#though to be fair my fandom hyperfixations have probably been doing more to keep me sane this year than anything else lolscream...

[zeldabecameaqueen]

hello qsmp enjoyers, here's my goodbye to a server that saved my days for a year now

i don't know what will happen with the qsmp in the future but i just can't put myself in it anymore

i feel disrespected by the choices Quackity's Studios made, as a french person, but also as someone who's been abused as a worker. I understand that the process may be long (every administrative stuff is hell) for the studio to solve the financial and hierarchical situation, and I believe Quackity did everything to solve the issue as fast as he could (it's a belief, at no point i'm saying this is the truth of course).

however, i do not agree with him being neglectful towards his own project, towards his own admins, towards the qsmp community, i do not agree with him being radio silent towards his employees/volunteers, not thanking them once they left, not communicating anything to them about their own future, i do not agree with him either being blind to their loudly expressed needs or purposely ignoring them, i do not agree with him telling everyone "stuff takes time" but also allowing new events to happen on the server, and i'm extremely disappointed in this whole situation, because it divides more than ever a community and a project that i, among a lot of other people, cherish since a year now, when simple mesures such as COMMUNICATION were ignored.

frankly i think that most of the people would have better understood and been patient if Quackity's Studios didn't keep on announcing new events like nothing was happening

the reason i'm not talking too much about the financial issue is that : 1. I believe finding a way to pay admins that are still in the qsmp is a priority to Quackity nowadays, along with firing those who mistreated the employees/volunteers ; 2. I believe they will find a solution regarding the incomes (merch actually being a means to pay the admins is one of them)

i'm writing this during qsmp awards, i know a lot of ccs will be there. i'm a little hurt and disappointed but at the same time, i know some of them have a personal relation to Quackity that we as viewers don't have, they have their reasons to trust Quackity, i just don't agree with them, but please, no hate towards them or to people who'll watch the future events

it's a goodbye even though no one knows me lmao (i spent hours and hours watching, filling the vods of timestamps, translating youtube clips, even drawing again since a long time, i filled in the qsmp fandoms, did presentation docs and put hours into spreadsheets of the ccs statistics), but know that being a part of this community was a life experience for me, in so many ways, i'm forever thankful for the people who made this project possible, i'll miss sharing my hyperfixation with you all

🎨 also, I saved a bunch of qsmp fanarts that I didn't want to rb because I didn't want to support in any way what was happening, i didn't want to make people feel like watching the streams was ok, instead, I wanted to let the most room for any info about the admins' situation

i realize now that it wasn't fair, their art comes from a place of love, and whatever their reason was to continue watching qsmp despite all that was happening is not my business. They did art, and good art, so i'll reblog the last qsmp fanarts and probably will continue to share some from time to time

🩵 big big thanks to the artists and the ccs for creating such an amazing universe, i hope you'll keep the spirit and maybe leave with good friends, and obviously i'm so proud of all the eggies (by that I mean their admins), who have spoken up and left a project despite their obvious love for it, thanks to Lea for starting all this, freeing admins from an unbearable situation they might have not even recognized as so at the time

i don't know if i'll be back, for now i need to step back, but if i see one day that the situation got all fixed and safe and that actual apologies were made, then maybe i'll come back to this unique qsmp (it'll certainly feel changed tho)

#it took me time to write this properly but i think i expressed myself the best way i could #english is not my first language and i'm really exhausted so pardon any mistake or confusion #i won't tag it as neg since i love this community i'm just telling my goodbyes and justify me leaving #qsmp #this one year anniversary is difficult #have a nice time on the qsmp for those who stay #all my povs got away with all of this lmao (but it's ok i mean there literally work abuse so)

[readinglokicomicsfromthestart]

Between hyperfixating for the past week and reading your blog all day and not knowing where my glasses are “Loki” no longer looks like a word

I'm delighted to hear you're getting so into it! (The first weeks of a new hyperfixation are just, idk, intoxicating, right?? Although frankly terrible for productivity and all the other aspects of life, at least for me...haha.)

Here, for no particular reason, have a few fun comics panels! (This is from Loki in the Young Avengers #12 (maybe?? - I did not double check, just pulled from my files):

#loki #asks #hyperfixations #(I am actually in a similar state with the subject of my other blog and falling deep deep into Word of Honor hell at the moment #I do not recommend taking up a new fandom in the last 2-3 months of trying to finish a phd dissertation #though to be fair my fandom hyperfixations have probably been doing more to keep me sane this year than anything else lolscream... #personal comments #the young avengers

[gabriel-agreste-has-no-rights]

Fanfiction Year In Review - 2020

tagged by @strangerahne! thanks!!

1) List of fics completed this year in the order they were finished:

Hoo boy!  This was a good year for fic writing.  There’s gonna be a lot since nearly all the ML fics I have were finished this year.

1/1: The Prescription (ML, adrinette) 1/9: How to Kiss Your Crush in Ten Minutes or Less (ML, ladrien) 1/20: From the Heart (and Sole) (ML, ladynoir) 1/23: extra life (don’t give it up for me) (ML, ladynoir) 2/3: Your Kitty (ML, marichat) 2/19: Face Punch (ML, ladrien) 2/26: Stroke of Midnight (Kingdom Hearts) 3/7: Shadows Alight (Kingdom Hearts) 3/20: Mothballs (ML, gabe reveal crack) 3/29: A Secret Worth Keeping (ML, adrinette) 4/27: if you fall (know i’ve got you) (ML, ladynoir) 5/29: when the world gets too heavy (put it on my back) (ML, ladrien) 5/31: Heartsong (Needs More Bass Drops) (ML, luxy) 6/8: Charcoal Lines (ML, marichat) 6/18: Unbreakable Chains (Kingdom Hearts) 6/18: Being Honest (ML, collab with rosekasa) 6/19: Face the Music (ML, love square) 7/9: Synthpathetic (ML, luxy) 7/17: The Wrong Balcony (ML, marichat) 7/22: Plaggatouille (ML, adrinette) 7/24: Flowers in the Dark (ML, marichat) 7/25: Necromancy (Danny Phantom) 7/27: Singing in the Shower (ML, ladrien) 8/6: Plagg, Let’s Boogie! (ML, love square) 8/12: Wolftail (ATLA, zutara) 8/19: Tastes like Dirt (ML, marichat) 8/30: Knight in Shining Peel (ML, rednana) 8/31: Ninety-Five Percent (ML, Max&Kagami) 9/6: What an Ice Surprise (ML, ladrien/Adrien&Nino&Kagami) 9/11: Nothing at All (ML, ninette) 10/5: Knotted Yarn and Broken Glass (ML, ladynoir) 10/9: Loopholes (ML, marichat) 10/12: Snexy (Snake XY) (ML, luxy) 11/3: All’s Fair (ML, marichat) 11/10: The Model in Him (ML, ladrien) 12/16: Souvenirs We Never Lose (ATLA, zutara) 12/18: Paved With Good Intentions (Undertale) 12/21: Two Xaviers and a Pigeon-ado (ML, luxy) 12/28: From the Chapel Rafters (ML, gen/marichat) 12/31: New Year, New Fashion (Undertale, papyton)

Total fics: 40

I was... not expecting to have that many fics as;dlkgsgkl. This is only the completed ones too. Honestly glad I made this list because I’ve been feeling a bit down on my writing and it’s nice to remember just how far I came this year.

2) Number of words written:

569,972. bet

3) Your most popular fic:

Going by kudos, that would be Your Kitty.

4) Your personal fav:

Oh man, that’s a tough one.  I was really proud of how Souvenirs We Never Lose turned out.  I guess if we’re including fics that aren’t complete though, I’d have to go with Home Base. 

5) Your fav scene:

sadfklsdjlfk as if I remember half the stuff I’ve written.  Uhhhh I really loved the confrontation between Luka and XY in chapter 3 of Heartsong.  I really enjoyed writing that fic.

6) A fic or scene that challenged you:

Geez.  Keeping up with the KHUX updates for Contingency Plan.  What a nightmare.  Pro tip: don’t try to make things vaguely canon compliant when canon changes every other month and it takes you 4 months to write a chapter.

7) A line of writing you’re proud of:

Plagg stuck his tongue out, trying to get a crease perfect, but the paper tore.  “Or you can put those opposable thumbs of yours to use and make me a hat.  I keep cataclysming the pages.” (First Dance, Second Chance ch. 2) Basically any part in this fic that has to do with Plagg and tiny paper hats. This fic has some of my favorite writing in it in general but that means it takes extra long for me to update, lol.

8) A comment that touched you:

aaaaaaa oh man!! There’s been a ton but I have to say @marinetteplztakeabreak‘s comments on Cast a Shadow are #1.  She read my fic and gave giant reviews even though she’s never played KH and I will always treasure that

9) Something that inspired your writing:

Lots of the friends I made in the ML fandom have inspired me a lot, especially @chatnoirinette @botherkupo @marikittynoir and @landturtlealyce who are always great about betaing for me and/or letting me bounce ideas off of them haha.  @bugaboo-n-bananoir is the inspiration behind all of the luxy fics that I wrote this year too lol

10) Your proudest accomplishment (that one scene; finally finishing that one fic; posting your first fic; etc):

Finishing Stroke of Midnight and Souvenirs We Never Lose!! Both of those have been multichapters on my list for a long time.  Also just getting so many comments on my fics in general; the ML fandom is so nice about interacting with fics and I really appreciate it!!

11) Do you have any writing goals for the next year?

Finish Contingency Plan and Sweat and Ginseng. Work on Home Base more and then get back to First Dance, Second Chance hopefully.  I know I can never really finish all of my multichapters at once or I’d probably die lol, so just gonna keep pluggin along.  I also want to write some more Undertale but thanks to inopportune hyperfixation energy that will probably happen whether I plan it or not lol

Sorry this got so long!! Tagging @chatnoirinette @marinetteplztakeabreak and whoever else wants to do this!!

#tag game #fanfiction review 2020

[imadetheline]

2021 fic review

thank you so much fiona @renegadeontherunn for the tag!! love you so much <3

total number of completed works: 61!!! about 2/3 of my total fics (which makes sense since i only started writing about halfway through 2020 lol)

total word count: 190,629 but from what I can count from all the wips and unreleased fics it's closer to 240,000 (wow a whole 50k more that I did not release just sitting in my drive)

looking back did you write more, less, or the expected amount of fic this year?: for sure more. school started back up in person and i didn't write for four months so looking at my word count, especially with all the stuff i wrote but didn't release, it's a lot higher than i expected it to be so that was a nice surprise!

your own favorite story of this year?: actually a really recent one. but who prays for satan? that I wrote just a few weeks ago after getting into daredevil right before seeing nwh. it's really close to my heart because it's about a very personal topic and I just loved writing it so much - very cathartic. and it's from an outsider pov too which is one of my favorite things to write.

did you take any writing risks this year?: actually, yeah! I decided to participate in febuwhump and I wrote something for every single day which was definitely a challenge some days, especially cause I'd never done anything like it before but it was super rewarding!

do you have any fanfic goals for the new year?: I haven't really thought about it a lot. I just want to keep writing and not let school stress me out so much that I stop writing for as long as I did this semester. which will hopefully be a bit easier with all my college apps starting to get submitted one by one, yay!!

most popular story of the year?: by hits it's i have crossed oceans of time to find you, a teen wolf fic. but by kudos it's sometimes family reunions aren't all bad, a loki fic

story most under-appreciated?: honestly i'm super thankful for the responses on all my stories but i'd say we set the fire and we let it burn; through the dreamers, we hear the hum it's a fic about sort of eldritch!luke after the fall of the empire from an outsider pov and it's one of my longer fics too and i'm very proud of it, especially cause I feverishly wrote all 19k words in the middle of a very stressful febuwhump lol

most fun story to write?: i want to say the one above again just because I still have my little notecards that I plotted it out on and made notes for the characters and heist plan on. but if not that then probably one of my Star wars fics running through the darkness with his own becoming light because I was having a lot of fun exploring prose and trying to make my writing very beautiful and flowing, if that makes sense

most unintentionally telling story?: I feel like it's all of them, especially the touch-starved ones. or but who prays for satan? again lol because that has a lot of me and my view on faith in it. but maybe a loki fic called i gave my soul to it (and it cannot be reclaimed) because I based it on a song called godlight by noah kahan which really just hits hard for me

biggest disappointment?: definitely the fact that so many people left star wars requests for me but I just kinda stopped hyperfixating on it and it is so so hard for me to write for something I'm not fixated on so they're still just sitting in my inbox. i feel very bad about that. i kinda stopped answering asks for awhile too because i didn't have the mental energy and then the anons i'd been getting stopped sending them. which is totally fair and I totally get! it just means i look back on those times when I was writing a lot of sw fic and talking theories and answering requests very fondly <3

biggest surprise?: how many fandoms I ended up writing for! even though some of them I never posted and they're just sitting in my drive unfinished I'm still amazed at how many I wrote even a few hundred words for. also how well-received my fics have been, the people who comment on my fics are godsends!!

my favorite part of fandom this year?: I'm gonna have to steal fiona's answer here and say the people. everyone who left kudos or a comment on my fics, even if i never answered them, know that I treasure every single one. And of course my beloved @chaos-company. they kept me going and never failed to encourage me and make me laugh and cry and everything in between and I treasure them endlessly <3 <3 <3

no pressure tags: @skywalker-tano-kenobi @starkskypines @cloudyskywars @ninastarkov @writing-is-thorapy and anyone else who'd like to!!

#tag game #about maddie #maddie's post #maddie #fanfiction #fic #2021 fic review

[n3s0]

hi i’m going to discuss the doomsday war streams and overall the conclusion of what i’d consider season 3 of the dream smp because hyperfixation go brrrrr 

(for clarity sake: season 1 is from when l’manberg defects from the dream smp to when wilbur decides to host an election. season 2 is from swag2020 vs pog2020 to the manberg vs pogtopia war on nov 16th. season 3 is from the start of tubbo’s presidency to the jan 6th doomsday war.) 

tldr: i definitely think the cc’s can look on what happened this season and improve greatly. that’s not to say this wasn’t a good season, there are a lot of things they’ve improved since season 1, but there are also things they can improve on in the future. this season was lacking a connecting thread or goal and it made it feel disjointed and left character’s in limbo. a way to fix that could be either scripting the story more strictly, fixing communication problems and/or making the plot into more self contained but slightly overlapping stories.

i think my biggest problem with this season was the fact that it felt so disjointed. one of the best things about the first season is the consistent plot line: l’manberg is trying to win independence. you had eret’s betrayal, dream’s tyranny, wilbur and tommy’s whole dynamic, and an underlying subplot with the disc war, but it all ultimately connected to l’manberg’s fight for independence. it’s what makes the first season so good and that kind of consistent plot is missing in this season. 

even the second season had the main plot of taking back manberg. there was wilbur’s insanity, but that tied back to the elections. there was tension between tubbo and tommy, but it tied back to the elections. even the badlands tied back to bad, ant, skeppy, and sam deciding they’re done with manberg AND pogtopia and deciding to stoke the fire. it all tied back and character’s had weeks to slowly develop with the setting. 

this season you had techno retiring, ghostbur reconciling with fundy, tubbo’s presidency, whatever was going on with schlatt and quackity?, george is king?, el rapid mexican l’manberg that whole thing, tommy’s exile, el rapids fighting dream smp/eret’s kingship?, the butcher army, techno UNretiring and teaming with tommy, tommy using techno to get his discs back, techno using tommy to destroy l’manberg, the prison, the bloodvines, and probably more im forgetting. there was a LOT going on, even techno and wilbur have ooc acknowledged this. and in my opinion it was just too much. character’s weren’t given enough time to develop naturally and the pacing had to go fast enough to fit all the plot into it, leaving little time for the character’s relationships to develop with the plot. 

most notably this is a problem with character’s like niki, fundy, ranboo (though not too bad with his character) and eret. eret had worked hard on a redemption arc and then had to go back to being king because george didn’t want to be involved (then changed his mind which...okay) which really fucked up all of the development he spent a LOT of time on during the second season. niki had to jump from siding with tubbo and tommy against wilbur’s insanity to suddenly tubbo’s president and her character just...can’t know that wilbur is dead for some reason? and now she needs content so she has to scrap together an anti-hero plot for herself. fundy’s works a little better i feel, with his lowkey insanity arc he’s having as of now, but the problem with him is he didn’t get enough lowkey plot moments to show his character’s devolution from neglected to vengeful. ranboo was thrown head first into the plot and while he’s doing an AMAZING job of keeping himself afloat, he just hasn’t had enough time to make his character’s mental decline seem believable, at least to me. not enought has happened to his character for it to work out, due to pacing. all of these character’s are AMAZING concepts but the fact that they feel so inconsistent can be related back to the fact that there really wasn’t any time given to let character’s slowly develop and change, and instead they had to cram all of their character development into the first 30 mins of a plot important stream.

and i will offer a counterargument here of the fact that season 3 is when wilbur’s writing stopped and also was when it really started catching a large audiences’ interest. so naturally more people wanted to be involved and due to the nature of the way this story is told, where each character is an actual CC who needs content and can’t just be a background support character, there HAS to be a lot going on for everyone to get their slice. and i think that’s the ultimate downfall of using this medium to tell a story. you NEED those background characters, the characters that don’t have to be 3 dimensional, the characters that don’t need to be there for everything and get their lines in. so i can’t fault them for having a clunky story when it has to be that way to be fair. 

ultimately i still really enjoy the story, and i hope this doesn’t sound too nitpicky. it’s downfall, of everyone having to be an important character, is also what makes it so good! don’t like the “main character”? go watch someone else, who’s the main character of their own POV of the story. every single character is incredibly complex and has their own unique set of motivations, goals, and traits. it works really well with the running theme of history, and how not only does it repeat itself through miscommunication and ignorance but also how the opinion on events changes from who’s telling the story. the fact that you can tell every CC genuinely cares about their character also really does show in the acting and writing and just everything about the server and story. the flaws of the story are very easy to look over because of just how much time and care all of them put into this server and it really helps the story. an okay story written by passionate people with always be better than an amazing one written by apathetic storywriters; and the smp’s story is definitely more than just okay, at least to me. 

i didn’t want to write this just to complain and then offer no solution, so i do have a few ideas on how i’d like to see this fixed or at least improved. they actually already somewhat do this, but i feel like they could start breaking up the plot more. similarly to how there was the bloodvines plot going on at the same time as tommy’s exile plot, i feel like they could take a chunk of say 5-10 members and they each have their semi-contained plot. especially with l’manberg now destroyed, the thing that way tying a lot of the members together, it would be easier to do this. there can be connecting threads through the stories, like how tubbo and fundy would see the bloodvines or bad would visit tommy in exile, but ultimately not every character has to be involved in everyone else’s story. 

say you have tubbo, tommy, quackity, fundy, ghostbur, and dream for one plot of trying to get the discs back and making dream revive ghostbur. at the same time you can have techno, phil, ranboo, dream, and sam dealing with the prison and techno or someone being put in the prison with dream manipulating ranboo through his memories. bad, ant, sam, puffy, and skeppy can continue with the egg. eret, fundy, niki, and ghostbur work through the trauma they’ve gained from everything with l’manberg and their interpersonal relationships. similarly to how karl is doing the tales of the SMP right now, these storylines are self contained but characters can overlap and therefore so can relationships. 

my other solution would honestly be to just work on the seemingly lack of communication. make sure everyone is getting the content they need (with people having to understand that not everyone is going to get the animatic worthy lines every stream, and not everyone gets to play a huge part in each event.) however this entails having a much more concrete script, which highkey removes the charm of the smp. it also means that inevitably someone is going to not be getting good content, or content at all, and that’s not fun or good for anyone. ultimately i’d like to see an improvement on the communication for the plot (niki feeling excluded, george and eret not being told about important events, communicating when people are trying to have genuine canon important speeches and not BMing them (cough cough tubbo at niki about her taxes cough cough techno during tubbo and tommys reunion)) and that doesn’t necessarily have to mean a fully fleshed out script. 

in the end, what everyone on this server has managed to do with this storyline is something that’s genuinely impacted me! it’s opened my eyes to new ways stories can be told and this fandom is the first big one i’ve been in since probably fucking voltron or homestuck in the mid-2010s. i love what the CCs have managed to do, and while i think this was a healthy amount of criticism for the story i in no way want to demean just how much passion and effort the CCs put into this server. none of these people are professional story writers or actors so the amount of talent we’ve seen is astonishing. this is simply me expressing what i think the problems are, because every story has problems, especially one that’s being made with such a unique medium like improv roleplay streaming. if you have anything you wanna add please feel free to add to this post or reply! i’d love to see :) thank you for reading if you made it this far lmao

#posts #dream smp #mcyt #mcytblr #doomsday war #jan 6th stream

[transsexualhamlet]

tg anime vs manga *sighs*

i have the power of hyperfixation and anime on my side! AAAAAAAA

Ok now that we’ve gotten the sins of re post out of the way we need to discuss this. And I just feel that this needs to be covered because I can’t ever get away from constant discourse on this, mostly fueled by manga readers who feel entitled to always think they’re superior for reading the manga, that the manga is the only real canon, that it’s more complex or better, I’m so fucking tired of it. I am also a manga reader, and I tend to get like that sometimes too with many series (for example no. 6 and the promised neverland.) I get it. It can be really annoying to see something butchered on screen to what the original is, changed or represented differently or given a different message or simplified. But just. Some people like the anime and it’s not a goddamn holy war for y’all to fight. It only makes anime fans not want to read the thing even more yknow cause manga readers are pretentious assholes, and I am aware of this as one of them.

