Tag Archives: advice

What is your opinion on Marius/Armand’s relationship? i’ve seen posts in support and posts against and I’m ultimately in the middle because a) it is horror/gothic lit where weird/bad shit happens and b) vampires operate on a different moral code than human beings. So I’m just curious what you think.

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As @shippingisnotactivism put it so succinctly: Often times people aren’t actually interested in a debate, they are interested in making you do intellectual/emotional labour for no reason at all. [X]

I wrote this huge Wall of Text despite the above quote. If you’re a sealion, Anon, you’ve accomplished your mission to some extent, you’ve managed to get me to spend more time and effort on this response than I ever wanted to. 

I didn’t write it for you, though. I wrote it for my 15 year old self who was able to read and enjoy all the fictional problematic content I wanted. My 15 year old self loved black comedy, dark humor. I was never criticized for it. I was bullied for other things, like my wonky teeth, my hair style, my (lack of) fashion sense, which, looking at pics of myself, I can see why I was an easy target!  

Now, we have bullies who do it in a much more insidious way. They tell you that your interest in problematic content means that you endorse it in real life. I’d rather be bullied for my teeth again.

I actually did spend time crowdsourcing privately to respond to this ask, I got some good answers, but you know what? I don’t need to write a full dissertation on horror/gothic lit and/or Marius/Armand’s relationship and/or Ricean vampire sex/intimacy and/or Anne Rice’s motivations for writing what she writes and/or VC fandom’s reactions to VC ships, etc., for an anonymous person(s) on the internet. You said you’ve seen posts about it already. Being in the middle is an acceptable place to be. I’m not here to force you to one side or the other.

You’re looking for easy answers to complicated questions. It’s not my responsibility to feed you those answers. And I would hope that you would take anyone else’s response to your questions with a grain of salt, and not simply accept opinions as truth because they sound good and righteous.

These are issues with so much nuance, so many facets, and to write Marius/Armand off as simply “abusive” and “pedophilia” is extremely narrow-minded to me. To write off people who attempt to discuss these things in fiction as “abuse-apologists” and “pedophilia-apologists” is a form of bullying. If we cannot discuss problematic things in fiction in a civilized way, it won’t make these things A) disappear from fiction or B) stop happening in real life. 

If you’ve been watching/following my blog for even a few weeks, or you check out my archive, you know that I’ve reblogged plenty of Marius/Armand fanart, some of it NSFW. So I think you can do the math on what my stance is on that. 

I confess that I was never wildly into that ship, but I have always loved talent and skill in the fanart/fanfic of both of these characters, separately and together, and now my interest in it is A) to have some variety in my blog rather than always reblogging fanworks about L/L (my main ship and, arguably, the VC juggernaut ship), and B) to support anyone who loves those characters separately or ships them together, and let them know that I support them. They can like whatever fictional content they like.

It’s been said before by blogs with better rhetoric than mine, like @fiction-is-not-reality, @freedom-of-fanfic, @shippingisnotactivism, @shipwhateveryouwant, @yourshipisfine, @shipping-isnt-morality, @olderthannetfic, @bitteroldfandomqueen, @wilting-blooming, @yoonbum-indrag, etc. 

Basically:

There is no debate when it comes to my own permission to like whatever I like in fiction, and I extend that permission to everyone. It’s fictional. Period.

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^Marge Simpson is against pro wrestling here. It was an actual debate, you can google it. I’m not interested in arguing with her. I’m not even interested in calling her “a Killjoy,” even though she’s asked the viewer to do so. Unlike Marge, I’m not interested in forcing anyone to agree with any of my opinions. 

More importantly, why is she standing up there next to the TV? She wants to divert attention from it and onto herself. Marge wants the attention.

She is riding on it as a topic, and it’s an easy target, bc it is VIOLENCE. Scripted or not, we all generally agree that violence is bad. So she stands there concerned, but does she really think it’s so awful? I don’t remember the episode well enough to know if she says that pro wrestling is definitively a bad influence on its viewers. Her caption says enough: “BC THIS IS NOT TO MY TASTE, NO ONE ELSE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENJOY IT.” 

