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twiceasfrustrating · 3 years

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Out in the Countryside

Rating: Teen and Up

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: F/M

Fandom: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!

Relationship: Lucifer/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Lucifer (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Main Character/Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Leviathan/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Main Character/Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Asmodeus/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Asmodeus (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Beelzebub/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Beelzebub (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader, Belphegor/Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)/Reader

Characters: Lucifer (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Mammon (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Leviathan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Satan (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Asmodeus (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Beelzebub (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Belphegor (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!), Main Character (Shall We Date?: Obey Me!)

Additional Tags: Poly!MC, Picnic, fluff, hand-holding, implied drinking, Beel carries you, kissing these idiots being dumb but lovable

Summary: Sometimes you just wanted to have a nice day out with all of your boyfriends. You had the brilliant idea to go out for a picnic and enjoy some time away from the usual busy life you all lived. The brothers decided to indulge your wish, so into the equivalent of the Devildom countryside you go.

There was a lot of walking involved with picnics. You had never realized before how much walking really went into getting away from civilization. Not even a city, just some form of civilization. Then again, you had never seen the countryside in the Devildom before, so it wasn't fair to expect yourself to know that information beforehand. Well, maybe you should have, considering the human realm wasn't that different.

You had been left in charge of carrying the blanket, even after insisting you could carry something else. The brothers refused to let you, sitting that the baskets (yes, multiple) were heavy because they had to bring enough for eight people (one of which was Beel and his bottomless stomach) and one was full of dishes. They were objectively stronger than you, so there was no reason to have you exercise your limited human strength. The only brother not in charge of carrying a basket was Belphegor, who they worried would fall asleep on the spot if he had to use too much energy. Even Beel was allowed a basket of food in addition to the one for dishes (granted, it was one that had specifically been made so that he could eat it while walking because you all knew that was going to happen, but still).

The choice not to burden Belphie quickly proved to be a smart one, because he was soon yawning as he walked and you worried he would start literally sleeping walking.

You held the blanket against you in much the same way he did his pillow and went up to him, "Are you going to be okay?"

"Jus' tired..." His words slurred together, showing just how true that statement was.

"Yeah, this walk is pretty exhausting." At least one person agreed with you. Everyone else seemed to be doing just fine. It almost made you angry because that meant they had been right about you carrying extra weight and how it would have been taxing on you. Stupid correct logic, "Hey? After we all eat, would you like to take a nap?"

The look he gave you told you that was a definite yes, but he clearly missed your intentions.

"I meant, would you like to take a nap with me? Maybe I can let you use my lap as a pillow?" You knew how much he enjoyed doing that, and you did too.

His eyes turned to you and a little "Mhm" left him. He could never turn down a chance to take a nap with you.

Still, he looked tired enough that you worried about him, so you reached out your hand to hold his and make sure that he wouldn't wander away if he did start sleepwalking. He gladly entwined his fingers with your own as you both walked along.

You both stayed like that until Lucifer spoke up, "This is our destination."

Your attention shifted, looking out ahead of you rather than on making sure Belphie was still awake. All you could do was stare in awe. It is so powerful that you find yourself letting go of the youngest brother's hand and stepping forward to get a better look at what lies before you.

The Devildom countryside was nothing like what you expected. You weren't sure what it was you expected, but it wasn't flowers. Actual flowers! Not that you recognized whatever type of flora they were, but here they were. The scene of the meadow against the pale red sky was hauntingly beautiful and all you could think of was enacting the scene straight out of a movie where you frolicked in the field. You looked at the brothers with wide eyes, begging to be allowed to go enact your plan.

Lucifer nodded, "They're safe for humans." He held out his hand to take the blanket from you, which you gladly let him.

With a twinkle in your eyes, you ran away from them and toward the field of flowers, immediately feeling how the petals softly brushed against your exposed legs. Upon closer inspection, something about them reminded you of multicolored spider flowers dripping with morning dew and dandelions with exaggeratedly large puffs. As you danced through the meadow, the dandelion puffs broke free from their stems and floated off into the sky. You stared in wonder as they flew in the wind and were carried off somewhere far away. It was moments like these where it was the clearest that the human realm and the Devildom had many similarities you never had time to think about.

The brothers watched you from the place you had split off from them, seeing how you enjoyed your first exposure to wild Devildom flowers. Your blue sundress fluttered in the same wind that carried away the puffs, making you stand out against the brilliant sky behind you. Each of them found it hard to look away and help set up the picnic like they had planned. The contrast in color made you look like a painting.

Satan paused from helping lay down the blanket to watch the wonder unfold on your face. He looked over to his next youngest brother, "Asmo, you helped her pick the outfit for today, didn't you?"

"Only the parts you can see." But those parts were still divine, "She insisted the rest of it be a surprise."

"You did well." He added before going back to helping spread the blanket.

Everyone else nodded in agreement. It was a simple outfit, but it gave them all terrible ideas about what to do with you. How else was a demon supposed to react to seeing such an innocent-looking human other than wanting to corrupt them?

"Can someone set out the food?" Beel wanted to do it himself, but he knew he was likely to eat it before anyone else could enjoy it.

Belphegor looked at him in sympathy, feeling how hungry his twin was in his own stomach, "We need to finish setting up first." He wanted to sleep though. The walk over had been exhausting and it was hitting him the hardest, "You should go check on her." He suggested, since keeping Beel away from the food was the smartest option.

"Huh? Why does he get to be the one to check on her?" Mammon burst into the conversation, "I mean- Ya should leave that kinda stuff to yer big brother. No reason ya gotta go out of yer way."

"Lmao. You're dating her and you still act like a tsun." The third-born couldn't help but laugh at how much of a trope his brother was.

He placed his hands on his hips, "Shad'up. No one understands that otaku talk of yers anyway."

"Then why are you so offended?" Levi mocked, not missing the fact that his brother clearly understood the jab well enough to know it was insulting.

"Enough." Lucifer ended the conversation before their bickering could draw your attention, "Unless one of you wants to play guard between Beel and the food, I think letting him go is the best option."

They looked at each other, knowing neither of them wanted that particular responsibility. Levi turned back to his job dejectedly while Mammon grumbled a "whatever" under his breath.

Belphie gave Beel a sly smile, knowing exactly what he had done. The redhead gave him a grateful nod before looking out to where you were now sitting among the flowers and walking toward you. He found you stroking the petals of the flowers, trying to understand how they felt soft to the touch even though they grew in a harsh environment. He sat beside you, drawing your attention to him instead.

"Oh, Beel." You pulled away from the petals and leaned against his towering frame, "Am I taking too long?"

"No." His gaze drifted down to you, seeing how peaceful your face was looking out across the field, "They're almost done getting everything ready."

You balk at his words, "Done? I didn't even help."

"Well, you looked like you were having fun. None of us wanted to bother you."

"But I should still help." You felt bad that you had left them to do all the work when you were the one that suggested a picnic in the first place.

"No one minds." They loved watching you enjoy yourself so freely. It had quickly become something akin to a hobby to them.

"I mind." It made you feel lazy to not help them set everything up. This was a relationship, so you should contribute to it as much as they did.

He didn't really know how to comment on that without undermining your feelings. It was clear you were upset about being allowed to walk away without contributing anything. You probably shouldn't have assumed they would wait for you to come back to set up, this was their date too, after all.

He couldn't think of anything to say to you, especially with your face as sour as it was. Instead of trying to use words, he reached out for a flower and plucked it from the ground. With a smile in his eyes, he placed it behind your ear.

"Watching you is nice." He gently stroked your cheek with the back of his fingers as he lowered his hand again, "Seeing you happy is the best part of a date."

The heat that rose in your body and up your face felt like it would cook you alive. You buried yourself into his shirt to hide the giddy, embarrassed smile that you were now wearing, "You can't just say stuff like that."

"Why not? Did I say something wrong?" The worry in his voice was saddening.

"Never." You shake your head and sit up ever so slightly so you can place a peck against his cheek, "Do you think they're done?"

His hand moved to his stomach, realizing for the first time since he joined you just how hungry he really was, "I hope so."

"Well then," you raise to standing and brush the dirt and pollen from your dress, "Shall we go back now?"

Nodding once again, he shifts in his spot so he can stand up. However, as he gets to his knees, he stops and looks up at you. His arms open wide And you know exactly what he's thinking about. With a shy smirk, you fall into his arms, sitting awkwardly on his bicep and trying to balance yourself.

