Name’s Hadrian/Rian. Artist/writer. I like to make fan stuff. I also participate in zines from time to time. Fan of video games, anime & manga, cooking, and cats XD
Here’s some navigation:
My Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hadrian_Pendragons (been posting since 2018!)
Stuff I make (my blog link & basic tumblr link):
Where can you find my art? Doodles and such here or #hadpen art. (I’m a slow artist.)
Writing posts? WIPs and Ao3 updates here or #hadpen fic. (I write a lot. For older stuff check ao3.)
Asks? Open! or Open! (Sometimes I’m talkative, but sometimes I take a while. May not immediately respond lol.)
FAQ:
(to be updated)
Do I take writing or art commissions? Not currently. (But perhaps sometime in the future?)
I'm rambling under the cut bullet-point style while I process everything since I finally saw them both.
Loving both premises involving the loss of stars. In PHM's case it's a slow and cold end. In IL's case, it's sudden and forceful and unknowable. Two very different views and reactions to death, and two very different responses connected by the same priority: survival. The themes of survival portrayed as so very different. In PHM, survival happens due to collaboration and support for each other, understanding and friendship. In IL, survival breaks apart because of differences they can't overcome, because of an emphasis on punishment and fear instead of collaboration. PHM gets the best scientists from all over the world to work on this problem that affects the universe. IL for the most part looks into the void and gives up, and struggles to find unity and hope in the darkness. Slow Acceptance vs Sudden Shock. Putting aside your personal feelings vs. Prioritizing your personal feelings. Coming to terms with your own fear (Grace) vs. being broken down by it (Simon). The individual vs. the united. Isolation and companionship. The way the COI operates vs the way PHM operates.
Both Grace and Simon being forced to save humanity by being shoved into a long-shot, good-fucking-luck tin can in the middle of nowhere.
But Grace gets every single asset and resource available to humanity put on the Hail Mary, the best minds they have to offer on the project (including his own), with a robot assistant and the independence to do literally anything or just crash the ship into Tau Ceti if he really wanted. (Him not knowing about being forced until the very end is CRAZY because he was trying to figure out what changed his mind, what made him decide to step on that ship, there had to be SOMETHING. And then there just wasn't. He writes Yao's words on that markerboard and tries to figure out who he's being brave for, but there wasn't anyone.) Being told outright and knowing from the start there was no going home. In the end, Grace doesn't have to die, doesn't have to abandon earth or Rocky.
Meanwhile, Simon is placed in the cheapest, last-ditch effort to learn what's causing humanity to die out and figure out how to stop it. He knows exactly why he's here, the unfairness of it all, and they lie to him about him surviving. He doesn't have everything the COI can give backing him because the COI is scared of using up all of their remaining resources on a long-shot. He's told he is the first one sent down, another lie, because they've tried this before with better resources and it still ended badly. Things go horribly wrong, but he is not prepared for any of it, not taught any of it, not even given two seconds to read the manual on how to work that goddamn submarine. He doesn't want to die, all the way to the end, but he has to abandon his own life anyway for a cause he understands but doesn't believe in.
Grace comes from a place of hope, and Simon comes from a place of fear. Grace has a friend, and Simon has a monster. Grace is surrounded by no one able to help him, and Simon is surrounded by everyone unwilling to help him.
Grace is given every chance of success humanity was capable of. Simon is abandoned at first notice of something wrong.
Both send their findings back to humanity. One is received with open arms, the other may not be received at all. Grace's findings carry answers, and Simon's findings carry more questions. Both worlds built around survival, but separated by genre: Grace's world is able to understand and create, while Simon's world can only confuse and destroy.
Both, in the end, accepting their role. Grace's comes with a sense of relief: he didn't need someone else to be brave for, he needed to learn to be brave for himself, and to make choices based on what he wants and not what he is scared of. Simon's comes with a sense of despair: he isn't brave, all the way to the very end, but he endures despite knowing he won't make it out of this alive because he wants to believe in something, be it a tree or a blackbox, even if both are buried in blood.
Grace has free will, Simon does not. Grace carries life, and Simon carries death. Grace is a martyr, and Simon is a prisoner. Grace will be remembered as a hero, and Simon won't be remembered at all.
So we all talk about being in fandoms for things that are charmingly bad, and being able to acknowledge that they’re charmingly bad. But of course some people are in fandoms for things that are Actually Amazing. There are people out there who write fanfiction for The Best Science Fiction Novel Of The Twentieth Century. Or who draw fanart exclusively of The Best Movie of All Time. And there are even more people who are in fandoms for things that are Actually Pretty Good, which is not quite amazing but is closer to it than to Charmingly Bad.
And sometimes, you have a string of fandoms that are Actually Pretty Good. And the danger of this—the very great danger—is that when you have a string of Actually Pretty Good and even Actually Amazing obsessions, you start to believe that maybe you have taste. Perhaps you are now immune to the indignities of losing it over something mostly bad.
And then it is shattering to discover that no, bad things can still stick a fork in your brain. 😔
So I understand why the “transformative fandom gathers around things that are not good because there being a problem makes people desire to fix it” model is popular. I even agree that it’s accurate in many if not most cases. However it is not what this post is about. Plenty of people do transformative and creative fandom activities for things that are very, very good. Simplified models do not encompass everything.
