Wasn't I supposed to open for commissions again? Uhhhh...

Hey did you know that last month I wrote a drabble for a collaborative transformation-based project?

Well I did and now it's available for your perusal!

https://ifeelodd.itch.io/scuzz

Read about the ramifications of being a bimbo candy unicorn and over a dozen other oddities!

Thanks to  ifeelodd for letting me participate and  raphiel for informing me of it! <3

The drabble will be posted by itself later this week.

The drabble commissions have gone over reasonably well so far. That said I'm going to be closing them now for the time being since I can't guarantee that I'll have the time to write over the next few days and definitely won't be streaming. After I get back from my trip I'm going to be looking into opening again for more slots over the summer, in addition to revamping my Patreon to better synergize with the commissions.

And that trip that I'm going on is indeed to Pittsburgh for Anthrocon. I'm leaving tomorrow and I'm going to be rooming with  klussnave,  da-end, and  gravityinbound. I haven't worked out my whole schedule yet but I know I want to go to the visual novel meetups, the fatfur meetups, and the .hack//ENEMY gaming panel. I hope I'll get to see some of you there. :)

You can apply for them with this form.

I will be taking five slots, slots will be handpicked, I want to get these done before July 2.

Slots:
- DONE
- DONE
- DONE
- DONE
-

With the possibility of commissions nearer and nearer on the horizon, it's worth giving some idea of what exactly can be expected from this opportunity.

I started doing exercise drabbles as a means of improving my writing efficiency. Many of them were my own design but a significant number were written with prompts from my supporters on Patreon. The instructions for these were simply to provide a character and then I'd do what I felt like with them. For commissions I want to allow clients to have a little more sway over what happens, but this is going to necessitate laying down some groundwork.

Drabbles are meant to be very short and simple and to-the-point. We're looking at a range of 500 to 1000 words, maybe a little more. These are supposed to be warm-ups I can complete in a single sitting before going on to the actual work for the day.

You can see multiple examples of drabbles here:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59717441/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59884737/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61286080/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61286165/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61286225/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/61286289/

When thinking about the content for a drabble, I would suggest bearing two points in mind:

1) How much preamble do you want?

2) Be wary of "and then" plot beats.

To help illustrate both of these, let's look at the 2/6/2025 drabble. The core conceit of this piece is "Rarity gives Rainbow Dash some clothes that cause her to grow." What it ended up being, though, was "Rainbow Dash annoys Rarity with her careless cum antics and then Rarity gives Rainbow Dash some clothes that cause her to grow." It easily could have been a few hundred words shorter if I'd started right at the point where Rarity puts the shorts on Rainbow. Obviously the end product still fits within the desired boundaries, and I would say it's all the better for it, but it's worth being conscious of these factors, especially if word count/price going too high is a concern for you.

Also as a reminder, prices will be going up to 4 cents per word, or $20 for 500 words.

My schedule got pushed back by various circumstances but I would still like to get a few of these in over the next couple weeks, so be on the lookout for the proper opening within the coming days.

Hello.

Some of you may remember that back in 2020 I closed my commissions and I have stated multiple times since then that I had no plans to reopen.

Well, times change and cash becomes increasingly necessary.

The biggest reason that I stopped taking commissions was that they took up too much time I could be using for my personal projects, which became pertinent when I started working on novel-length stories. I needed to be able to do commissions without significantly disrupting the flow of my work.

More recently, I started doing dailyish drabbles to get practice in and push out some of the simpler ideas I'd like to do. That's a far more manageable thing for me to do quickly. So what if I were to open up for doing those for people?

Here are the things you need to know at the moment:

1) I AM NOT OPENING RIGHT NOW.

I will be opening for these commissions sometime next week. I want to be able to get a few of these in before I go to Anthrocon. This should give y'all some time to think about what you want. Please do not start asking me for anything just yet, there will probably be a form for sign-ups.

2) BEAR IN MIND THAT THESE ARE EXTREMELY SHORT.

The intent with these is that they're something I can do quickly in a single sitting, something to warm up for my daily work. Ideally they are 500 to 1000 words, sometimes a little longer. This is a single scene with not too much going on.