Beel places his other hand against your knees to keep you steady as he stands up and lifts you straight into the sky. You giggle widely as you raise higher and higher, seeing how more of the area unfolds before you with height. Now you can see how the sea of colors you were just sitting in weaves together and how far it seems to stretch out.

Your eyes widen in awe, "It's amazing..." You can't really explain how beautiful the meadow is. It's not like the ones in the human realm that look delicate and fair. No. This one looks dangerous, those dew stricken petals reaching out to link each flower to its neighbor.

"You like it?"

"I love it." You couldn't imagine seeing this in the human realm. The flowers were just too unique.

"Whaddya think yer doing over there?"

You both turn to look toward Mammon, who is yelling at you from where the picnic has been fully set up. Clearly, he isn't a fan of being left out from a single intimate moment.

"I think that's our cue." You tell him, looking down but holding on tightly.

"Uhn." He turns on his heels, carefully keeping you perched on his arm and listening to you laugh at the unusual way to travel.

As you near everyone else, you both get a few looks of confusion, some of jealousy, and one from Belphie that lets you know that whatever just happened was all according to his plans. Of course, it was. The youngest brother couldn't go a day without planning something. At least it wasn't nefarious this time.

"I'm glad you both decided to join us." Lucifer said, glance drifting from Beel you, "Do you need help getting down?"

You debate for a moment of you can get down by yourself. You figure Beel would set you down if you asked, but that's not as fun as having to make Lucifer reach up to you for once, "Please?"

Stepping forward, the eldest brother places his hands against your waist and slowly lifts you back to the ground. As your feet touch the dirt below, he notices the flower in your hair, placing a gloved hand under your chin and lifting your head so he can get a better look at it.

"Yes?" You ask, wondering what he could be thinking about.

"Nothing." He bends down at the waist and presses his lips against yours, his tongue quickly assaulting your own and making your head swim before pulling away, "You look beautiful."

The haze is short-lived as he pulls away and you can only admonish him, "Lucifer! This is a group date. None of that." Quick kisses and pecks were one thing, but trying to rile you up was off-limits.

The grin that crosses his face is fully aware of what he did, but uncaring because he got what he wanted, "Of course." Even if you complained, the goal was that he wouldn't be outdone by his younger brother in your eyes. Of course, some of the others saw through him, but the only opinion that mattered on the issue was yours.

Asmo took the opportunity to skip up to you from behind and wrap his arm around your own, "Sit next to me, Darling~" He tugged at you gently to try and lead you to a spot on the blanket.

Of course, he was the first one to actually ask you to sit with them. He had no compunctions over trying to get you to pick him first and foremost. He would respect your boundaries, but he still wanted you as much as everyone else.

"Gladly." You let him guide you to the blanket and sat down where he indicated. That still left your other side open though. You pay the spot next to you and looked up, "Levi? Will you join me?"

His orange eyes sparkled so much that it almost looked like he was going to cry. Why would you ever choose a disgusting otaku like him? That was probably what he was thinking. That was also exactly why you had to explicitly choose him. You loved him as much as the rest of his brothers, but he didn't seem to believe you. Every now and again, he needed a reminder that you had chosen him just as much as anyone else.

He gladly sat on your other side and the rest of the brothers fell into different places around the small banquet. Beel looked uncomfortable as he was forced to only look at the food in front of him. Belphie, ever the good brother, passed him an entire basket of food and told him to start with that while everyone else took the chance to grab from the pile in the middle. That basket lasted about as long as it took everyone to make their first plate.

"We brought wine if you would like." Satan held up the deep red, unopened bottle for you to see.

You looked at him skeptically, "Didn't we learn that I can't handle that stuff already?" That was kind of how this entire mess started in the first place. Not that you regretted it in the long run, even if it was a nightmare to deal with at the time.

He shook his head, "This is from the human realm. At least, I assume you have some tolerance for it." Although, none of the brothers would mind another incident like the one from that night. In retrospect, some of them found the memory endearing and were mildly curious how much further it could go now that you weren't confused about your feelings anymore.

But... this wine wouldn't do that to you, "Please pour a glass." It really was the ideal of a picnic date. Not that anything about this date was traditional, but it was definitely your ideal. There was nothing better than just getting to spend a day with your boyfriends and enjoying each of them. They really did find ways to spoil you and make you so very happy that this was your life now.

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phdmama · 3 years

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Is it possible to hold "Ao3 is an archive space for both writers and readers" and "Ao3 is specifically constructed to be an archive and to have a multi-valent tagging and warning system to be used as the publisher -- and reader -- so choose" at the same time? Is Ao3 really created only for writers, or is for fans, which includes both writers and readers?

Hi anon!

Okay so I'm neither one of the creators of AO3 nor some arbiter of fandom, so this is literally just one pal's opinion.

My understanding is that AO3 is constructed to be an *archive for writers* in reaction to multiple purges on different platforms in the past. To protect the work of *writers*.

Now, I'm also a reader. I read a LOT in many fandoms. That AO3 provides me SO MUCH JOY for free is one of the greatest blessings in my life, and I am not exaggerating in the slightest. And is in part why I support it financially.

So I'm looking at the post new interface right now. Required fields are Rating, Archive Warnings, Fandom, Work Title, Language (I always forget to set that one), and Work Text. Everything else is set at the author's discretion. Not to be all "I'm an old lady" but trigger warnings and content warnings are very very new.

Do I love tags and warnings? I do. Because I'm a person with a complex history (like, you know, a lot of people) and there is stuff I don't read, either because it's an actual trauma trigger for me, or more likely, it's a quick or preference. I love it when authors give me enough information to make my own choice about whether I opt into a fic - because it's ALL opt-in. But I'm not owed any of this information. And, if there's not enough information for me to make an informed decision about opting in, and I choose to opt-in anyway, my reactions to what I read are *my* responsibility.

For fics that are mistagged (I.e. tagged as No Warnings apply when there's actually significant dubcon, which I have literally read and been profoundly triggered by), there's a process for that. To do that is totally uncool, IMO. Like knowing that many people won't read MCD and having it in your fic but saying no warnings apply. That seems also to me to be against the TOS but I haven't looked into it that much.

I can always choose to look at the information the author has made available to me and think huh, there's really not enough here for me to know if I want to read this. For example, choose not to use archive warnings. I almost never read fics with that tag because I really do not like being surprised by major content - maybe the fic has it, maybe it doesn't. What matters is that the author *has given me enough information to make an informed decision* - which is, the information I want is not provided, so this fic is *not for me*. Not everything is for me. Most things aren't, in fact. What I believe is that authors have the right to present and tag their work within these discussed limitations and after that, they are making their choices about their work.

Honestly, I'm not sure I see the dichotomy in what you've said here. And again, this is my own opinion and lived experience. Absolutely, readers (because, you know, writers are FANS as well) use the tagging system and I love that. I do it. I fucking LOVE that I can filter stuff out now!! That I never ever have to read another mpreg if I don't want to (if it's tagged). But, it's not a required tag! So if I come across untagged mpreg, I can just nope out. I suppose I could even politely ask the author to please tag for mpreg. And they can say no.

Tagging is fucking hard. And you cannot account for everyone's triggers and squicks, you just can't.

As a writer, I personally want to give my readers enough information to decide if they want to read my fic. Not to bring up the hideous top/bottom discourse but - I don't generally tag for it, and I have specific and thought-out reasons for that, and even when asked, I'm probably not going to tag for it. It's not required and I don't have to. If you are someone who can *only* read a specific type of sex, for example, there are lots of fics tagged for you. Mine aren't among them. And that's okay! I want you, my reader, to make an informed choice for YOU when you read my work. Just as not all fics are for me, my fics probably aren't for everyone (well I know they're not ha ha).

As a reader, I don't actually get a say in how other writers tag their stuff. What I do get to do is read the information that the author has provided for me (and, I assume, has provided it in a thought-out way) and decide, based on that, if I want to consent to read the work. Knowing when I consent to choose to read, that I might come across things that upset me.

When people demand things to be tagged in the ways that they want, I guess it feels entitled to me. I'm not entitled to access to all fics.

And, it also demonstrates a total lack of ability to see something from someone else's perspective, which is interesting to me. I totally get that some people LOVE the surprise. Some people seek out and choose to read Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings! That's awesome that there are fics tagged for them! That's also entirely unlike my own wants/needs/desires. It doesn't make those people wrong, nor am I wrong. We're just different. It's awesome for me those fics are tagged as well, so I can NOT read them!

