⦻JavaLama⦻

Bonus:

I'm multishipper, so I'm half happy and half sad

Oh there's also FunnyGummy shippers, but they don't look very good:

Oh that's a lovely post! I wonder who this "Jasmine" is that retweeted this?

Huh.

another thing that deeply frustrates me is the claim that gooseworx took other character's arcs and struggles, ditched them in the finale and gave them to jax... such as zooble's own gender dysphoria, and ragatha having an abusive mother.

my response is that the twist implementation of these traits into jax's characterization does not take it away from the other two-- instead, it serves to emphasize that jax always had people by her side that would've understood her if she just opened up.

all this time jax spent feeling alone when there were other people with the EXACT same struggles she had that she could've relied on but she didn't because she was too afraid to be vulnerable. worst part is that jax KNEW these things about people and chose to use it against them. instead of opening up about having weird Gender Feelings with zooble, an out trans person in the circus, she mocks their dysphoria (ie the "aren't you supposed to be complaining about your ability to change your own body or something?" line). instead of opening up to ragatha about her mom, she mocks her for it (immediately telling her her irl self probably still lives with her mom when they find out they're brain scans).

Ep 1 (Pilot): This is fine :)

Ep 2: Mr. Stark, I don't feel so good

Ep 3: I miss my wife, Tails

Ep 4: Sorry Sir, the ice cream machine is broken

Ep 5: RANDOM BULLSHIT GO!!!

Ep 6: Wabbit Season

Ep 7: All of your theories are wrong, goodbye

Ep 1 (Pilot):

Ep 2:

Ep 3:

Ep 4:

Ep 5:

Ep 6:

Ep 7:

Ep 8:

And finally

Ep 9 (how I expected it would be):

Ep 9 (how it was):

And after getting over my initial (rather emotional) response, I wanted to reply properly, and explain just why that hit me so hard.

So back around twenty years ago, the internet cosplay and costuming scene was very different from today. The older generation of sci-fi convention costumers was made up of experienced, dedicated individuals who had been honing their craft for years.  These were people who took masquerade competitions seriously, and earning your journeyman or master costuming badge was an important thing.  They had a lot of knowledge, but – here’s the important bit – a lot of them didn’t share it.  It’s not just that they weren’t internet-savvy enough to share it, or didn’t have the time to write up tutorials – no, literally if you asked how they did something or what material they used, they would refuse to tell you. Some of them came from professional backgrounds where this knowledge literally was a trade secret, others just wanted to decrease the chances of their rivals in competitions, but for whatever reason it was like getting a door slammed in your face.  Now, that’s a generalization – there were definitely some lovely and kind and helpful old-school costumers – but they tended to advise more one-on-one, and the idea of just putting detailed knowledge out there for random strangers to use wasn’t much of a thing.  And then what information did get out there was coming from people with the freedom and budget to do things like invest in all the tools and materials to create authentic leather hauberks, or build a vac-form setup to make stormtrooper armor, etc.  NOT beginner friendly, is what I’m saying.

Then, around 2000 or so, two particular things happened: anime and manga began to be widely accessible in resulting in a boom in anime conventions and cosplay culture, and a new wave of costume-filled franchises (notably the Star Wars prequels and the Lord of the Rings movies) hit the theatres.  What those brought into the convention and costuming arena was a new wave of enthusiastic fans who wanted to make costumes, and though a lot of the anime fans were much younger, some of them, and a lot of the movie franchise fans, were in their 20s and 30s, young enough to use the internet to its (then) full potential, old enough to have autonomy and a little money, and above all, overwhelmingly female.  I think that latter is particularly important because that meant they had a lifetime of dealing with gatekeepers under our belts, and we weren’t inclined to deal with yet another one.  They looked at the old dragons carefully hoarding their knowledge, keeping out anyone who might be unworthy, or (even worse) competition, and they said NO.  If secrets were going to be kept, they were going to figure things out for ourselves, and then they were going to share it with everyone.  Those old-school costumers may have done us a favor in the long run, because not knowing those old secrets meant that we had to find new methods, and we were trying – and succeeding with – materials that “serious” costumers would never have considered.   I was one of those costumers, but there were many more – I was more on the movie side of things, so JediElfQueen and PadawansGuide immediately spring to mind, but there were so many others, on YahooGroups and Livejournal and our own hand-coded webpages, analyzing and testing and experimenting and swapping ideas and sharing, sharing, sharing.  

I’m not saying that to make it sound like we were the noble knights of cosplay, riding in heroically with tutorials for all.  I’m saying that a group of people, individually and as a collective, made the conscious decision that sharing was a Good Things that would improve the community as a whole.  That wasn’t necessarily an easy decision to make, either. I know I thought long and hard before I posted that tutorial; the reaction I had gotten when I wore that armor to a con told me that I had hit on something new, something that gave me an edge, and if I didn’t share that info I could probably hang on to that edge for a year, or two, or three.  And I thought about it, and I was briefly tempted, but again, there were all of these others around me sharing what they knew, and I had seen for myself what I could do when I borrowed and adapted some of their ideas, and I felt the power of what could happen when a group of people came together and gave their creativity to the world.

And it changed the face of costuming.  People who had been intimidated by the sci-fi competition circuit suddenly found the confidence to try it themselves, and brought in their own ideas and discoveries.  And then the next wave of younger costumers took those ideas and ran, and built on them, and branched out off of them, and the wave after that had their own innovations, and suddenly here we are, with Youtube videos and Tumblr tutorials and Etsy patterns and step-by-step how-to books, and I am just so, so proud.  

So yeah, seeing appreciation for a 17-year-old technique I figured out on my dining-room table (and bless it, doesn’t that page just scream “I learned how to code on Geocities!”), and having it embraced as a springboard for newer and better things warms this fandom-old’s heart.  This is our legacy, and a legacy the current group of cosplayers is still creating, and it’s a good one.  

OP also invented armsocks.

reblog art instead of just liking it! not only will you increase the amount of people who see it (more cool people seeing cool art!!!!) but then you can also leave some nice comments in the tags about how cool the art is!!!

no theories??? you can reblog the ones you really like, or even question the ones you don’t! fandom thrives on engagement! i’m not saying yell at someone for having a different opinion, but there’s no harm saying “oh, i didn’t see it that way. can you tell me more?” if you know of someone who has cool/interesting theories, please encourage them to talk more about it!! they probably held back the first time!

COMMENT ON FIC!!!!!! please, we are begging. literally just a heart emoji as a second kudos feels like the bare minimum but damn… sometimes we out here getting NO comments. one single emoji in the inbox might MAKE SOMEONE’S DAY.

create content - it doesn’t have to be good, it has to be THERE

you think your art is crap - the fans of that will not care

you go into one of their spaces and go “hey, I have a thought” and say it

talk to people, engage with them as well as the content

some of your favourite fancreators were once nervous little fans scared to dip their toes, and now they’re stomping in like godzilla to the delight of tokyo

you are the best part of fandom, you are different and have different ideas and yeah, we all start as tiny little fans scared to speak up, and now, we’re the ones being asked for content, every one of us dropped fics we’d like to scour off the internet, or art, or amv or whatever

This is my first ask here and, well

What's your opinion on this post?

Already seen this through a reblog by my good chum @connectionterminated13

While on the surface it looks like the Slendermansion, it's missing Sally, Toby, and Masky, and the rest, this is how I know Mark is a LARPER

In all seriousness, though, I just think some people are taking this too seriously. I'm pretty sure this will just be a dumb one-off skit.

I'm not expecting the worst thing ever, but I am expecting a parody made by a guy who knows nothing about this fandom.

I like the inclusion of Momo, though.