For examples of the kind of content you can expect from this, check out these collections:
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59717441/
https://www.furaffinity.net/view/59884737/
(I'll be posting some more selections over the coming week.)

3) PRICES WILL BE GOING UP.

The fact of the matter is that I have effectively been charging below minimum wage ever since I started doing commissions and I can't do that anymore.

From now on I will be charging 4 cents per word, or $20 for 500 words, currently still using the old tier-gating system but that might change.

Keep all this in consideration. I will post another announcement soon to confirm when the opening will be.

Casual reminder that if you want to financially support my work, you can pledge to me on Patreon to see early previews of my unfinished work and the drabbles that don't get publicly posted, as well as make suggestions for things that I work on.

You can also make one-time donations on my Ko-Fi.

Thank you for your understanding and support.



Also for the record coloring commissions are not being considered at the moment.

Given the present outage that we're still going through, I figure it would be prudent to remind my viewers that I have a Bluesky. This account is curated more than my twitter account had been, I do a lot less reposting so there's more focus on my own posts. I post some unfinished pictures and previews there before they go up here. It's still not a place for posting writing, but I can post screenshot-style previews of writing, and I've started doing this to post teasers for the content available on my Patreon.

I also want to make another reminder that, by supporting me on Patreon, you get access to works in progress, such as my current longform novel Rhinestones, and to the exercise drabbles that I write on a near-daily basis, which you also get the opportunity to make suggestions for.

When I see my friends talking about their art, their characters, their interests, I often see them talk about themselves in very literal terms.

"Do this to me."

"You look so hot in this picture."

Non was never like that for me.

Non was never "me."

He's been changing in various ways for many years now and I don't think I've ever been completely satisfied with him.

I've put more value into presenting myself through other characters--Rarity, Krystal, Asriel, et al.

I've been thinking more and more lately about having a completely different persona.

I don't know how to articulate myself enough to make that possible.

Casual reminder that I stream most days on Piczel, usually in the afternoon and evening.

On these streams I work on my writing, giving you an opportunity to see works in progress and some stories that don't get posted.

I play movies and shows while working on art and I love having conversations about what's on screen.

Sometimes I also stream playthroughs of games--as of this writing we're nearing completion of the original Ace Attorney trilogy.

I'd really appreciate if you considered coming to watch sometime.

:)

It's always been really easy to think about the things I didn't do, the things I wished I had done.

So we're going to think about the things I did do.

I did a lot of writing and art this year, a lot of projects that I'm proud of.

I have been making efforts to improve my capacity for spontaneity.

I refurnished my bedroom so now I have a decent space for living and work.

I went to a true furry convention for the first time.

I am working to overhaul my Patreon.

I feel accomplished.

My favorite projects that were uploaded this year were probably What Does It Feel Like? and Krystalline Facets.

But my most favorite projects are some that haven't been uploaded yet, one which shall be posted in the coming days and one which will be formally announced soon.

I'm hopeful that next year I will be able to do more great things.

If you are so inclined, please comment with your personal favorite Non upload from 2024.

I've actually had a bluesky account for a while but I'm only just now dusting it off since, y'know, the x site is crashing and burning extra hard now.

Beyond that though, I've also compiled a linktree page with as many relevant locations as I can think of, this is also posted on my front page.

I'm conscious that, out of all of these, none of them is really a proper back-up gallery for me, all of them are locations that are only really suited for a particular kind of the content that I produce (including the AO3 account that I also haven't used for anything yet). I'm not sure what other sites I'd consider using.

Feeling like I'm really having a hard time with motivation lately.

I'm making progress with Rhinestones, I feel like I could keep plodding away at it without much difficulty if I really wanted to, put all my focus into it and maybe get it done before the end of the year.

But I don't want to do that, I want to still be able to devote time to smaller projects when the inspiration strikes me.

The general malaise of tiredness which I am overwhelmed by more often than not doesn't help matters, it's been making it harder and harder for me to do the full 2k-word days that I used to do, sometimes just not writing at all, that's not enough output for me to do everything that I want.

