Beyond mountains and seas

Angel

(Knives  ||  Wolfwood)

Prints are available: here

Morningstar

(Vash  ||  Wolfwood)

Prints are available: here

Absolutely not a birthday heihua pic for @amiyade Nope. 🐨🎂✨💖

Art by yu QIuyang

Next Generation of Starter Pokemon looks pretty cool!

5/∞ of 黑花 || Reunion: Mystery of the Abyss (2022)

I have never seen a fandom so thoroughly mischaracterize the source material so widespread before, I am genuinely baffled. The side characters I could almost understand, if they weren't so fixated on, but the main characters that show up the most? At this point, I don't even think it's intentional?

I know some people like to just make OCs out of them, which kind of seems to defeat the purpose to me since you could just make some OCs? But to go on long essays sounding like you know what you're talking about when you clearly don't and have everyone nodding along in agreement and even cheering just confuses me. I've never been in a fandom that's behaved like this before.

I've been in Supernatural, I've been in Marvel, I've seen the sliding scale on characterization, but I've never seen such a widespread acceptance of mischaracterization under the flag that it's accepted as accurate. If it was called what it is I wouldn't be so bothered, but to have people genuinely think it's true is so bizarre to me. I feel like we read and watched two completely different things.

And before someone starts going “ah but that’s the difference between the books and the shows” or “pits everywhere” or “it gets lost in translation” one can characterize a character mostly correctly even they don’t have all the keys. But it takes time and energy. It takes thinking about is being read and written. It takes understanding and soaking in the source material. 

This is the only fandom I’ve been in where it’s not a minority that claims they know what’s up and are so utterly wrong it’s confusing, but a majority. Where people refuse to listen and will actively chose to ignore when presented evidence that they are mis-characterizing characters.

Deviating is one thing, altering, changing, making adjustments because one wants to tell a specific story. But claiming your AU is canon does not make it canon even if the whole fandom is cheering you on. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, that’s on you.

Yeah, pretty much. I just don't really get it? Like I've seen a few people try to present the actuality, or answer questions with direct quotes and screenshots, and get completely ignored while the discussion goes on around them? People continuing to go on about how it's 'confusing' or 'it just doesn't make sense' when there's someone right there telling them what they're looking for. It's like? ?? I legit can't tell if it's intentional or not sometimes, or if they're just selectively ignoring what doesn't coincide with their headcanons while simultaneously complaining about being confused by the source material they just got factual answers about?

??????

It's not hard to see what's there, so I guess I can only assume they're not actually confused, just pretending to be to perpetuate the confusion so they can OOC willy nilly without having to be asked about it, which. Again, I'm not sure why people don't just make OC's? Some I've seen are OC's just with the names of the characters from the source material, but at that point why not just change the names too? Or is making OC's taboo now? I'm out of the loop on fandoms in general and I've been seeing weird moral dilemmas about liking characters lately so who even knows anymore. I just know it doesn't make much sense to me.

yes to all of this. really. and it honestly says a lot that writing any of these opinions, rants as they are, still has you hesitating because people very much like to paint any kind of disagreement with the general consensus, no matter how politely worded, as an attack and proof of conflict-mongering negativity. never mind the negativity in question is a direct byproduct of the environment these ironically highly opinionated people cultivate in the first place, because just as ironically, a number of the people OP’s post is directed at have no qualms about sharing their own opinions, but i digress

i’m not going to rehash the points that have already been brought up, so i’ll just add this:

fandom by nature will always imply a degree of deviation from the canon of the source material, if only by virtue of reception of any given narrative being subject to interpretation, and thus, in all fairness, necessarily subjective to some degree. fandom is also first and foremost a place of self-indulgence, especially where things like shipping are concerned, and so fundamentally there will always be a fanon aspect to any type of fandom engagement

however

while all of this is true, my problem with this fandom is that this aspect so often slides to the far end of that scale for a number of reasons you could argue in favor of, but that in the end boil down to this. i feel sometimes that the main appeal of dmbj for a number of people is *precisely* the fact that they want it to be vague and therefore infinitely tweakable, a bit like a fun themed game of dnd that doesn’t necessitate much thought beyond projection, or in such a way that allows them to see what they want to see rather than what’s actually there, that is to say, among other things, seeing the characters as tropey archetypes rather than well-rounded and complex

