Hello! I’d love to ask you some questions from the Fandom talk prompts. Your answers can be from any fandom you want! (Apologies if there’s a limit on questions I wasn’t sure!)
3. a character that fandom has helped you appreciate
7. your favorite tropes to read/write/draw
8. you hope more people will come to appreciate ___ (a ship, a trope, an episode, etc)
16. a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate
Well, that is a very good thing, because I’d love to answer any of your questions! I’m having a blast, honestly, just taking the couple of hours tonight to do this. I feel really happy and energized, in a weird sort of way! There was no limit on questions this time either, so no worries 😊
3. A character that fandom has helped you appreciate
I haven’t been lucky enough to really become a part of the fandoms for all the things I’m into. Sometimes people just aren’t really all that interested in interacting with me or I can’t find ways to really break into some cliquey fandoms or the fandoms just aren’t there because I’m a fandom of one, sadly. So I’m limiting these answers to the ones where I’ve got some experience in their fandoms!
Okay, but because of a fan who introduced me to the series, I went into Assassination Classroom feeling like I had to love Karma. That Karma would have to be an amazing character…now, honestly, if I hadn’t been as influenced by this person, I would have been more neutral on Karma. I would have really enjoyed him, but he probably wouldn’t have made my favourites list. I think he’s really interesting, don’t get me wrong, and I find his character design and character charming. He just would not have been my favourite. But because of that influence, he’s definitely within my top three favourites.
With Black Cat, I had a friend who really loved Sephiria. I was always neutral, leaning positive, like I am with most characters but through really talking about the character, listening to their headcanons and how they interpreted her, I really grew to love her.
Okay, but towards the end of when I stopped reading Bleach, it was because I flat out and out hated Ichigo. Couldn’t stand him, stopped giving a fuck about him, no longer wanted to read anything about him. It’s why I dropped the series. But it was only through seeing a lot of tumblr posts and hearing people talk about the series that I…well, I still don’t particularly enjoy Ichigo by any stretch of the imagination because towards the end parts of the manga, he’s just hugely OP and boring…but they made me interested enough in seeing how his story ended, how everything turned out for the other characters, for me to have picked it back up.
For Disney’s Ultimate Spider-Man, while I thought he was definitely a real cool character and a very interesting character with a great, unique twist, I definitely would not have grown to adore Adrian Toomes near as much as I do now if it hadn’t been for the fact that the majority of asks I’ve fielded for this fandom have been for that character.
In terms of Bungou Stray Dogs, the fandom really did make it so that I was pretty neutral towards Akatugawa. I really honestly didn’t like him my first read-through and the posts and talk about him made me lean more favourably. Of course, now with repeated read throughs and with how the story has progressed in terms of that character, I’m now pretty firmly in love with him as a character, but that’s just me.
The only reason I enjoy Theresa from Class of the Titans is because of a friend who had ended up adoring her. I think this friend honestly fleshed out the character more, and better, than the show ended up doing and it definitely affected how I see the character and how I write the character.
That same friend from Assassination Classroom? Also the only reason I liked Sanemi and Genya from Demon Slayer. I hated Genya, absolutely abhorred that guy, at his first introduction because that was fucking rough and same story with Sanemi. Immediate hatred. However, knowing how dear these characters were to a friend, and knowing how she talked about them, I made myself really sit and consider the characters, to pay special attention to their scenes, to do the research into them to learn more about them. While neither are on my favourite character’s list, I do enjoy them, which is a lot different from first impressions. They’ve also made me a huge Inumaki and Yuji fan as far as Jujutsu Kaisen goes (though Inumaki would definitely have been a huge favourite of mine anyway, as he’s absolutely adorable). Also the reason I fucking LOVE Bokuto from Haikyuu!!
For Eyeshield 21, I will happily admit that the fandom has forever made major gremlin boy, Hirumi Yoichi, one of my all-time favourite characters of all times. He’s forever enmeshed in my heart and I cannot fucking forget him or not love that character and how hilarious, chaotic, and bad-ass he is.