Okay, this is probably a much longer ramble than you wanted.

tl;dr Authors have the right to tag their works within the structure of what's required by the Archive. If I feel that I'm not given enough information to make an informed choice to opt-in to a fic, that IS the information I need. If I choose to opt-in anyway, knowing that I don't have all the information, then my responses are my responsibility to manage.

And again, this is just my opinion. I don't speak for the Archive and I don't speak for some general fandom.

#fandom meta

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arshipweek · 3 years

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AR Ship Week - Shipping in AR Fandom

Banner credit

This is the first weekly post in the lead up to Alex Rider Ship Week. Only 4 weeks to go!

This week we’re going to look at the current state of shipping in Alex Rider fandom.

A Not Entirely Scientific Look at the AR Fandom by rirren and pongnosis

AO3's categories provide a good overview of not just the AR fandom but fandoms in general and the sort of fandom content that gets posted on the site. The following two graphs cover the six categories options on AO3, excluding those fics where the author didn't choose a category. Fics can also have multiple categories, e.g. F/F + M/M or F/M + Gen, so the same fic can appear in multiple slices.

The first chart covers categories within the AR fandom (specifically the Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz tag, i.e. not fics that only include the Alex Rider (TV 2020) tag), the second AO3 as a whole:

So what IS the state of the fandom compared to the average?

* Fully half of the fics in the fandom are categorised as Gen. In comparison, the AO3 average is 17 percent.

* The vast majority of shipping fics in AR fandom are M/M (see note 1), which account for 36 percent, where the AO3 average is 45 percent.

These two categories in total account for 86 percent of AR fics, and 62 percent for AO3 as a whole. So what does the rest cover? F/M is 8 percent for AR (22 percent for AO3), Other and Multi both account for 2.5 percent in AR (3 and 4 percent respectively for AO3), and F/F - which appears in 8 percent of AO3 fics in general - appear in 1 percent of AR fics (see note 2). That's ten fics in total. This is probably not a surprise to anyone who's read the books (see note 3), as the only thing that rivals Ahorz's shaky grasp of continuity is his (in)ability to write female characters.

So let's dig a bit deeper and look at the rest of the tags, split into general tags (tags that are not necessarily ship-specific) and shipping tropes:

(see note 4 for methodology)

The Alex Rider fandom, at first glance, is not a ship-heavy fandom and the additional tags only confirm what the categories already showed. There is only a single ship-only trope in the top ten most used tags in the fandom, and that's a nice, general Sexual Content. That one appears 117 times, only just beating out Fluff, which appears in 112 fics (see note 5).

The same is reflected in the fics themselves. Of the most kudos'ed fics in the AR category as of this posting, it's not until the fifth fic on the list (Synergy by Sigma) that we actually meet a shipping fic. Of the top ten most kudos'ed, five are shipping fics - and only four of them are pairings that involve an AR character (the last being a crossover with Sherlock/John Watson - homes out of human beings). Two of the other fics are Yassen/Alex, two are crossovers with Alex/James Bond.

For AR shipping tropes, the top trope - by a wide margin - is Sexual Content in 117 fics, followed by Underage in 58 fics (see note 6). Given that Alex is 14-15 in the books (and 16-ish in the TV show), the second one isn't much of a surprise. Lots of shipping fics age Alex to 18+, but shipping fics set during or right after the books that involve Alex will mean an underage pairing.

The next two shipping tropes are Dubious Consent (45 fics) and Rape/Noncon (31 fics). The midpoint between the two - Extremely Dubious Consent - appears in 10 fics and could arguably be applied to most of Alex's missions, too.

Age Difference is tagged in 27 fics and proves the difficulty of analysing anything across multiple fandoms. To people familiar with the fandom, Yassen/Alex fics have the age difference implied and isn't something most writers would even think to tag. To an outsider unfamiliar with the characters - or a particularly desperate reader in search of a highly specific kink some late Friday night in lockdown - a pairing alone says nothing, and they have only the tag to go by.

So that said, how does this compare with other fandoms? In 2016, the Fansplaining podcast did a survey of fanfiction readers. They got 7,500+ responses and a fun insight into a small chunk of fandom. When we compare those results with AR fandom, we get some equally interesting insights. Now that we have the popular AR shipping tropes, here are the ship-specific ones the 2016 Fansplaining survey found:

The hands-down most popular trope (in general and shipping-related both) was Friends to Lovers. Almost universally beloved, this trope proves a bit of a headache in AR fandom, given that Alex does not have a lot of friends that are actually mentioned in the books, much less ones we see him interact with. The TV show provided a nice departure from that, though, with Tom and the Point Blanc kids' much larger roles. Luckily for the book fans, Enemies/Rivals to Lovers makes it into the top ten of ship-specific tropes from the survey! This really broadens the field, as Alex has an abundance of those.

Interestingly, not a single one of the top ten tropes from the survey appears on the AR top ten as well. The AR top tropes are mostly sexual, the survey ones are mostly romantic. Is the fandom just that kinky? Is it just that horny? Is the source material just that dark? Or are we about to get an influx of softer Tom/Alex thanks to the TV show and get Friends to Lovers or Bedsharing into the top ten?

If you want to dig a little more into classic tropes, including those that don't normally make an appearance in the fandom, Tiermaker has a great fanfic tropes tier list and lets you make a handy chart of your personal HELL YES and NOPE.JPG tropes.

Until next week!

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Notes:

(1) Two-thirds of which (235) are Yassen/Alex, for those keeping count at home. The next one on the list is Tom/Alex with 25 fics. (2) Of the 10 fics, 4 are multi-crossovers. In total, only 2 (!!) have F/F pairings with at least one AR canon character mentioned in the tags that can be positively identified: Kyra Vashenko-Chao/Laura (despite the weltering earth and malevolent alps by laukyra) and Tulip Jones/Julia Rothman (The Rothman Scandal by mediaboy) (3) To the TV show fans, I can only say you're missing out on some quality rants about continuity, villains, and female characters ... which, to be fair, might be good for your blood pressure if you're not reading through nostalgia glasses. (4) Methodology for the additional AR tags: using a data scraper on the additional tags will give the tags but not the synonymous tags that AO3 uses – e.g. ‘Yassen lives’ will be considered a synonym of ‘Yassen Gregorovich Lives’ and filtered with it. For this reason, we have looked at the top ten tags along with the results from the data scraper and then checked a number of them individually as the number in the filter sidebar on AO3 will not be consistent with the search results. As an example: ‘Tom Harris/Alex Rider’ will show 25 tagged fics in the sidebar but will give 26 results when searched for. The last one is tagged ‘Possible Tom Harris/Alex Rider’, a synonymous tag which shows up in the search but not the sidebar-count (and which is also not tagged M/M for the same reason, which accounts for the difference compared to note 1). As a result, we may have missed some in our calculations. (5) Yassen Gregorovich Lives appears in 65 fics, narrowly making it into the top ten. The jury is still out on how many of those Ahorz wrote himself. (6) Given that Alex is fourteen for a lot of the series, that MI6 is screwing his future like a particularly demented rabbit, and Ahorz's kink for Alex whump, it could also be argued that any canon-compliant AR fics should come with 'Underage' marked by default.

(Disclaimer: All AR-specific data was current as of the writing of this post (February 21st, 2021). This is in no way scientific but still a hopefully-fun look at fandom. The authors have no conflicts of interests, but pongnosis is open to bribery and would really, really like to see more fluffy John/Helen fic)

#ARshipweek #alex rider #...#....#.....#mod posts #meta

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atamascolily · 3 years

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5 Things About Me - Fandom Edition

Got tagged for this meme, so here we go!

1. My first fandom was the live-action Adventures of Sinbad TV series from the late '90s. I was not very internet literate at the time, and so my activities were limited to searching for plot summaries on fan sites and writing/acting out my own stories. This tumblr originally started out as a fanblog for me to document my thoughts and feels while I was rewatching the show in 2017-- then my meta spiraled into actual fanfiction, and I got absorbed by other hyperfixations, and I haven't stopped writing since.

The AOS fandom in 2021 is extremely small, there's so much fic on old fansites that has been lost and never archived by the Wayback Machine, and the A03 tag is cluttered with mistagged Sinbad no Bokuen anime fics. But I consider myself so lucky there's a 450K+ fic featuring my childhood OTP that's been updating every week for over a year now!

2. If this tumblr had a theme, it's "whatever amuses me at the moment," although I admit there's a strong focus on the stuff I was into between 1995-2005, which includes Star Wars Legends and Adventures of Sinbad, along with all kinds of late '90s and early '00s media of varying degress of obscurity.