(again ok i’d like to mention i know this fandom is basically dead but a certain p*nterest is always like 4 years behind on fandoms so i keep fucking running into Discourse that’s like, still current, whenever i want old random ass content) (and youtube, why do i look at youtube comments, because I personally enjoy being offended? yeah probably)

And that brings me to the point of this anime vs manga. 

This is a lot harder to compare than a lot of other series, because there are just... so many more differences not just in the style and vibe but the story itself.

Disclaimer, I’ve never watched the anime for :re and i don’t intend to, because I honestly have no earthly clue how tf you can get from the highly diverged tokyo ghoul root A to re and make it make sense, and I don’t really want A ruined for me. So you can call me biased towards the manga in the case of re, i guess (which makes my eventual conclusion even more strong I’d say) Honestly I just see them as two completely different stories, the manga’s version connecting with re and A just like... ending there. So how we’re drawing the lines is basically tokyo ghoul A versus the manga and :re. God, I know this isn’t a fair fight because I already hate re so much, but I feel like the manga’s story is much more intertwined with :re than the anime’s is, so that’s what we’re going with.

oh god also another disclaimer this opinion is coming from the biggest fucking kanehide whore, you can disregard anything i say if you ship The Straights and/or do not care for my boi hide

To be honest, if I can take my own conclusions and liberties to the story, I like both versions, each have their pros and cons and kind of a conflicting message. They can’t really coexist. Usually I’d consume all versions and then create one consistent canon in my head for what I accept as the true events (for example my main owari no seraph, first season of the anime is canon but after that we only follow the manga since those can come together and make sense.) but it’s very hard to do that in tokyo ghoul, since I must confess... I really like root A. Like of course, it’s a lot different from the manga, but tbh I think it’s super valid. (unlike most Fans TM like this Fan TM who i’m sending this post to just to spite their singular Youtube Comment Section Discourse, yes I did write this post for you and many others like you) But the ideas that make up root A conflict a lot with the ones of the manga, so I just have to accept that they’re separate things and treat them as such.

Now to break it down so people can understand where I’m coming from I guess? God this is already so long here’s a read more

The Case for The Manga (including :re manga)

More Lore + Plot Shit: One of the main reasons that manga readers are pretentious little bitches is a valid reason, namely that, as is the case with most manga, there’s simply more to it than people can fit into an anime. (Although people need to understand that’s because,,, it’s simply a different medium, so it will have different pluses and minuses, such as for example a soundtrack, color, moving pictures,,, you know, all that. Anime onlys don’t say that the anime is better by stating these things that a manga won’t have... because they’re fucking obvious. So manga readers should stop acting like an anime is inherently sub-par for being less in depth, but we digress.) I can understand that reading the manga is kind of important for wanting to understand the lore (though there are like so many other reasons ppl might want to watch it other than to get the lore) and without the explanation of how all this came to be and how it works, everything tends to be really mysterious, confusing, and seemingly random. It’s really nice to know what’s all going on, of course, and stuff like the washuus, rize’s backstory, the explanation for like, kaneki in general, all that- if you’re looking for like, plot shit, manga is definitely your go to. But like, sometimes, you like, don’t actually care about those things.

Haise: Of course one of the most important things about well, including re is that I fucking love Haise. Like he is my favorite Kaneki. He’s just so wonderful, look at him in he glasses and he floofy hair and he striped pants and he energy boxers and he s p i c e and he MOM. And I really like how they took Kaneki’s character and developed it more with Haise, you can see his turnaround from innocent--> Emo--> Trying To Be Innocent Again But Failing and I think that’s really sweet tbh. I rejected that at first because I didn’t understand it but once I actually read re I thought it made a lot of sense and was a logical thing to do with his character. (though, uh, moving forward, after his hair changes again i disagree with it, haise 1.0 is a good take and i love him and i want the best for him) I could go on I’ve already written a post of what I think is wrong with :re so if you want to hear my take on kaneki’s 37 pokemon evolutions that’s in there

Good New Characters: And of course there are my favorite bitches such as quinx squad, oh my god, there was a terminal lack of dumbass squad vibes in the original and ishida fucking gave it to us, I love them, I love them with all my heart and I think that if I wasn’t attached to them I’d probably just cancel all of :re but like this is just my personal problem. God I love them. Ishida always pulls through with characters I’m now too attached to.

Vore Lmao:Ok like hear me out. I just get a laugh out of it every time the manga has to remind me of this little fucking fact. Like ok I just. Cannot get over it. It’s so serious about it too and like I realize it’s a serious deal but o h  m y  g o d

Ok and now that we’ve got that little rant over I do want to say that it is like actually really important past the “lmao that’s pretty gay” bit, like??? In some ways it’s more fitting than the anime because well, ishida’s point always seems to be “what would mentally and physically hurt kaneki the most right now” and does it because that’s who this bitch is. But it just?? Kind of makes a bit more sense for the storyline if we’re being picky here, it’s so,,, painfully on point? Like the entire reason he gave in to Being A Ghoul and all was so he could save his friends and shit (i actually do not remember if this was a thing in the manga but like? when he was being tortured and he like imagined hide being really mad at him and getting killed by jason and shit?) LIKE AND THEN HE GOES AND HAS TO BASICALLY BE THE PERPETRATOR OF THAT HIMSELF, FUCK, it’s a lose/lose situation of “don’t do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer” or “do the bad thing and watch your friends suffer but like, later” ishida please

The meaning of Hide being alive: Ok this is just me crying over chapter 75 still but like. Instead of in the anime, where hide’s point seems to be that instead of letting kaneki sacrifice anything more he’d be the one to give his life up and such, and save kaneki, in the anime tbh he just really wanted to be with kaneki right then?? and like ouch but understanding that in the manga he wasn’t just planning on dying and leaving kaneki to deal with it afterward he wanted to go on and continue to try to help the guy no matter the shit he had to go through, no matter if the dude just like forgot that he existed for two years and all- LIKE UH CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW HIDE DOESN’T EVEN EXPECT ANY APOLOGY? like kaneki’s like “OH MY GOD I’M SUCH A TERRIBLE PERSON” and hide’s like lmao nah it’s cool i’m thriving- that his big motto was “live” rather than “peace out motherfuckers it’s been fun”. Cause. Fucking. Ishida. Can’t kill off characters well but like at least he made keeping this one alive justified. 

The D e t a i l s: Ok well I feel like this is something everyone knows but the anime is missing a lot of really,,, crunchy details that the manga throws in there, like, well, kaneki’s fucking,,, bones thing, and other assorted details, g o d like those are missable if you want to never understand half the memes but also like,,, sometimes you just gotta read that shit. It also like, makes more sense when you do but sometimes it’s just stupid things that aren’t important but are fucking hilarious.

The Flavor: In general I’d say the greatest difference between the anime and the manga is the general flavor of the thing, the vibe in the manga is a lot, to be frank, darker and grosser and bloodier than the anime, which is a lot more focused on being pretty and Tragic than “HOLY SHIT WTF” but like. That’s valid. With that comes it being a lot more, real, and although the art may not be as polished as the anime’s, sometimes that’s exactly what you need, and the really gritty sketchy shit that’s in the manga sometimes is exactly what it’s supposed to be for the manga. (in the anime, i’d say that the colored and polished style fits it better, so we’re good there.) It’s a lot more real, in the manga, when the anime hesitates to “go there” a lot (and well, sometimes that’s welcome, but sometimes it’s like y o u  g u y s  c o m e  o n  r e a l l y maybe i DID want to see that did you ever think of that)

So like, to sum it up i’d just like to say it’s more detailed, sharper and darker and is simply So Much. There is just More Content

The Case for Root A

ON THE OTHER HAND, (buckle up fuckers)

Depth of Emotion (that Ishida was too much of a pissbaby for): God like you know what I mean if you read the last post, we spent a whole episode on these gay fucks in root A, with backstory and dreams and drawn out suspense and emotion and GUYS LOOK AT THEM NO REALLY OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT THIS IS whereas hide’s limelight in the manga is a whole... two pages, oh whoopee, and that’s mostly due to the fact of ishida putting himself in a spot of “oh fuck goddamn if i drew that in i’d get flagged for gay porn” but that’s his own fault, so he downplays the whole scene and really keeps it in the dark, whereas in this anime it’s understandably a lot less,,, like that, but how it plays out here is simply... really nice and makes you cry and shit, whereas in the manga I’d go “oh god oh damn oh fuck” *laughs my ass off because i really can’t take this seriously*. You get just... more here.

To elaborate on this, in the anime, as a gay fucking bastard, I can get practically an endless amount of content from episode twelve, and endlessly stew over all Those Things about it, every hard hitting line, the expressions, the music making it even sadder, the ways the VAs say the words, the cinematic beauty of the blood dripping on the floor and like how it’s supposed to make you think it’s kaneki’s, GOD I COULD FUCKING GO ON, but if we want to get that in the manga... 

we get three incredibly basic lines, a blackout, and then a “QUICK LET’S MOVE ON TO SOMETHING ELSE BEFORE ANYONE NOTICES THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT HAHA”

So if we want to have more, we need to write it. (sadly) None of it is ever played out canonically so like,,, all we can do is infer and make shit up. It’s like, I am a writer so like that’s my whole job but I really would rather have more content, and have the content that’s there get to be emotional instead of *blank face* “this is plot that is happening, sadly” but like maybe it’s just bc i’m gay

Really Fucking Beautiful (aesthetically as well as story-wise): This kind of just goes hand in hand with the depth of emotion bit, and I think it can’t really compared to the manga here because I’m gay so I see pretty colors and cry so the anime is understandably appealing for me, but I’m also talking emotionally, yeah. There’s a lot of plotlines and implications of the story that are really well played out, I always love to watch the original because it does a very good job handling a lot of the harder topics and stuff that makes the whole thing worthwhile- like the whole point you’re supposed to see that the ghouls and humans are both just as monstrous when you break it down, that there are good and bad people on both sides, everyone just wants to live and feel good in their own life and perspective, everyone has reasons that justify their behaviour in their mind, sometimes you just can’t win no matter what, all that... they’re all really important messages and make the whole story, and they were handled much more delicately and with more expertise in the anime. 

It’s hard to pin down, but I feel like the manga was just based more on Fight Scenes Characters OoH Fake Science and kind of just gave kaneki infinite power ups after Trying Harder no offense, obviously those things were there and they were still very good in the manga it’s just sometimes they were cheapened a lot by ishida really not keeping track of what he’s trying to say with his story and sacrificing it a lot for “BUT WHAT IF KANEKI’S HAIR AND IDEALS CHANGED AGAIN” instead of making it a whole cohesive work. (and yes, I am VERY aware of your “well aCtuAlLy the hair represents his sanity” thing i know i know and i’m about to rip it to fucking shreds so)

Understandable Character Development And Staying True To It: Which brings me to this point, character development. This was another thing that was just... handled with more expertise in the anime, whoever was in charge of it. Mostly this has to do with Kaneki, since like, no offense but he’s the only one who ever gets much character development other than like, juuzou (asmr you only get character development if your hair color changes) oh and i guess there’s tsukiyama but he’s someone who shouldn’t have gotten character development. Touka gets character development only before re for some reason, and like tbh that’s kind of it. I do think Juuzou’s character development was valid, because well... it made sense? I complained about it before because I was like “well he just turns into spicy L” but i’ve since changed my opinion, he’s best boy. But Kaneki? They went way overboard with him in the manga, and generally? Calm tf down ishida.

Breaking it down, one of the main things that most of the tried and true manga stans seem to hate about the anime the most is Kaneki going over to Aogiri in root A. Since they’re much more acclimated to the manga, they don’t understand why he would do that (quoting a particular ‘probably made sense in the manga!’ yes i know that whole thing was poking fun at the show and i felt it lmao) and they just pin it to “ahaha he has now become Edgy for the fans ehehe time to make fun of him” and TO BE FAIR YOU’D BE COMPLETELY RIGHT. I love to make fun of Kaneki when he does his edgy bitch thing because that’s what he is. A basic edgy bitch who is just,,, such a main character. But like. He does actually have his reasons despite popular opinion and to be honest I think they’re a bit more valid than in the manga, where he’s just like “well I’ve been tortured, that was not pleasant and i kinda did a bad thing, let’s go back to anteiku but i’m just gonna Try Harder To Fight this time”. I can understand that, but like, it seems like in the manga every Character Development of kaneki is some form of “i will now be stronger” except for the singular “I will now be a different person” which, well, we’ll get to that. 

In the anime though, even if it seems like more of a basic edgy bitch move, it’s like?? It makes perfect sense to me, and to be honest more than the manga does? Obviously he doesn’t wanna be best bros with Aogiri, he realizes they’re all bad people who have done really terrible things, but the fact is he now sees himself as the same thing, he now understands their motives because in his mind he is also now Bad TM. His whole character development of being tortured was that peace wasn’t an option no matter how much he wanted it, he couldn’t live being a pacifist and the world was forcing him to give the “i am the only one that understands! we need to stop fighting!” bullshit up because there was no way to achieve it. He realized if he kept himself the way he was more people he loved would be hurt like they already had because he couldn’t, so he doesn’t just Decide To Become Stronger, he gives up his humanity. And that includes basically letting himself defend his own actions and try to do “the right thing”. 

Him then joining aogiri makes sense because well. They’re the people who are the strongest, who have the power, who are the same as he sees himself. He still wants to protect the people he loves, he just also realizes he can’t do it by working with them since he now understands that their more peaceful ways will by definition get them fucking killed. His understanding is flawed, of course. He’s not really right. But this is his understanding and from that it makes perfect sense for him to join up with aogiri and try to still do as much as possible from that standpoint, realizing that most likely the people he’s trying to protect will hate him for it. I think that makes sense to me, what do you not understand about it? (I also understand that may make some people mad because he’d Doing Bad Things but I point to you he’s so soft, remember when he was really nice to naki when he was literally the one who killed the guy naki was crying about? remember when he was doing a raid and he saw that guy hiding and he never mentioned it? remember like the seventy times he Cried TM, yeah he’s problematic obviously but if you want problematic I’ll point you to a certain fucking black reaper. Shironeki has nothing on that asshole.)

I think what Kaneki did in the manga was fine, but in general the anime (again) had more depth of understanding and emotion versus a steady Try Harder Get Stronger shonen deal, which, well, fair, but like, nah. Continuing why I think the anime dealt it better is the ending of A, which was a lot more well rounded then *kaneki gets stabbed and then there’s a lot of random plot shit going on in the background*. Here Kaneki then got to round out the end of his character development by realizing slowly through the second half of this season, him becoming a kakuja and then basically deciding like, not to

((kakuja kaneki was dealt with again different in the anime and manga because he basically stopped trying to use it in the anime bc he realized it was a bad fucking idea but this goes along with the ‘his character development of “i’m gonna do bad things for good reasons” --> “actually no wait that was a bad idea” was actually done in root A instead of being dragged out into :re and it’s appropriate for its own medium and the messages it’s trying to get across so manga loyalists hate it’ but we digress))

So in root A we got to see him actually develop and realize himself through the second half of the season starting with cochlea, his interactions with Amon, and ultimately through Hide, that he’d been doing the wrong thing by becoming more monstrous/fighting harder because what he did was ended up forgetting the most important thing, *smiles in gay* HIDE.(well, his humanity. yeah. i cite the terrible opening for root A with the fun ‘the hands taking off kaneki’s mask are hide’s’ bit.) He then remembered again why he wanted so bad to stop the war between humans and ghouls, he wanted to be able to live in peace and not have to be a monster- something that was not dealt with in the manga (though for understandable reasons of We Need To Fuck With Him In Re More, they then didn’t deliver on creating something like that later so I take this.)

That’s most of the difference between the original manga and anime, but I’d also like to discuss (briefly, I’ve already yelled about them) the ridiculous amount of hurdles ishida went through to fuck with kaneki in the manga, Of course there is the fact that well, the slower transition of his character does make some more sense for the manga because if you take :re into consideration, his eight billion character changes are more tolerable when they haven’t like, already happened before in the manga (just the anime). It makes more sense there for Haise to be tormented by past kaneki telling him He’s Too Weak because in the manga he hasn’t already had that development prior to “dying”, and he lost his memories still believing he had to be strong even if he did bad things, whereas in the anime it doesn’t track because at the end like i just said he kind of gives up his ghoulhood on purpose because he realizes that joining aogiri and fighting and shit was really wrong because, hide. So I can see why those character decisions were not made in the original when planning for :re, but... the fact remains that those previous decisions do not make up for how absolutely weak :re’s game ended up being with kaneki. 

So tldr this entire section, All the manga’s defense of how they handled Kaneki’s development is basically void because all those choices were buildup for development in :re which ishida then COMPLETELY fell down on. So the alternative is better.

And now comes my yelling about how exactly Ishida fucked it up: hair colors and kaneki’s 80 kanekis. If black is supposed to represent sane and white is supposed to represent insane or, whatever, i dunno, who tf thought black reaper kaneki was sane? Who tf would think kaneki in the end isn’t? I haven’t looked into this really, and I’d really love it if someone explained it to me the way ishida was going for bc I do not understand it. Like that tracks with Juuzou, and with Kaneki up to Haise Original, but they don’t really make a cohesive sense seeing as after Haise’s hair color changed again that whole deal kind of goes to shit. Not to mention... I just... they completely failed to make those character changes actually part of the story, I’m mostly complaining about black reaper haise, none of him makes any sense. What’s his deal? He wants to protect who he loves? Tracks with the ghouls but fun fact he abandoned his kids? He actually cared for them? What then, he wants to be the strongest as possible? Sure but then?? Why?? I don’t understand his motives at all.

We also didn’t get to see him get his memories back either, which I was actually very much looking forward to, it just,,, like all of a sudden he’s talking with eto about yoshimura and i’m like bruh when tf did that happen? It’s bad, and although chapter 74-76 is super valid, and his change back into white hair kaneki makes sense, I also have the complaint about how haise basically disappeared just like he was worried he would. I think that was bad and I’ve said that already, it doesn’t make sense, he just literally throws those entire two years away to go back to the way he was before he was with the CCG and just forgets everything he’s wanted for the last few years? Fiction logic test fucking failed, and you’ve also broken my heart. Love Haise. You got rid of him. I love kaneki too but like. Why don’t they just. Like. Merge. He is one whole complex person, not one and an imposter, god. 

This is a big negative for re and the manga, so automatically a positive for root A where I simply Do Not Have To Deal With That Bullshit and the character development actually makes sense. I can understand the decisions in the original manga could have set up for good development in :re, but they completely failed to deliver.

root a didn’t fast forward to re at the end god damn let us process this shit first before you try to connect it to something else: The thing with this point is that it’s really difficult to separate the original manga from the continuing story in :re because the thing intertwines so much and immediately moves us forward with a ton of plot points for the next part of the story before we’re done with this climax and the end of this story. Sometimes that’s ok and I can see doing that from an author’s perspective because you want people to continue reading your story instead of taking that as the end but it’s really annoying on a reader’s end, because I’m picky and I want to be able to just be able to enjoy my original canon without it like, metaphorically touching :re on a plate. It’s something that I don’t even do with my own longer stories, like for example I have like a trilogy of >100k fics that like, well i’m technically not done with them but like. 