I roleplayed on ProBoards years and years ago. A friend I loved threading with created a new character with Takasugi from Gintama as their face claim and it’s legit the only reason I picked up the manga and why I enjoy Takasugi from the manga. I legit would probably have been neutral, leaning towards bored, with him if I’d just stumbled onto the manga alone.
I got into Hunter x Hunter because of reading a tumblr who started posting headcanons about the manga. I really love the manga, all the characters, it’s on my must-check-out list that I use for recommendations. But it’s simply because of that tumblr and all the headcanons, that I ended up loving Hisoka.
If it wasn’t for a dear friend self-shipping and writing with him, I’d hate Lancelot from Ikemen Revolution. I still feel like his route was the most boring in the game, he inspires no carnal passion in me, and they know I feel like that, but they and their portrayal of that character, are the only reason I like the character and they definitely have influenced how I personally write him.
For K Project, I have never been quiet about the fact that @shoheiakagi’s blog led to my now obsessive love for HOMRA’s ABC boys and has definitely influenced how I write them.
For KHR!, I definitely feel that it’s through writing in the fandom, through reading other’s fics, through hearing everyone chatter about the characters, along with an ungodly amount of rereads of the source material with those things in mind, that I’ve grown to love certain characters as much as I have. Without those things, I wouldn’t enjoy Hibari, Mukuro, Reborn, or Squalo near as much as I do.
7. Your favourite tropes to read/write/draw
Oh my gosh, there’s so many great ones. Of course, there’s the obvious in that I love writing AU’s. It’s always really fun for my mind to take these groups of characters and transplant them into various worlds with rules and guidelines and social pressures and such of those worlds. It’s interesting to think about how that might change the characters, what would remain the same, would any relationships be different. There’s also the obvious in that I do love me a good cross-over for those same reasons – it makes my brain really happy to smash these two character groups together, to figure out how it happens, who gets along, who doesn’t, what the dynamics are like, how they interact and all that.
It's rather obvious that I really enjoy domestic, slice of life and very found family type shit too. I mention it enough that you all are probably tired of it.
I’m a sucker for star-crossed lovers as a trope.
Also, a good fan of a Stepford Smiler type character in terms of character tropes, though I find it hard to write and pull off well.
The Scrooge Effect is a great, very underutilized trope.
For my own fun, I also really enjoy isekai tropes.
8. You hope more people will come to appreciate ________ (a ship, a trope, an episode, etc.)
You know how I just typed above that people are sick of me mentioning it? But honestly, a real solid appreciation of friendships, found family’s, family style dynamics and really explorations of all the different types of relationships you can have with someone that isn’t ‘we’re dating and we love each other and are each other’s soulmates and will get married and be happy forever’. Hell, even exes, either on good terms or bad ones, is another dynamic to explore in terms of romance. The one who got away and is now happily in a relationship or married and having to fully let go? Another great romantic exploration. Wrong time, right person? Another great romantic exploration. None of which get enough appreciation or use and I really wish they were more used, appreciated, and explored through fic, all of them, but especially the non-romantic because honestly, who you bone and who you date is such a small part of your life in the grand scheme of things.
16. A tiny detail in canon you want more people to appreciate
In A3!, though I’m nowhere near as much of a theatre buff as a friend of mine is, I wish more people would talk about and appreciate all the little bits and pieces that the show brought into light that need to take place to make any theatre production. They showed the backstage, the practices, all the hard work that goes into performing a show and it was lovely to see.
In Black Cat…honestly, Saya. I know we didn’t get to see a lot of her and there’s a lot of people who feel she’s too Mary-Sue, just because of the intense impact she did have on Train’s life, but I feel she was honestly a really interesting, intriguing character that I wish could have had more page time and really wish more people enjoyed her character.