Would she take into account that it’s cathartic for fans of pro wrestling to watch the scripted violence played out? Would she care that we love rooting for our faves and we love watching them appear to beat the crap out of the other wrestlers for dominance? Would she care that we can watch it and know the difference between violence in media and in real life? I’m thinking that if she is truly committed to her crusade against violence in pro wrestling, she would be unable to cede an inch of ground, even a molecule of nuance could topple her from her soapbox. Acknowledging that her opinion is opinion and not fact would be acknowledging that she could be wrong, and that’s unacceptable to Marge.

It’s not enough for Marge to respect the old fandom rule of #Don’t Like, Don’t Read. When there is something as juicy as a topic with a buzzword that invokes an immediate reaction to get righteous about, the argument becomes: #I Don’t Like This Thing; No One Should Read/Write This Thing (Unless they Write it the Way I Want it Written).

The points I would make, if I were making points, would be these, listed below. You can do your own further research, bc I’m not being paid for this, and have no obligation to provide sources that will most likely fall on the deaf ears of the “Marges” of fandom who are unable to cede any ground. I am not obligated to respond to arguments against this post. 

These points are for the Marius/Armand shippers and Marius fans to show my support for them by sharing some of my own thoughts.

  • “Vampires operate on a different moral code than human beings.” Anon, you wrote this yourself, and I think it’s a good point. An essay could be written on it. 

^Some of the vampires may want to abide by human moral codes, but those may be codes from the era they were turned. I wouldn’t even say that moral codes have evolved, I would say that moral codes are on a pendulum swinging from moral to immoral, back and forth. 

^Attitudes towards sex/intimacy also change during different eras. This includes the time periods during which the novels were written, what was expected in fiction then, what the cultural landscape was like, etc. 

  • The ship itself occurred during a time period in history when underage/adult relationships mlm were socially acceptable. You can argue that she should not have chosen that time period, but she’s a writer, she can choose whatever time period she wants.
  • Given the content, I would suggest that these books were written for adults who know the difference between fiction and reality.

  • These books are fiction, they are not self-help manuals. 

^If you use them as a self-help manual and are harmed, it is your misuse of them, not the author’s fault, and not the books’ fault. Like alcoholism. It’s not the alcohol’s fault if you drink it irresponsibly. 

  • Shipping is not just for wish fulfillment/idealization, but it can be. Maybe Marius/Armand is wish fulfillment/idealization for Anne Rice. 

^While it is a possibility, I highly doubt she’s intentionally trying to injure any of her readers, especially if she sees

Marius/Armand

and Marius himself as good and desirable. 

  • I absolutely do not condone pedophilia, abuse, or grooming in real life, and in my 20+ years of fandom I have never met a Marius/Armand shipper or Marius fan who condones any of those things in real life, either.
  • I do not believe that an author is required to condemn problematic elements within the text. 

^Which she definitely wouldn’t do anyway, if she sees Marius/Armand and Marius himself as good and desirable.

  • Anne Rice has similar ships with the underage/adult dynamic that don’t get the hate Marius/Armand does, oddly enough. Furthermore, she didn’t invent it, this is a fantasy that’s been around since before she was even born. 
  • There are a bunch of other kinks mixed into that ship that I don’t need to list out here for you. Anne Rice/the fans/anyone is allowed to have/explore their kinks in fiction or in consensual spaces online/in real life with other adults.
  • It is my belief that underage people (including Anne Rice) can be curious about sex/intimacy before reaching the Age of Consent. 

^Are we only allowed to be curious about it on the stroke of the first minute of our 18th birthday?? I believe Anne writes these ships setting herself as the underage character, spending decades rebelling against what she perceived was an overly repressive religious upbringing in which the adults in her life tried to convince her that her curiosity was EVIL and a disgusting form of Sinning. Making it the “forbidden fruit” just made it that much more desirable for underage!Anne. IMO, her underage/adult ships are a coping mechanism she does for her younger self.