People really like the first one because it’s more focused on a more popular ship and basic elements people like about the thing, and then by the second book it moves on to talk more about the plot and lore and brings in more secondary characters. And so I knew that a lot of the readers of the first one wouldn’t want to have to deal with a lot of the “oh well stuff is happening elsewhere that will effect stuff later!!!” random plot shit that none of my readers actually cared about. So I kept it to wrapping up the points of the first book and then leaving the introduction of new characters and plot for the people who actually wanted to read it. Ishida didn’t do that, and of course it’s within his right to like?? Want to promote the next series but I’d have enjoyed it more if we ended it at kaneki’s “death” and wrapping up the deals with the rest of the characters instead of quickly shoving in the beginning of seventy more plotlines before the book ends. Like honey I simply do not have the reading comprehension for that. In the anime we get something that... makes sense.

In the anime, however, it’s quite the opposite, for example the reveals like Eto=owl=takatsuki sen were pushed before that and they saved episode twelve for, well, the end bit. Like what was actually the ending. There were detriments to this I had to say (LIKE GUYS I GET IT HE’S CARRYING HIDE HE’S CARRYING HIM I GET IT YOU’VE BEEN DOING IT FOR HALF THE EPISODE NOW OK I UNDERSTAND CAN WE MOVE ON) But like, I prefer the concept of a simple idea with as much emotion squeezed out of it as possible to a ton of confusing and contradicting ideas that are touched on for a second before moving on. So the *cries for half an hour* ending was much more appealing to me, and I can keep that separate in my head from any of the ideas that :re creates, letting me pretend it doesnt exist and imagine that’s the end and there’s nothing else to worry about. If we want to move forward and hear more, then we can, but it isn’t necessary like it is with the manga.

No Bad Takes that are hard to pry apart from good plot and characters:This is basically the downsides of the new characters, which is well, if I had to make a whole ~keep reading~ post about how problematic everything in re was that does have to count as a downside. I love the new characters, but they also come intertwined with a thousand really bad takes on like, everything, and of course I can ignore it and just act as though they were written in like, to be perfectly honest, a non transphobic way, it’s a real downside when the original anime was pretty pain-free in the way of their takes on their characters. They fucked everyone up in re and I will not elaborate, we’ve talked about this, it’s just the anime, and which i mean season 1 and root A, don’t really have any bad takes I need to try to get rid of, it’s surprisingly something I have little complaint about at all and I ALWAYS have complaints.

Hide!!!!: Obviously, you can tell that a lot of my opinions are going to be hide based because he’s the only thing I ever think about. But we have to take into account just how... hide???? This goes a lot into the depth of emotion bit but it also offers the other side of the argument for Hide’s part in the :re manga, which well. Was mostly chapter 75 if we’re going to be perfectly honest here. He doesn’t get any other limelight. Even in the chapter where Kaneki meets him again he gets a whole what, three pages? In the manga, he has an extremely valid deal about basically, living, keeping going no matter what, and that is a fitting part for the manga, considering the rest of the points there ride more on Keep Fighting instead of Think About Your Emotions And Morals, but honestly chapter 75 was really valid. So why do I still think the anime’s version where he like (ok I don’t know about the re anime we’ve discussed this, i don’t even know how they choose to explain that) he like, dies in kaneki’s arms is better overall? Again, I would have totally accepted that deal if it was made a part of the story because it made me cry, it was super valid, and if they’d continued in that way I would have agreed with it completely over that. But the fact is again that they failed to deliver, and Hide got largely ignored, suffered so much with so little outcome. There was so much buildup and it was incredibly valid, but when the time came for them to meet again and basically show... why it was important that Hide lived in the end? 

They didn’t. They straight up didn’t. Kaneki’s like “oh sorry bro... glad you’re alive and all...” *goes off and fights* and like? Honestly? @everlastingspiral is right, if that’s all they’re gonna do with him what’s the point of keeping him alive? I love every single panel of him and I wouldn’t have read re if he didn’t, but hide gets absolutely NO payoff. For letting kaneki literally vore his entire mouth off, leaving him disfigured and unable to talk, then kind of disappearing for two years and doing seemingly nothing but trying to help kaneki even though he’d forgotten the guy existed, risks his life like a thousand fucking times, eventually gets back to him and the dude’s running a fucking anti-human organization, helps him like Not Be A Volitile Pile Of Flesh Anymore and then what should have been a very important moment of them meeting again gets completely overshadowed by touka and random plot shit and more fights and they barely interact, they don’t even hug or anything, they barely talk, and at the end hide is still there but to be honest he’s gotten absolutely no thanks for all he did and ishida acts at the end as though he’s done very well with hide and gives him a tiny bit at the end throwing in a tragic backstory for fun (which hot take he really didn’t fucking need on top of it all) and... there’s no real hint that Kaneki is better off with Hide there, even though there should be. In 75, in his dream, kaneki is sobbing and crying and all like i’m so lonely without you but when they actually meet each other again? “yo” “hey” “uh sorry about,,, the thing,,, you know” “nah man it’s ok” “let me talk about myself for a bit” “yes you always do do you want to hear what I’ve been up to” “not really” “that’s fine i’m only here to support you”

...So you can understand why I’ve gone a bit sour on that. If that’s all you’re going to give him? Hot take? Let him die. Hide deserves better. (and i will deliver that in writing, but for the purposes of canon.)

In the anime, however (not counting re again... although he still gets the short end of the stick just in the original manga too compared to the anime) he’s properly dealt with! he gets his proper limelight and he gets acknowledged for what he’s done thusfar in the story, which is already so much. Kaneki then realizes that, but it’s already too late (or it isn’t, and they like negotiate with the ccg and then they get to live happily ever after) either way he gets appreciated and he gets hurt, but it’s properly acknowledged. And after all that, after saving kaneki and getting him to the cafe and doing it all while bleeding the fuck out, he gets to spend that time with kaneki and die in kaneki’s arms. And frankly? That’s all I think he’s ever needed. It’s really poetic and pretty and brings kaneki’s character around full circle, and even if it’s overly sappy, cliche, drawn out... he gets the attention he’s due and he gets a fucking break. He wanted to show Kaneki he wanted to do something for him and save him instead of the other way around, but then HE GOT ACKNOWLEDGED FOR THAT, instead of just well, tirelessly working towards it forever and having to be content to be a background character with practically no value to Kaneki anymore.

Keeps The Same Vibe: The big thing about this is that with the manga and with re, shit just goes all over the place, and I feel like I’ve amply showed that already through this essay or whatever this is. Again about the consistency and the professionalism, It’s a concise story that makes more sense than the manga while also being simply neater and more deep, making sure all the points, themes and messages work together and make sense to create a cohesive deal even if it’s not as long. (the manga is like ishida had a TON of good ideas for an essay but then fleshed out the thing ten minutes before deadline and managed to completely lose what his original thesis was even if the thing was 10 pages long.) Basically. yeah. That kind of sums it up, my last point concerns the ending.

Not Cheap Ending: If you want to hear my take about how absolutely terrible re’s ending was, check out my The Many Sins Of Tokyo Ghoul :Re post, and we’ve discussed how the original’s manga ending was bad and well not really an ending, it just leaves you unfulfilled and takes you into “well I guess I have to start a whole nother sequel series ig...” but root A like? Actually ends it? If a reader didn’t know that there was any content after that, they could pretty much infer that hide’s death or almost death whatever you inferred out of that ending (again we’re ignoring re) allowed Kaneki to finish his character development and realize they needed to stop the war, which basically tracks with what’s going on in everyone else’s perspective- eto’s problem with the world because of what happened with everything, is basically like, all of aogiri, juuzou and shinohara, amon and akira and kaneki and they can realize all they have to do is just sit down and fucking stop it because none of them want to be fighting, hide is the catalyst for that because the CCG can see how Kaneki cares for him? And it’s so open ended that you could just like literally believe that and there’d be no way for that canon to tell you otherwise, or you could go onto re and whatever if you wanted to. I think that’s the best thing. 

In conclusion, both have valid points, and in general I’d say that the manga goes better with :re and the anime is better as a stand alone but if I had to choose overall, this particular anime is better (taking into account only seasons 1 and 2), for mostly the reasons of favoring a simpler story taken with much more care and depth versus a more complex story with many, MANY imperfect elements, and I am aware I will get shot on sight for this opinion. So sue me.

#tokyo ghoul #hideyoshi nagachika #kaneki ken #tokyo ghoul :re #essay post #god i've been writing this for so fucking long #but i'm right #y'all fuckers asked for a fight? you're getting a fight #rowan's hyperfixation essays

[a-charm-of-witches]

Andromeda, Aries and Lupus, please.

Andromeda - Describe your main characters

HMMMMMmmm well. I wanna save the big descriptions for the RO profiles, so let’s go with short descriptions this time.

RIVER: A punk rocker with a heart of gold who’s done a lot of work on their anger management issues.

VALENTINE: A cheerleader who tries really hard to pretend that nothing matters to make themselves feel better about the fact that they don’t matter. 

NATSUKI: A garden punk who learned a long time ago to stab first, question never, and always, always shield their heart.

HENRY: A older sibling (of way too damn many) who wears their heart on their sleeve because maybe then someone will acknowledge that there’s more to them than being their parents’ enforcer, or their siblings keeper. 

Aries - Share a line that you’re proud of!

This is already in the demo, but honestly, this moment:

"Werewolves?" I yelp, jerking backward and looking around immediately. "Don't worry, Kiddo," Alice says as she scoops up my bag and drags it inside for me. "They only bite if you ask real nice."

Lupus - Have you abandoned other WIPs? Tell us about some and why you abandoned them?

Oh lord. Well... that depends? Or maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better by pulling hairs. So here’s the thing. 

Do I have any abandoned IF WIPs? No. This is my first solo game attempt. I actually have a pretty decent track record for games, though part of that was writing for an actual game studio. Deadlines, producers, and paycheques make finishing a thing a lot easier. You aren’t allowed to “baby” the story as much as you might otherwise. 

That said... My WIP list is long when it comes to fanfiction, including more than a few abandoned WIPs, and I technically have two novels I keep pulling on and off the backburner. There was also one spectacularly failed web graphic novel from... holy crap, was that a decade ago? Maybe. So let’s talk about them.

(And I’m going to put everything past here under a cut because it’s long)

The graphic novel is probably the one I regret the most, and also the hardest to talk about so it’ll go first. It was called Wind Spirits, and if you google it (and actually manage to find it) be prepared for blood and nudity. While nothing in the comic itself was sexualized, it was a fantasy world based in a climate similar to African savannahs and the majority of the cast didn’t really do clothing. This turned out to be a mistake, to some degree. 

I briefly mentioned this in another ask, but along with the whole “I don’t know what attraction means to most people” thing, I also don’t and have never understood the concept of nudity as something that’s inherently sexual. People’s bodies don’t bother me one way or the other, and my training as an artist only emphasized this. So it never occurred to me that simply depicting characters in the nude, in a way that was clearly meant as naturalistic and non-sexualized, would garner a fair amount of “omg this is adult!!” reactions, as well as a LOT of unwanted sexual comments from viewers. Not until I started receiving intimate details of my viewers, uh, fantasy lives that I was in no way comfortable with. It wasn’t just comments, either, but seeing people sort the pages of my comic into “spank bank” folders on DeviantArt, submitting them to fetish groups, etc. 

Now, if I had been choosing to write something erotic, this wouldn’t have bothered me. I have since written soft core porn for a living, and have seen comments made about said writing without taking it in the same way. But context matters, right?

And for a little more context, it especially made me feel A Way because, well, the larger reason why I ultimately walked myself back from the project: 99.9% of the cast were black. Which isn’t a problem, in and of itself of course. It’s just that... 

I’m a white woman from the Southern USA. And while I deeply enjoy and love the world that I built for Wind Spirits (one that I’d been designing since I was about fourteen), well, mistakes were made. It wasn’t just the weird optics of being a white woman drawing a bunch of naked black characters, which I only really became aware of during the process, but also some deeply rooted racist beliefs I’d been holding onto that I hadn’t worked through, and hadn’t begun to even recognize as a problem until I was partway into the thing.

It was when I started learning about and unpacking these things that I realized I couldn’t keep moving forward with Wind Spirits as it was. Keep in mind, this was around ten years ago. I didn’t know about, and hadn’t worked through, even half as much as I have now, and couldn’t begin to fathom how to fix the problem. So while I don’t believe I publicly posted anything that was terribly racist on the face of things (at least, no one has ever called me out on it, if I did,) I knew the direction the project was heading at the time, and that it was a message I no longer agreed with, or felt comfortable putting out into the world. 

There’s a tiny possibility that I could salvage it one day, rework it into something better. In fact, I’ve toyed with quite a few outlines of story directions that would do that, but I’m not sure it’s actually going to happen. There’s just too much history there, for me.

... 

OK, so on a less heavy note, the other big issue with abandoned WIPs are fanfiction stuff. Those are my biggest downfall by far, but a lot of it has to do with... I tend to write really heavy AUs that don’t get a lot of traction in the fandoms they’re for, probably because they’re heavy AUs. (or just not that good.) I might hyperfixate on a fic for months, but ultimately drop the ball because life threw too much at me at once and, hell, it’s not like there was anyone engaging with the fic, anyway. 

Or, in the incredibly rare instance there were people commenting regularly, it just has to do with time and with the feeling that I’d rather be making this into something that’s mine, and mine alone. That I’m wasting really great original fic ideas by making them AUs of a property they don’t resemble in the least anymore (another reason why they don’t get much traction.) 

So yeah. If y’all’d like to hear more about the two original novels I have on the burner I can also go into that. This just seems like it’s really long already, and I kind of feel like I just wrote a callout post for myself, so. Yeah. 

#asks answered #tw: mentions of racism #not sure if that's really necessary here but just in case #meme response

[justoceanmyth]

Author Interview Tag!

I got tagged by a bunch of people, (  @the-last-cuddlebender, @penguinsledder, @thinkingisadangerouspastime) so I figured I should actually, y’know, fill the tag prompt (i don’t always answer these kinds of things as much as I want to bc I always get distracted and forget they exist)

Name: I am still underage (though not by very much or for very long) and so I’ll be keeping my real name off the internet until I am a baby no longer... which basically means within a year(stay tuned for my real first name? i guess??). You can call me Ocean though!

Fandoms: I hyperfixate, so there’s a good chance that if I’ve read it, watched it or played it, I have dipped my toes into the fandom at least once in search of more content. Ergo-- MCU, HP, Good Omens, Percy Jackson, other fandoms that I can’t think of now that I’m trying to list them bc that’s the way my memory works. I contain multitudes and lots of affection for my hyperfixations.

The only fandoms I’ve written for at this point are ATLA and one HP fic that. Yeah. Don’t look for it. It’s not *bad*--in fact for starting it at like 12 it’s something I’m really proud of--but it’s not something I want people to seek out either.

Where you post: If it’s short, I’ll post it here and ao3, but mostly to ao3, at OceanMyth.

Most popular one-shot: smells like home, which is Zuko-centric and therefore unsurprising that it’s in the top spot, followed by a sign of strength, which is about Toph discovering that Aang has tattoos. To be fair though, a bunch of my fics are really closely tied for ‘most popular’ because I haven’t been posting to ao3 for that long, which means that this changes frequently.

Most popular multi-chapter fic: It’s the HP fic that Must-Not-Be-Named. It’s the bracelets that bind us, sitting highest in hits, and high in kudos and comments as well. Which I’m glad about! I’ve reread the fic several time bc I really enjoyed writing it, and knowing that other people liked it too is really nice!

Favorite story you’ve written so far: This is probably a cop-out answer, but I really love most of my fics. Mainly because I try to write stuff that I wanted to read, and that makes them nice to look back on.

Fic you were nervous to post: This answer is also a bit weird, but I’m never really nervous when I post a fic. It’s about three seconds after I hit the post button that I get nervous and uncertain, and have to convince myself that it’ll be fine. And that happens regularly, every time I go to post something.

How you choose your titles: I have no idea. Sometimes it’s a song lyric that I carve and butcher until I think it works. Sometimes the perfect one pops into my head and I have to leave it, otherwise it will wilt and fade like a flower. Sometimes a semi-perfect one pops into my head, and then I have to knead out the potential like bread-dough. Sometimes they come to me when I hit my head against the table hard enough (I jest, please don’t do this). 

Titles are an arcane mystery, and I am simply a wannabe wizard, seeking out the answer to the universe.

Do you outline: YES. Yes. Yes I outline. I outline *everything* even my shortest oneshots, because my brain is full of holes and doesn’t like to write linearly all the time. 

Having even just the bare-bones of a structure to go and fill back in with scenes I think of while doing other stuff makes all the difference. I never think of my favorite scenes/dialogue while I’m in front of the screen, it’s always when I’m getting ready to sleep or shower, and being able to scribble down the idea and then add it to the outline is just *chef kiss*.

It also helps me to be able to bounce around from idea to idea, and get back into the flow more easily. (though recently the flow has been hard to come by, and generally put me into a bit of a block. I think I broke it though, which is good!)

Complete: Everything currently posted to my ao3! Which is a bad answer I know, but sometimes you just have to promote yourself. (18 fics, mostly oneshots)

In progress: I have four oneshots on my wip-oneshot document, and a long-fic in a separate file.

Coming soon: betting on the long game, snowday

Not yet started: Words That Look Like Music (still outlining, this is the longfic I mentioned above)

Do you accept prompts: Yes! Prompts, asks, whatever! However, I will say that just because I get a prompt, that... sadly doesn’t mean that I will write it, mainly bc I struggle with a ton of Executive Dysfunction as a result of my adhd, and also because I can wind up forgetting about it completely. (And when I finally *do* remember, I’ll feel guilty about it, but be too scared to post/answer)

Upcoming story you are most excited to write: Words That Look Like Music, because I’m going to be doing a *ton* of research and worldbuilding on writing systems and script  and soulmates and how that would work with the different nations & bending in ATLA.

Tagging: I’m 99% I am the last to this party and everyone I would tag has been tagged already... except maybe @cats-and-metersticks?

#not atla #asks #answers #i am so excited to finally have energy to write again #like i'm gonna actually do some writing again #and probably get caught up on the stuff that was posted while i was having my college-application/election prolonged-breakdown #bc i have a list

[afoolforatook]

A RWBY V7 Ep12 rant.....When I say this is long..... Legit was fucking 37 pages double spaced at one point. Sorry....

Before this gets started I want to warn you, this is long (even longer than I thought it’d be going in). It’s probably too long ... actually it is definitely too long but if I agonize over editing it down again and again I won’t get it up before the finale. It’s probably repetitive at times, and most certainly not anything I’ll be showing off as an example of my top essay writing. And I want to be able to say that the length pays off because I have some grand hopeful insight at the end. I want to say I know things will be okay. But the fact that I can’t is exactly why I’m writing this, and why it’s so long. So if you need this to have a hopeful ending, I’m sorry, I don’t have one for you currently. I want to, so badly. But to me false hope would be even worse.  So if you can’t handle another long post that doesn’t end with a way to fix things, it’s okay, take care of yourself. But maybe the most hopeful thing I can tell you, and tell you up front, is that you aren’t alone in your pain. 

I want to preface this all with one more thing: I don’t hate CRWBY. I respect them, support them. I’ve wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt as much as I could.  That doesn’t mean I can’t criticize them or expect more from them or just be plain angry with them. I can be vocal about all of that without harassing them, without hating them. I don’t think they’re just plain evil or homophobic. I still want to believe that they can do things that will allow me to trust them again. Maybe it’s naive, but I want to, at the very least, still have hope that this wasn’t malicious, just very poorly conceived and executed. 

And I know that other people who are hurting like me are lashing out towards CRWBY. And while I don’t at all condone that kind of reaction, I can understand it to an extent. Because I’m very, very hurt and angry and it would be so easy to let loose and say all the awful stuff I want to in my anger. To yell and call people out and not care how I come across. It would definitely be a lot easier than spending all week writing this long thing and agonizing over making it perfect. There is nothing wrong with venting and being raw and open and angry, but just as we want CRWBY to be aware that their actions can truly hurt people, we need to be conscious of the fact that so can ours.  Many people are very hurt right now. And whether or not you think it was queerbaiting/BYG or not, or even whether or not you just think it was bad writing, no one has the right to invalidate the people who are hurting right now, many of whom are queer people dealing with personal traumas and mental illness. 

The few people who are attacking CRWBY and other fans (and there is a difference between being angry and vocal about that anger and just attacking them) do not invalidate the hurt people are feeling. If you are hurt or angry you have every right to be. You have every right to stop watching the show or leave the fandom, or communicate your hurt to CRWBY. But communicate means just that; communicate. Talk. You can be as angry as you are, you don’t have to temper your pain to be more tolerable to the people who caused that pain. But there is a difference between being harsh and honest about how hurt you are, and harassing real people. And I won’t say “harassing real people over a fictional character/show” because I know it’s more complicated than that. My hurt this past week isn’t over a fictional character or a ship. It’s about me and what I’ve been through and the fact that the very thing that gave me strength in hard times was turned into something that confirmed my biggest fears and hurt me immensely. 