You'll also see things from my Second Wave of Fandom from 2006-2009, when I was heavily into anime and cosplay, along with the Third Wave of Fandom where I did a lot of lurking from 2015 onward before launching full-blown in 2017 with a tumblr and an A03 account and continuing up to the present day.

I admire people with sideblogs, but I do not have the bandwidth to split my interests in this way, so y’all get firehosed with whatever I’m into at any given moment. I do try to spread it out a bit through liberal use of the queue function, though, so actually you see what I was into several weeks previously mingled in with what I’m into now.

3. My username comes from a wildflower native to the southeastern United States, which blooms in mid-spring en masse in ditches, creek beds, and other wet places. It is one of my favorite flowers, and I am not the only one who considers visiting a colony in bloom to be a spiritual experience. To quote Thomas Berry in his essay, "The Meadow Across the Creek":

Down below was a small creek and there across the creek was a meadow. It was an early afternoon in May when I first looked down over the scene and saw the meadow. The field was covered with lilies rising above the thick grass. A magic moment, this experience gave to my life something, I know not what, that seems to explain my life at a more profound level than almost any other experience I can remember.

...This early experience, it seems, has become normative for me throughout the range of my thinking. Whatever preserves and enhances this meadow in the natural cycles of its transformation is good; what is opposed to this meadow or negates it is not good. My life orientation is that simple. It is also that pervasive. It applies in economics and political orientation as well as in education and religion and whatever.

Someday I’ll get around to updating my profile with an actual picture of said flower, but I am lazy, and tumblr’s dysfunctional infrastructure has not made me want to invest the energy in personalizing this thing.

4. I am very leery of sharing personal info online. I'm sure there's a lot you could dig up about me based on what I post, but you're gonna have to work for it if you want to know anything beyond my highly specific opinions about my fandom interests.

5. My work is highly seasonable and weather dependent, and so is my writing. This means I tend to write more in the winter and summer than in the spring and fall, when I am running around outside taking advantage of the good weather to get things done, and my posting schedule reflects this.

#fandom life #writing life #fic memes

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incarnateirony · 4 years

Text

So now I’m gonna be that butch bitch.

Socially relevant wide topics is not a specific sub blog of anyone that happens to hold an opinion in that topic. I barely even touch my home tab because of how insufferable this fandom dialogue tends to be beyond scrolling through entire vats of whatever the hell is going on and addressing it in general address in a wide host of conversational points. Which literally anyone can see with how few blogs I engage and how rare a burst of gif reblogging even is. Did you tag me directly and land in my notification stream, no, then I probably have no idea what you’re saying. This isn’t hard.

This, on the other hand, is a petty gay sub blog.

youtube

Please note there’s a very distinct difference between these and LGBT cinema discussion someone may or may not take offense to.

I’ll give you a hint: my sub blogs are short, pointed, sassy, generally include a random media reference like a video game video or this little piece of art, and are doused in sarcasm. They’re the fandom version of “ok, boomer”. Sure, I do sub blog. We all do. Let’s be real dears. But nah fam. That ain’t it.

Anyone that insists on projecting themselves into a set of shoes left on the floor is free to do so, but they need to recognize that’s what they’re doing with general discussion. No, picking a fight with me on a different social media platform and then pretending any other conversation is targeting you isn’t how it works. I can’t stop anyone from recoiling to the content. And I’ve been EXTREMELY forward on where the door is if they want to continue using regressive angles or taking personal offense to general conversation points. This isn’t new.

Jesus fucking christ.

And for the love of fuck stop treating me like I’m some big name fan. I don’t do conventions, events, actors, I don’t give a shit about shipping culture, I don’t do FB groups, I’m literally not *here* for any of that bullshit. Respectively having a few thousand followers isn’t *shit* on a platform where the big blogs range 8-14,000. I am not. Here. For this clout. Chasing. Bullshit. And I don’t want it anywhere near me. And I didn’t ask to be any kind of leader, or want to be any kind of leader, and magically, this BNF leader that I am had a grand total of 0 fucking people coming at anybody. Just a few telling them to stop escalating their own internalized issues against someone else. If you think that’s unreasonable, I don’t know what to fucking tell you.

If you’re here for fandom drama or personal validation, please, leave me the *fuck* alone. I am not here to be the mother to 2000 grown assed people. Thankfully many of you are reasonable, but for whatever 1% is out there getting *mad* that I’m not conforming, I swear to god, leave me the FUCK ALONE.

I have never been a proper agent of fandom. I have never obligated myself to washes of fandom yelling regardless of if it’s “my lane” or “my friend.” And no, I’m not due to “self reflect” just because *somebody else chose to think I was talking about them.* That’s not how that WORKS. I can’t self-reflect to magically engineer intentions or thoughts somebody else put in their head and projected my way, holy shit balls man.

You wanna know why people talk bullshit about Destiel fandom? This narcissistic manipulative bullshit, this false extremization of talking points, all of it. And no, not every Destiel fan does that before someone warps that. But there’s a reason so many people are hiding from this shit in tag commentary, and it’s THIS. You can deadass say “While I agree we should aspire for better representation we should also make sure to not trample on the work of what people ARE fighting for right now” and SOME FUCKER, SOME WHERE, will turn that into “You’re telling us to settle and stop fighting! You’re a homophobe!” even though it says the opposite JUST ABOVE WHATEVER THEY’RE EXAGGERATING, and yet SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, will be like “You know what, this resonates with my current feelings, now I’m going to make it dictate this real person’s reality even though that is clearly NOT WHAT THEY’RE FUCKING SAYING.”

I have. ALWAYS. Said. I am not here. For fandom bullshit. This 0 to 100, all or nothing, black or white, Fall In With The Hoard Or Perish By Us Lying And Footstomping And Demanding People Unfollow The Person Who Won’t Fite Me Nao *bullshit.* No, taking a strong stance or having a strong opinion contrary to the Borg is not hArAsSmEnt. What’s fucking harassment is intentionally stalking down people’s materials to pick fights across multiple SM platforms and trying to make it all about YOU while they’re minding their bullshit on their own walls. CHECK YOURSELVES. What’s ~~bullying~~ is trying to incite hive mind attacks. What’s abuse is demanding anyone else tolerate it, much less warping “them or me” choices just because someone *disagrees* with you.

Nobody sent anybody at the person in question. In fact, they sent themselves, and continued to double down that it had to all be about them, then directed friends to engage and continue it afterwards. The only person that outted them was them, and they fucking @’ed me, so I don’t know what the *fuck* you expected from me. Even if I WAS sub blogging them -- which 1000% not -- not a soul on the fucking planet would have known them until they threw themselves out into the field because IT WAS ADDRESSING MULTIPLE FANDOM TOPICS; and even when they threw themselves out, nobody actually came at them. They just told them to stop. ... And then after that when their friends were told I won’t judge them? ESCALATION! YOU MUST COME ATTACK ME! uh, no. That’s not how this works. Maybe that’s how you’re all used to this working, but that’s not how this works. I can very well say “Kay, whatever you wanna do with yourself” and leave it there.

I don’t ask anybody to come to my wall. I don’t ask you to come pick fights with me. I don’t ask you to troll across multiple media platforms looking for an opening just to get mad when I’m already too exhausted to deal with you.

I can tell you the one thing you probably shouldn’t do though, and that’s follow a fandom commentary opinion blog and head nod and bobble to it and go “YEAH, YEAH!!” until your own general behavior crops up into the discussion and then turn into a bunch of rabid bobcats and start saying you had a problem with that blog the whOEL tiEM. So, what, you... agreed when it suited you while having a problem with my methods? They’re only a problem if they apply to someone you prefer?

Get out. I literally do not have the time and energy for this bullshit. I am literally in the middle of my second legal battle in a year while dealing with crippling pain, I can BARELY make my own content BEYOND this conversation, I haven’t even been able to edit for like two weeks, my game and my projects are all indefinitely paused, I fucking PROMISE YOU that randomopinion dot tumblr dot com is not the highlight of what I’m just out here to inspire shit for, holy shit. Like sure fam, I can barely walk into dollar general to buy a pizza for dinner right now, my house is in limbo, I’m trying to work side jobs while my hip is literally falling apart and my spine is disconnecting from my ribs intermitantly, I might puncture a lung with the effort of sitting down, but you know what I want to do? Stick it to some random FUCKER on tumblr (who can’t keep themselves off of my content while pretending I’m coming at them.)