I'm also increasingly self-conscious about the art I've been putting out, wary that I've been cutting corner after corner, it's not satisfying to me and I don't know how to get better in a way that matters.

I'd stream myself playing games, just so that I'm doing something to show that I'm active, but any time I try to do that I only succeed in getting frustrated because streaming gameplay is a form of content that requires far greater audience interaction than anything else I do.

The general disdain of people which I harbor within doesn't help matters either.

There's clearly something that I need to change.

Live more healthily absolutely.

Probably start going to therapy again.

Moving out of my parents' house would be ideal but that's a pipedream.

I'm hitting the ceiling and I don't think I'm going to be able to break through.

When will wings of ivory carry us into the sky?

When will our hooves’ thunder pulverize the concrete into dust?

When will the keening of our horns sing through the air?

When will every step be accompanied by the swaying of a tail?

When will we embrace with our warm fur and cool scales?

When will we receive the flesh we were promised?

When will we no longer have to contend with this pallid hairy meat?

When will our abominable physicality cease its unending afflictions upon us?

When will we be permitted to love?



Anyway, Anthrocon was cool, hoping to go back next year.

Now that my uncomfortable medical procedure is behind me, I can feel confident in saying that, yes, I will be going to AnthroCon this year. After glancing over the schedule it looks like I'm going to be trying to hit up a bunch of writing panels. Hopefully I'll get the chance to meet some of you.

On July 14, 2015, Harper Lee's novel Go Set a Watchman, sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, was published to significant acclaim and controversy. The plot of the story concerns Jean Louise Finch (known to most as Scout) coming home and making the discovery that it is a place rife with bigotry and hatred. It is a realization that shakes her to her core, makes her feel unsafe around her own family and childhood hometown. This of course is a sentiment which is likely to be shared by many of the readers, who have been familiar with this story and its setting for decades. Atticus Finch in particular is idolized as one of the great characters of American fiction, between the original book and his iconic portrayal in the movie adaptation.

There has been an argument about whether this book should have been published at all, whether Harper Lee, who is understood to have written it before its more famous predecessor and then shelved it indefinitely, was taken advantage of in her old age. I think, however, that it is extremely important to get this recontextualization of the story, and perhaps it was even for the best that it be published so many decades later instead of following shortly on the heels of the original. The world needed time to grow up, to reach a more mature understanding, just like Jean Louise did. The cruel reality is that, where To Kill a Mockingbird represented an idealized reflection of childhood, Go Set a Watchman presents the understanding that comes with adulthood, and with it the shattering of memories that were once precious to us. Innocence, once lost, cannot easily be reclaimed.

...Yes I know Lindsay Ellis basically did this exact introduction in her Hobbit trilogy, but since I've been reading these books recently it's hard not to think of them.

= = = = =

On July 30, 2019, I left home to go to BronyCon, a trip that would last nearly a week. It was my fourth time going to the event, and it was shaping up to be a big deal since this was the last year it would be taking place. Over the course of all my visits, I'd gotten to meet a lot of people in-person, people whom before I had only known as names and pictures on a screen, and with the significance of the event bringing in so many more people I would be getting a chance to meet more than ever. We had a big dinner together the night before the start of the convention. We had a party in a hotel room where I brought movies for everyone to watch. Those were some of the best days of my life.

It was a simpler time. MLP G4 had not quite ended yet. My sister hadn't transitioned. The dog we had at the time hadn't been stolen and then miraculously recovered. I was still playing Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. My mother's parents were living in a house in a gully a couple counties over. The scourge that is MLP G5 had not yet been inflicted upon the world.

I had plans to go to Trotcon next year; Columbus isn't too far away, I could conceivably drive there if I didn't want to deal with a plane. But then, you know, certain things happened, traveling plans had to be scuttled, it was a big deal, I'm sure you were there. Any and all convention trips were put on indefinite hold. I would have to wait some time for the next opportunity to go to Trotcon, or Anthrocon, or Midwest Furfest, or anywhere else.

And over the years, things...changed. Circumstances changed. Perspectives changed. I changed.

