Maybe I’m Too Much Of A Staunch “atsushi Is Kind Of A Dick” Purist But I Actually Don’t Think

Good Femslash Fics Already Exist

With the whole push for more femslash in fandoms, I’ve never understood the amount of hate I see femslash “fans” direct towards existing creations. There’s nothing wrong with wanting more variety, I do too, but every time someone brings up the fact that femslash fan fictions are already being written someone opens their mouth to say “yeah but those suck.” And then they proceed to read 300+ atrociously mischaracterized mlm fics. They complain abt plotless fluff and then read the exact same pwp scenarios over and over again

And hey, if you don’t want to read femslash that’s totally fine. You don’t have to pretend it interests you. I’m someone who actively looks for femslash and my only problem has been a lack of content in smaller/male-dominated fandoms, the fics themselves are cute af. Ya’ll are missing out on some real masterpieces by labeling all existing femslash fics as “boring,” some of my favorite fics ever are femslash. If an mlm ship invades the tags just filter it out, filter out every mlm pairing in the fandom if you have to. AO3 gives us that option for a reason

I’m not saying we don’t need more variety, but we’re not going to get that by shitting on writers who actively put in the work to make more femslash. When I started writing femslash consistently it was very discouraging because I’d seen soooooo many people online saying they want more femslash fics, yet nobody was reading mine. Then I looked at the stats on other femslash fics and they were the same, really great fics were barely getting any hits or kudos. It kinda sucks knowing that an mlm fic I wrote in 3 hours got more kudos than a wlw fic I spent months on (for pairings of relatively equal popularity). This seems to be the biggest roadblock for people wanting to write femslash, no one supports it. Even tho fandoms claim they would support it, they never do. It’s something I’ve learned to stop caring about but not every writer is gonna push through

This brings me back to a comment I saw about “boring, hair-braidy wlw fics.” That description really stood out to me, and to this day it makes me feel a little self-conscious about my old femslash fics that were “boring” and “hair-braidy.” But then I came across a fic for this one pairing that had actual hair-braiding. It was incredibly well-written and meaningful, exploring how both characters struggled to ask for help but they were able to recognize each other’s dilemmas and help in subtle ways. They did this, of course, by fixing each other’s hair when they both felt helpless to do anything with it. Such a simple way to express a very deep bond. This made me reassess the way people talk about femslash fics, and the way I’d been thinking of them myself. Is fluff really that much of a crime?? Do all cottagecore-type fics really have no substance?? Do femslash fics have to copy exactly what slash fics are doing, or are they allowed to have their own tropes??

My attitude towards the overload of plotless fluff wlw fics is “this is a good starting point.” We need more people writing femslash, more variety in what is written, but that doesn’t mean what we have is bad. I critique wlw fic tropes a lot but I always give the disclaimer that I actually love the fics themselves, I just want to see more of a different thing. And I comment on every femslash fic I read (every fic I read in general but especially femslash), I try to leave something thoughtful to let the writer know I appreciate the effort they put into their work. You’d be surprised how many writers said they were encouraged to update a fic or write more femslash because of a positive comment I left them. Engaging with fics will give you more of a good thing. It has so much more influence than that video you’re about to make talking about how there’s no good femslash fics. When you say things like that it actually discourages people from writing, and makes them feel bad about things they’ve already written. Support femslash writers guys, it’s sexy

Sometimes self care is putting your silly little clown in silly little outfits

It's the ginger birthday y'all

New spread :3

Thinking about how Chuuya's father-son relationship with Adam plays into the metaphor of 'Child of Adam, which inadvertently proves his humanity and presents the Abel and Cain dynamic with Verlaine. Abel being the younger brother and a shepherd, (King of The Sheep) and them both giving offerings to God (Guivre and Arahabaki), but God only favoring one of them (Chuuya being able to in-part accept his humanity), and Cain killing him in response (Verlaine stripping Chuuya of his loved ones.) It also drives the point home when you think about the fact that Verlaine's kill signature is a white cross made of birch.

PLEASE tell me more about emily dickinson. she looks so rad.

Ah, ofc!

My process for her was basically this:

I wanted Chuuya to have another foil, one that functioned similarly to Dostoyevsky being a foil for Dazai. I wanted Chuuya to have his own Fyodor character, someone who can rival his prowess in battle while having polar opposite ways of handling the way they live.

I needed a poet, and I needed one that had similar vibes to Nakahara Chuuya's poetry, from what I've seen of it. And this is a hot take, but I think Emily Dickinson deals with a lot of the same themes? They both deal with grief and beauty and a lot of their poems are melancholic in nature. There's also some similarity in their biographies. Both of them were pretty obscure before their death (though Dickinson published even less). Both had an antagonistic relationship with education. Dickinson is also sometimes classified as a "transcendentalist" (though a lot of scholars don't agree on that front, and that her verse is a lot more innovative for the time).

I'm sure there's probably another poet who is more similar, but I was also a big fan of Emily Dickinson before this so...yeah.

I'm rearranging a lot of my ideas for this character, especially when it comes to her power. Lets just say I was deliberately avoiding an obvious choice for her power, but then I was like "Why, when that poem is rad". So, maybe I'll reveal more later?

14 dazai from last year i forgot to post 🤧

(He did it on purpose to piss them off specifically) I think the MADS people are easily the most wretched horrible people in this story. They are also, unfortunately, potentially some of funniest. And I wish them nothing but misery for my own entertainment. [Original Post]

happy birthday chuuya!! (remake of the old animatic i made last year: note i totally rushed to get this finished so its still sloppy has hell) enjoy

(special thanks to @i-eat-mold for randomly giving me a burst of energy to do this shit... yep)

happy birthday to our strongest warrior