  • I am not knowledgeable enough about horror/gothic lit to say how Marius/Armand compares to other ships in those stories, but as I understand it, the exploration of monsters of all kinds has been problematic since monster stories were invented. 

^Horror/goth lit elevated these stories to a higher intellectual level, so they were criticized on a higher intellectual level than the older monster stories. However, the criticism of exploring these concepts has always been harsher to women writers bc PATRIARCHY and how dare women explore sexual fantasies without permission?!

  • Shippers of Marius/Armand are easy targets for bullying and harassment as that ship and character tick off plenty of boxes of things we know are wrong in real life. But as I’ve said in the past, creating/consuming problematic things =/= endorsement of them in real life. Thoughtcrimes are not crimes.
  • It’s easier to attack

    Marius/Armand

    shippers and Marius fans than attempting to attack Anne Rice. Anne Rice is a published author, insulated from anything she doesn’t want to hear/read. The shippers, like me, are humans behind their screens, and we all just want to get along with each other, so getting accused of endorsing real life problematic things bc of their ship preference is something shippers are very likely to respond to. Shipper attention, while not as juicy as attention from Anne Rice herself, is a reasonable substitute for the “Marges” feed on.

Ultimately I am a #Ship and let ship person and I support the shippers of problematic fictional ships and the fans of problematic fictional characters.

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I love reading your answers, it’s so full of intelligent reasoning and logic which is what many antis do not have… and sadly myself too. That said, I was wondering if you could come up with a stance for me as an artist that… well, how do I convince antis that my art does not denote me, the artist, as a pedophile, when it is merely only fictional art (because none of my art depicts or endangers a real child)? Or if you have something similar already, you can link and I’ll gladly read it up.

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fiction-is-not-reality:

Hello anon, I’m glad you enjoy my content! 

As per your issue, the thing is: you can’t. You can’t convince them. Fandom wank would have already ended if antis were open to read sources, understand laws, understand nuance, understand the “mind yo business”, follow the “live and let live” rule etc. You’ll see discourse blogs go on infinite hiatus or downright step down from the wankery not because they have been ‘defeated’ but because they are exhausted of repeating the same thing over and over again. 

Antis don’t listen. 

Which is why the point for you is not to make sure antis can’t talk shit about you, the point is for you to build confidence and security so that you may roll your eyes at antis because you know you’re not doing anything harmful, you know yourself, you know the law of your country, and you know that fiction affects reality in every way but how antis say it does. Haters gonna hate, you can’t change this. 

Be sure of yourself, and when you’re tired rest, and when you feel alone look around in your community, and believe in yourself. 

Arm yourself with the law 
with logic and support and more support and some more logic once again
with understanding of where the accusations are coming from and why
with studies 
with positive encouragement 

But most of all, be true to yourself. It’s not about antis not attacking you, it’s about you being bulletproof. 

Hey I’m planning on writing a VC fic with Armand Daniel and Marius any advice on how to get their characters right?

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I can’t advise you, as we all have our own ideas about the canon characters, and “how to get them right,” a phrase I disagree with. Have you read all of canon? Do you accept all of canon into your personal headcanon? I wouldn’t force you to accept it all, I don’t accept it all. If we’re working from different text acceptance, there can be no universal “getting the characters right” authority (not even Anne Rice herself “gets the characters right,” according to the opinion of some of her fans). As an example, if I accept everything in The Vampire Armand but you don’t (or you haven’t read it yet), your fic probably won’t include/address anything that happened in TVA. That’s your prerogative as a fic writer. You are not required to include/address anything that you don’t want to.

Since no one can decide definitively if you’ve “gotten them right,” don’t be afraid to get them WRONG! Get them however YOU see them, Anon. And it’s not really that black and white; I’ve read fics where there was characterization I loved, and some that seemed out-of-character to me in the next paragraph (but again, that’s just ONE PERSON’S opinion. Another reader might have loved/hated all of it). It could be that you struggle with dialogue in general, so it might be out-of-character now, but you’ll improve by writing more fics. And like a painting, it may not be your failure; you might purposely invest more attention/effort on some aspects of your fic than on others, again, that’s

your prerogative as a fic writer. 