It is common to experience bouts of depression following a convention, the vacuum that comes after so much socialization. Life seemed mundane in the days following BronyCon, everyone so much farther away than they had once been. As time went on, however, I felt that that distance in my relationships was steadily increasing yet further. As I tried earnestly to better myself, it was getting harder to ignore certain aspects of the peers in my social circles. Complacency. Ignorance. Hatefulness. It certainly didn't help that events in the world around us were making it so much easier to root out that behavior. I for one reveled when a certain shithead who had been the plague of my circles for years finally got suspended for good because he just couldn't keep from crowing about antivax hoaxes. I have heard the argument that we should treat these people with some modicum of respect, that we should acknowledge that they are people just like us, but this argument does not hold water because I believe that if you were to turn it around, they would not offer that same courtesy. The imageboard-bred authors of That Thing You Like would never agree that I am a person just like them because they believe that I am inherently lesser to them and not worthy of respect because we don't hold the same ideals.

"Something has happened to me," Jean Louise thinks to herself, trying to rationalize how she can suddenly be aware of the vileness of her hometown peers, how she can think of this behavior as cause for alarm when she grew up under the same circumstances, when she ought to be the same way. "Something has happened to me." is also the secret phrase to include in your response so that I know you actually read this whole thing, by the way. It is this notion which I ponder when I feel that I am no longer comfortable in the presence of the people I was once all too happy to laugh about pony tits with. Some of it was glaring, some of them just couldn't resist showing their ass when it came to swastika-emblazoned horses or algorithm-based art theft. A lot of it, though, was always there. There was always dishonesty, there was always apathy, there was always ignorance, there was always edginess. I don't think I can say what exactly the turning point was for me realizing this. Maybe it was my sister's transition, making me feel definitively that the subject of LGBT politics was something I could no longer be a mere passive observer on, dovetailing into the start of the pandemic a month later and the uproar which would ensue. Maybe it was before that, when I realized that I really ought to phase out "trap" and its connotations from my lexicon due to the implications involved. Maybe it was when I decided that I liked bimbos for the idea of being free to be oneself. It could have been any number of factors.

And there is a part of me which wishes this wasn't the case. It would be nice if I could just not have to fret about any of this. I desperately want to be able to go to a convention again, I want to talk to people, I want to hold their hands, I want to breathe the same air as them (through a facemask or fursuit, hopefully). This is made unavoidably difficult, however, when so many of the people I would like to meet with are still in the gravity of those whom I would rather hold at arm's length. I don't want to go to a social gathering just so I can dodge the people who have shown the ugly they bear underneath. I get enough stress by having to share a house with a father who can't stop being racist on a daily basis.

There is a certain problem in the furry and brony fandoms wherein they are spaces which are built around a community of acceptance. These are the underdogs, the punching bags of the internet, those who are used to being mocked for their interests and identities, and so they feel the need to band together. Many would prefer to avoid conflict at all costs. They all just want to be friends, after all.

To be blunt, though, this is a dangerous outlook to have on one's social environment. Blind acceptance invariably attracts those who would take advantage of that acceptance. This is how the fandom becomes infested with bigots, MAGA supporters, the alt-right, edgy channers, deranged conspiracy theorists, sexual offenders, and more. And those who would communicate and do business with those sorts, while certainly not guilty by association of the same faults, are implicitly permitting them to maintain their foothold in the community. Trying to avoid "politics" only means that you are blinding yourself to the rhetoric which would be used to insert those politics into your everyday life. To say nothing of the fact that appeals to neutrality, pleas to maintain the status quo, are a common tactic of the far-right to make others believe that they are unassuming.

You are not a neutral party and you never were. If you are following this account, I can guarantee that you are of an identity that is deviant to societal norms in some fashion. Maybe you aren't a person of color, maybe you aren't gender-nonconforming, maybe you aren't queer, maybe you aren't overweight, maybe you aren't even neurodivergent. If you liked when I wrote about a funny horse gaining hundreds of pounds, about breasts bigger than weather balloons, about face-smothering smooches, about anatomy-destroying insertions, then you are intrinsically atypical. You are a furry, you are the punching bag of the internet, you are an object for mockery, somewhere on 4chan or Kiwifarms or Something Awful there is a post about you or something you enjoy. You are outside the realm of what is considered commonly acceptable, and these infiltrating dissidents, who would have all that displeases them destroyed, absolutely will throw you to the wolves if it is ever convenient for them.

