he's probably the only person alive who'd deal with him for as long as he has and still nurture an injured nose as well.
"Y'know, I think you're actually an angel," the trickster had said with his head tilted back, feeling the other's half-synthetic hand run through his hair, the other holding a napkin to his nose and applying pressure.
"Mm. Am I now? I think I'm just used to your moronic tendencies."
"All right, jerk. See if I'll ever take care of your bloody nose."
"You won't have to, because I'm not stupid enough to walk into glass doors."
"Ouch, babe. My pride."
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thattimdrakeguy · 4 years
Text
Toxicity, gaslighting, hypocrisy, an overall just bad fandom folks on twitter.
I’m glad I’m not involved with twitter comic fandom cuz the amount of people trying  to make Tim look bad like throwing a fit cuz he’s under too much pressure or like-- not being a saint. While calling characters that constantly murder people or violate human rights “baby” is way too high.
Even just the minor lies are nutty, acting like the 90s edgy art style at the time shows Tim is twisted cuz he looks scary in it-- when it’s just dated art
But then-- complain when people say things out of context for other characters-- when the context doesn't make it better. I really can’t process those people. they confuse me.
Also one of them apparently said Tim being a rich white kid makes him a power fantasy? Which is superficial at best  when applied to Tim given when you read 90s Robin-- (Which I assume they’re complaining about, cuz he still lives away from Bruce then-- cuz otherwise Jason would technically count as a rich kid) Tim is just this dorky kid, who’s scared on  the inside, putting on a brave face and fighting crime and his insecurity problem. He’s not some masculine power fantasy, he’s a relateable kid, his wealth besides being able to spend money in his first mini was even portrayed negatively if any thing sometimes with his dad as having been away for a lot of his childhood and leaving Tim without proper social development and being pretty socially clueless to the point it‘s a problem he has no street smarts.
So pretty much just gaslighting and strawman arguments.
You’re racist if you don’t like Damian.
You hate poor people if you don’t like Jason.
You’re sexist if you don’t like Stephanie.
But I’m someone who still likes Jason a lot even if I don’t like any thing in the Red Hood era not done by Winnick (and even then there’s a scene in Lost Days  that creeps me out), and used to like Damian and Steph, I just stopped liking them because I just found myself realizing I don’t particularly like a lot of their writing.
At the same time as well, isn’t it just more reasonable that people don’t like them cuz of simple taste or their character actions?
Damian does kidnap people and violates people’s human rights currently, and did chemically paralyze and trigger Jon in their first meeting, as well as smacks him for freaking out later on that miniseries.
If you made Steph a dude, more people would be very likely to call Steph a sexual harasser for flirting with Tim past  what he’s comfortable with, even with the knowledge he has a girlfriend. Plus she has shown dangerous cynicism in nearly letting criminals die, and even tendencies found in emotional abusers given her gaslighting, ill-trust, and attempts to go behind Tim's back, and even throwing crap at him while refusing to talk as he’s trying to apologize for some thing he didn’t actually do.
Not even to say Tim is a saint, he’s shown to be insensitive, and condescending, but if you start with his origin and not Red Robin, in my experience it ‘s more likely you’ll read him as a socially oblivious boy scout-esque kid rather than an angsty jerk. Doesn’t make what he did not bad, but just more interesting, because if a character is a saint it‘s boring, and Tim's actual original character makes what he does less offending to people. He has gotten incredibly pissed off at his friends, but ... he’s a literal kid that has to lead other kids with super powers. It‘s bad that he threw fits, but it ‘s never done in a way that makes it feel like “Oh i must hate this character”. Damian is also a kid, but what he does is way more notably offending to some people. He has a bad backstory but it is fiction, people have different standards with specific actions depending on how they feel about it. It‘s not illogical to be fine with a socially oblivious kid being insensitive but not be fine with a character  that consistently does bad things even after they’re aware it‘s bad. 
(Heck, Tim even cheated on his girlfriend, but given how that whole storyline chunk was written, it‘s more out of character and an example of bad writing than anything else, given how Tim feels on the topic of cheating before and after, as well as how much he cared about Ari. It was inconsistent and even the writing breezes past reality with how Ari suddenly agrees to mutually break up. I don’t  believe the story actually treats it fully as cheating either, making it feel like they knew. So it feels more like bad writing than a thing to judge Tim on, because that‘s just something people use to criticize bad writing, quite commonly even with many shows or movies. I can still get why people don’t care. It‘s more of a writing complaint. Like Jason being a serial killer is. It‘s inconsistent, doesn't add up, and isn’t a good reflection of the character.)
If you are fine with it is some thing else, cuz that‘s a matter of tastes.
I actually started calling Tim “baby” cuz Damian fans called Damian baby-- which I find a bit more odd (sometimes honestly just worried given the crap he does in the images they say that to some of the time), cuz while I’m aware Damian is younger obviously, he’s only cute in pandering moments that‘d I’d actually deem ooc, using basic standards that it isn’t consistent with anything before and after, as well as not fitting who the character is or even built up properly if they even try. (Also cuz Aunt May called Peter and friends babies and  thought it was charming). My blog as well is about 90s Tim Drake as well, where’d he’d be a year off of the same age as Damian mainly, I may call him baby past that age, but that‘s just cuz it‘s s tuck in my head now. I really can’t picture calling RR Tim baby in fandom usage of the word (which is  the only way I use it) if that was the only way he’s ever been.
Like with characters I start from the beginning (besides Dick and Bruce cuz gosh that’d take forever) and judge what ‘s in-character from there and read, while noticing development as well as things they’ve done. i didn’t read Red Robin first, I read Robin first. I didn’t read Batgirl first I read her Robin appearances first. When I studied Jason I wen t with his post-crisis Robin run (I deem pre-crisis Jason a different character given so much is different the same way i do with the New 52 teen titans core four generally speaking besides comparing to pre-New 52 versions). When I went to study Damian for stuff I read his first appearances forward much the same. And at one point in time I liked all these characters, I judged them based off of reading them.
So I’m not someone with just a bias-- I’m aware some of my friends do, but I’m not my friends if that wasn’t obvious. I’m friends with some people that like vastly different things than me even.
All I can say in the end is that it bugs me that toxic people have convinced themselves they are some victim while spreading harassment, lies, and gaslighting, because other people just enjoy different things or read things differently.
A lot of these people bother me especially because they frame themselves or the character  they like as some victim they have to defend, and even target specific people over, when they themselves are the ones showing basic toxic behavior. they are the toxic ones yet believe they’re the victim-- cuz someone read a comic differently or didn’t like the same character as them.
That is nuts to me
I’ve even had to deal with similar people since I gotten called a racist for not liking Damian-- when I’ve even mentioned that I’ve liked Damian previously, and explained I simply didn’t like his comic or his writing enough to reasonably like him. Meaning I guess the action of not liking Damian-- in of itself-- is racist, which is gaslighting at best. I’m sure someone out there even hates Damian because they’re racist, but why treat everyone (or at least some notable chunk to be worth talking about) that doesn't like him as if they’re that person?
They’d rather believe that people that don’t like what they do must be terrible people of some kind rather than treat them as normal people.
They’ve even showed hypocritical behavior, by complaining of others not  giving context-- while doing the same thing to other characters.
As I said, I’m not on comic book twitter, I have not even interacted with these people. I’ve just seen it, and it‘s just so toxic to me. It‘s a bad thing to see over fiction.
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