”Summer’s Day,” about 1879, Berthe Morisot (left) and “Portrait of Mrs. A. Lawrence Rotch,” 1903, by John Singer Sargent (right).

^Here’re two paintings done in different styles, Morisot’s is Impressionist, and Sargent practiced his own form of Realism, with some obvious Impressionist influence. An essay could be written comparing/contrasting these but briefly: just between these two works, you can see that Morisot was less interested in capturing the details that Sargent has, but both portraits are evocative to me in their own way. There’s a breathless kind of anticipation in both. They both look like women I would love to get to know better! The Sargent one might have been painted on commission, idk about the Morisot one, but in the case of a commissioned work, there is a dialogue between the artist and the commissioner. When I’ve commissioned fanart, the artist will aim to meet my requirements, but ultimately, art is nebulous, and I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by the choices my commissioned artists make within the limitations of the request!

Bc here’s the thing, fanfic is for free. And no matter how you write them, even if you just copied text out of canon, there will be ppl who will tell you you’re getting the characters wrong. Again, the actual published author “gets them wrong,” according to some fans. So if she can’t write her own characters “right,” then, like Anne herself, you’re not obligated to appease anyone except yourself.

Here are a few “advice” pairings, with narrow-minded advice first and open-minded advice second.

  • “Make sure to include a paragraph about Armand’s physical appearance or else he’s not really in it!!!” – Dye Armand’s hair purple. Have Daniel comment about how striking the color is against his skin. Write Daniel as a POC. Write Armand as if he was able to age, make an AU so that Daniel is the vampire who approaches 50 year old Armand. 
  • “Make sure to address Marius’ anger management issues!!!” – Write an AU where Marius didn’t turn Armand, maybe they met as vampires on more equal footing. Write that Marius gets angry about dumb inconsequential things like being stuck in transit and the other two tease him about being so impatient.
  • “Make sure that if there’s any dubious-consent or non-consensual sexual content at all, to condemn it in the narrative!!!!” – Have a PWP with BDSM with all 3 of them that fails laughably and one of them storms out, naked and angry. WHY NOT???

Fiction is a space where we can explore anything and everything and it does not harm anyone.

Inevitably, some ppl won’t like it no matter what you do, so please yourself.

Whatever you’re writing: Write the fic you want to read! Here’s your permit:

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All that said, I do ask for specific and trusted ppl’s advice when I’m writing a fic if I think they’ve got good ideas bc they’re invested in those characters, maybe they’ve even written fics about those characters. I’m working on a fic that I had to ask a few ppl privately about bc I wanted to bounce my ideas off of them, and gain a little insight as to my specific fic situation, but I wasn’t looking for their permission to write what I’m writing. 

Stuff I personally would like to see explored re: Armand, Daniel, and/or Marius:

  • some backstory on Daniel’s mortal life
  • some Difficult Conversations in any combination of those three characters discussing their past relationships
  • some closure on things, agreement/forgiveness may not be possible, but some closure would be great.
  • some fluff in any combination of those characters, they’ve had so much suffering already
  • I always like the fanon that Daniel has glasses even though he doesn’t need to wear them now, bc reasons
  • give them roles in a story that move the plot along substantively

WRITE THE FANFIC YOU WANT TO READ.

My sister loves Lestat and won’t quit talking about him (which isn’t a bad thing, I’m never quiet when it comes to Dean Winchester) and I’m considering reading The Vampire Chronicles. (She’s finished the series.) Is there anything I should know going into the series? Thank you! ;)

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I don’t watch Supernatural so I can’t really compare Dean and Lestat, but from the gifs I’ve seen, they both have a kind of flippant and bubbly nature, and they both have a lot of bravado to shield their vulnerability. So you might like Lestat for being like Dean, and if so, I would suggest you start with the Vampire Lestat rather than Interview.

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VC is basically id fic, it could even be considered porn. To my mind, VC is a more elevated version of the bodice-ripper trashy romance novels that you see at supermarkets, with some substantive stuff mixed in. Anne Rice writes the books she wants to read. It’s the AR lollercoaster.