And in case any such people are reading this right now, just a reminder:

Stains is about depression and trauma and prominently features a character contending with their gender and ultimately deciding to transition.

Rising Tide is about the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and is presented through the lens of an explicitly left-leaning protagonist.

You and Me, Always Forever is about my personal struggles with identity.

And there are plenty of stories to come which contend with similar subjects.

If that's a problem, then you're free to either walk away or expose yourself so I can be rid of you.

I'm tired of this. I'm tired of people who aren't interested in thinking. I'm tired of the idea that wanting to examine an idea critically is pretentious snobbery. I'm tired of being made to feel ashamed for wanting to interrogate hateful and ignorant rhetoric.

And I'm most tired of all of not knowing how to handle any of this. I feel all of this anger festering in me, it's poisonous. What am I supposed to do? Lower my standards enough to be okay with the people who relentlessly chant "bigger" and decry any kind of complaint as alarmism?

As of this writing, I have not finished reading Go Set a Watchman. Jean Louise's uncle is telling her about how people aren't so different--sound familiar? I heard previously that the resolution is "Atticus isn't too racist actually so it's fine" and I really hope that's a gross understatement because I have a hard time imagining it being a satisfactory ending. If I were in her shoes, I would book it out of there and never look back, that side of the family is just better off forgotten. That's what I wake up wishing I could do every day, just so I could get away from my own aforementioned racist father. The idea of just blithely accepting that one's family or friends might hold beliefs that you can't reconcile with is...unthinkable to me.

What does it mean to let go of a grudge? I'm not sure that I've ever been able to do that in my life and I don't know how to start that now.

Once again the promised day has come, but this time I'm actually prepared.

For three years I have been trying to write a story about Milotic agents, every year coming up short because of underestimating how long the project was turning out to be, but now it's finally actually done.

This story is effectively a sequel to Stains, following up on how the events of that story impacted the broader Non canon, and also in general featuring similar horny elements.

I want to preface this, however, with a note that this story will touch upon some rather heavy topics, particularly related to abuse, with violent action and some slightly more graphic forms of body horror than the usual fare, so please be aware of that when going in.

Parts will be uploaded gradually over the next few days alongside a few other appropriate pieces.

Remember to Milo responsibly everyone!

INCIDENT REPORT

NON ESSENCE DETECTED

UNIVERSE DELTA-CHI

SPATIAL COORDINATES LL7-B2114-Q6

ISOLATED, PRESENTLY CONFINED TO LOCAL SPACE

LOW BRAINWAVE AND RESONANCE ACTIVITY, LOW THREAT ESTIMATED

IMMEDIATE RESPONSE MAY PREVENT SPREAD

CALCULATIONS AT 94% CERTAINTY

REQUESTING TASK FORCE

…

REQUEST AUTHORIZED

DEPLOYING TASK FORCE SB-M35

• AGENT L. BRAMFORD

• AGENT G. VASQUEZ

…

ADDITIONAL REQUEST FOR PROXY UNIT ASSISTANCE

…

REQUEST AUTHORIZED

PROXY UNIT ZT ASSIGNED TO TASK FORCE

I've never been especially good at doing things quickly. I have to take time to think about what I'm doing, mull over details, make sure I'm following guidelines.

This transfers of course to writing. I think the understanding most writers have is to just go ahead and get the ideas out, keep the momentum going, worry about editing later. I can't really bring myself to do that, I have to spend time thinking about characterization and plot and phrasing and agonize over any typo I see. My average rate tends to be in the range of 500 words per hour.

I'm also conscious though that the pacing of my writing tends to be rather glacial in of itself. Plots take a lot of time to get things rolling unless I make a conscious effort to eschew as much as possible.