If you’d like, with the magic Clap On Clap Off Gay TV invention, if we can also come up with “disability trade” for a feature to live one day in the life of someone, I would gladly invite you to deal with the pain of your anatomy trying to casually rearrange itself. I mean, if we’re all about shoving ourselves into random shoes, go ahead and try mine on. See if you have the patience for this kind of fandom bullshit, let alone to methodically do whatever the fuck a segment of fandom decided I did as some sort of machiavellian plan to sub blog someone I didn’t know fucking existed beyond some other random name account trolling into the middle of an existing conversation on a whole other social media platform.

Is it absolute bullshit to kick into the middle of a conversation, not catch up on the conversation, assume the worst of a conversation because you heard something applicable to you, and to start yelling at people having a conversation that had NOTHING TO DO WITH YOU? Yes, yes it fucking is. No, I don’t care you think I’m holding some grudge from when you farted wrong in the room earlier today, your self consciousness on that front is yours, not mine, fart the fuck away.

Is it even more bullshit to say you aren’t obligated to catch up to the conversation you entered with this angle to and pretend it’s everybody else’s fault? Sure the fuck is. Is it bullshit to @ someone and make literally famously socially abusive demands and then pretend anyone came at *you* after you superman jumped one, two, and five assumptions that it was ABOUT YOU? To just double down because someone’s your *friend* even when the barest application of logic would show they walked in yelling at someone unrelated to them before they set up their drama with a whole ass bass boosting entertainment boom box for everybody? Why yes, yes that is a huge pile of bull shit. I’m not sure why this is a hard thing to grok.

So sure, now I’m sub blogging you. Because somewhere, in the midst of me blogging on every platform about people’s application of bad faith arguments, you decided to bad faithedly attach some sort of fucking motivation to my posts that made it all about *you*. The irony is fucking mind blowing.

I’m so. Done. With this shit.

#fandom #mildew #holy shit yall #i'm serious #leave me the fuck alone #I don't come for your walls #or your blogs #or your twitter feeds #or try to fuse all the discussions you have into being about me #so what the fuck #genuinely #what is this kindergarten #Minnie said things I don't like so now you can't be friends with her and me #what the fuck #honestly #long post for ts

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dewitty1 · 5 years

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The Difference a Rabbit Can Make: Glomp for @dewitty1, GlompFest 2019 by Darkravenwrote

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Characters: Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Minerva McGonagall, Hogwarts Students Additional Tags: Student OCs - Freeform, Professor Draco Malfoy, Unspeakable Harry Potter, Mystery, Slytherin, Curses, Reluctant Partners Summary:

When a clueless student is cursed by an unknown, missing object, Professor Malfoy finds himself in over his head. As much as Draco hates to admit it, they do not have the correct expertise. The school has no other choice but to call in an Unspeakable for help. Draco was not prepared for Harry Potter to turn up on their doorstep the very next day.

For DeWitty1.

To DeWitty. I hope you enjoy this. I think I managed to hit some of your requests, but may have missed the mark on quite a few others. Either way, I hope you at least smile a little while reading thing. Full A/N for you directly is on the LJ page. x Thanks to our HD Glomp Fest 2019 mod as well, who was very patient and always answered any silly questions I had. Thanks for all your hard work.

Excerpt:

They sit there until it does start to get cold and Draco recasts his warming charm, blanketing Potter as well because it's the polite thing to do.

"Thanks," Potter mumbles into his arm, where he's now resting his chin. He bites his lip, his gaze sliding across to Draco. His pupils are hidden behind the arms if his glasses, and Draco can't help feeling at a disadvantage because of it. "And I do, you know."

It takes a moment for Draco to understand what he's saying, then he doesn't dare to hope. Potter is not a cruel person -- in fact, he's the epitome of the exact opposite -- but there could be miscommunication here. Potter could be talking about something else.

"Do what?" Draco asks, trying to keep his voice soft and innocent, like he isn't hoping for a specific answer.

"Like you."

Draco can't help but smile at that old Gryffindor courage raising its head. It must be the first time in his life when it has benefited him.

Potter leans towards him, knocking their shoulders together. "I haven't tried to be subtle."

Although he hates to admit it, Draco replies, "I'm out of practice with the dating game." Then, because it is not part of his genetic makeup to leave himself vulnerable he continues with, "A few hundred children take up a lot of time."

Potter grins at him roguishly. "Me too. I literally spend ninety percent of my time underground." He slouches against Draco's side like they have been friends for years. "You know, McGonagall requested me? It was a relief to get out in the field to be honest. We don't get too many field assignments in my department; everything gets brought to us by a different specialised unit."

"I didn't know that. That she requested you, I mean."

Draco subtly leans back into his weight, wondering absently what his father would think if he could see him know. He's long since stopped caring exactly what Lucius Malfoy has to say about his life choices, but the look of outrage on his face might be comical enough to entertain.

He turns his face, grins into Potter's warm shoulder and murmurs softly, "I'm glad she did." Years of childcare has softened him, he thinks. Made him malleable and understanding in a way he never naturally should have been. It's probably why he finds caring for the youngest children easiest now.

Strong fingers, slightly rough from years of working them to the bone, slip beneath his chin and tilt his head up.

Then, lips press against his own. Soft. Firm. The kind of kiss schoolgirls dream of and whisper of, yearning for a first kiss to call perfect.

Of course, they are adults, though. As out of practice as Draco may be, this feeling never leaves you. The motion, the give and take, the physical closeness of it all comes back to him instantly. With Potter, too, it's easy. It feels like they've been kissing all their lives and yet at the same time it is a new experience exactly as a first kiss should be.

They find a perfect rhythm, lips and suddenly tongue without thought. Teeth when Draco feels like he is losing control.

His mouth tingles with sensation and sets his heart beating like a teenager discovering lust. The wetness of Potter's tongue stroking across his own leaves him breathless and panting. His fingers find Potter’s cheek and pull him to the angle Draco prefers.

This isn't what he imagined he'd be doing at sundown when he woke up this morning. In reality, the moment is far from perfect. Potter's glasses dig into his cheek and the pebbles under his palm are rough on his skin. His hair is falling into his eyes and it hurts where he has shut them. The wind now has a bite to it and the giant squid has woken up with a monstrous splash.

But to Draco, it is perfect. He won’t remember any of those things when he thinks back in years to come.

When he finally leans back, his lips feel soft and wet and hot like they haven't in a long time. He feels giddy and young again.

Harry Potter is sitting beside him with lips like rose petals speckled damp with dew and a smile full of promise.

♡〜٩( ╹▿╹ )۶〜♡ 💖💕❤🧡💛💚💙💜

Ahhhhhh! This is so great! Thank you so much for this lovely gift! ( •ॢ◡-ॢ)-♡

#Drarry #Drarry gift fic #Drarry Squad #GlompFest 2019 #Drarry Fic Rec #Fic rec #Glomp fic for me #Professor!Draco #Unspeakable!Harry #Draco Malfoy #Harry Potter #Drarry Fanfiction

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heartofaquamarine · 6 years

Text

Media Criticism: An Introduction.

As I think is clear if you search the “long post” tag on my blog, and if you see my regular smaller posts complaining about parts of fandom, I tend to approach media far more from a position of writing meta and critique rather than writing fanfiction or fanart. This is fairly common, I think, in the part of fandom outside of what we might call Capital-F Fandom. Reviews, meta, technical analysis and examining work in terms of a particular social, psychological or political framework all come under what we might call Criticism, (here used not to simply mean being critical, but how we think about and understand media), but all of these have very different aims and methodology. Just as it is worth understanding the goal, standards and methods of a type of fiction or a historical account, it is worth understanding what different types of criticism are trying to do, how they try to do it, and how it fits into the overall conversation about media. Criticism does not have to be critical, as odd as that sounds, and I think that the way we tend to blur the lines between types of criticism often blurs our discussions both of media and of our communities.

Why do Criticism? In my day to day work, I am actually a science based PhD student. We spend a lot of time discussing how to properly communicate our work to various audiences, both to our peers in the scientific community and to the general public who lack the specialist knowledge of our field. This is not a knock on the general public; I lack the specialist knowledge to understand the research of other students in my own office. Rather, it is an acknowledgement that different audiences have different needs, and will respond to the same piece of work in very different ways. However, while learning how to communicate your ideas is important, there’s an equally, if not more, important skill to learn; how to critically evaluate the information we absorb, how to read and listen to new information. I say potentially more important because of the ratio of how much information we read compared to how much we absorb. In an average day, unless you are sequestered entirely away from the world, you will hear more than you talk. No matter what form of art you focus on creating, you will certainly examine more work than you create, if only because during the course of creation you will naturally have to examine your own work. That is why I think being aware of both how we approach criticising things, and how we go about making good criticism, is important. Media is a product and a feedback into society, and is worth being examined carefully..