and to be fair, it’s not my business to police people’s fun, as fandom is, once again, self-indulgent at heart. it is, however, my business when said people actively posit that what’s essentially a baffling justification of their own preferences—baffling because their preferences don’t need to be justified in the first place—is objective truth, and because apparently the continued existence of their preferred form of engagement with the source material depends on maintaining this idea that the canon doesn’t make sense and therefore doesn’t exist, they blatantly ignore people who offer evidence of the contrary, even when they themselves ask for it. and i don’t think people realize how hurtful it feels to be ignored and treated so poorly simply for wanting to engage with the source material in a more comprehensive way

all i can say is the chinese fandom, for all it very much has its own flaws, doesn’t behave this way, and to this day i still don’t understand why the english speaking equivalent to it evolved into the segmented and if i’m being honest insidiously toxic environment it has. it’s just embittering when you love something so much and yet keep running into the dilemma of not being able to share that with others for all of the reasons that have been mentioned

Yeah. Again, pretty much. It would actually be nice to have a discussion about the source material without fanon or fanfic talk being shoehorned into it, too. I noticed there's a distinct lack of meta actually posted around, and I kind of wonder if it's because it always devolves into fic and sex talk. Like you said, I don't really care about that happening in particular? Though the ooc still confuses me. I just don't like that it always ends up shoved into any serious discussion I try to have about the source.

I don't want to talk about your fic.

I don't want to talk about my fic.

I don't want to talk about fanon.

I don't want to talk about your OOC versions of the characters.

I want to talk about Daomu Biji.

I have never seen a fandom so thoroughly mischaracterize the source material so widespread before, I am genuinely baffled. The side characters I could almost understand, if they weren't so fixated on, but the main characters that show up the most? At this point, I don't even think it's intentional?

I know some people like to just make OCs out of them, which kind of seems to defeat the purpose to me since you could just make some OCs? But to go on long essays sounding like you know what you're talking about when you clearly don't and have everyone nodding along in agreement and even cheering just confuses me. I've never been in a fandom that's behaved like this before.

I've been in Supernatural, I've been in Marvel, I've seen the sliding scale on characterization, but I've never seen such a widespread acceptance of mischaracterization under the flag that it's accepted as accurate. If it was called what it is I wouldn't be so bothered, but to have people genuinely think it's true is so bizarre to me. I feel like we read and watched two completely different things.

And before someone starts going “ah but that’s the difference between the books and the shows” or “pits everywhere” or “it gets lost in translation” one can characterize a character mostly correctly even they don’t have all the keys. But it takes time and energy. It takes thinking about is being read and written. It takes understanding and soaking in the source material. 

This is the only fandom I’ve been in where it’s not a minority that claims they know what’s up and are so utterly wrong it’s confusing, but a majority. Where people refuse to listen and will actively chose to ignore when presented evidence that they are mis-characterizing characters.

Deviating is one thing, altering, changing, making adjustments because one wants to tell a specific story. But claiming your AU is canon does not make it canon even if the whole fandom is cheering you on. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, that’s on you.

Yeah, pretty much. I just don't really get it? Like I've seen a few people try to present the actuality, or answer questions with direct quotes and screenshots, and get completely ignored while the discussion goes on around them? People continuing to go on about how it's 'confusing' or 'it just doesn't make sense' when there's someone right there telling them what they're looking for. It's like? ?? I legit can't tell if it's intentional or not sometimes, or if they're just selectively ignoring what doesn't coincide with their headcanons while simultaneously complaining about being confused by the source material they just got factual answers about?

??????

It's not hard to see what's there, so I guess I can only assume they're not actually confused, just pretending to be to perpetuate the confusion so they can OOC willy nilly without having to be asked about it, which. Again, I'm not sure why people don't just make OC's? Some I've seen are OC's just with the names of the characters from the source material, but at that point why not just change the names too? Or is making OC's taboo now? I'm out of the loop on fandoms in general and I've been seeing weird moral dilemmas about liking characters lately so who even knows anymore. I just know it doesn't make much sense to me.

“Do you have to go?” “I must go.”

the lost tomb reboot | so sexy of him…

One of the things that made Captain America: The Winter Soldier so good was that it really went out of its way to establish character’s competence before they fought the big climax of the story, so you really feel the stakes. 