And frankly, it’s starting to really get on my nerves when people read “I think this thing is good. I wouldn’t change a thing about it and frankly I don’t even think there should be more canon added to it, but I am still going to write thousands of words of fic, make a cosplay, and draw fanart” and then completely misunderstand and respond with “yes I agree—I like things that are good too. But I never feel the transformative/creative fandom instinct for them because they are too good.”
Some people do not feel it. Other people do. Stop misreading me to avoid having to adjust your mental model of how fandom works.
one of the ways a Canon work can be fandom bait is by missing something that fans want to fix, i.e. "it's bad", but i think this is only one way out of multiple that something can be fandom bait.
compelling worldbuilding (invites interaction with the setting)
interesting gimmick (see: daemons, drift compatibility. subcategory of compelling worldbuilding)
shipping bait (duh)
original character bait (in-universe categories/factions and design elements that make it fun for people to create their own characters)
compelling narrative (invites interaction and tweaks to the storyline: AUs and fixits and so on)
basically anything that invites interaction and recombination. but fandom also has a sort of multiplying effect: the larger the interactive audience of fandom is, the more likely it is to generate ideas and works that draw in more participants. so:
network effect (the larger the established fandom, the more likely it has subfandoms and infrastructure that appeals to niche audiences)
For those who don't know: Ikumi Nakamura is the woman who was senior artist on Bayonetta, and designed the titular character along with Hideki Kamiya. Their greatest moment of bonding was over their insistence that Bayonetta keep her glasses on at all times.
Nakamura cannot go to horny jail. She is the warden.
I follow this lady on instagram who rescues cats, and i have been thinking about this video for literal months. behold the transformation of this wretched little beast
Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”
Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.
Welcome to the June Dialogue & Trope Challenge! (Also my first time ever doing one so forgive me if there's any mistakes)
Each day includes two prompts:
✦ A line of dialogue
✦ A trope
The dialogue and trope won't always seem like they fit together—and that's intentional! The fun is figuring out how to connect them. Maybe the dialogue is spoken by the hero. Maybe it's the villain. Maybe it's a memory, a lie, a prophecy, or something else entirely.
Interpret the prompts however you like:
✦ Any fandom or original characters
✦ Any genre
✦ Any length
✦ Any rating (just tag appropriately)
✦ Mix and match genres, tropes, and settings
If you participate, feel free to tag your work with #JuneDialogueTropeChallenge (long I know) so everyone can find and share each other's creations.
Happy writing!
Text version:
June 1: "Go ahead. Underestimate me." | Found Family
June 2: "Don't make me regret saving you." | Kidnapping
June 3: "I thought you were dead." | Fake Dating
June 4: "Open the door." | Soulmates
June 5: "You weren't supposed to hear that." | Friends to Lovers
June 6: "Whose blood is that?" | Love Confession
June 7: "You lied to me." | Apocalypse
June 8: "You should've left me there." | Sacrifice
June 9: "You're late." | Possession
June 10: "I heard you screaming." | Rivals
June 11: "Take my hand." | Betrayal
June 12: "I wasn't supposed to survive." | Alternate Universe
June 13: "Why are you looking at me like that?" | Chosen One
June 14: "How long have you known?" | Monster Hunt
June 15: "Trust me." | Doppelgänger
June 16: "You shouldn't be here." | Reunion
June 17: "I can explain." | Ghosts
June 18: "Who did this to you?" | Time Loop
June 19: "That's impossible." | Character Study
June 20: "Don't touch me." | Prophecy
June 21: "I never stopped looking." | Forbidden Magic
June 22: "You promised." | Enemies to Lovers
June 23: "I remember your voice." | Reunion
June 24: "What aren't you telling me?" | Soulmates
June 25: "They're lying." | Redemption Arc
June 26: "Wait. You're alive?" | Secret Society
June 27: "You left me." | Vigilante
June 28: "It's not safe after dark." | Haunted House
June 29: "Look at me." | Deal With The Devil
June 30: "You came back." | Murder Mystery
it’s always “I understand why you have an autism diagnosis now” and not “thank you for explaining the entirety of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster to me, I really enjoyed hearing about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster”
In time travel movies, when the time traveler asks 'What year is this?!?' they're always treated like they're being weird for asking.
When in reality, if you go 'What year is this?!?' people will just say '2024. Crazy huh.' and you go 'Wtf where has my youth gone.'
And if you ask 'And what month??' people won't judge you, they'll just go like 'SEPTEMBER!!! Can you believe it?!?!' and you go 'WHAT?!? Last time I checked we were in May?!?'
Stumbling into a diner and asking "What town is this" isn't weird, the workers will think you're on a road trip
If you ask them "Where's the nearest Nano Deck?" they'll assume it's a shop they've never heard of and say "Sorry, I don't know where any of those are"
Going into a store and telling a cashier "I need pods for my comm device" will just get you a "Never heard of those, maybe try Radio Shack?"
I think the problem is that people who create sci-fi movies have never had to work customer service jobs