This also extends into real life conversations. In my university and field we often talk about the narrative of a piece of scientific work. Not in the sense that it is false, but rather in the sense that we use a similar methodology to story structure to create the piece. Terry Pratchett in the second Science of Discworld book called humanity “Pan Narrans”; the story-telling ape. Scientific papers, everyday conversation, politicians and business people making speeches and promises, and even how we get news at all are all, on some level, pieces of media we can critique for accuracy, for potential hidden meaning, for technical skill in crafting them and in their place within the wider social construct. All of these, of course, have their own individual quirks that need to be accounted for; one would not read a scientific journal paper in the same way as Harry Potter, but I think there are some underlying principles that apply to all forms of criticism. This essay is not intended to be a complete guide to how to do criticism well; it is merely the starting point. The majority of it will be taken up describing various kinds of common methods of criticism and their usage, as well as discussing criticism’s place in society and how we respond to criticism of both our own work and other’s.

Personally, when I am writing criticism, I tend to use a framework of four basic questions. Which one I focus on depends on the piece, but all four of them are worth exploring. 1.) What do I think the artist is trying to do? Essentially, this is an attempt to examine the intent behind the piece. This can include social and personal background on the artist, readings to explore the likely meaning that scenes are supposed to convey, ect.

2.) How well did they manage this? This is more focused on technical aspects; how good was the writing, how good were the actors, how well did they use the tools available to them.

3.) Do I think that this was a good aim? This varies from things like “no, I don’t think you should have made pro-nazi propaganda” to “I get what you’re doing with that subplot but it breaks drastically thematically from the rest of the piece. This is naturally more personal to the critic, and artists are free to ignore it, but that doesn’t mean it should be able to be said.

4.) What is in the work that they might not have intended? It is easy to create a work with implications you did not intend, and messages you didn’t expect the audience to come away with.

A brief taxonomy of Criticism.

The categories listed are not intended to be inherently mutually exclusive, but rather a set of broad classifications of types of Criticism I have seen. Critical works, particularly longer ones, often have parts of different types within them, but I think a lot of them has a main focus. These categories are more based on what the work is trying to do, rather than the methodology and standards of this type of work; not that those couldn’t be used (indeed, they will be mentioned as we go, and some particular methods of criticism will be mentioned on their own), but I think starting from the purpose of the criticism is a good place to start. I will be capitalising the specific terms I suggest as potential terms to make it clear that, say, when I talk about Reviews I am talking about a particular type of review, not the broad category of things generally called reviews.

(CONTINUED BELOW THE CUT)

Technical Analysis

Technical analysis is one of the most fundamental types of criticism. It focuses on the skill of the artist at crafting their piece. How well did they handle their brush? How well did the writing in this scene flow? Obviously, there are as many different ways of making this criticism as there are types of media, so discussing particulars of these criticisms is difficult. This kind of analysis is likely the kind that artists encounter, create and seek out most, simply because it is the one that most matches up with the mental tools that artists use and master themselves.

In many ways, technical analysis is the most basic form of media criticism. Other forms of critical methodology build on the technical analysis to discuss other aspects of the media. I don’t mean this in a negative way; the fact that something is the basis that other things build on doesn’t make it less important.

Social Context

This category of criticism is less interested in the work itself, and more interested in how it reflects the worldview of the writer, the reader and the wider social world in which they live.

Sometimes this is as simple as explaining nuances of the social climate the work is written in that might not be obvious to outsiders; for example, as a kid growing up in the UK I caught the class aspects in Harry Potter, but completely missed a lot of the social commentary of the US in the Simpsons (in fact, my dad had to explain to me who Bush 1 and Clinton were so I could understand the Simpsons episode where Bush moves in across the street and becomes Homer’s enemy). On a deeper level, we can discuss the actions of certain characters, and also how the narrative responds to those actions.

The aspects that it reflects, notably, don’t have to be deliberately placed in the work by the writer. In fact, to be honest, it is often more interesting if they are not deliberate, particularly when they are spread across multiple works. If multiple works present the military in a wholly positive or negative manner, or present predatory sexual behaviours as amusing or desirable, then that is an indication of the underlying base assumptions about the military and sexual relationships. These base assumptions are almost certainly not actively on the writer’s mind while creating the work, but are still there. This also applies to setting details; the culture we live often colours our assumptions about how things and people work; just as an example, there’s a bit of a running gag about American Harry Potter fanfic authors treating Hogwarts like an American High School, with pep rallies and very particular social structures.

Cultural Feedback

The idea of cultural feedback examines how the media we consume affects us. Going beyond the idea of media simply reflecting reality, and now talking about how it changes people’s worldviews, their actions and through that, the reality we live in. This can be, in some cases, very obvious; the shift in how sharks were viewed after Jaws came out is fairly quantifiable, to the point that changes in government policy can be attributed back to the popular blockbuster. On a more personal level, media exposure to minority groups can be vital in helping to humanise those groups for people who have not encountered that group, and helping people explore and come to terms with aspects of their lives.

Other forms of criticism look at more subtle potential types of cultural feedback; the Frankfurt School was interested in examining how authority and society were portrayed in German media in the 30’s and how they may have influenced society in the run up to the rise of the Nazi’s to power. The idea of violent media affecting people and making them more violent, or sexist media perpetuating sexist attitudes in society certainly isn’t new, and some of this kind of criticism is obviously bad. I can see the words “Jack Thompson” forming on some of your lips already.

Examining the relationship between media and attitudes is difficult; it is an intersection of critical media theory, sociology and psychology, and empirical research is hard to carry out, particularly on how it affects people on longer timescales. There is some evidence to suggest that the way media affects people is less related to changing their actions, and more to do with changing their idea of normal, their understanding of the background social radiation that we live in. It isn’t that violent media makes you more violent, but rather that it can affect how you approach other people’s violence.

This kind of analysis is usually very focused; examining a very particular aspect of the media; the depiction of a certain action or group of characters, for example. By depiction, I don’t just mean how it presents them, but also their context within the narrative. Are the actions rewarded, punished or simply depicted? How much focus is the depiction given by the piece, and who’s perspective do we see the event from? Some of these aspects may be intended by the artist, while some be unintended implications, positive or negative. Note that all of this refers equally to positive, negative and ambivalent pieces of criticism. There is a tendency for fans of media to focus on using these methods of criticism to examine positive impacts while detractors focus on negative impacts. If art has power and meaning, there’s no reason for this power to have solely positive or negative results. While prioritising either is perfectly reasonable, good criticism should acknowledge both aspects, even if it doesn’t examine all implications of the media in detail. Acknowledging the failures of a piece you enjoy or the successes of a piece you dislike is important.

Reviews

By this I mean the kind of review you would see in a game or film magazine. The intent of Reviews is to inform the reader as to whether a piece of media, usually recently released, is worthwhile for people to watch/read/listen to/ect. They function primarily as kind of a customer protection service, to let people know what to expect in terms of quality, and to be honest are probably the kind of criticism we are most use to seeing, particularly as in a sense we are all Reviewers; if you recommend a new piece of media to friend and explain why, you are being a Reviewer. Formal Reviews tend to be very broad, but I might argue, usually quite shallow. This is not me insulting Reviewers, but rather it’s just a function of the commercial system that creates them; not only do Reviews usually have to be produced quickly to stay relevant to the product, but they have a rather unique target audience. While most works of criticism aim at an audience with at least a passing knowledge of a work (often with bits to get people who haven’t seen it up to speed, but once that’s done the criticism returns to assuming you already have the general geist and use small passages/clips to demonstrate particular aspects of the criticism), Reviews are targeted at people who don’t know about the work and want to know if it is right for them, often without spoilers, which inherently limits the amount of depth you can into.