The world always gets so sentimental when we see things about fictional stories giving people some comfort, and we celebrate that. But as soon as people say they can be hurt just as much by media, we lash out, say they’re overreacting, that they’re just getting upset over fictional characters. But you can’t have it both ways. We can’t want fiction to be important and inspiring to people and then belittle people who are negatively impacted by the same material, especially when often that vulnerability comes from a history of trauma and/or being neurodivergent. I am extremely hurt. I feel betrayed and abandoned and angry. And it will take time for me to process all of that and move past it. But I can be all of those things without attacking CRWBY or the people who might disagree with me. 

To me, this isn’t about disagreeing. We can argue forever about whether or not this was queerbaiting or bury your gays or poor writing (and I honestly at this moment don’t even know what I think about all of that because I’m not in that headspace currently) but the fact is that there are many, many people who feel it was, and who are hurting because of that, and whether you believe it was or not does not give you the right to invalidate the real pain that they are feeling.  Who is right is less important than the fact that people, people who were already vulnerable, have been hurt. So, please. Respect each other. Respect those who are hurting. Respect those who aren’t and don’t understand, and respect CRWBY. You can still be angry and speak out without attacking others. 

With that said, to fully understand why this has affected me so much, and why it’s going to take a long time for me to get back to where I was, regardless of how the volume ends, there are things you need to know about my history. It’s a lot of background and this is already going to be a longer post than I’d really like, but it’s important to understanding why RWBY is so important to me, and thus able to have such a negative effect on me. So please, bear with me. Also, fair warning, though at this point it’s probably obvious, but my story isn’t happy. I still haven’t found my own positive ending to it. If it’s too much for you to read right now, please, like I said before, take care of yourself. 

I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Farley. I’m 24, nonbinary (they/them), biromantic, demisexual. I have MDD, GAD, ADHD, Panic Disorder, OCD, Comorbid PTSD, and am trying to get an official autism diagnosis. I’m a full on alphabet soup. I struggle with imposter syndrome, intrusive thoughts, self-isolation, dermatillomania, and multiple trauma related phobias. My queer and neurodivergent identities are huge parts of my life and I try to be as open as possible about them, in the hopes of helping end the stigma around them. One of the main ways I cope with my mental health issues on a day to day basis is through hyperfixations. While it might not technically be the healthiest method, it’s what I’ve found to work for me when I’m in a really bad place and unable to practice more active coping skills. Through stories and characters that I relate to, I can separate my problems from myself a little and both escape from them for a while when needed, and view them a little more clearly from a new perspective.  

That’s some important info about me, but what really matters here is the past five years of my life and the trauma within them. 

In October of 2015, a few months into my sophomore year of college, I went into a deep depression, mostly brought on by multiple family deaths and stresses over the past summer that I had not properly had time to process and recover from. I quit my job as an RA and withdrew from school and moved back home with my parents.  While this was the right decision at the time, it wasn’t easy. I left a very close group of friends at school, and didn’t really have a strong support system at home aside from my parents. My friends from high school had all gone off to college themselves, and the few that still lived in town were often busy with work or school. And because I have an intense fear of driving and needed time to get myself in a better place before starting a job, I ended up spending most of my time home alone. I became more and more isolated, to the point of verging on agoraphobic, and my parents and I started thinking about ways I could basically get my life started again. 

 But isolation messes with your head, and makes you want to just isolate more and more. In mid February of 2016 I started to really work on being social again. Mostly because I started talking to my best friend from high school, Emma, regularly again. She knew I was struggling, and while I’ve always had a hard time keeping in touch with people, Emma has always been the person I never felt self conscious about going to. We talked everyday. After high school, Emma’s mom and younger brother had moved to Ohio (I live in NC) and Emma had gone to school in Oregon. Her father lives in Germany. So between visiting her family in Ohio and Germany she didn’t have a lot of time during breaks to come back to NC to visit friends. Since we graduated I’d only seen her once for about 12 hours during that awful summer. But now we were skyping and chatting everyday. And slowly I started to be less and less scared of being more social. I wanted to hang out with friends. I was excited about going back to school in the fall. 

Something important to understand about me and Emma is how close we’ve always been. We’d been best friends since 8th grade. We told each other we were soulmates, soulfriends, when we were 15. Nearly everyone in our small high school thought we were dating at one time or another. I always knew I loved her. I was fine with our relationship being “only” platonic. Because platonic wasn’t “only”. It was absolutely perfect. It was having her as one of the most important people in my life, and me in hers, and that’s all I wanted. But I also knew that if she ever wanted to try a romantic relationship, I’d be open. 

Around the time I left school Emma had been going through a lot herself. She was finally getting help for her own mental health issues and she was, for the first time, really thinking about her identity and sexuality. On May 4th 2016 she texted me like always, but this time she was nervous. She wanted to tell me something. She said she was still confused about her sexuality and didn’t know where she fell. But when she tried to think of being with someone, the only person she pictured was me. And I told her basically what I just told you. So we started talking about testing out us being a couple. She had already been planning to come to NC to visit after she went to Ohio later that month for her brother’s high school graduation. And my parents were going on a two week vacation around that time as well. So we decided that she would come and stay with me for two weeks. We would keep this to ourselves until then, so that we could see if this was really the best thing for us. And if so, then we’d tell people. We’d always talked about living together after school, but now we wanted to see exactly what we wanted our relationship to be. She bought a bus ticket for May 26th and would stay through June 10th or so, which would mean she’d be there for her 20th birthday on June 5th. We talked everyday about our plans for her visit. How excited we were, how we could cook dinner together and dance around the house in our underwear, and just get to be Us again. We talked to friends, planning to visit friends from high school and maybe even my friends from college.

On May 18th I texted Emma around 11 pm. I hadn’t heard from her all day which was unusual but she was in Ohio celebrating her mom’s birthday and getting ready for her brother’s graduation that weekend, so she was probably just busy. We’d told each other goodnight every night for months at that point. So I told her I loved her and was so excited to see her in just over a week.

The next morning it was a bit odd that she still hadn’t texted me back but again, I just assumed she was busy with family. And then the mail came, and the last part of a birthday present I was making for her arrived. So I got to work, giddy. 

Around 2 pm my other best friend from high school, Juli, called me. For some reason I decided I’d just call her back later, I was too engrossed in making Emma’s present. About 20 minutes later I heard a knock on my door and turned to see my parents standing in the doorway to my room. I vividly remember spinning around happily and saying “Hey! Everything okay?” even as I noticed the tears on my dad’s face and how pale my mom was. My stomach knotted and I stood as my mom said “N-no. Honey…..” and walked towards me. I took a deep breath, preparing myself for her to say that a grandparent or aunt or uncle had died. But as she got closer and put a shaking hand on my shoulder, I got a little more confused, a different kind of scared. One of my cousins? One of my baby cousins?  

Nothing could have prepared me for her telling me that there’d been an accident in Ohio. That Emma, and her mom, and her brother, and her aunt had been in a crash…. And that all four of them had been killed on impact. The only thing I remember about the rest of the night is the pain of continuously screaming, punching the wall until my dad stopped me, and calling my friends from college, trying to have someone to talk to, someone who I could call who wouldn’t also be mourning. I couldn’t handle my own grief, let alone anyone else’s at that moment. 

There’s a lot more to that story. There’s the memorial service in Ohio and meeting her dad and stepmom for the first time. There’s the service we put together at our high school and seeing our friend group all together again, except not. There’s the panic attacks every time I saw a garbage truck, or my parents drove off to work. 

But most importantly for what you need to know right now, is my sliding back into isolation. I barely ever saw my friends from home and every time I did for the next two years it had something to do with mourning Emma. I saw my college friends a few times; them coming to visit or me taking a bus to stay the weekend. But eventually they went back to school and I stayed at home. I drifted away from high school friends because I didn’t know how to handle being with them when everything we did together reminded me of what I’d lost. I didn’t know how to talk to them because I needed their support but knew I didn’t have it in me to be supportive of them, and that wasn’t fair. I drifted away from my college friends for the same reasons, and even more so as the group dynamic that I had left slowly changed and faded until I didn’t know who was talking to who anymore and I again felt bad for dumping my shit on them when I couldn’t do the same. I began to think that all I brought to any social interaction was my pain and hopelessness. I would just bring everyone else down. They shouldn’t have to deal with my pain. So a year after I left school I was even more alone. I’d lost or pushed away all the people in my life that I’d expected to be lifelong friends, family. And I didn’t know how to begin to fix that. I didn’t know if I wanted to. I didn’t know if I deserved to. 

The only reason I was even still alive was because anytime I even got close to thinking about hurting myself, I could just sense Emma glaring at me, yelling at me, telling me that I couldn’t let this stop me from living out all those dreams we’d talked about. And I knew that my life wasn’t just mine anymore, that all those dreams, that bond, the parts of my favorite person that only I knew, would be lost if I died. 

But I didn't have my friends to vent to, and as supportive as my parents were (I’d told them and a few close friends about me and Emma that first terrible week) I needed friends. But I didn’t know how to reconnect and I was too scared to go out and meet new people, especially knowing that at some point I’d have to drop the “dead girlfriend” bomb on them, and who’d want to stick around after that?  So I tried to use media and hyperfixations to pull myself out of spirals, like I always had. But it was hard. Because most of the things that had been comforting before were all things I’d shared with Emma, and so now they were just more reminders of her absence. And even new things I found soon turned rotten because I couldn’t help but think about how I wish I could show it to Emma. Everything that made me happy for even a moment would pretty soon make me sad. 

Eventually I found things that comforted me and helped me be creative again and that led me to starting school again, nearly three years after I’d left, at SCAD.  I loved the classes. I wanted to be there. I’ve always been a fiction writer but now there was so much in my head that I needed to get out, to process, and to share with people, especially people like me dealing with an unimaginable grief. Those past few years had been made even more difficult by the lack of representation I found in grief material. Everything was either about grieving the elderly, not someone who’d barely even gotten to live. Or if it was about someone young it was due to suicide or disease or violence; in other words things that at the very least, left the grieving with some cause to care about, or something to be angry at, some real world outlet. I didn’t have that. I didn’t relate to that. And even harder was finding anything I could relate to that included the complexities that my queer identity put on my grief; there were people I could and couldn’t tell about our relationship. Did I say I lost my best friend or my girlfriend? What if her family didn’t approve and wouldn’t talk to me, wouldn’t let me have any of her things, wouldn’t want me around? And one of the biggest things I kept thinking those first few months; why had my life become a ‘bury your gays’ soap opera plot line. Was Emma supposed to just be my tragic backstory now? Was I just supposed to use this as angsty fodder for the rest of my life? What about her? What about her dreams, her potential? What about her progress? She’d just gotten to a place where she was accepting herself. Where she was overcoming her mental health issues, where she was proud of who she was. Why was I allowed to keep going and she wasn’t?  I couldn’t find any support for these feelings. Not books or groups or forums. So I decided to make them myself. I started writing and drawing, putting together what I called my Grief Scrapbook. I was working towards the thing that mattered to me more than anything; telling our story. I was getting the chance to create the content I’d so desperately needed. 

But I was still alone, even at school. I was 23 living with mostly 18/19 year olds. And while there wasn’t anything wrong with them, I was struggling with a strong sense of dissociation. Everywhere I looked I saw Emma, forever 19. And there I was, continuing to age and getting further and further away from her. 

My first year at SCAD I made two friends, and while I love them, they didn’t fulfill the hole left by the large close knit groups of friends I’d lost. I tried to get back in touch with my best friend from college, only to find that she was no longer talking to me. And I don’t blame her really. Yes I’d been going through things, but so had she, and I hadn’t been able to be a good friend for her. So if she needed to move on for her own good, no matter how sad that made me, she had every right to do what was best for her, just as I had been trying to do. 

I’m now in my second year at SCAD and recently started hanging out with a new group. And they’re great and I’m slowly feeling more confident and secure around them, but I still struggle. I still miss the relationships I held so dear, the relationships I let dissolve. I still worry I’ll never have that kind of connection with people again, and that if I do somehow manage to find it, I’ll mess it up again.  Some days are particularly rough, when I sit with my thoughts too long, or see something that reminds me of any one of the many people I miss, and I ache for the happiness I had. And it’s those moments when I turn to hyperfixations (I do promise this is getting to RWBY). 

This past February the final How To Train Your Dragon movie came out. The HTTYD franchise holds a very dear place in my heart, as it was my main hyperfixation during high school, and something I shared with Emma and other friends. The second film came out the day of my graduation. It was the last movie Emma and I saw together before she moved to Ohio and then went to school in Oregon. It was the last movie we saw together at all. I knew it was going to be very emotional for me to see the final movie, alone now. But I had to see it opening night. And (spoilers for The Hidden World I guess) the movie ended up being about the reality of having to let go of the important people from your childhood as you grow up. About dealing with the fact that sometimes the people you expected to always be a part of your life, aren’t. I loved the movie, but it destroyed me. A few months later I had to get through May, the 3rd anniversary, away from home for the first time. And it was extremely difficult. I’d had to take a break from HTTYD and process things. 

So my main hyperfixations weren’t helping me get through a really difficult time. But around the time HTTYD 3 came out I happened to get back into RWBY. I’d watched the first season or so when it first came out, but then had just kind of forgotten about it. And so, in the absence of HTTYD, I got caught up. And I can’t say there weren’t things that hurt, that made me have to take a moment and collect myself.  Watching the end of volume three, watching Pyrrha and Jaune finally kiss, and then watch their relationship die with her before they even had a chance to be together, hit way too close to home. Logically I should have projected on Jaune more than I did but I think I couldn’t, because it wasn’t just similar, it felt like I was literally watching the worst moment of my life play out. He was too much like me to handle. But there was Qrow. And at first I just kind of latched onto him because I liked him. I like his characterization, his design, and I was a fan of V*c ( I hate to even mention him here for fear of causing a totally different discourse, but Emma and I were big fans of his and high school and met him and when everything happened with him it was just another thing that felt like a good memory of Emma had been tainted.)  

And so I was watching while the last half of volume six was airing. And I was watching Qrow slip further and further into his depression. I watched as he felt betrayed by Oz after grieving him and then getting him back. I thought more about how he’d basically lost his sister, about how he’d grieved for Summer (regardless of whether it was platonic or romantic), how he lost hope in having strong relationships ever again. How he felt cursed and how he pushed people away to protect them and himself from more pain. I saw how the Apathy affected him and how close he was to giving in before Ruby and Weiss snapped him out of it. I saw him struggle to get himself back together for Ruby and the rest of the kids, but not know how. I saw every single fear I’d struggled with those past few years in him. I related to Qrow more than I’d ever expected to. And so my hyperfixation on RWBY grew. His addiction was my isolation. His insecurities of hurting others and thus pushing them away was my fear that for the rest of my life, I would be alone because I was always going to be too broken to be worthy of friends and love. 

And then everything happened with V*c and for a bit everything hurt again and I had to get away from RWBY and the toxicity within parts of the fandom. And when I was able to come back I was excited but worried. I hoped that Qrow would continue to develop, continue to progress alongside me, that I would like his new actor enough to finish healing the sting I’d felt over V*c.  I just wanted Qrow back, I wanted this character to be there to help me again.

Because Qrow Branwen gave me hope. He gave me hope that I could get better. He gave me hope that even with my insecurities and trauma, something I’ll never be fully free from, I can deserve people who care about me, and that there are actually people who will care about me. He gave me hope that good things can still happen to broken people. And not just people who were once broken and have healed, but people who are still figuring out how to heal, who know they will never fully heal, but also know they still are worthy of support and care. And then volume 7 started and I got more than I’d ever dreamed. 

There was the hug with Ironwood. And even though I shipped Ironqrow, the idea of there being a romantic aspect to that hug wasn’t what made it important. It was the fact that we got Qrow connecting with an old ally (and an adult), finding that he even still had an old ally. That despite everything that had happened with Oz and Lionheart, despite all the trust he’d had broken, maybe he wasn’t actually alone yet. And then we got Clover. I’ll admit I was wary of him at first. I was worried about the traitor theories, the death theories, and then the theories that he’d negatively affect Qrow, making him feel worse about his semblance. But then he grew on me so quickly. Because he smiled at Qrow. He got him to talk about himself, called him out when he was putting himself down, told him how well he was doing. And while it’s wasn’t because of Clover, he was sober, and Clover had to at the very least help him stay that way. Qrow was hunching less when he walked, opening up, being more vulnerable and social. He was smiling, laughing, making jokes. He had a steady partner that he trusted and worked well with, likely for the first time since team STRQ. And yes, I shipped them, but honestly while I would have still been disappointed if it was never canon, given how blatant it really seemed like it could be, it would ultimately have been okay. Because again, it was less about Qrow finding love and more about him finding support.   And then I saw Qrow and Clover and Robyn team up, and whether it was canon or just fandom I felt represented. Not just in the way I had with Qrow about my mental health, but as a queer person struggling with complicated grief; the exact thing I had never been able to find and had taken upon myself to create for others. I saw Qrow being loved (again, whether platonic or romantic isn’t as important) and healing. Even if Fairgame never actually happened, I could still see them as queer characters helping each other process trauma. And maybe I set myself up in a bubble part of the fandom that fully convinced me that Fairgame was possible, but at the very least I truly, undoubtedly thought that Clover would side with Qrow. 

And as I watched episode 12, I could feel my stomach sinking. Okay Clover didn’t side with Qrow at first, but maybe he’ll come around. Okay maybe he won’t come around, but maybe he’ll take Qrow in and they’ll have time to talk, maybe even with Ironwood. But then Clover abandons the ship, abandons Qrow and I was scrambling even more for hope that things would be okay.  Maybe he’s trying to get away to diffuse things. But then “Never pegged you for the manipulative type” the first sign of Qrow doubting their entire relationship, of feeling betrayed again. And then Clover calls Qrow cynical? Maybe I’m forgetting something, cause I haven’t gone back and analyzed every scene with them, but I can’t remember Qrow ever being cynical around Clover this volume that we’ve seen. Self-deprecating yes, but this is legitimately the happiest and most secure we’ve ever seen Qrow. But okay maybe they’ll reason and Clover will come around. But then “We don’t have to fight, friend.” and it’s friend not Qrow. And then “You don’t know my friends. That’s how it always goes.” and I broke. I almost stopped there, a part of me wishes I had. Because it was already so broken, this thing that had even in the past few weeks, been a main pillar of hope for me. But maybe they’ll come together to fight Tyrian. And then Qrow goes after Tyrian and Clover keeps attacking Qrow. Well maybe he’s really trying to protect him, or has some plan. But then they continue to fight each other. And they don’t have even a moment of “who’s the bigger threat here? Us or the serial killer?” And then Qrow works with Tyrian?! Tyrian the serial killer? Tyrian the unstable maniac? Tyrian who tried to take Ruby? Tyrian who nearly killed Qrow? Tyrian who fucking worships Salem, who Qrow has spent most of his life fighting, has lost Summer to, and countless other traumas? (and I get the possible reasons, realizing that Clover won’t lay off of him so Tyrian is his best bet and then he can take care of Tyrian, but I still don’t like it. But this isn’t even about whether or not I think it’s good writing or characterization and it’s too long already to get into that.) And then Tyrian and Qrow fight so well together and I honestly felt sick. We haven’t seen Qrow work that well with anyone. Not RWBY, not Ironwood, not Clover.  And now we see it with fucking Tyrian? And maybe it’s a stretch but it honestly felt like another nail in the “Qrow attracts bad” coffin that is his insecurities. Qrow and Tyrian fight nearly perfectly together and it felt so damn wrong. Clover’s wrong here, Qrow’s wrong here, and it all feels so very very wrong based on the entire progression of their relationship throughout the volume. And then Qrow takes down Clover’s aura and I’m just empty.  There’s no hint of him trying to just beat Clover and not kill him. He has no reason to think that Tyrian won’t actually go for the kill during this fight. But they continue to have these snippets of “We don’t have to fight” or “I want to trust you” while showing no signs of holding back and still caring about the other’s well being. And then Qrow’s voice breaking during “Why couldn’t you just do the right thing…”. We’ve literally never seen Qrow this emotionally compromised, let alone during a fight. He’s crumbling because he finally had someone who made him think he could get better, that he could have close relationships, that he could be good for the people around him. And now he’s losing it. 