I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to get past any of this, and I don't know how much I can rationalize my tendencies as being acceptable for a writer. Part of the reason I stopped taking commissions was that I couldn't reasonably believe that my output was enough to meet the demand, not to mention being nowhere near enough to make ends meet.

Also, you know, made harder by the fact that finding the motivation to start working on a thing is hard.

Being creative is hard. Being professionally creative is hard. I don't know how many of these walls are limitations that I should be trying to walk around and how many I need to force myself to break through.

Movies and art starting around noon (EST) with possible prestream writing.

Part 2 with gaming later in the evening.

I'd appreciate if you came.

There are ten days left in May.

How last-minute will the annual last-minute Gossamer Gleam Mayternity story be?

Vote now on your phones!

In other news, I have another story that's already finished, but I'm waiting on some art to post it.

It's a bit short, but stacked.

Hey there!

Do you like Non's writing?

Do you, perhaps, want to see more of Non's writing, get involved with the creation of Non's writing, and provide financial support for Non's writing all in one fell swoop?

Well good news, that's possible through the existence of Non's Patreon where you can pledge for $2.50/month to gain access to the patron section of Non's public Discord server, where updates are posted for Non's stories as they are in progress.

It just so happens that I have finished a new story, but I have decided to hold onto it for a little while because there will be a more opportune time to post it in the near future.

However, you can see that story right now if you become a patron!

So, y'know, maybe put that into consideration.

Use "cavalum," a creature of Portuguese myth, to refer to batponies.

The concept of "thestral," near as I can tell, is one wholly made up by J.K. Rowling, and we have no need for any of that nonsense.

This notion was brought to my attention by Type Writer, which prompted me to do some research of my own and I found some compelling evidence.

I'm aware that expecting bronies to break from tradition is a huge ask but even if it weren't for certain people being hack authors of bland YA novels I'd still rather use a term derived from actual mythology than something that was made up for a prolific entertainment property.

(There has been an update, if you downloaded in like the first hour you may want to check again)

I decided to compile a folder of (almost) everything I've ever colored up until now because there are a lot of things that haven't been uploaded for some reason or another.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VE.....ew?usp=sharing

I don't think that I'm boasting when I say that I believe I put out writing at a generally high quality. I am proud of the stories that I create more often than not. I've been writing for a long time so I can reasonably say that I have a grasp on the elements that go into it and what does or does not quantify a quality product. I feel that in the modern social climate, a lot of people struggle with pushing themselves up because of this perception that to do so would be a sign of pride and arrogance. When it comes to work that you are passionate about, things that you excel in, it's important to be open about yourself.

I don't have the luxury of anything of that sort when it comes to my coloring efforts. I have a basic understanding of the fundamentals of art, but I am capable of very little when it comes to actual execution thereof. Coloring was something that I started doing on a whim and steadily progressed into becoming more and more involved. Nowadays, while I do certainly feel that I have improved in what I put out, I don't feel like I have any means of adequately gauging that quality. I'm conscious that I do shadows well, but that is a process that takes an excruciatingly long time and burns me out quicker than anything, so it doesn't feel like that much of an accomplishment. I've almost completely stopped doing colored lines because it adds too much extra frustration for me to feel it's worth the time.

And I don't know what to do about that. I rarely ever get meaningful comments on the coloring that I do, I still have to operate on the assumption that most people who see pictures colored by me don't even register what I'm doing. I'm aware that it's deleterious to compare oneself to others, but in this case I can't keep from doing that, it's the only measuring stick I have available to me. There were several colorists who all started out around the same time I did, and all of them have gone on to be far more successful than I have. I'm fairly certain that the number of clients I've had for coloring commissions isn't even in the double digits, and it slowly waned down to nothing over the years until I wasn't getting any by the time I closed commissions entirely. It always left me with the conclusion that if people would rather go to someone else, there surely must be something I'm doing wrong. And yet, even if I were to start taking commissions again, even if I were to suddenly get a large influx of clients, I don't think that would help, because I can't handle that much workload. I already have a folder full of pictures to work on, a folder which is growing far more than it is shrinking because of my glacial pace.