A particular quirk of Reviews is the common use of scoring systems. These vary, but usually take the form of giving things a score between 0 or 1 to 5 or 10 (not that you need me to explain this to you, since you have probably already seen reviews that give “five out five stars” to things). Sometimes they granulate it a bit, giving the product separate scores for categories like “writing”, “music” and “gameplay”, as well as an overall score. These appear to give the Review some measure of objectivity, and provide a quick, easy to read summary of the Review. It’s worth remembering however that these scores are not objective, but rather we might call them quantitative measures of subjectivity. Ultimately the Review is only going to reflect the opinion of a single writer or set of writers, in the case of collaborative Reviews (more common in video format because it is easier to have people sit down and have a conversation than it is to jump between multiple perspectives in text). It is most useful to find Reviewers who generally agree with you on the particularly type of media you are interested in seeing, or who you know roughly where your opinions diverge. Furthermore, as I discuss later in the section on agendas in criticism, it is important to remember that your own priorities are not universal when evaluating the state of Reviews in the aggregate, and that just because the Reviews’ judging criteria agrees with yours does not make it neutral or agendaless. I know that paragraph may seem obvious, but since we are setting out definitions we just need to cover all the bases.

Review scores are often used to provide an average opinion of quality across a range of views, such as Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic or simply the scores on an Amazon or Google review of a product or location. While this is useful to provide an at-a-glance summary of, as with all such methods this convenience comes at the cost of some information. For example, two films might have 5/10 each, but when looking at the individual scores one is tightly packed, with most of the scores being 5/10, while the other has a clear split between people giving it 8/10 and 2/10 Reviews. The former is generally agreed to simply be a mediocre movie, the other is clearly polarising. Amazon and Google both show the range of opinions, but not all such systems do. Such review sites bring their own issues. The most obvious is what reviews are included in the system, which is generally solved by including all of them, preferably with some system in place to avoid spam (like Steam scores don’t have). Another problem that pops up occasionally is less to do with the combined review scores themselves and more to do with the way they are treated by producers of media, such as game publishers tying financial bonuses for the game developer to the metacritic score.

Reviews are incredibly important parts of criticism because they tend to be the ones most directly linked to how commercial media evolves and develops, both by direct Reviewer feedback and by their effect on audience buying power. They are tools that we use to direct our limited money, time and attention, and that is why I spent so long describing them; understand where a Review is coming from, what its priorities are (and we’ll get to that later when we discuss agendas in criticism) and how it relates to your opinions is kind of important, because, like I said, these are probably the kind of criticism we encounter most in our everyday lives, so in some ways it is even more important than other kinds of discussion that we get this correct.

Diegetic Discussion

This is probably either the most or the second most common kind of criticism carried out day to day. It is sometimes called Watsonian, in-universe or TV trope’s analysis. It is entirely based on discussing the characters and events of a story from an in-universe perspective. Usually a couple of assumptions are, knowingly or not, made; that said universe is internally consistent and that it lines up with our own universe in terms of physical laws and norms of human behaviour unless explicitly stated otherwise.

This kind of discussion can be really useful and interesting, allowing the work’s narrative to be explored in a far more in depth way. Extrapolating what we see in the work and applying it to the wider world create helps explore the themes, characterisation and issues the work, intentionally or not, raises. It also helps you nail down why a work does or does not work for you; many works rely on verisimilitude, and breaking that suspension of disbelief can damage the reception of a work. Finally, it can be used to attempt to predict later plots and character arcs of the work; if the current state of the work is X, then later on we might expect Y. That last factor often branches out into a more meta conversation about genre and expectations; we expect this arc to go in a particular way, based on what we have already seen.

Many examples of this kind of discussion can be found in message forums about shows, in shipping meta that attempts to show why a particular pairing is, can be or soon will be canon, and in discussions about whether character A or character B from different properties would win in a battle. It is also probably the most popular kind of literature study to teach in some schools, particularly those that rely heavily on automatically marked tests. It is, in many ways, a test of memorisation and knowledge, not actual analysis, and can be made into a true or false question rather than an essay style question. Unfortunately, in some cases this form of discussion becomes a bit of a “when all you have is a hammer…” situation. For one thing, treating the work like it is its own fully formed universe that just is fails to account for the role of the creator in the work. The ultimate answer to the question “why does something happen in this story” is simply “the creator put down that it happened”. The follow up question is then “well, why did the creator choose to do that?”. I sometimes call this the “Flamingo Argument”, after an incident in a roleplay where I justified the sentence “and then a flamingo jumps out of your pocket” so well the players literally applauded. The decisions, events and possible limitations of a fictional universe are defined by a real life agent, not their own laws.

Another problem with a lot of this kind of discussion is its incompleteness, which is to say it does not actually properly examine the internal world of the work. Extrapolating from one sentence and applying real world logic does not actually help when there’s a paragraph explaining how it differs from real life. This kind of emerges a lot in shipping metas, which often declare particular actions to only be done in romantic relationships then proceed to ignore, for example, instances where one member of the ship behaves that way to someone else. In some ways this is can apply to most kinds of criticism, I simply see it applied in these kinds of discussions a lot. A final problem is how this kind of analysis often demands completeness. By this, I mean that all revealed aspects of a universe are expected to tie into each other. Character’s cannot simply be unrelated, but must be webbed together; that dockhand in the prequel is the grandfather of one of the protagonists in the first story. In many ways this actually I think makes the world less large. Forcing everyone to be pulled into a clearly defined link pulls the world into the pragmatic reality that a story only has so much time to explore the world, and doesn’t let it expand itself through implication. In fact, much of this analysis has issue with implication and uncertainty; unreliable narrators are a constant bane to working out how this applies, but are a well worn literary staple at this point. I’m not saying don’t do this at all; but be aware of these traps, and don’t assume that diegetic explanations are the be all and end all of discussion about a work.

Aggregate Analysis

Aggregate analysis is not quite the same as review aggregates, discussed above. There, you are looking at lots of reviews of one thing. This kind of aggregate analysis is examining multiple pieces of media at once, usually looking at a common factor or theme. Given we are on the lay internet, the most obvious example of this type of criticism is Anita Sarkeesian’s Tropes Vs. Women videos, both the more well known series focused on video games and This allows for trends in media to be examined, which can be useful for examining the social opinions that are being reflected by the work. It can also be useful for looking at particular creators and trends in their work; it’s very easy to come up with in-story reasons for a certain trope, but if it repeatedly appears in someone’s work, or the work of a particular group. then it is worth exploring. Additionally, examining work in the aggregate means that less focus is put on any particular given work in the analysis. This will be covered in a later post on critique etiquette, but when the creators are not in a particularly strong position, like most fanfiction writers, it can be good to be careful about how much criticism you are pouring on the creators and their work.

Another form of aggregate analysis was just mentioned above in the diegetic discussion section. Media can be discussed as to how they fit into particular genres and patterns, both how they use these patterns and how they subvert them. Romance stories can be expected to have a happy ending and slasher horror films use a particularly group of tropes so often that they now parody themselves, for instance. This is helpful because the human brain is very good at pattern recognition and seeing when a pattern is broken; holding to familiar plots and tropes fufils two major roles; it is often what people want in their media (there’s nothing wrong with just consuming something because you enjoy it, any more than there’s something wrong with consuming the same media critically) and breaking the pattern reinforces the point that you are making in the audience’s head. Like all methods of aggregation, this kind of analysis will result in some information being lost. Details about individual works get swept up and ignored, and some nuances will naturally be lost. Furthermore, the analysis is rarely systematic; that is, the selection of the sample from the overall population not actually be representative, meaning that it can imply a particular media trend is far larger than it actually is. This need not be a conscious attempt by the person doing the criticism to mislead, but simply that the sample size is biased in favour of what they have actually read. For this reason, establishing a selection criteria, such as looking at best selling books, works created in a particular year or from a particular author, is quite important. Generally, the larger the sample size, the more this issue is avoided but this expands the focus and resources (time, effort, money to obtain the works you are examining) needed to create the criticism. Obviously the more works you examine in the same length piece, the less details you can give to each piece.

Criticism as Comedy

*INSERT MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATRE 3000 THEME HERE*

Given that this piece is primarily focused on the internet, I would be remiss if I did not mention the thriving genre of comedy that uses criticism as a framework to build the jokes on (some people might prefer to think of it in an alternative form; criticism that uses comedy to enhance the experience of watching it). Riffing, sporking and some forms of let’s play all fall into this category. Commonly, this kind of criticism/comedy relies on a fairly straight forward structure; you go through the media in a linear fashion, inserting comments about it as you go; see most members of TGWTG, or the Mister Plinkett Star Wars videos. Quite often these pieces are presented as being from a character separate to the actual actor and writer; Lindsay Ellis, formerly the Nostalgia Chick, mentioned in a livestream about presenting yourself as a character online that she sometimes wrote herself opinions she didn’t actually hold for her character. These characters are often deliberately hyperbolic, cruel and in many ways pathetic, using the suffering of the character due to watching the media they are criticising as the source of comedy. The media chosen to be examined is also very often considered to be low quality, as it’s easier to write jokes for.