I was broken here, I was already spiraling. I knew Clover would get hit. I knew I would be struggling to deal with this episode because I had so fully expected a different course. But I thought there could still be hope. There had to still be hope. CRWBY wouldn’t give us all that development, wouldn’t show Qrow finally happy without leaving some hope for things turning around in the finale. He’d get hit by Tyrian’s stinger and Qrow would have to work to save him and they’d work things out. But then “I trust James with my life… and I wanted to trust you.” And I’m sobbing. Because I get it, Clover’s loyal, but when Qrow’s face hardens I know what he’s thinking. What he’s trying not to think but it’s so hard to fight: “Maybe it is me. Maybe I can’t be trusted. Maybe I’ve ruined things again”. Even though he knows what James is doing is wrong. But he trusted James, he trusted Clover. And he thought they trusted, cared for him. And now they’ve both turned against him and no matter how much he knows he’s doing the right thing, he can’t help but worry that he’s still the thing broken here, that he still messed up somewhere and ruined the relationships he needed so much. I was breaking more and more as I watched this source of my own hope lose all hope. 

And then Harbinger. The weapon Qrow built himself. That he modeled after his hero. The literal extension of his soul. And only moments before, Qrow destroyed the one thing that might have protected Clover. Clover’s emblem falls. Tyrian with “Like you killed Clover”. And yeah yeah Qrow being framed is heartbreaking. But it’s more that he’ll believe it. He did. He fucked everything up again. He tried so hard to do the right thing and still managed to hurt the person he cared about. And if Clover, the foil to his bad luck, could be destroyed by his semblance, how does anyone else stand a chance? And then blaming James. Swearing to make him pay (I honestly don’t remember if he says make him pay or kill him but I physically can’t rewatch that scene to see which it was). And yes he blames James. He hates James. It was the last straw breaking on someone he wanted to trust so much, wanted to have as a friend. But he still blames himself. He still knows he’s cursed and all the progress he’d made with Clover’s help is ripped away. 

And then “Good luck”. I’ve seen people saying it’s sweet, that it’s a moment of reconciliation, of Clover showing he still cares. And I don’t necessarily disagree. But I hate it. Because Qrow won’t take it that way. It’s just another reminder that good luck is out of his reach. And then the goddamn sky and the bi flag colors. And then we see Qrow cry for the first time. And then…. The scream…. I literally nearly vomited and that was the thing that sent me over the edge into full blown panic attack. Because I know that fucking scream. I know how it feels. I hear it ringing in my ears, I feel my throat getting raw. I could hear and see and feel myself in the same position. The nightmare I’d fought off for years; kneeling over Emma’s body and there being nothing I can do but scream and scream as the last of the hope I was clutching to faded with her… with Clover’s eyes.

It wasn’t that Clover died. It wasn’t that my ship won’t happen. It was how traumatizing it was. It was that Harbinger was now defiled. It was that Qrow set it up to happen. It was the sky. It was seeing the light go out of Clover’s eyes. It was Qrow’s scream. We’ve never seen a death like this on RWBY before. Yes we watched Pyrrha’s death. But there was no blood. We didn’t see her bleed out. We didn’t see the exact moment the light left her eyes. We saw Adam stabbed and some bleeding and then hitting the rocks, but we weren’t right there, seeing the exact moment of his death close up. If Clover had been stung by Tyrian and died I’d be upset still, and many of the issues I have would still be relevant. But using Harbinger like that, playing directly into Qrow’s own insecurities like that, after having him do things that felt extremely out of character in order to set things up for Tyrian to kill Clover like that and blame Qrow? It felt vile. 

It didn’t just feel like bad writing or different narrative choices. Hell, it didn’t even just feel OOC. It felt malicious. It felt like twisting established plot and characterisation completely in order to make it fit some tragic climax that was only chosen because it would have the biggest emotional impact, not because it was the best way to continue the plot. And they can’t say that they didn’t expect people to be so attached to Clover. Because if they didn’t expect that to be so emotional for viewers, then why do it like that in the first place? Why put in the climatic cinematic shot that mirrors when Yang lost her arm? Why have Qrow screaming over Clover’s body be the final shot?  If Clover was never meant to have significance to both Qrow and fans, why make his death so painful? They can’t say that they didn’t know fans would get so invested at the same time that they say that it was necessary to make it that traumatic. It’s not that you can’t kill off beloved characters, no matter how long they’ve been in the show. But if you do, it’s got to feel important, it’s got to feel necessary, and it’s got to make sense for those characters, or else it just feels like you’re playing with peoples’ emotions for no reason other than shock factor. 

I’ve seen a bunch of theories and discourse. Arguments over whether or not it’s queerbaiting or bury your gays. Over whether or not it’s bad writing or out of character. And I’m sure I’ll eventually have a stronger, more thought out opinion on that, but right now I can’t even get there. 

I’ve seen theories as to why CRWBY did this, why it’s important to the plot. And maybe I’m wrong, maybe I’ll be just as surprised in a good way next week as I was in a traumatic way this week. But it will take a lot, and I will still need time to recover and dig myself back out of my own intrusive thoughts that saw this episode and rejoiced because “See!? See, good things can’t happen! You’ll always lose whatever good you find. You’ll always ruin whatever good you find.” And none of the theories I’ve seen make that better. Maybe they’ll bring Clover back with the Staff of Creation or some other method: doesn’t matter, the damage is still done. Qrow still is betrayed and traumatized. And even if Clover came back and Ironwood realized he was wrong and stopped, even if everything went back to exactly what it was, Qrow still would have lost all the progress he made this season. Because even if everything was fixed, Qrow would still have to fight down the newly boosted fear that everything will fall apart again. And similarly even if I come back to RWBY and things are good, I will still have a hard time trusting the show, and will still have to climb my way out of a hole I had just gotten out of, except this time I won’t have the comfort of RWBY to help me. 

Or maybe Clover won’t come back and Qrow will relapse and try to kill Ironwood and lose his mind like the scarecrow he is. And what will that do but reinforce the fear and idea that “broken” people can’t escape their vices? That they’ll always come back to pain. Yes, it’s important to show that people can relapse and still get better, that relapse doesn’t mean all hope is lost. But there’s a difference between a relapse and new trauma that directly undercuts all the progress you’ve made. That’s not inspirational, it’s exhausting. Yes, you can come back again, but what about the next time and the next and the next? When will you just get to be secure in your happiness without worrying that at any moment you’ll thrown back to square one?

If it turns out there’s some great plot point this creates, some big revelation that fixes things, I still think it wasn’t done properly. Fine, have that, have that pain. But don’t end on that and leave people for a week. It’s not about it being a cliffhanger. It’s about people who are traumatized being abandoned. (Again, I’m not even getting into how, if this did happen, how episode 12 would still feel off from a characterization standpoint and whether or not it was poor writing. It’s an analysis I can’t currently do.)

And maybe my least favorite theory and the one that I might see as most likely; that Qrow won’t relapse. That he won’t completely lose it and instead Clover’s death and influence will be what keeps him going. Because yeah, that sounds great, that sounds heroic and strong and like the progress that came from knowing Clover did make a difference. But it feels wrong in this instance. Qrow’s had that. He’s had loss that hurt him but he kept going to finish something or honor them. He kept going after Summer died. He kept going for Ruby and Yang and Tai. If he didn’t have that, why would he have kept going when things were so bad? But Qrow doesn’t need that again. He doesn’t need another pain to spur him on. He needs support. He needs proof that his hard work, his struggle, has been worth it and that he still has allies. And not just the kids. Because as much as he respects them, as much as he believes in them and their abilities as hunters, he’s still protective of them, they still aren’t on an equal level. He still feels responsible for them. And that’s good for him, but he needs adults too. He needs people who aren’t his responsibility. He needs adults who can call him out on his shit. He needs adults he can lean on, who can take care of him. And now who does he have? Summer is gone. Raven is gone. Tai is back at home. Oz is gone. Lionheart betrayed him. James has now betrayed him. Winter has sided with James and might not be alive much longer? Robyn is there, but also hurt, and we haven’t seen anything to suggest that they are particularly close. And now Clover is dead. Clover, the only person we have ever seen Qrow let his guard down around like we did this season.

And it’s not that the “Staying alive for the person you’ve lost” is a bad plot line, and if I’d trust any show to do it I would’ve thought it’d be RWBY. But I can tell you from fucking experience, forcing yourself to keep going in honor of someone? Yeah, it might keep you alive. It might give you meaning and even lead you to do great things. But when it’s just you and your head? When you’re alone because you’ve lost everyone who kept you going and now you have to keep going without them, for them? It fucking sucks. It’s not poetic. It’s not this heroic strength that lifts you up. It’s a crushing weight of fear that you will fail again, that you’re the only one who can carry this burden, but this time you’ll let down the person most important to you.  And then not only will you have fucked up your life but you’d have made their suffering and loss meaningless. 

And I can see why CRWBY might take this route, what their message might be, and maybe for them and for some people it’s good, but personally it’s crushing. Because it can be a good thing to have the desire to honor someone spur you on, that’s literally why we still have RWBY. But if that’s the only thing you have? It’s toxic. You have to have other support and motivations of your own to keep you going without becoming hollow inside. And right now, Qrow doesn’t have that. Right now, if Qrow uses this to push him forward, it’s not recovery, it’s not avoiding a relapse; it’s falling into a new, much harder to spot, addiction.

Yes, shitty things happen regardless of whether or not you’ve recovered from previous shitty things. Yes, life isn’t fair and sometimes it feels like you just get hit down over and over. And yes, people die in war and it’s ruthless and unfair. But RWBY is still a show. It’s still a show about hope. It’s still fiction, an escape from the cruelty of reality. And to me there were multiple other options for the plot to create conflict and sacrifice without doing it in a way that seems so needlessly cruel.  

This is complicated and layered and I think there have been mistakes made on multiple sides, and in the end, we still don’t know what CRWBY has planned and how things will go from here and why they chose this. Because everything has a meaning in RWBY. At least I want to believe that. But right now it’s very hard to think that all the meaning that was what made this my favorite volume, was anything more than a trap to make the end that much more painful. And that hurts. I want to believe that’s not the case. But it’s very, very hard. And like I said before, even if they pull it off amazingly and everything makes sense after next week, damage has still been done. No matter what happens, there were ways things could have been handled either throughout the volume or in this episode that, while still having emotional significance and sacrifice, could have been less traumatizing to a large portion of the fandom who supports CRWBY specifically because they trust them not to do something like that to them. 

In the end I’m hurt because right now it feels like the entirety of this volume was just a build up for the shock value of tearing Qrow down again. And I’m just tired of it. I’m biased I know, and maybe for some people it’s an important narrative. But to me it just feels like angst just for the sake of being cruel to a character who can’t catch a break. Since Emma’s death I understandably haven’t been a big fan of really angsty fanfiction. At first seeing fics where a character lost their partner made me irrationally angry. Because why can’t good things happen in fictional worlds? Why do characters I care about have to suffer like I do just for the sake of being angsty? Why would someone do that to a character they love? Why inflict that absolute agony onto a character when you could just, let them be happy? Yes conflict and sacrifice are crucial to good storytelling, but you still have to leave a character some hope, or else what’s the point of just watching them linger in misery? This kind of pain isn’t just a plot point that gets addressed for one or two episodes and then is fully dealt with. It’s a part of who you are now and will be for the rest of your life. 

I’ve been sad over shows before. I’ve thought plot lines were bad and like I’d lost a character that deserved better. But I’ve never had something take me from a (relatively) stable mindset to a truly frightening spiral like I’ve been in this week. If this had happened when I was younger (granted if it had happened before Emma’s death it wouldn’t have had the same meaning), if it had been during that first year? It really might have been a breaking point for me. The final straw. The only reason I’m able to know that as truly devastating as this has been for me this week, I’m not in actual danger of getting to a critically low space, is because I’ve learned how to deal with those low places these past four years. I’m still in a dangerous headspace but I know how to handle it.  I know to reach out, to vent, to ask friends to keep an eye on me, to keep an eye out for critical signs that I’m getting worse and I need more professional help. But if I’d had this trauma as a teen and saw this, or if I’d seen it before I’d built up this method of keeping myself safe even when in the worst headspaces?  I don’t know that I would have been able to deal with it. 

There’s a loud part of my head that is berating me for letting this affect me so much. For letting a show and fictional characters be the catalyst for me having to actively ask my friends to keep sharp instruments away from me for the first time in years. I’ll have a moment of clarity of “It’s not that bad, you’ll get past it” before being swallowed back up by the hopelessness. I have moments of “How could you let a fictional character’s death put you in this place, but not Emma? How is he more important?” 

But it’s not about RWBY or Clover or Qrow. It’s about my brain, and how I as a neurodivergent person deal with things. It’s about this how thing that I use to filter parts of my life through so that I can handle them in more reasonable chunks, is now a trigger itself. I currently don’t have any other hyperfixations, which means every time I have a moment of silence, or start to get feeling down again, my brain goes to RWBY, because usually that’s how I pull myself out. But that just reminds me of the loss RWBY currently represents. Not just the trauma this has brought up, but the fact that I’ve lost this source of comfort. And then I’m left scrambling for anything as I spiral further and further. I’m at the point where unless I am having constant outside stimulus to keep my brain occupied I go right back into a nosedive. And there’s nothing I can do on my own to stop it. So I just have to ride it out, fight back dozens of overwhelming intrusive thoughts, and try to think that I won’t always be this miserable, even though the current thing that was helping me believe that has just shown me the opposite is true. 

And no, creators can’t be held responsible for the mental states of fans of their work. But when things are done that directly hurt so many people, that even if not intended to, feel so calculated and malicious, they have to acknowledge the part they played in that trauma. 

The point of whether there was queer baiting/byg, and mlm representation and how its handled, is very important, but it is also something I just can’t even begin to look at right now from an analytical viewpoint. I can’t begin to come at this from an activist place right now. And I know there are plenty of other people who can speak on it better than I could currently.  My queer identity is largely wrapped up in my grief and how it affects me, but that also means that when I’m spiraling, it is very hard to focus and make good points about things that are not issues I’ve directly experienced. The only reason I can write this at all is because these are really just emotions I’ve dealt with for years that were dragged back up.

RWBY has always been about finding hope when it feels impossible. But this feels like it’s becoming “keep finding new hope but know you’ll lose it too and have to start over”.

RWBY has been what gave me hope that even when bad thing after bad thing happened, there was a reason to keep going, that eventually something good would come your way and you don’t have to live in fear of losing it. That you can still be broken and be worthy of good things. But this episode ripped that all away and told me that sometimes a person is never meant to be happy no matter how hard they try. 

A big reason I have clung to RWBY so much, and admired CRWBY so much, and in turn been so forgiving of plotlines or details that I maybe wasn’t the biggest fan of, was because I see myself in them. They lost Monty so suddenly and tragically and I understand that as much as anyone who isn’t them can. I understand the drive of keeping the show going. When I’m working on my own writing and art about my story and my loss, they are a huge inspiration to me to keep going even when it feels impossible. I can barely listen to Indomitable because, much like Jaune losing Pyrrha, it is uncanny how close to home it hits. They have been through more than we as fans can or should ever expect to know. Because even as someone very open about their grief, who wants to get rid of the stigma of expressing grief, I know that everyone deserves to keep as much of their grief and pain private as they need. And I can't even begin to imagine how hard it is to work on a show that is literally a feat of love and honor to a person you’ve lost, and then have people attack it and you, and make huge accusations, even try to use your loved one’s memory against you. It’s my biggest fear in creating something so incredibly personal but so important. 

And I know that everyone handles grief differently, and no matter how many people you have to support you it can be an extremely isolating thing. I know that no one has the right to tell someone else they are grieving wrong, and I would never dare do that to them. Because I know that the ways I grieve and the things that piss me off about grief and people’s reactions to it, will not line up with everyone else’s, and that’s okay. So the exact things that hurt me so much may be the things that CRWBY find cathartic. 

But I still think it’s important to talk about something that hurts you. To help people understand a facet of grief that might not be what they’ve experienced. Because even people who want to help, who want to provide representation to those hurting, can never please everyone, and even can even hurt people. I want to trust CRWBY. I want to believe they care about the queer community (even if they don’t always succeed in providing good representation), I want to believe they wouldn’t purposefully try to hurt queer fans with queerbaiting or byg. I want to believe they don’t actually hate mlm. 

Narrative is complicated and sometimes things are done that will unknowingly cause harm, or that were topics that the writers didn’t understand enough to properly execute. Things that may seem so obvious to the people who were hurt could truly be things that hadn’t occurred to the writers. And that’s not to excuse those writers from acknowledging their mistake, but to give them a chance to learn and improve. I think a great example is The Adventure Zone (slight spoilers ahead), and how Griffin McElroy handled the fans’ reaction after Sloane and Hurley died in Petals to the Metal. He hadn’t wanted to hurt anyone but he made a decision that was very upsetting for many people and that wasn’t okay. But he listened and apologized and from there on not only tried to provide better representation, but asked about how he could do so, consulted the people he was trying to represent in order to do everything he could to not cause that kind of pain again. Creators are human and deserve second chances, as long as they show they are actively trying to improve.

Things will be learning experiences, but the people who are hurt in those learning experiences, and who are often the ones hurt in such things over and over, are still allowed to be hurt and upset. Intent is not effect. And for creators who want to be inclusive and supportive, it is their responsibility to accept criticism and work to avoid making the same mistakes. Like I said at the start of this, criticism is not harassment and harassment helps no one. Be as angry as you are, be as open as you need, but cruelty to people who are honestly trying to do good but will still make human mistakes just creates more pain and conflict. You don’t have to like it or forgive it but you can’t invalidate the people who are hurt, who do. 

I love RWBY. I want to love CRWBY. I want to keep watching. I want to keep supporting and trusting them. And maybe I’m letting a show have too much influence over me. Maybe it’s unhealthy to project so much on a character. Maybe things will prove to be necessary to tell the story they want to tell. But speaking as a neurodivergent, traumatized, grieving, queer person, I still feel betrayed and hurt by something that I trusted enough to be vulnerable about and I don’t want to sugarcoat or hide that. 

I can’t say I hate CRWBY or I’ve lost all hope in or respect for them, because I’ve related to them so much and know how complicated things like this can be. And because I don’t think I personally can write someone off while still in such an emotionally raw space. I’ll have to take some time to see if I’m able to watch the finale this weekend, but I will most likely watch it, if not just a bit later than I usually would. And RWBY has thrown big surprises at us before, and I can’t know what will happen in the finale and how it will feed into or try to heal some of the pain we’re feeling. But regardless of what the narrative intent is in Clover’s death, it needs to be acknowledged that episode 12 alone, ending on such an intense scene that wouldn’t be resolved for at least a week, hurt people. And CRWBY needs to acknowledge and take responsibility for it. I can’t say that I’m the most up to date on social media and what each person involved with volume 7 has said in the past few months. But I know that numerous official twitter accounts posted things that led people to put more credibility in Fairgame, myself included. And that even after seeing how big the ship had gotten, and knowing what the outcome was, some of CRWBY continued to seemingly feed into the excitement, even teasing about how hard episode 12 would hit us. 

That’s honestly one of the reasons I think this feels not just like bad writing or something, but betrayal. Of course RT can’t control everything everyone involved with RWBY posts, but for a company that has tried to seem so supportive of lgbt and mentally ill fans, they should have, at the very least, not have fed the flame and given people hope and supposed credibility that they knew would crumble after this episode. It feels like, even if they hadn’t intended this entire plot point to come across the way it has, they saw us going down this path and egged us on for added shock factor. 

And even if somehow the finale fixes everything, it doesn’t undo that hurt. It makes me think of the trailers for Insatiable when it first came out. How toxic and fat shaming they seemed and how people reacted poorly to it, but then all the people involved responded with how positive the show was, and that people shouldn’t judge it before they saw it. Or those “joke” videos or posts of kids coming out and the parents getting angry but then it’s about some stupid other thing. It’s meant to trigger a very sensitive issue, that people who have gone through traumas related to those issues are all too familiar with seeing over and over. So why would they have faith that this wasn’t just another one of those times when everything they see points to the opposite? Why trigger people who have already been hurt, for the sake of shock factor? It’s poor and callous writing. 

And that’s what this feels like. It feels like we were exploited in order to make this hurt more. And maybe that was a very unfortunate accident. But CRWBY still needs to acknowledge that they made mistakes, and do what they can to prove to the fans that they still deserve our trust. And that’s not going to be an easy one and done thing. For some it may never be enough, and that is completely valid. 