Fury escaped a whole set of police cars and weaponized teams and being shot at from all sides, but then comes the Winter Soldier and bam just like that he’s down. Steve took out a set of pirates and Batroc at the start of the movie, then an entire elevator full of STRIKE agents, brought down a plane with his bare hands, but then bam the Winter Soldier slams into him like nothing else before. 

And with Winter Soldier we see him take out Fury twice, go toe to toe with Steve, hurl Natasha around, yank a guy from a car, jump from a bridge, he’s restrained in a room filled with people with huge guns and he slams a guy halfway across the room, and then Pierce goes ahead and slaps him, because he can.

I remember watching that movie in theatres back in 2014 (2015?) when it first came out, and gasping in shock when Pierce slaps the Winter Soldier across the face. This guy has super-serum, and Pierce is an old man. The Winter Soldier could have killed Pierce with his pinky finger. I was expecting him to react violently to being slapped, and for Pierce to end up as a red smear on the nearest wall.

When the Soldier just accepted his punishment, I was deeply creeped out. That’s when it really hit me that he is a victim. He’s been brainwashed so thoroughly Pierce has zero hesitation in getting violent with him. Pierce KNOWS he’s the one in control, and the Soldier would never dare to fight back.

Pierce can hit him with impunity, and the Soldier being a supersoldier is irrelevant. Yeah, he’s physically extraordinarily strong, but he’s not a person, he’s a tool. Pierce expects unquestioning obedience from him, and he always gets it. The Soldier’s mind is not his own, and he’s been enslaved.

P.S. Now I’m nostalgic for the days when Marvel used to make movies that didn’t suck. Yeah, there were some turkeys back in the day, but there were also some movies that were really GOOD. In Captain America: The Winter Soldier, they convinced Robert fucking Redford to appear in a superhero movie, and he was amazing. Pierce wasn’t your average supervillain.

He was much scarier than that, because he was just a charming, genial, unscrupulous human being who had accumulated far too much power. He had no superpowers at all, but he was a terrifying villain because he didn’t NEED superpowers. He had his brain and his position, and he had a bureaucracy to ensure his decisions get implemented. Plus, the Winter Soldier programmed to carry out Pierce’s every order and treat him like he was God. Pierce didn’t need to get his hands dirty.

Also, that movie is an interesting outlier compared with other MCU movies. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is barely a superhero movie. Yes, it features 2 characters with superserum, and it has plenty of action scenes. But at its core, it’s really a spy thriller.

#the greatest trick marvel ever pulled was convincing us mcu movies could be good

I think arts funding should be infinite and easily available to everyone. I think 13 year olds who only draw anime should receive funding to buy giant sets of copic markers and shitty local punk bands should receive funding for instruments and practice spaces and performance artists should receive funding for their weird and nonsensical projects

“well tv has sucked for the past few years why should i care about the writers striking”

hm. i wonder why there has been a decline in quality. it’s almost like when the workers cant survive and are squeezed the art suffers.

[cel-shaded digital Flight Rising fanart. A spiral and an undertide nap together in the Mirrorlight Promenade. The spiral is draped over the much larger undertide's neck. The undertide's body is in a pool that reflects a vine-covered garden wall.]

A noodle on top of a larger noodle.

I was having trouble deciding where to put them, but then the Lair Location Expansion happened : D

Production houses: but if the writers stay on strike we can't guarantee the future safety of your favorite shows 🥺🥺😭😭

Viewers who 1, have already lost their favorite shows because they were cancelled in spite of good ratings and good reviews or 2, have stopped watching new content entirely until the entire series has aired and concluded as a result of so many good shows getting cancelled on cliffhangers and thus leaving said viewers unable to gain closure with those characters and with a hollow viewing experience, so they've begun a, watching older shows they know came to a planned conclusion or b, revisiting their old favorites and enjoying the nostalgia or c, reading new books or fanfic instead: YOU ALREADY CAN'T GUARANTEE THE FUTURE OF OUR SHOWS SO GET FUCKING WRECKED AND PAY WRITERS WHAT THEY DESERVE!

Part of what the WGA is asking for is residuals prior to season 3. Netflix especially keeps canceling shows before they hit season 3 because they want to avoid paying residuals.

The WGA strike, if successful, will guarantee the future of shows. It will fix the problem. Production houses, if left to their own devices, won’t.

Remember, y’all, Wu Xie makes everything look sexy, but smoking is harmful to your health. Fatty got ya back!