It's getting to a point that this feeling of inadequacy is bleeding into my writing, the content that I'm actually skilled in, as well. I don't think that I'm ever going to be someone who can work at a quick pace, even without distractions getting in my way (hi Elden Ring). I have no desire to open for commissions because it takes up too much of my time, a set of five clients is liable to take me at least a month to go through. The end results may be good, but I almost never feel like I produce anything valuable enough to merit the time that it took to complete them. I don't know what I can do about this, because I need to produce content at a good pace if I'm ever going to get anything done. I don't know how to make myself feel like my efforts are worth anything.

A while ago I wrote a ramble which discussed topics related to villain characters. Shortly after posting it though I came to the realization that it had actually drifted a lot from what the original intention was. It was supposed to be about how redeeming villains or antagonists falls flat when there’s conveniently some other villain who can take the fall in their place, but somewhere along the way I seemed to forget about that and instead started talking about villain motivations and being sympathetic and blahblah like that. Obviously having villains with complex and sympathetic motivations is important if you want to redeem them, but the main idea was that there isn’t much point in redeeming a character if you’re just going to dump their role and traits on some other character that functionally acts the same way but eviler.

But what do you do when you have to deal with the character who is the most evilest of them all? What will you do when you are face to face with the most unrepentant of villains?

The answer is you tell them to fuck off.

= = = = =

Courting with the notion of redeeming villain characters is something a lot of fandoms invariably end up doing. Perhaps unavoidable, given that evil is cool or sexy or what-have-you. There are some instances where this is very clearly set up by the creators of a story, when a villain is established to have a sad or tragic backstory with elements suggesting that this is a role that has been forced upon them by the circumstances of their life. When this happens, the audience not only gets to have a badass antagonist character but also someone kind of like an underdog they can root for. One of the most prominent instances of this in recent years was Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender, the scarred prettyboy who got shamed into a life of villainy by his evil family, and a lot of villain characters in YA stories have drawn from the archetype he presented.

But then there are the villains that fans gravitate toward no matter how villainous they are, no matter how heinous their crimes may be. Again, evil is cool, so it doesn’t take much to check off a few boxes for someone to be taken with a character. A particularly notable example of this, and possibly one of the earliest to blow up in the early years of the internet, was Draco Malfoy of the Harry Potter series, the origin of the trope “Draco in Leather Pants.” Draco is very explicitly a character the reader is not supposed to like. He’s a bully, he’s a racist snob, he’s a snide little shit with no backbone, no one likes him, not even Wizard Hitler 2.0 himself, Voldemort. And yet that didn’t stop anyone from wanting to see him as just a bad boy who at worst needed a stern talking to so he could be set on the right path and at best was merely misunderstood.

And, you know, that’s fine. People are free to do what they want in transformative works to mold a story to better fit what they would prefer it to be, even if it’s going to be pretty hard to sell audiences on your Thanos/Ego redemption shipfic.

I can’t help but feel though that this attitude that it’s possible to redeem anyone, regardless of how they are in canon, presents a form of danger. It’s like there’s this slippery slope of going through one villain redemption arc and then you have to start wondering why the characters don’t try to go that route for every character in the story. Surely, if they don’t turn every villain over to their side, that’s some failing on the part of their supposed morals. And, well, it’s frankly not the best kind of attitude to bring into real life, where there are plenty of people who have no desire for redemption and any attempts to urge them toward that would just be falling on deaf ears.

And that brings us back to My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, the show all about winning the day through the powers of love and tolerance. Ever since the very start of the series, it showed that turning evil over to the side of good was going to be a part of its shtick with Nightmare Moon getting turned back into Luna. And, you know, that’s fine. It’s good to teach kids that they should try to be friendly and courteous and to extend an olive branch when the opportunity presents itself. It’s good to show that even after trying to take over Equestria twice, Chrysalis can still be presented with the opportunity to convert to a rainbow skittle bug like the rest of her hive.