Of course everyone has different histories and issues that can lead them to be drawn to a certain show or character. And creators can’t ever know for sure that they won’t bring up painful things for any of their fans, and often trying to do so can make the content and message suffer. But even though everyone might not have a story that is as “obviously” traumatic as mine, might not have things they so directly relate to in Qrow and in Clover’s death,  they’re all still valid in the pain they’re feeling. One of my least favorite things about living with grief is people thinking that their traumas and struggles aren’t as big or important as my own. 

This week I’ve told people how hard a time I’m having, and why. And the people who know my backstory understood. The people who didn’t know though, brushed it off as crazy fangirl, tumblr discourse drivel. Even to my face after I told them how much I was hurting, they would groan about people getting so obsessed with fictional characters. You shouldn’t have to know why something negatively affects someone the way it does in order to respect the fact that it does. And I’m not more valid in my pain than people with “smaller” reasons. The fact is that a lot of people are hurting. A lot of queer and mentally ill people are reliving trauma. And like me, many of these people trusted CRWBY to be supportive, to be a comfort in a world where it’s hard to find sometimes. And that makes it hurt all the more.

I wasn’t in the fandom when Monty died, so I don’t know a lot about how CRWBY handled it, what they said publicly, what inevitable fandom discourse there was about how to navigate things. The only reason I bring him up at all, (because I’ve seen people mention him in discourse posts before and it’s usually hurtful and out of line and I truly hate it) is because he, and how CRWBY continues to honor him by keeping his creation going, is a huge part of why I feel so attached to it. My creative focus is on talking about Emma, about honoring her, telling her story, about sharing my grief with people. And while it’s extremely important to me, it’s also terrifying to think about people one day saying I let her down, or that because I made certain decisions I ruined the work or anything like that. And whether or not I am currently happy with every member of CRWBY doesn’t affect the fact that I will always keep in mind that RWBY is something directly tied to someone they’ve lost and it can be extremely difficult to have that kind of work criticized and not get defensive or angry (that’s not to say we can’t criticize things that are made in honor of someone, but that we need to remember there are still people dealing with grief on the other end of what we say). They’ll react poorly to certain things, they’ll say the wrong things, they’ll but heads with opinionated fans. And that’s not to excuse them for that, or to say we shouldn’t hold them accountable and communicate our problems with them and expect them to learn from past mistakes. But they aren’t faceless monsters in some big corporation who just make this for the money. They have real emotional investment in their work and I honestly believe they are well intentioned and want to support lgbt and mentally ill fans. But good intentions don’t ensure there won’t be negative impact, and if they truly want to keep, or regain fans’ trust and support they need to show they understand that. 

It may be naive and there may be things I don’t know that might have changed my view but until now, even with some writing choices I didn’t love, I've really liked CRWBY and trusted them. I personally can’t say I hate them and write them off right now. I understand if you can, if this was the last straw or just proving your view, and that’s all valid. But I want to, as much as possible, believe that they’re well intentioned. RWBY is far from perfect. CRWBY is far from perfect. But that’s ok. As long as there’s effort to improve and acknowledge mistakes and try to make amends

It’s possible that things I’ve said here may anger some people, and unfortunately, as much as I tried to avoid it, may hurt CRWBY. Because as hurt and angry with them as I might be right now, I don’t want to hate them or hurt them.  I’m human as well, and I’m very passionate about this and have a very personal attachment to it. So I acknowledge that it is totally possible that I have said something here that I could have handled better. If so, please, let me know. Constructively. If you need to, privately. Don’t attack me for it. I know when a conversation is toxic to me and I will not put myself in that position and will block people. But I want to be open to criticism, just as I want CRWBY to be. I want to know what I did wrong and how I can work to do better in the future. There are also certain things that I firmly believe that I know not everyone will like. And that’s okay. I have my own ways of dealing with grief and pain that will inevitably conflict with others. In those cases, while I won’t apologize for being honest about how I feel, I will understand and listen to how I may have hurt you. Different opinions and ways of coping will always be a part of grief conversations and it is less about making others agree with you and more about giving people a place to express their pain. 

This is ridiculously, stupidly, long and honestly I’m not sure there’s a clear point and if you read through it all the way, you’re a saint. But I just needed to get this out, and I hope that maybe, somehow, through the ranting, it might help someone feel less alone in their pain, or feel validated. I started writing this on Sunday and wanted to post it before the finale. It’s now Friday and who knows if there’s really any point to posting it now, but still. 

I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know how I will handle it. I’ve seen discourse that made me anxious all over again all week. I’ve seen jokes or edits or trolls that made me sick. But there are people out here for you. There are people to talk to who will just listen. You aren’t alone. And while I can’t promise you that everything will be okay, I can promise you that there will be people here to help you get through it. There are ways to get through it. They’re not always fun or ideal, but they’re there. And eventually you’ll be able to feel okay again. The pain might not be gone for good, but you’ll have good moments again. You’ll learn how to create good moments. I still want to believe that “broken” people can be happy again, even though the world may try to show me otherwise over and over. It’s not easy, and sometimes I honestly just don’t see how it can possibly be true. But I keep trying to get back to those good places and appreciate them, for as long as I can. 

#rwby spoilers #rwby7 #rwby v7 #rwby #fairgame #fair game #rwby volume 7 #qrow #rwby v7 spoilers #rwby v7 e12 #qrow branwen #clover ebi #clover deserved better #qrow x clover #really scared to post this #was gonna get a few people to edit for me #but then it got so long and late #and didn't feel like asking them to do that with such little time #since I wanted to post before the finale #so hopefully there's nothing awful here I've overlooked #this probably wont even get much attention #if any #especially cause it's so stupidly long #ooof sorry about that #really #I just needed to vent and.... #Emma #grief #mine

[everyonesonthespectrum]

30 days of Autism Acceptance: Day 3!

April 3: Talk about special interests. Do you have any? What are they? How long have you had them? What does it feel like to have special interests? What does having special interests mean to you? Talk about your past special interests

HOO BOY! Ok, I’ll try not to go on too long about my special interests, but I have a lot to say about them! Also, some of my special interests are in this weird grey area of “are they a SpIn or a hyperfixation?”, so I’ll cover those as well, and make it noted when that’s the case for one. Also, this will be VERY LONG, so I’ll put it under a cut.

SpIn #1 - Pokemon

Pokemon has been my main special interest since I was 9, I believe! Black was my first game that I got for my birthday, and I was super happy to get it since all of my friends at the time would talk about it! I’ve gotten (almost?) every major release since then, thought I usually only get one out of the two versions. 

The Pokemon games that I have are *inhales*: Black, Black 2, HeartGold (got a few years after it came out), X (I have the limited edition 3DS), Alpha Sapphire, Moon (first completed Pokedex!), Ultra Moon (haven’t beat and probably never will), Let’s Go, Eevee!, Sword (still trying to beat), Conquest, Art Academy, PMD: Gates to Infinity, Picross, Rumble World, Battle Trozei, Pokemon Quest, Pokemon Playhouse (for when I’m regressed), Poke Park 1 & 2,  My Pokemon Ranch, and Battle Revolution!

I also used to play the TCG competitively, and in my first competition, I placed 9th in my division! I stopped playing about a year after that though because the cards I used in my strategy when I would practice with my Dad were too old to be viable.

I have a growing stuffie and merch collection as well! I have a lot of Unova stuffies, and a print of the Unova map that I got at a ren faire when I was younger (it currently hangs above my dresser)! My two favorite stuffies at this time are Baby my Eevee Build-A-Bear (named after my Eevee in Let’s Go, Eevee!), and Lily my Wooloo! I have a couple of Pokemon sketch cards that friends of my Dad’s drew, and some prints and figure-y things I’ve gotten in Artist Alleys over the years!

I also own a couple of different Pokemon books (not the manga, though), and 2 of the movies, along with the OSTs for B/W, X/Y, and ORAS! I don’t have much as far as clothing goes though, except for my “Gotta Catch ‘Em All” scarf and a Pikachu hat I got at an old anime store at the mall that has since closed. That’s probably all I can remember right now!

SpIn #2 - Steam Powered Giraffe

SPG has been a special interest for about 4 years now? Anyway, they’re my #1 favorite band and have literally saved my life. Watching Bunny Bennett’s (who plays Rabbit) vlogs about her transition, along with listening to the song Transform that she wrote (waaay before they just made it a single) really helped me accept myself and come out. 

They also came at a time where I was struggling emotionally a lot, and I remember being stuck in the ER hooked up to an IV, and my mom played some of their albums for me to keep me calm and grounded. More recently, I saw them perform at Anime Midwest last year, and when they performed Transform (which neither me or my friends expected), we were all hugging each other and crying tears of joy (my friends are trans as well, and have also been touched by Bunny’s vlogs).

Their songs (not including the sad ones) make me really happy as well, and Make Believe makes me stim a lot in particular! I also got to sing Honeybee as part of a voice coaching summer camp I took last year, and it felt really good to do it! I really recommend listening to them, especially if you like steampunk and/or you’re looking for trans artists to support!

SpIn #3 - Little Shop of Horrors

So this is more of a fairly recent one, compared to the first two. This special interest mostly applies to the 1986 movie, but I’ve seen the stage musical as well! The music, the cast, the plot, it’s all *chef’s kiss*. But for real though, my two favorite things about the movie are the practical effects and the endings.

With the CGI fresh hell we got with CATS, you may thing, “wow, special effects were so much better back then”. Except here’s the thing, they were practical effects. Audrey II is (I believe) entirely puppetry, not CGI. The same applies for the musical as well! It really culminated at the end of the film during “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space”, when Audrey II is at it’s biggest and most elaborate. Speaking of that scene, I much prefer the director’s cut over the theatrical cut. I know that the happy ending is much better for Audrey and Seymour, but “Don’t Feed The Plants” is an absolute banger, and I get a good cry out of it too.

I heard they might be making a remake of the movie, which I’m hesitant about, again, seeing how CATS turned out. We can only hope that they listen to the fans, and make the right decisions when it comes to making it.

SpIn #4 - Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure

Ok, so this is one of those aformentioned “is it a SpIn or a hyperfixation” moments. I’ve been hyperfixated on JJBA for the past 6 months and I’m physically unable to shut up about it XD

I’m about to start watching part 4 of the anime, I just need to set aside time to do it. I watched it a tad out of order, my ex told me to skip part 1 and watch a synopsis of it, so I started with part 2 (I’m a huge part 2 stan btw), got to part 3, was confused by everything going on with DIO, so I went back, watched part 1, and then resumed part 3.

As I mentioned, I’m a huge part 2 stan, so I currently have several part 2 character cosplays in the works. This includes (but isn’t limited to) Caesar, Suzi Q, Playboy Bunny Caesar (inspired by a piece of art that @tinypalettes drew), Tequila Joseph (but like,, actually decent drag), and Cleric Suzi Q from the JJBA D&D session me and my friends are having. I also want to do a drag/latex DIO look, along with maid DIO inspired by an old JUMP cover and a fanfic I read the other day.

I get a little nervous about doing/going to JJBA events at conventions because I’m worried about running into my ex, but knowing that I have supportive people with me helps a lot.

SpIn #5 - Homestuck/Hiveswap

So this is another one of those “SpIn or hyperfixation” moments as well. I’ve been into Homestuck since late 2016, but I’ve never been super involved in the fandom. Like, yes, I have a moirail and I’ve been in and hosted panels at conventions, but I’ve encountered some toxic people in it, so I try to distance myself.

I will say, however, that Homestucks are loyal to their fandom, and will buy merch if they like it. When I say that, yes, I mean myself, but it’s mostly about my Etsy customers. If you look at my sales history, the majority of it is quadrant necklaces, almost always the moirail ones. I get some orders for horns and pillows too, but not as often as the necklaces. When it comes to exhibiting at conventions, it depends. I normally don’t put Homestuck stuff out on the table because it’s such a niche, but when I do, people will usually buy a lot at once. For example, at Wizard World Madison in 2018, one guy bought $50-60 worth of Homestuck sprites from me. That weekend was the best I’ve ever done, and I haven’t come close since. My Etsy store started out as just me making Homestuck sprites for me and my friends too, so I’m glad that I was able to expand and give others what I like as well.

I’m also involved in a Hiveswap YouTube musical, and I’ve made a lot of good friends through it! We’re on hiatus right now, but we should be starting up again soon! I also have a lot of Homestuck cosplays! I’ve done Karkat, John, Jade, Nepeta, Trickster Nepeta, Karkat Peixes (a bloodswap), and I have a lot more that I want to do!

SpIn #6 - Danganronpa

So Danganronpa is (probably) one of those last “SpIn or hyperfixation” things. I’ve been into Danganronpa since 2018 (I think?), and DR:AE is my favorite (mostly because I’m a Kotoko and Toko kinnie oof-)!

Right now, my only Danganronpa cosplay is Toko/Syo, but I’m working on a couple of j-fashion (particularly menhera and fairy kei) inspired looks to do with my moirail (who was the one who got me into j-fashion), and just some Amazon/eBay cosplays as well! I’m also working on a Future Foundation Toko cosplay to do with my moirail so we can do Tokomaru together (though most of it is thrifting and clothes I already have)!

I own DR1, SDR2, and DR:AE on my computer, but I don’t play them much. The second trial in DR1 gives me panic attacks because of the whole breaking of trust thing (I’ve heard the audios and I just,,, break down), I haven’t touched SDR2 yet, and I’m sucky at the controls for DR:AE. However, I’ve watched the anime and I’ve seen let’s plays, so I have a feel for what’s going on, though I may not remember it all correctly since I haven’t watched them in a while.

———————————–

So that’s most (if not all) of my special interests! I probably forgot some, but it’s getting late and I need to pack for my Mom’s and go to bed. I hope you all have a good night!

#30daysofautismacceptance #2020 #autism #autistic #actually autistic #autistic characters #autistic character of the day

[awkwardtaco056]

so now that i’m no longer in the Hell that was school and after finding the lovely blog @endcringe i’ve decided to talk about my own experiences with cringe culture, bullying, and why it’s Really Bad to not let people enjoy inherently harmless things, especially neurodivergent people (read more because this is gonna get long and triggering at times, TW for mentions of bullying, suicide, child abuse, a brief mention of incest shipping. I won’t be naming any of the peers that I discuss my experiences with, because my point with this post is Not to “cancel” anyone, I just want to speak out on my experiences)

I’m neurodivergent; I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 8 years old. I didn’t know a lot about it, and a family member even painted it as “oh it’s nothing blah blah blah just apply yourself more. Because of this, I had no idea about the concept of hyperfixations until I was in my late teens. Due to that, I would obsess over random things and my family would shame me relentlessly for it. My mother said I had an “addictive personality” and that she feared I’d end up a drug addict or alcoholic because of it.

I look younger than what I am, I’m short, and small. AKA, the perfect candidate for being picked on by people bigger and stronger than me. People made fun of my art when I was around 13, but fortunately that was an instance where spite fueled me to improve drastically. However, just because I happened to take the shitty comments and have it fuel me then does NOT mean bullying people will have that effect all the time. At some point someone put my old South Park fan art on a cringe blog. I was temporarily hurt, and a little angry, but I realized that if someone was making fun of a 15 year old’s art, they probably didn’t have much going for them in life, so I moved on.

Fast forward to high school. Everything was horrible and I’m not exaggerating when I say I barely made it out alive. I was living in an abusive household up until January 2018 and I found comfort in many different interests. I’ve always found great comfort in music and the arts in general. In 2016, I drew a picture of a mermaid. I was inspired by the chocolate opal gemstone, and I thought it’d be fun to draw a gay chubby mermaid with dark skin and a rainbow tail and freckles. Junior year was lousy and I wanted something that sparked Joy. I was immediately told that “scientifically, mermaids wouldn’t look like that. Mind you, my take looked like this:

Obviously I wasn’t going for realism, I just wanted to draw a cute mermaid. However, they continued to tell me that they wouldn’t look like that, going as far as writing so on the back of said drawing. When I got angry at her for taking it too far (as I’d established before that I didn’t like it when people wrote on my art without permission), they got angry back, accusing me of being unable to take criticism. Heated by the accusation, I went as far as asking my art teacher if it was fair for them to say that, and she said no, stating that constructive criticism would be talking about how I could improve my lineart and coloring in the digital version. I took her actual helpful criticism and since then have improved Drastically in digital art. Even with that being said, I found myself hesitant to participate in things such as MerMay because I was leery of hearing that peer berate me for having cartoony mermaids. 

 During high school I grew to love many musicians, a lot of emo/alternative stuff, a couple being Twenty One Pilots and Melanie Martinez. I love how unique TOP’s style is, their open discussion of mental illness, and as someone who had a rough childhood, I connected with every single song on Cry Baby. It was like nothing I’d ever heard. I started listening to mashups featuring all these different artists I love, adoring how they could change the tone and sound so drastically. A peer Bully of mine in junior year condemned these two artists, declaring that they made “Bad Music” simply because it didn’t fit their tastes. They’d throw my drawings on the ground, write over them in pen, steal my headphones so I couldn’t listen to music, push me around, complain that mashups sucked and gave them a headache, and in general shit all over conetnt that was actively preventing me from committing suicide. 

Some family members were no better. Once high school hit, I began listening to Fall Out Boy, Panic! at the Disco, and My Chemical Romance. Their deep complex lyrics stuck with me. I would write down quotes from my favorite songs and thanks to hyperfixating, I remember each studio album in order My mother resented when I fell in love with the “Emo Trinity” because “the Columbine  shooters were emo and that event traumatized me” Despite that, not only did the Columbine tragedy occur in 1999 and none of the bands got together until the early 2000s, but I have a pretty good feeling those groups aren’t For gun violence. The other side constantly criticized the fact that I love FOB, P!ATD, and MCR because I’m black and “why must you listen to that white people music.”

 I grew fond of Dan and Phil in high school (and I’m still a fan to this day!), I loved Phil’s kindness and positive aura and I deeply connect with Dan’s sense of humor and personality. Their content made me happy during some very dark times in my life. It’s November 2017, I’m over a close peer’s house at the time, and notice PINOF is upon us. I drew the PINOF whiskers on my face, my plan being to quietly watch them in the corner of peer’s bedroom on my phone through headphones, the others were doing their own thing and I knew they didn’t like them, so I thought they’d respect it if I silently indulged in it. Unfortunately, the complete opposite happened. I was immediately shunned and locked out of the bedroom, told that I’d only be let back in if I washed the whiskers off because “absolutely not”. Me, being stubborn, washed them off temporarily but drew them back on in the room. Life during then was especially bad for me, as the abusive household I was in was getting worse. They noticed, of course, and even though all I wanted was to enjoy this small tradition in a time during a deep depression, I was immediately shoved out the room and locked out, only to have said peer’s family members notice. I’m a relatively shy person, so this was honesty a really harrowing experience that had a lasting effect on me. 

I grew to adore Sanders Sides as well, but the moment I found out most of my peers didn’t like Thomas, I was terrified.  I stopped watching Dan and Phil’s content for months and shied away from other fandoms too, only occasionally indulging in times of complete solitude. One time when said peers were due to visit my house for the first time, I saw the Phandom and Fander stuff I’d hung up on my wall in my little sanctuary that was my bedroom (it was the first time in years I’d had my own room), and I was filled with panic and fear. I took them down and hid them away, genuinely terrified of what they’d do to me if they saw. It’s still incites so much anger in me to this day because they turned around and ended up shipping incest, but somehow liking D&P and Sanders Sides was So. Much. Worse.

They were baffled by my actions, despite having humiliated me Twice by going on a private blog of mine separate from everything so that I could fully indulge and laughing at everything on there, once at a peer’s house, once right in school. I don’t think they realized how traumatizing it was to have a large group of people in public laughing at something I was deeply self conscious about for all of my life. I put on a brave face at the time, but ended up crying in the bathroom after first period began. I continued to be treated as lesser until things came to an ugly head August 2018 when I ended up in the hospital because I nearly attempted suicide. Years of child abuse, bullying, and being deemed “cringy” made me feel like I didn’t deserve to be alive, that everyone would be happier if I were gone.

After arguably one of the lowest points in my life, I cut them off and slowly began to embrace the Real Me. I started letting myself enjoy the things again, made true friends and even found love, my first boyfriend ever at 18. I still get choked up retelling it, but when PINOF 10 dropped, after he found out how much I’d been hurt over the incident in 2017, I was greeted with a photo of him with the whiskers on his face. I cried for a while, blown away at such a pure act of kindness. He listens to me ramble about my interests, he compliments my taste in music, he watched K-12 with me. 