For Bleach, Fairy Tail, One Piece, and Hunter x Hunter, I want to just take a moment here to say that something I wish I heard more fans say. Despite any other writing mistakes or issues they had, all of these authors created these incredibly vast worlds, all solidly built worlds with societies and rules and small little details, and then populated these worlds with literally HUNDREDS OF CHARACTERS. That is no small feat by any means and it always blows my mind when I sit to read or watch any of them because it really is something so worthy of admiration. I struggle sometimes fully fleshing out one character and making them suitably interesting and all four of those writers are sitting down and creating hundreds of characters. Just wow…so much appreciation and love for them.
For Disney’s Ultimate Spider-Man, I think it was really cool how the creators reimagined these characters as teenagers and made everything feel natural to both the experience of being a teenager, and to the characterizations of these characters in other Marvel universes. It was pretty well-done, in my humble opinion.
I think BNHA does a really admirable job of showing, in often quite subtle ways, the impact that superpowers would have on a society, what pressure it would put on people, the harm they could do, the ways that being a ‘superhero’ can really rob someone of their own individual identity and how being a superhero can really break a person down in ways throughout the span of time.
Bungou Stray Dogs is so incredibly well-researched in certain ways and you can tell the author is genuinely a literature geek and I really would die to read more analyses of the literary references, both overt and subtle, that are made within the work itself instead of having to see the two thousandth Chuuya/Dazai post.
Class of the Titans actually had a pretty good production value, given the time it was made and the budget. The animation really holds up, the character designs are unique, and the reinvention of the Greek myths was pretty solidly done.
Dogs: Bullets & Carnage has FUCKING IMMACULATE artwork and a slow-burn storyline that is incredible. Just please appreciate any part of this work. Just please – the fandom is small and more people need to check this out.
Eyeshield 21 is the furthest thing from a stereotypical sports manga. It definitely does have a solid plot, with games, training, and practices, and football plays a large part. But it’s truly lovely bits lay in the amazing characters, who are all quite different, unique, and all well-designed, in the incredible interpersonal relationships, and the real human emotions that it conveys so incredibly well.
Shout out to Gangsta. for having some really great rep in terms of different abilities, body types, backgrounds, skin colours, and such. I really loved that about the manga.
Gravity Falls is…well, it rips my heart out, makes me laugh, makes me cry, makes me smile…it throws me through the whole gamut of emotions with it’s amazing characters and interpersonal relationships, the real stakes you feel at play, and the lovingly written world.
Can we just all agree that, for a gacha style otome game, Ikemen Revolution had some incredibly brutal, though absolutely beautiful routes. Edgar’s route will live in my head forever, which is not something most otome games can do.
For K Project, I wish I could hear more from people on how incredible the soundtrack was and how many truly interesting, unique, or good fashion moments there were.
Okay, let’s talk KHR! All the adult characters deserve a shit ton more respect put on their names, just saying. There’s not a single KHR character who is black and white, evil, or good, no matter how biased you wanna be about it. Hate Timoteo? Fine. You can hate him. But he’s definitely not pure evil, irredeemable, a complete heartless bastard. Went on the same rant with Iemitsu the other day. Nana? Not an abusive harpy who is pure evil either. Tsuyoshi? An incredibly kind man with a mysterious past who deserves love. Shamal? Not just a brainless womanizer with no redeeming qualities. He’s a genius who was once scouted for the Varia, an able hitman, Gokudera’s mentor, and he’s shown a lot of very subtle clues of being a real decent guy, under that façade. Lal Mirch? Not a weak woman who couldn’t do anything but cling to Colonello like a damsel in distress. She’s a bad-ass former COMSUBIN trainer who lives her own life and does a damn good job of it. Luce? Not an evil, heartless witch who sold out all the other Arcobalenos. A troubled woman trying her best to do what needed to be done, who also lost a shit ton herself because of the curse. Again, you can hate a character all you want. Doesn’t mean you need to tear them completely down and reduce all the subtleties that Amano puts in down to nothing to make that character horrible and evil and bad. You can just say you don’t like them while admitting that they’re a cool enough character that someone else might enjoy, just not your thing.
The Vampire Dies in No Time! opening sequence for season 1. Excellent song, excellent opening. Just all around one of my all time favourite openings.