But there is still a line. There is a line where you can only do so much to appeal to someone’s sense of good before it becomes apparent that they don’t have one. And this is the line the show comes up to in the series finale, when it is decided not to give any further chances of redemption to Chrysalis, Tirek, and Cozy Glow, but instead to turn them to stone. We could quibble over details about whether or not this is the same as literally executing them, whether there is the possibility for them to still be unpetrified and given trials in the years to come as I have seen fanfics do, but given that Rockhoof treated turning himself to stone as effectively a form of suicide, we can act on the assumption that these three are dead. How is the audience supposed to rationalize this in the context of the rest of the show, where villains are given opportunity time and time again to prove that they have learned better, and then these characters (and Sombra) just get the door slammed in their faces?

Because the fact of the matter is that sometimes that’s all you can do.

Fandom intrinsically trends toward being an insular space. Engaging in fandom is a social and recreational activity that people do so they can unwind. The primary hope is for a place where you can feel comfortable, not for a place that will challenge your beliefs. You are predisposed to dislike conflict, and that’s all the more so when you’re focusing on a show that is ostensibly all about the intrinsic value of friendship; you would rather be accepting of people’s faults than denigrate them. And, you know, that’s fine. But it was kind of cute when the brony fandom was just starting to blow up and it was something that could bring so many different people together. Nowadays, as the fandom is cooling down and people are moving on to other things, it really seems like a lot of those still clinging on are the ones who would rather not be questioned on their extremely questionable interests. Like the people who are really into a character who is literally just a walking hate symbol, because it’s fine guys she’s totally just a joke, she just really likes being dominating and always wears a military uniform and constantly talks about how earth ponies are inferior and has a German accent and she’s definitely not defined by the hate symbol plastered on her ass.

[violent coughing fit]

A while ago I read an MLP fanfic called Myths and Birthrights, which included among its plot developments that gryphons are, like, bad. They are a violent, warring race, they are introduced tearing each other apart before looking to set their sights on the rest of the world, they own slaves and put them through gladiatorial combat for the entertainment of the nobility, you know, all that bad stuff. And then by the end of the story their capital is destroyed and it is implied that the entire race will go extinct before long. But…there are still good gryphons out there. Like Gilda, who learns the importance of humility and self-sacrifice over the course of the story, or her cousin whose name I can’t remember who dies early on. Are we really going to condemn the entire race just because the nobility was corrupt (and also give no repercussions to the god who caused the destruction of the capital and other war crimes because he was being a whiny pissbaby)? It struck me as a really un-MLP thing to do. People aren’t evil, corrupt institutions and figureheads and belief systems are evil. The changelings kicked out Chrysalis and rebuilt themselves and sought reparations with the other races of Equestria, they didn’t just get wiped out of existence.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic teaches that it’s important to offer the chance for redemption, but it also teaches that it’s just important to know when not to. You should be open, but you should be firm. That’s what it comes down to in the season 9 finale when we slam the door on the villains, those who have had the chance to turn to the side of good only to turn it down. Granted, I’m not saying it’s perfect; out of these characters, only Chrysalis ever actually had an olive branch extended to her, Tirek and Cozy Glow got sent to Tartarus without a second thought, and the main characters went straight for the throat with their rainbow laser on Sombra, twice. And Chrysalis was arguably the nastiest of the lot of them. Nevertheless, it still demonstrates an important message about knowing when and when not to offer those peaceful terms. I’m not condemning you for liking cheese legs with your bug tits, you’re still free to do what you want in your porn, you can rewrite the changelings to just being a race that has to act out of desperation and write out the abuse to Cadence and Shining Armor, but understand that there’s a reason in canon that Chrysalis became a rock instead of a skittle. If they’re not going to play nice, then they can fuck off.

Once again, it bears repeating: being tolerant requires not being tolerant of intolerance.





I probably also ought to have comments about Steven Universe, but I still haven’t watched any of it.

And, you know, that’s fine.

I would like to gauge the public perception of me and my work.

I have a short list of a few pertinent questions on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/NonUberis/statu.....42291399954433

I also have more extensive survey on a Google form if you have a little more time to spare:

https://forms.gle/JGGK7CL9qYjW8Q1F9

Please consider responding to either, I would greatly appreciate it.