Fanlore has a quote about Id Fic that I think applies to VC, too:

The idea is that Id Fic panders to the Id, or that part of us that likes things that aren’t always moral or ‘correct’ and bypasses a lot of our moral constraints and strictures. So they might just have like a lot of rape in them, or non-con, or ‘dub-con where the character eventually enjoys it.’ They might have things that we *know* are wrong in real life, but really dig in fiction: like captive/captor, or magical healing cock, or really dangerous powerplay, whump that is just extreme, or even just really unsafe kinks (like no signs of safewording ever). Id Fics used to be considered a ‘guilty’ pleasure, but there’s been a lot of work to reclaim them…. The Id is the Loki of our minds, and nothing’s gonna change that. *g* And indulging it in fantasy and fiction is both normal, healthy, and fun. 🙂

^So that would be what I’d want ppl to know going into the series, that if that bothers you, then you might not like it.

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As Tom Cruise put it so eloquently, “The movie is not for everyone.” No value judgement there; the movie and the books are just not everyone’s cup of tea, which is totes fine.  

The fact that you have a tag for the AR lollercoaster makes me so damned happy

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nightislandofficial:

monstersinthecosmos:

I just truly believe this to be the universal experience of all Anne Rice fans, and some of us been up and down the lollercoaster a few times so far, and some of us haven’t had to deal with it yet. AND I PROMSE ALL THE LITTLE SUMMER CHILDREN, IT’S COMING.

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She’s a divisive and controversial writer for sure, on a lot of layered meta levels that aren’t just like mainstream casual normies thinking the books are scandalous or something. Tumblr is obviously a place where injustices aren’t ignored and it takes about five minutes of browsing to start finding the deeper readings of her work, the bad topics and sketchy opinions, etc etc. It’s so easy to just enjoy her work on the surface and it’s just such a fucking mess when you look closer. 

AND I MEAN THAT’S THE THING? I know people get suuuuuuper salty about Anne Rice and it’s always kind of crushing when people learn about the fandom history but like YALL I WAS THERE, I’M OVER IT LOL. I had the salty Anne Rice phase already and it took me like 4 years to bring myself to read Blood Canticle cause I was like So Done With Her Shit at that point. 

Are these books good and interesting enough to keep me this occupied on their own? Probably not. But they were really special to me growing up and I found cool fandom people and made genuinely awesome friends here so it’s become a weird hobby to have. I’M STUCK HERE NOW. 

I get the AR hate, I really do. I really, really do. I get the whole “omg I waited for the new book and it was about bird aliens” devastation. I REALLY DO. But we all go through this if you stick around for too long. I went through it already, it’s out of my system. I’m done being pissy about it. (tbh I went through this when I read Merrick the first time and I was like wtf I thought this was gonna be an epic crossover with Rowan getting into some shit and instead we’re reading about David fucking some chick in a cave what IS THIS. And that was like 15 years ago LMAO.)

Some people interact with media by criticizing and dissecting and that’s super awesome, other people want to be brainless and just dick around and make memes. I have a stressful life and I deal with heavy shit pretty often so I’m not here to like sling negativity in any form, that’s just not how I like to use my energy and free time. It doesn’t make it less valuable, it’s just not my thing. I put the time in with salty AR years, I’m done, I’m just here to laugh now. AND LAUGH I DO. 

AND LIKE IF THERE’S ONE THING I CAN SAY? A PIECE OF ADVICE TO THE NEWBS WHO HAVEN’T GONE THROUGH IT? Stop having expectations. Read enough AR to see that she’s fucking whacky af. Read Taltos. Read the werewolf book. When the new VC comes out, go in expecting that writer. Don’t go in expecting QOTD 2. If shredding books is fun for you, by all means! Knock yourself out! There will be plenty to shred! But if you’re here for fun just go in for fun. It’s lulzy as fuck if you don’t take it too seriously. 

did i write this post in my sleep!