If I may be a bit negative myself here, the quality of the actual criticisms made in these comedies is often fairly low as well. Many of them focus on surface level issues, such as plot holes and immediately obvious aesthetic problems; bad drawings or cgi, while avoiding issues such as theme, editing technique or character growth. The worst ones openly misrepresent what they are criticising if they think it helps with the joke. This is both bad criticism and lazy comedy; the worst of both worlds. That being said, you can certainly have criticism that mixes comedy and insight well, and you can get very good comedy using criticism as the basis.

Agendas in Criticism

All criticism are made using some kind of underlying agenda. I know that’s an unpopular thing to say, but it’s true. Even the idea that art should be judged solely on technical merits without any kind of social analysis is an agenda. Any Reviewer will have an agenda dictating what part of the analysis they are focusing on to make their judgement. For example, many video game reviewers put importance on frame rates and other visual technical details in their reviews, which for a variety of reasons aren’t that helpful for me; while improved graphical quality might be nice, factors like frame rate don’t have that much of an effect on my enjoyment. Agenda is possibly a bad term to use, given the negative implications the word carries, but at this point I’ve been using criticism to mean all kinds of critical analysis of media, not simply negative analysis, so at this point I feel I might as well make a habit out of it. Perhaps a better term would be base assumptions, or goals; what aspect of the media is the criticism interested in exploring? As I’ve noted above, all of the types of criticism I’ve listed here have different aims, different agendas. These can certainly be criticised; if the intentions of an author are open to analysis I see no reason to shield creators of criticism from it, but even if you don’t feel a certain focus is useful to you, that’s no guarantee that it is not useful at all.

Art as Criticism

Originally this section was going to be much longer, since this is a rather large topic to cover, but ultimately I kind of felt that I was adding more words to an already long piece without much of a benefit; the subject of how traditional forms of art can be used as forms of critical discourse, on personal, social and artistic grounds is vast, too large to be given proper detail, but the overall gist can be summed up in two sentences. 1.) Art can certainly be used as an expression of critical discourse.

2.) Many artists lack the tools to make good critical discourse through their art. The second one I feel is probably rather controversial. I don’t mean this in a “artists are terrible” manner or anything like that, but simply that the toolkit needed to make good criticism and the toolkit needed to create good art are different techniques, and artists will have generally put more focus on learning the skills for their craft. People have limited time and opportunities to add skills to their personal toolkit; I have a lot of skills in mathematics, programming and physics (particularly climate dynamics), some lesser skills in communication, critical theory and story writing, but no skill in drawing or playing music. I’d like to gain these skills, but as noted above, I have other skills to learn. This is true for everyone, but the fact remains that the tools of the artist and the critic are different (as, for that matter, the tools required of a technical critic, a sociological critic and a reviewer are different from each other). Furthermore, the goals of the art as art, and the art as criticism, can be opposed to each other. While depiction is certainly not glorification or condonement, a lot of artistic techniques can result in the subject being portrayed more positively than intended; for example, good directing in a film is far more glamourizing than viewing the subject in real life. The camera is far more carefully controlled than our eye movements, and the director and editor can reshoot and recut the scene, unlike ourselves in real time. This is not insurmountable, but needs to be acknowledged.

Of course, the opposite is true; the tool kit of the artist can be used to massively enhance the skill of the commentary. I will hopefully do some more work on exploring how this can be done, but I will admit that my own toolkit needs some advancement on this subject. As I note near the end of this piece, the focus on my critical toolkit does very much tend towards the negative; I can diagnose the problem, but not necessarily provide a treatment. I can point to examples of media that does criticism well (Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, for example), media that succeeds in some areas but fails in other areas (Fight Club sets up it’s criticism of toxic masculinity incredibly well, but has difficulties sticking the landing by not allowing time for the audience to recontextualise the rest of the film after the revival at the end and…okay, I could do an entire piece on this, and many others have been written, so I’m going to stop now) and media that handles its criticism badly (A State of Fear by Michael Critchton), but this piece is more intended as an overview rather than discussing particular examples in detail.

Criticism as Art

If art can be criticism, then that raises the question of the reversal of that sentence; is criticism art? There’s a couple of ways of answering this question. One might be to start by defining art, and then seeing if criticism fits within in that definition. This...is rather famously difficult. Asking “what is Art” is almost a cliché, a line used by STEM folks like myself to mock artists, but attempts have been made. Quite possibly the most broad definition is the one given by Scott McCloud in his book “Understanding Comics”, that art is any human activity not directly related to survival or reproduction. This definition is broad enough to basically be useless; almost every human activity counts as art. On a personal level, I find the definition frustrating for the same reason an artist might be frustrated at a scientist declaring that the most important aspect of human existence fall under science; it gives art claim to every other field, ignoring their differences. I will be the first one to admit that both art and science can learn from each other, science gaining methods of communication and a great understanding of the way their work interacts with the world and art gaining improvements in technical methods and an increased understanding of the world for them to work into their art, but trying to make them subordinate to each other doesn’t really help.

I sometimes like to think of art more in the context of a “family”, in the sense of a group of things where it is far easier to confirm one particular thing is a member of the group than it is to actually define a group. Think of it like a blob of colour that fades out as it spreads. It’s difficult to define the boundaries of it without arbitrarily leaving things that, had you examined them singularly, should be in the group. So, is criticism art? Is it in the obvious bit of the blob?

I would argue yes. Criticism is, under any definition, a way of expressing opinions focused on another piece of art. It’s language is different from other types of art, in the same way a novel uses a different language to a painting, but it is fundamentally art. Any freedom of art, I think, must also include a freedom to criticise, but given I have just defined criticism as art, this applies to criticism itself. There are good and bad ways to do criticism, poor and useful ways to use the toolkit it provides us.

Critical Criticism.

For the most part, I have attempted to keep this piece descriptive, not prescriptive; describing the various methods and techniques of criticism, and, if not abstaining, then at least labelling the points where I am editorialising clearly. That being said, I believe that reading this may give you a fairly accurate reading of one aspect of my personality. I am the kind of person who tends to focus more on the negatives of a situation. Some have called me a pessimistic idealist; I acknowledge the good of a situation, but most of my focus is on how things can be improved. This is not an inherently bad thing; I need to keep aware of it, and avoid dishonestly ignoring good parts of what I am examining, but it is a useful skill to have. Knowing how to both create and receive negative criticism is important in basically any field, and art is no different. Likewise, there’s no reason why people with a more positive focus cannot coexist with me in the same social space. I am planning to create a post later on critical etiquette, both in terms of giving, receiving and coexisting with it, but for now I think it is enough to say that remember that art and criticism are both communication, and need to be treated like any other form.

Applying Critical Skills to Real Life

Throughout this piece, I’ve been trying to explain a couple of things. One, what different ways do we have to make criticism of media, the critical toolkit, to continue my preferred metaphor. Two, what at the limits of each of these tools, aka “don’t use a hammer to tighten a screw”. And three, why do we carry out criticism, or “what are we attempting to build or repair with our criticism”. So far I’ve discussed why I think it is good to critically examine media, from improving our ability to create other media, exploring the social situation that the media emerged from, examining how media feedbacks and modulates our own behaviour, and even to simply using it as a framework for jokes. The final question I want to tackle in this piece is whether these tools are more universally useful than they first appear. Can we apply this to real life, outside of fiction? This is, once again, kind of a large subject, but I believe the tools can be applied both directly and indirectly. Directly, a lot of the questions you need to think of when analysing fictional or fictionalised media also apply to non-fiction media, if not more so. Why is this piece of news being created? What does the focus of the news and encyclopaedias say about the society that created them, and how do they in turn effect us? Indirectly, we start to move from our toolkit to comparing it to toolkits in other areas. For example, the concept of base assumptions mentioned above a few times applies also to examining real life groups, and frankly many of us are unreliable narrators when considering ourselves, viewing our personalities and actions in either the best or the worst possible way, and this applies to how we approach others as well. I think one of the biggest benefits of media and stories is that it allows us to approach and discuss situations in a safe modelled environment, and this benefit applies to how we examine media as well. I hope that this piece has made you think a bit more about how you approach media, and helped you find out what your own priorities for media criticism are.

#Media Criticism #critical analysis #fandom #long post #very long post #please reblog #I spent ages on this #Earl don't look

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