This got incredibly long, but my point is this: Cringe Culture hurts people. You might think it’s whatever if the Thing doesn’t apply to your interests, but content you’re denouncing as cringy could be something that’s keeping them alive, that one flicker of light in a void of darkness. When I was contemplating suicide, I listened to The Black Parade, repeating Gee’s words to myself over and over, that nothing in the world was worth hurting yourself over. Some friendly joshing here and there is okay, but actively ripping someone to shreds constantly to the point where they have a mental breakdown in front of you and later on plan their own demise is disgusting. Nobody should abuse anyone for having harmless interests, no one. Unless you’re participating in p*dophilic/inc*st/s*xual assault/inherently abusive ships/content and pretending it’s not bad because “Fiction doesn’t impact reality!”, you have every right to like what you like and be happy. Read homestuck. Play Undertale. Draw up the Wildest OCs you can imagine. And stay away from people who try to rob you of innocent fun, life is too short and in this cruel, unforgiving world, you deserve to be happy, whether you’re a 13 year old who draws cute furries, a 16 year old cosplayer on TikTok, a VSCO girl, a 30 year old who writes/draws self insert art or a 20 year old who adores Invader Zim. 

Cringe Culture is just bullying under a different name, and it can lead to many instances of people, especially fellow neurodivergent folk to feel isolated and ostracized. Attempting to bully someone out of an interest they have isn’t going to fix them; it’s more often than not going to cause more damage. I suffer from diagnosed C-PTSD, anxiety, and depression, and sometimes I still find myself trying to over-justify my interests. To all who are roped up in bad homes and lousy “friends” who berate you for your innocent passions, I’m sorry you’re suffering, things will one day get better even if it doesn’t feel like it, and fuck those people. I’d also like to note that sometimes even if it seems more terrifying, it’s better to have one or two close friends you can truly trust than a whole group that walks all over you. You have every right to call them out for treating you poorly, and if things don’t improve, you also have every right to leave.

You have a right to live your True Self.

#cringe culture #anti cringe culture #neurodivergent #actually adhd #long post #very long post #bullying #tw abuse #stay woke #tagging the fandoms I'm in bc i feel like they'll enjoy this message #phandom #dan and phil #melanie martinez #fall out boy #.txt #my chemical romance #Panic! at the Disco #disneyfan talks #actually neurodivergent #actuallyadhd #actually ptsd #cptsd #this became an essay oops #positivity

[hordakin]

On the Subject of Hordak, His Parallels with Catra, His Bond with Entrapta, and the Possibility of Him Getting a Redemption Arc

Obviously this is a subject of MUCH controversy within the Spop fandom, and I'm probably just going to stir up even more issues, but the aforementioned things are subjects i find INCREDIBLY fascinating and dammit I want to talk about it, because as usual (almost*) everyone else is glancing over it and not giving it all the in depth analysis it deserves.

Just a preface, my 'screenshots' are probably going to be absolutely hideous because I do not have the time nor the resources to get high quality ones--sooo I'm just taking pictures with my phone!

I'm no good at keeping my posts organized, so please forgive any other messiness as well--I'm hyperfixated and filled with frantic energy.

Lets start out simply with the Juiciest meat on the bone--Hordak's Could-Be Redemption Arc!

This is the topic that has the most people in a tizzy--for completely valid reasons, to be fair! Hordak, as of right now, is a horrible person. There's no skirting over it, there's no sugar coating it, he's a grade A piece of shit manipulative dictator, and things he's done are unforgivable.

What joy it is, then, that being forgiven has absolutely nothing to do with redemption!!!

Redemption is about changing your ways, and doing what you can to FIX or make up for the villainous things you've done--NOT being forgiven for them, which is what seems to be the hang up for a lot of people who are against the idea of a Hordak redemption arc, the people who don't like his sympathetic backstory.

I've seen more than a few posts of people Screaming in fury, proclaiming their anguish and disgust that the writers are trying to make them """forgive""" Hordak, when.... That's. Literally not what the writers are doing. They are just giving a character a backstory and human characteristics. So he'll be relatable. You know, like characters in media are SUPPOSED to be. Funny how that works, right?

Anyway, his frustrates me immensely, especially when these are the same people still pushing for a Catra redemption arc (to be fair, i am still one of those people too, but her choices in the last season have severely lowered my enthusiasm and hopes for it. There’s a long, tiring road ahead of her, as well as for us as an audience, if she is going to be redeemed at all). It frustrates me because of Hordak and Catra's lifestory parallels. These people act as if they are leagues different, when they really... Really aren't. If Catra still deserves redemption because she was abused into thinking the way she does, then so does Hordak, because he was obviously abused too.

The way I see it, Catra is like... A younger Hordak. Hordak right before and during Prime discovering his defects and sending him off to die. For a lot of season 1 and 2, she was in her prime in regards to her standing as a member of the Horde. She became force captain, and she did her work well, just as Hordak had once been Horde Prime's top general--but then they showed some kind of weakness, some kind of incompetence, and then they were cast away;

And it doesn't even stop there! Because right after being exiled, guess what they both do? They take over and begin to Rule the local denizens of the place they were exiled to--Hordak forms the Etherian Horde, and Catra takes one look at the Crimson Waste gangs and says "My City Now".

The main differences I see between Hordak and Catra are, Firstly, their friendships. The bonds they've formed (and broken) during the series (as well as if/how they changed them).

Hordak --

Total number of friends, past and present: 2 or 3 (Entrapta and Imp, 3 if you count Emily)

How much he values them: given his tract record of abandoning and belittling people, he doesn't belittle or mistreat Entrapta or Imp, in fact openly showing affection for/praising both of them rather openly--which is to say, he must value them a lot.

How he treats them: like i said up there--with open praise, affection, and respect. He takes care to never actually harm or yell at them in a way that targets them--when he yells or snaps, its not because hes mad at them, its because of something else. On top of that, he keeps it limited--he does not go on rants. He shouts his bit, takes a breath, then turns around and asks them to leave. Which is something i guarantee EVERY person on the face of the earth has done before. Ppl lose their tempers, it's normal, and does NOT make them abusive.

Catra --

Total number of friends, past and present: 6 or 8 (Adora, Lonnie, Kyle, Rogelio, Scorpia, Entrapta, and 8 if you count Kyle 2 and her four armed Lizard friend)

How much she values them: this is tough one. Clearly, her main priority is Adora--shes Catra's endgame Bestie, the person she really WANTS to be friends with the most. She puts effort into her relationship with Adora. Second comes Scorpia--Scorpia is very slowly weaseling her way into Catra's heart, and it shows, especially on this last season. Catra starts to show more vulnerability around her, and they have more emotionally charged interactions, that clearly have a positive impact on Catra. Catra is BEGGINING to put effort into her friendship with Scorpia, but it is a s l o w process. Everyone else.... Catra frankly couldn't give less of a shit about. They're an ontourage to her, not friends. But they see her as their friend. She doesn't put any effort there--everyone else does.

How she treats them: just like i said above again. She doesn't not care about most of her relationships. She fixates on one or two, and leaves the others in the dust until she has a use for them, because she doesn't see them as friends, she sees them as lackeys.

Secondly, another difference is their motivations and the choices they make because of them.

While they were both originally seeking recognition and praise from their superiors--Hordak trying to take over Etheria for Horde Prime to prove he's still useful despite his defects, and Catra...:

And then, after that, the Shadow Weaver issue comes to Catra’s attention, and Catra’s Motivation shifts COMPLETELY, because she hasn’t been given the time she needs to heal and let go of that portion of her baggage.

--I’m losing shitloads of eloquently worded paragraphs sharing my points over and over again so I’ve moved to desktop now because i am NOT giving up on sharing this, let me try again, sorry if it suddenly feels offtrack, i swear the connections are still there--

Now that their current motivations are in play, let’s talk about how their CHOICES (and their friendships) tell us which of them is more ripely suited to a redemption arc at this point in the series.

Hordak makes a friend. This is most likely the first friend he has EVER truly had, but they make it work, because they have similar interests and there is no sense of hierarchy between them--She is very clearly not afraid of him, and he is long past trying to make her afraid. She doesn’t push him to be better, no--She thinks he’s fine the way he is. She has no desire to ‘fix him’, because she doesn’t see anything wrong with him being a ‘bad guy’. However, I will say that (albeit unintentionally) she is... Gently nudging him towards being neutral. Hordak’s goal since day one has been to contact Horde Prime, because he likely had been brainwashed or indoctrinated to believe that there WAS no other option than to do so. Seek approval, and nothing else. “For the Horde” and nothing else. Because he hasn’t fully realized... That Horde Prime can’t touch him. He’s like... A young adult, who just moved out of his parents house--You know the posts! He’d become so accustomed to the lifestyle he had before, that now when he goes shopping and thinks “Hey I want ice cream for breakfast tomorrow!” he deflates and walks on to the veggies aisle because of the parental voice telling him “You can’t have ice cream for breakfast” in his head, but now... The parent isn’t there. He CAN have ice cream for breakfast, it just hasn’t hit him yet. Then, Entrapta shows up. “For science!” she says, and Hordak probably quirks his eyebrow, because she is odd, and thats an odd thing to say--but that, right there, is the little thing that starts to help him realize that, ‘hey.... Horde Prime isn’t here. I can do anything I want!’ And tat Anything can easily include turning around and becoming a better person.

Catra makes a new friend. Catra has had many friends before, at least one of which she cared about VERY deeply, who has since then left and moved on to other friends. She tried to get Catra to follow her to the better, healthier side of life that she’s found, to make friends with the other people too--but Catra refused, and it would not be a stretch to say it was because of jealousy/possessive feelings. Catra is like that toxic friend who lurks on the social media of someone who’s cut them off, simultaneous seething with anger and looking for reasons to hate them, while also vying for the chance to be friends with them again, and go back to the way things ‘used to be’. Now, she has that new friend, who cares about her just as much if not MORE than the last friend did--she sees how Catra wallows in self pity and negative emotions over the last friend, and how unhappy it’s really making her. Scorpia wants to help her move past that--to live her life free from the reigns of her past, and to embrace the happiness that other, new parts of life can give her. But Catra. Doesn’t. Listen. She doesn’t care. She sees the possibility of happiness, dips her toes into it (Crimson Waste party), but then decides “No, I don’t want this. I’d rather be spiteful. I’d rather be vengeful. I’d rather be unhappy, and I want everyone else to be unhappy too.”

People get so mad that Hordak is a trying to take over Etheria, trying to RULE over everyone on it--They call him ‘genocidal’ even though, by definition, he’s literally not--and demand that people admit how bad he is because of it, as if we weren’t already. Yet... The only people I see condemning Catra for doing something SIGNIFICANTLY WORSE for just as selfish a reason, is most notably NOT those people demanding we condemn Hordak left and right. The hypocrisy is extremely thick in this fandom right now--let’s leave it at that.

Point is; As of right now in canon, Catra is LITERALLY a worse person than Hordak, and when you really look at their actions, it’s easy to see that there are many more realistic and easy ways for Hordak to be redeemed than their are for Catra, and that’s the fuckin’ tea!

#hordak #catra #entrapdak #spop #shera princesses of power #spop spoilers #spop meta #hordakwrites

[theawkwardterrier]

2019 fic roundup

Buffyverse

The Words Beneath Our Words

MCU

Perfect Targets Beneath the Flap A Light in the Window These Bricks and Beams Carry With Us Though It's Called Dancing (to me it's romancing) things left behind and the things that are ahead

1. Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d predicted?:

I've had a policy over the past through years of not predicting (I’m so easily prone to getting weighed down by disappointment in myself), but I’ll say it was less than in the past (not an overwhelming number of individual fics, and not a lot of variation in genre) but in some ways a lot more (things left behind).

There is something a little different from other years, though, because in 2018 I had decided to stop writing. It seemed like a perfectly sensible time to do so: it had been just over ten years since I started writing fic regularly, just under ten since I started participating in IWRY marathon, I’d made friends and improved in my writing both through age and through practice, and I’d just finished my World Without Shrimp IWRY series and had no new projects brewing. I was starting to feel sort of old-married to my fandoms, the love still there but the passion somewhat fading. But it was also a move made bitterly, out of anger and sadness and frustration. 

I know there are writers who will write regardless of the feedback they get. I know there are writers who don’t register the hits or kudos they get, those who don’t compare their stats to other writers, who keep themselves focused on themselves and their own work, thinking “I like my story - it’s good and writing it helped me to grow” rather than “I like my story, and more people should have too.” I think that type of writer is admirable. I’m not one of them. I don’t know that I ever can be. And, as I’ve mentioned in the past, I was really torn up that But A Walking Shadow didn’t get much of a reaction.

It’s strange - I love my own fic, but I truly don’t think I’m the most amazing writer or anything. And I certainly get wonderful feedback, including plenty on my other 2018 stories, many of which were very well received. But there was just something about what happened with that one story that really affected me. Maybe it was a sense of hopes dashed after a lot of effort, or, as I mentioned during last year’s roundup, a feeling that I had done everything “right” with it, and it didn’t result in a greater impact. Maybe it was the feeling that Woman Borne was somehow retroactively not as well-received as I thought it had been if people weren’t looking for a follow-up and weren’t as interested when it arrived. I felt as if I had spent a decade trying to become Something and had finally gotten close and it just wasn’t working. (I was also having a pretty hard year in general, and mental-healthwise, wasn’t in the best place.) Regardless of the reason, in the later part of 2018, I started wondering what would happen if I just...stopped?

Like I said, I thought it would be a fairly good time to do it, there were Reasons for it, but I was also having a supervillain moment of “if I’m not appreciated, I just won’t do it anymore, I’ll just tell myself stories and won’t write them or show them to anyone, so there.”  

And then Endgame came out. And I wrote anyway. Obviously.

I’m not much better in my comparisons with others, and in some ways I’m worse, though I’m working on it. I know that it’s not logical or healthy, to have this endlessly gluttonous desire for recognition which might not even be possible to ever fulfill. (Like, realistically, what do I want? For every fic reader to be obsessed with my work? For the world to hail me as the next Shakespeare????) I am trying to manage my expectations and to focus on the positives of my accomplishments and place less stock in the reception. We’ll see how it goes.

Anyway, I don’t predict what I’ll write, or how much. At this point, who knows.

2. What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted in January?:

As I said, in January, I was certain I would never write fic again, so I suppose it was all unpredictable. That said, everything stayed fairly status quo (Steve/Peggy, Buffy/Angel), though I guess my OCs - the whole cast of them! - were a surprise.

3. What’s your own favorite story of the year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you happiest?

There’s usually one that jumps out, but from 2019, I was really proud of things left behind in a grand sense (length! characters!) and probably Beneath the Flap in a smaller sense (I’m always really excited when I can translate one universe into another - Attachments’s internet security officer/email monitor becoming a CA:TFA appropriate WWII military mail censor is pretty good).

4. Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Including so many OCs in things left behind, I think. Even though I did something similar before with Adrift, Ashore, it felt so, so nerve-wracking to include pieces like chapter 22, which is almost entirely Drea with cameos by Steve and Peggy and Tony and the Jarvises. Like, how much would people’s interest extend past the MCU characters they came to read about? (Luckily, apparently a fair amount.) One of the things I started to realize as I’ve written more and more of the story is that I do feel, I guess, ready to try writing new characters and building a world of my own in a way that I didn’t before. 

5. Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the New Year?

This is not a prediction because I’ve already fulfilled it as of this writing, but: keep posting chapters of things left behind, mostly. I’d love to expand to a new fandom, but I’ve been in a real rut for the past few years; nothing’s really captured my interest in that certain way, and I’m sighing over the lack of a shiny hyperfixation.

As I’ve gained confidence in my own writing independent of an extant media universe (see above), it’s possible that I might try writing something non fanfic at some point in the future, but I don’t actually have an idea and the details of anything surrounding that are so hazy I don’t even think I could list it as a goal. (Also, a maximum of four people are allowed on the page at once, so that will put a damper on things).   

6. From my past year of writing, what was…

Story Most Underappreciated by the Universe:

I think they all mostly got what they were due this time around (or more than their due; see below), though I would never say no to more feedback on new chapters of things left behind. There are people who comment on every chapter and I absolutely can never thank them enough for that, but it is a little dispiriting to watch the hits going up without even a note saying, “hey, this was great!” or “I can’t give kudos again but I liked this chapter.” Like I said, I’m trying to work past this sort of thing and I’m not going to stop writing because of it, but...it would still be nice...

Most Fun:

I think Perfect Targets. There’s a touch of awkwardness to it that I wasn’t really able to smooth out, but I like the tone of it, the seriousness balanced with humor/aggravation.

Most Disappointing:

It has got to be A Light in the Window. I reread my own fic possibly more than anyone else alive, and I can’t bear to even look at this one because I think it’s so clunky and weird. Like, the very very center is an interesting idea, but I can’t believe I wrote it considering the secondhand awkwardness that I experience when thinking about it. The feedback on it has been incredibly generous.

Most Sexy:

The scene in chapter 3 of things left behind where Peggy and Steve start getting hot and heavy at the carnival? Or maybe chapter 3 in general?

Hardest to Write:

I stopped writing chapter 28 of things left behind for around six solid months and I’m still not certain I got it 100% fixed up, so probably that.

Most Unintentionally Telling:

I'd love to be either a Buffy or an Angel in The Words Beneath Our Words, but sometimes I feel like my love language is  ¯\(°_o)/¯. Good luck being in a relationship with me! (Just kidding - who would?! Rosa_Diaz_laughing_at_the_party.gif)

Choice Lines:

Usually I’m obsessed enough with my own work to list fourteen million, but this time the prospect legit exhausts me. Pick your own if you’d like, I guess?

#this is like a mental breakdown/ugly look into my ugly psyche disguised as a fic roundup #(I felt like I had to get it out but if you want to like me in the future maybe don't read it?)

[loghorizonfunfacts]

Some personal Akatsuki ramblings

I rarely talk about Akatsuki herself in length -- usually when I’ve spoken about her in the past, it was about her role in the story as it pertains to Shiroe. I have a draft for my character analysis of her that’s been rotting away in my drafts for like, 2 or 3 years now but I’ve never been able to finish it. (I know what’s to come in future volumes, but without an official translation, I’m hesitant to take my own Google Translated-interpretations at face value.)

Some of this will be quite personal, maybe a bit controversial as well, so I’m keeping the bulk of it under a read more. (Mobile users... sorry.)

One thing that has slightly bothered me over my past few years in the LH fandom is how often Akatsuki gets reduced to either “best girl” or “failure love interest who sees a middle school girl as a rival”. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with liking Akatsuki for her awkward quirkiness, or disliking her because her insecurities (and the character arc resulting from it) are rooted in a rather unrealistic character gimmick (somehow looks like an elementary schooler as a college student?). But I think it’s completely overlooking the root reason why Akatsuki is the way she is.

While I initially had a negative reaction to volume 6 when I first read it, after time (and an official translation), I’ve found myself intensely relating to Akatsuki’s situation. Though I’m not completely qualified to speak about this and would like some insight into the matter from people with more knowledge/experience in the subject, it seems to me that Akatsuki may in fact be autistic (or at the very least, neurodivergent in some form).

I speak from the perspective of a (maybe) neurotypical person (more about that later), so perhaps someone would disagree with me. However, I think Akatsuki’s awkwardness is rooted in something deeper than mere “she isn’t good at talking,” which is where most people find her relatable and then stop there.

In volume 6, she explicitly says that she’s never had friends her own age. When she gets grilled for her lack of communication, she bemoans the fact that she doesn’t know how to express her feelings and can’t just show people what she’s thinking. Even Shiroe points out in volume 5 that they have difficulty keeping conversations going, and after he asks her to provide a conversation topic when she protests this, she comes up short.

Akatsuki’s almost hyper-focus on the master-ninja roleplaying (which Shiroe also explicitly gets weirded out by, and cause other characters concern) seems in line with the “restricted interests and repetitive behaviors” often found in those with autism. Whenever Shiroe tries to gently suggest he’s not interested in his role in their assumed roleplay, she digs her heels in and he gives up -- perhaps an example of “trouble understanding another person’s point of view,” another trait common in those with autism.

So, what’s that all got to do with me? Well, simply put, I saw a lot of myself in Akatsuki. The difference between series I’m intensely interested in (special interest/hyperfixation?) and ones that I casually like are like day and night. For series that I’m truly into, my interest spans several years, and usually involves maintaining or aiding a wiki about it or otherwise having blogs devoted to analyzing it thoroughly. It ends up eating at my time and my attention to my own detriment, and as William later says in volume 7, I even think about it when I eat and when I shower. This line in particular hit home:

Akatsuki had been avoiding the things she really had to do. She’d worked desperately at only the things she liked doing, and had tried to convince herself that was effort.