#PREACH (Um I think I co-wrote this w/ nightislandofficial and monstersinthecosmos in my sleep, too)

Abuse history is not social capital; it doesn’t prove you wrong or right

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antiantis-saltmine:

This is extremely true. Everyone that goes through abuse is different and has their mental health impacted differently, and your feelings on x are not necessarily correct for everyone despite being valid.

Different people can handle different things, and if you can’t handle/enjoy something, that does not mean that those who can and do have to cater to you beyond tagging things properly. This is especially important now that Tumblr has finally added the blacklisting feature. It is imperative that YOU take the initiative to make yourself feel comfortable and safe, because this is a SHARED SPACE.

–Mod Disgrace

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lordhellebore:

iontorch:

janiedean:

cishetsbeingcishet:

iontorch:

my fave thing is when when women in fandom are like UGH BUT I CANT RELATE TO F/F PAIRINGS BC IM NOT A LESBIAN 

funnily enough you’re not a gay man either yet here we are

this tea is fucking SCALDING

actually this tea is cold af because hmmmm I’ll tell you a secret

I’m a cishet woman, therefore I find *men* attractive, same as all cis*het* women 

a *gay* man finds *men* attractive

therefore since I’m not a gay man but I like the same things a gay man likes I find it way easier to write fic about a dude who likes a dude because I can imagine *why* he’d be into a dude and with a bit of that thing named *empathy/trying to imagine how it feels to be your character* I can work out the rest and I can relate and also I suppose I’d imagine how things work in the bedroom since both me and my character like having men inside it

meanwhile I absolutely am not romantically or sexually attracted to women and therefore to me it’s a lot harder to write f/f unless it’s a ship I like or it’s canon and I have material to work on because I really *cannot relate* to the concept of finding women attractive *and* since fanfic is for *fun* and I’m not writing a book I am in no way shape or form obligated to write f/f fanfic just because it’s about women and I’m a woman, and I’d find it way harder to imagine why a lesbian would be into another woman physically (because I’m not one) (not because it’s WRONG obviously)

therefore sorry but a heterosexual woman, when *shipping things* or writing *fanfic* in which A is attracted to B will find m/m or f/m *always* more relatable than f/f. a bisexual man would most probably relate to a lesbian on that level more than *I* would, because a bisexual dude would definitely want to fuck women and I wouldn’t and he’d definitely know how to make love to one woman better than I could imagine since I doubt I’ll ever have the chance or the inclination

I mean, it’d be nice if y’all actually thought about fairly obvious things before *always* somehow making fun of *women in fandom* who in 95% of the time happen to be straight because of course it’s the only typology of woman that is *always* good to laugh at (except for bi women in m/f rships who then aren’t bi anymore), but what do I even ask out of this website?  ¯_(ツ)_/¯ 

(ps: not wanting to fuck women doesn’t mean that you will NEVER want to write f/f or I wouldn’t have written the only literal explicit fic on ao3 for a canon ff ship in a show no one on tumblr ever heard of THANKFULLY because y’all would hate it, but putting it like this is really fucking dumb because you’re mixing up same-sex attraction with *the sex you’re actually attracted to* I mean  ¯_(ツ)_/¯   ¯_(ツ)_/¯   ¯_(ツ)_/¯ )

hey shut up, your hetero opinion actually isn’t relevant here

So what about the opinion of a woman in a relationship with another woman? Relevant enough? Because hey, everything @janiedean said is true. But actually thinking about what she said would require you to examine your own motivations and biases, and that…well. You seem unwilling.

(Screeching about how I’m not queer enough, have internalised homophobia, or some other reason why my opinion is still not relevant in 3, 2, 1…)

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oscarthefrump:

#every time I see this picture I am briefly overwhelmed#this piece of art outlived its context and milieu#but. but. in reality there is no such thing#because art is made anew with every glance. it comes to life. awakens laughing#and time compresses. softens. the past is not so much a mystery if we remember we weren’t the first to dance.#this is what art is for#this is what it can do#it doesn’t only speak to us of our own humanity#it reminds us that humanity is shared. this girl isn’t dancing in a mirror. she is dancing with a friend.#paintings don’t simply show us the world. they help teach us how to live in it.

(via @robotmango)