Oftentimes, I know what I have to do. My homework, my job search, networking with people, building relationships. But if it doesn’t interest me, no matter how hard I push and pull at it, I end up going back to the things I like doing or thinking about. Sometimes, I don’t even like what I do, I just do it because it’s something I can do.

My lack of communication skills is also much like Akatsuki’s. It’s not a casual “lol what even is talking to people”; reading Akatsuki’s introspection and seeing things from her point-of-view felt like I was seeing things through my own perspective of the world.

I don’t know how to express myself and sometimes, I don’t even know if there’s something to express. I can be “my way or the highway” to the point where it’s driven people away. I can’t keep up a conversation and I’m perfectly content with not talking with others. I find small talk inane and people casually conversing with me (whether they’re strangers or friends) puts me on edge.

When Akatsuki struggles to express familiarity with the other girls, it takes Rayneshia declaring her a friend to give her the words to speak. Throughout high school, there were only a few people I can definitely say was a friend. Everyone else, I could never get a read on. Did they consider me a friend? Was I an annoyance, or was I just wallpaper in the backdrop of the school? I was rarely ever anyone’s “first pick” for anything and I usually stayed to myself as to not cause trouble for anyone; I learned in middle school not to stick myself into already-established friend groups.

In a lot of ways, Akatsuki probably felt the same about the Watermaple group. She was there on Shiroe’s orders, not because the other girls there liked her. So in her eyes, the greatest courtesy she can do is eliminate the threat on her own... which she fails to do.

What makes Akatsuki even more relatable is that she isn’t explicitly autistic; Mamare has never spoken about whether his characters are societal commentary (though personally, I think they are). The most he’s ever said about them is that he tries to make them like people he knows.

Maybe Mamare isn’t even (fully) aware that Akatsuki was written in this way. Perhaps he wrote her thinking “someone out there will relate to her.” And he’s right. In a way, not making her (possible) neurodivergence solidified canon is what makes her even more relatable to me.

As a result of my Chinese-American background, the sort of cultural perspective on neurodivergence I’ve been raised in is, to put it bluntly, “Well, tough.” If you don’t have a severe disability, that means you don’t have a disability, and you better damn well act like a normal person. (For some measure of “normal” that I have yet to figure out.)

Things like autism and developmental orders were treated as something for “others.” In fact, for most of my elementary through high school years (I lived in a predominantly white neighborhood), I genuinely thought autism and ADHD were a white people thing. To be fair, given some cursory research into the general view on autism in China and Japan, they probably think so too -- if they even know about such things at all.

A fair number of the general populace seem to be unaware of them; I’ve seen Japanese tweets spreading awareness about ADHD on twitter, and a JP twitter mutual had a mental breakdown as a result of their ADHD and anxiety making them unable to perform at work. It makes me wonder if Akatsuki exhibits autistic traits because Mamare knows people who act similarly (or perhaps, he can relate to them himself), but none of them actually know that there’s an actual underlying reason and it’s not a mere relatable personality quirk.

So in the end, I have absolutely no idea whether I’m normal or not. I can’t tell if I’m actually neurodivergent or if I’m faking it to make an excuse for myself. I’m Akatsuki as she watches Minori and Shiroe at the end of volume 5: feeling helpless, knowing that our juniors are “ahead” of us and “more successful.” We want to push our ineptitude on our inexperience and our sub-par equipment, but what we’re really lacking is interpersonal skills and, even though we know that’s what we’re missing, but we have no idea how to work on that.

#log horizon #akatsuki #lhff rants #get to know lhff

[yunxies]

do you know any lesser known medias (such as ina11, transformers, what u usually like) as u have lots of great interests when it comes to shows, etc and im interested in hearing more? im trying to get into more things and its kind of hard finding more media.

oh i’m flattered to hear that! hmm i don’t consume very much media and tend to just get into one thing and hyperfixate on that for months at a time but let’s see...

kaitou joker - a really fun manga turned anime (i haven’t read the manga but i’ve heard people say the anime is better) about flashy bright-colored phantom thieves. wacky, super entertaining concepts, coupled with a surprising amount of depth and emotion. it’s zany and childlike and EVERYONE has a tragic backstory. in any case it’s really fun and engaging, i don’t post about it much here bc it’s not super on my radar but it’s an absolutely underrated gem of a show (and probably less popular than other stuff i’m going to post about)

elsword - i’m only into this one secondhand and mostly just piggyback off my friends’ posts but this one is a korean mmo, i don’t know much about how the actual game goes but the characters are all super compelling from what i hear about them from my friends. the character designs are all really good as well

lobotomy corporation - again, only into this one secondhand. it’s a game inspired by scp stuff where you work for a corporation in a post-apocalyptic world that extracts energy from monsters, and you have to allocate resources, appease the monsters, contain them when they rampage, choose how many of your employees to sacrifice, etc. it sounds really good and fun and i love the characters. i really wanna play it but i don’t have the time ;_;

megaman x - okay so this isn’t exactly unknown but like transformers it’s not, like, in the mainstream fandom spotlight so i guess it counts. really good video game series about robots at war that you can analyze for all sorts of deep themes about morality, pacifism, etc, etc. also x and zero are gay. stan axl

gundam build fighters - the gundam franchise is really famous but this installment less so, it takes place in a world where the rest of the gundam franchise is fictional and people do battles with their little gundam plastic model merch. obviously it’s very, exists to sell toys, but like yugioh it has a really fun uplifting vibe of people just being passionate about their hobbies and having fun with that, it’s really sweet

kamen rider - again mostly secondhand hbfdgj can you tell i’m reeeeally bad at getting around to watching/playing things but i like this one. japanese live-action superhero show that’s been ongoing since like the 60s, every year there’s a new series with a new plot and main character. it seems really fun a lot of people are into it. i like ooo and w because i love ankh and philip. insanely popular in japan so idk if it counts as lesser known but yknow

danball senki - by the same company and director as inazuma eleven and it’s a lot like inazuma eleven except with tiny remote-controlled fighting robots instead of soccer. i’m not very far in but already they’ve used these tiny remote-controlled robots to stop an assassination attempt on the prime minister sfhgldg akihiro hino at it again. i only know like three people who have seen it but everyone says it’s super good so i’d check it out

yugioh spinoffs - idk what you followed me for so maybe you know these already but while the original yugioh is super popular the spinoffs are less known, there’s still a huge fanbase but they aren’t really in the collective nerd consciousness as much, anyway they’re all really good. i recommend gx, 5ds and zexal (OH GOD ZEXAL) the most, arc v is universally panned as a disappointment, have heard mixed reviews on vrains but i’m not very big on it. but gx 5ds and ZEXAL!!! are really really good (gx has a loooot of filler in the first half though and zexal also kind of does)

princess tutu - I KEEP FORGETTING PRINCESS TUTU because it’s not really an Interest in that i get the urge to create fanworks for it but it is one of my favorite shows of all time, it’s about fairytale characters who are trapped in a story made by an author who loves tragic endings, and need to escape the tragic ending and forge a new one. it’s also about ballet, and ducks. i admit a lot of me liking it is because it hits on a whole bunch of my personal favorite tropes/aesthetics but it’s also really good in general 

animorphs - OH MY GOD I FORGOT ANIMORPHS. please read animorphs. i know it’s a meme to make fun of the covers but it’s genuinely one of the best ya series of all time it gets soooo deep into exploring and deconstructing all the realistic implications of the whole “plucky teens fight an alien invasion” setup, fair warning it gets BRUTAL and there is an entire genre of tumblr posts that are just people who only know the covers discovering how brutal it is but it’s sooo good. you can read it legally for free online

vsinger - i guess this counts? a line of vocaloids made by shanghai henian that have more lore and background to them than the other vocaloids who are kind of just a design, a name and an age. like for instance tianyi is an alien who can detect peoples emotions using music and can only communicate in song. so you have a bit more character stuff to play around with. i’m mostly just there for longya he’s sexy. gatling is a good song

also i’m really interested in this webtoon called ga dam hang seol it looks so good and interesting but the translation team consists entirely of one friend of mine who is always really busy and so the translation is only 5 chapters and updates very sporadically cries but just in case you’re interested you can read the comic here and the translation is here

well i think that’s about it that’s the accumulation of the past few years’ interests! also in a few years be on the lookout for a very cool and interesting novel whose title i haven’t decided on yet appearing on tapas (poses)

#replies #long post #Anonymous

[franeridart]

i miss your haikyuu art so much it was the best - dont get me wrong i fucking adore your bnha art but like,,,,, haikyuu,,,,,,,

Well pal, aren’t you lucky, you might have been missing from my blog in the past two weeks but if you scroll down just three posts you might notice I’ve been drawing haikyuu again (x x x)

Anon said:People don’t remember baccano anymore? :o

I assumed so since it’s been ten years since it aired and the fandom has always been small and quiet anyway, but it looks like I assumed wrong!!!! That made me so happy, honestly? Baccano’s my fav anime ever, it’s always super nice to see it appreciated!

Anon said:I’M HAPPY YOU LIKE BACCANO! NOBODY KNOWS IT

Anon said:Omg thanks for the baccano au I love it.

Anon said: BACCANO!! I love you so much right now!!!

Anon said: YOU DID A BACCANO CROSSOVER!! IVE NEVER SEEN ONE DUDE MAJOR PROPS TO YOU!!!! I literally love that series, it was one of my first ones so seeing it mixed with one of my current favourites is surreal!!

Anon said: DID YOU JUT DO A BACCANO AU OMG ITA BEEN SO LONG SINCE IVE WATCHED THAT IT WAS MY FAVE 😭😭😭😭😭 i cried so much during it all the time it was so badass

This is exactly what I was talking about!!! So HAPPY all of you love that anime as much as I do! And thank you SO MUCH for liking the crossover!!!!!!! ;O;

Anon said:Fran, just out of curiosity, what colors do you associate with Bakugou/Kirishima/the rest of the squad?

The ones I use to write their dialogues! Orange for Bakugou, red for Kirishima, gold for Sero, yellow for Kaminari and pink for Ashido! :D

Anon said: tumblr has been a butt and not notified me of your post but i saw your nishinoya and i died i love the way you draw him and boiiiiii bokuto and kuroo be looking smokin and your kiribaku (is that right??? im a failure i cant remember!!!:( ) is amazing SO MUCH FLUFF i die of happiness. keep up the lovely work 💕👌👌👌

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE KIND WORDS HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!

Anon said:I love your art its so amazing.

Thank youuu ;u;

Anon said:I was just wondering if I could use one of your drawings of Kuroo as a phone background (just for personal use! It’s fine if you don’t want me too! I’m a huge fan and I hope you’re having a nice day~)

Sure! As long as it’s just for personal use I don’t mind at all!!

Anon said:Oh wow, thanks for the tutorial! I think it will be really helpful!

I’m glad to hear that!!!! :D

Anon said: what is the jock / nerd thing?

At this point it’s mostly a meme, I’d say haha

Anon said:ASDFGHJKL *-* Your art is to beautiful for the world

That’s!!!! Too kind of you oh man (〃´ﾉω`〃)

Anon said:Your kiri is so pretty.

THANK YOU!! Every Kiri is super pretty tho, it’s the intrinsic Kirishima-ness of the Kiris that makes them beautiful whatever style they’re drawn in! :O

Anon said:YOUR ZORA ITS SO GOOD I LOVE HIM AS MUCH AS YOU DO AND WHEN I SAW YOU DRAW HIM I WAS LIKE: a m a z i n g 💕💕💕

OH MAN THANK YOU I love that disaster of a trickster so much I’m glad I could make him come out okay ;O;

Anon said:so i left tumblr a while ago?? but i check back every so often bc ur pretty much my favorite tumblr artist ever

Aw man thank you so so so much this means the world to me! ;u; sometimes it’s hard for me to see any improvement in my own art so knowing that you can see it helps a lot!

Anon said:your art is literally my favourite thing in the entire world i love it all! i hope you’re having a good day and taking care of yourself! x

GOSH THANK U I hope you’re having the best day too, anon!!!!

Anon said:Asahi is so pretty when you draw him, I love it; my gentle son, in your amazing art style.

I’M!!!!!! Glad you liked him!!!!!!! That boy is 100% out of my comfort zone so knowing he came out okay is super nice!!!!! :D 

Anon said:The way I drew the bakusquad in that one set of images … They’re like … On the cover of Vogue or something. It’s aesthetically good to my eyes man. Also you kinda got me into tetsukami?? I don’t understand it at all but now im into it BC of ur fanart and bc of other fanart but Imma blame u and im grateful to have another ship to hyperfixate over. Anyway I love youu and your art man, i wish u many good days

Oh man I love you too anon this ask made me so happy???? And I’m especially happy I could get you into tetsukami! It doesn’t make much sense as a ship, does it? But they’d be fun interacting and their quirks work well together, so I have fun thinking about them! I hope they’ll interact in the classes 1a and 1b will have to share in the future! :D

Anon said:Oh I love your Noya’s, so glad you drew my boy again!:)

Thank you for liking him!!!!!! He’s hard to draw but I love him and he makes me happy!!! What a boy!!!

Anon said:Have you seen little noya in the newest chapter

I HAVE little boyo already had his blond hair how cute is that! The newest chapter made me really warm inside I really loved the whole speech Noya made ;u; my inspiring little lightning bolt !!

Anon said:I really really love your bnha art! But put some highlights on the kirabakus one, you probably have the quirk to melt my heart with them ;w;

That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever read!!!!! Thank you SO MUCH!!!!!! ;O;

Anon said:Who do you think would propose? Bakugo or Kirishima???

I actually answered a similar question a while ago! But I can’t find it so I guess to sum it up I mostly think at some point it’d just become something both of them have talked about throught the years enough times that by then it’ll just be something they are gonna do, sooner or later, and when it’ll happen it’ll be more like “we have a stable income and a house and a dog and a cat and are p much already married we should really do this already” - in a scenario like that either of the two works, for me haha

Anon said:the best thing was that I just a moment before u posted I felt bad and pissed ad sad, but then all that disappeared ;V;

I’m!!!!! So happy to know I could help you like that!!!! ;O;

Anon said:Can I just say, I’ve been following your art a long time (I’ve always loved it!) and I’ve really noticed a lot of growth and improvement in your style? The thing that always impresses me most is how you are able to take simplified facial features and make them SO expressive. You convey emotions so well and I love it so much. Thanks for always giving us art to smile about! Hope you are having a lovely day!

THANK YOU SO MUCH OH MY G OD!!!! I’m!!!!! crying!!!! probably!!!!!!! FrICK!!!! ;A;

Anon said:KINONOYA!!!!!!

INDEED!!!!! What a good relationship they have!!!!!

Anon said:You draw Sero so good oml he’s too pretty

Anon said:THAT SERO YOU DREW!!! *clutches heart* n i c e !!!!

;O; I’m glad you like him?????? gods!!!!

Anon said:I love the way you draw Kaminari, he looks beautiful in your art style! ^^

SOB you guys are all so nice to me I’m gonna cry for real here ;U; thank you!!!

Anon said:Whenever I’m sad I look at your art and everything feels better.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! happy I can help you with your mood!!!!!!!

Anon said:When you Kiri with his hair down, I’m always like “that’s it, that’s the cutest Kiri ever” and then you draw him with it spiked and I’m like “no wait, there it is, the cutest Kiri.” And now you go and give me both Kiri’s in that adorable pair of sketches and how is that even fair because how am I supposed to handle that? I can’t even decide anymore. All your kiris are the cutest Kiri.

THANK YOU !!!!!!!!! All Kiris are the cutest Kiris tho, aren’t they? What an inherently cute boy he is!!!

Anon said:i showed my friend your art and since we both find it super good, we both decided to try to draw more regularly because we want get better and get a smooth(? idk how to say it in english lmao) style like yours so thank you for the motivation/inspiration!!

:O !!!!!! I hope you and your friend will have fun while at it, anon!!!!! :D

Anon said:I love your bakushima

AND I LOVE YOU

Anon said:drawing ppl from above is so cool though!! i really like these kinda pics ✨ (esp bo and tetsu, so /cool/!!) dont give up, fran❤

Please don’t enable me anon, if you give me the green light I’m gonna keep on drawing that sorta angle forever hahahaha (thank u so much for the compliment, tho!!!!)

Anon said: ahhh i love your recent kiribaku drawings! they are so cool!!

That was about the red and teal ones, right? Thank you so much!!!! Working with colors like that isn’t something I do often, so I’m really really happy that you guys ended up liking them!!!

Anon said: Row! Row! Fight the power!!

I don’t know what brought this on but HECK YES

Anon said:Man I love all your art, fanart and OCs alike! And your BNHA is such an inspiration and one of the reasons I started writing fic. Have a great day!

OH BOY that’s such a nice thing to know!! I hope you’re having lotsa fun writing fics, anon!! And I also hope you’re having a great day, too!!!

Anon said:OK, i’m sorry for sounding this emotional, but OMG your art makes me cry. it’s just… so beautiful… *there i go again* *crying*

*hands u tissue* thank you so much but please don’t cry!!!!

Anon said:I’M CRYING LUCA’S BIRTHDAY IS THE DAY BEFORE MINE, I’M A PHYSICS MAJOR, A MAJOR DOG (and cat) PERSON, AS WELL AS A MORNING PERSON LIKE WH A T

You’re the second person that tells me they’re really similar to one of my ocs!!!! I wonder what that means? :O but it’s a fun thing to know, anyway!!! :D I hope you don’t mind Luca being so similar to you, anon haha

Anon said: What do you think would happen if eraserhead erased fatgum’s quirk?

He’d probably just lose his ability to absorb hits and then re-use their power? :? but if he’s fat he’s gonna stay fat and if he’s slim he’s gonna stay slim, I think :O

Anon said:Oh my god you know kekkai sensen I’m actually crying I love kekkai sensen but no one I know likes it/knows about it and aaaaaaa I love your art and you drew something from kekkai sensen and thats amazing!!!!

I’M GLAD YOU LIKED IT and I know right? Kkss has such a small fandom! Which to me is super weird considering how much following Trigun used to have? :O it’s definitely one of the best anime I’ve seen in recent times, tho!!!

Anon said:FRAAAANNNNNNNN!!!! I’m soo excited!! I might be getting a tote from your shop for Christmas! My friend asked what I wanted, so I looked at your store, and chose a tote with Mina, and Hagakure (?) And he told me to send him the link!

HOLY SMOKES THANK YOU FOR BUYING MY STUFF ANON THIS SERIOUSLY MEANS THE WORLD TO ME!!!!!!!

Anon said: Your art is so good! I especially love your black and white stuff! Its really punchy! Also all your Kiribaku content makes my heart melt!!!!!!

*gross sobbing* thank you so much!!!!!!!!!

Anon said:would it be okay…if i drew luca (giving credit to you tho obv) i just love him so much GOD

YES!!!!!! Please do link me to it if you do draw him, I wanna see!!!!! :D

Anon said:Hey! I really liked your OCs and i was especially intrigued by Max and Leo!! Do you mind telling us more about their relationship? They look so sweet!!! Love ya and keep being awesome!

Thank you so much for liking my kids!!!! ;O; and sadly I can’t tell you too much about them cause their story is a bit still up in the air as far as details go, but in general they used to be best friends back when they were kids, then the accident that gave Leo his scars happened and for reason they lost track of each other for a long while - they met again recently, tho! Leo’s been in love with Max since they were babies and being able to talk to him and interact with him again makes him incredibly happy/mushy/soft but also absurdly and unreasonably overprotective since he’s really, really scared of losing him again - Max… because of plot-related reasons hasn’t realized that Leo is the kid he used to know back when he was super young, so his falling in love with him happens as the story progresses. He finds the overprotectiveness silly and unecessary, but he doesn’t exactly mind it? He has a feeling it helps Leo more than it helps him, so he lets him do his thing. All in all, maybe Max takes more care of Leo than Leo of Max. Welp, their story is kind of a mess haha

Anon said:Have you ever thought about doing nsfw? Or at least something kinda hot?

This is actually answered in my faq! But yeah, no, I don’t do nsfw, sorry! Something kinda hot… maybe in the future? But I gotta be in a very specific mood that doesn’t come around too often, so I dunno if and when that’s gonna be!

#fran answers #oc asks #g a h #anonymous