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fairydares · 24 days

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loook i get why the idea of riding the "anti/pro" fandom disk horse makes people gag a little in their mouth and try to opt out entirely, but here's why i went from feeling exactly the same way to taking a firm profiction stance. I've been meaning to make this post for a while.

~10 years ago, I posted a fic for the first time and it got its own harassment campaign. The fic wasn't even sexual, and wasn't going to be (it remains incomplete). It was accurately rated T on fanfiction.net. Anyone in the Fairy Tail fandom will understand this: I literally got harassed for writing a "Lucy leaves the guild" fic💀.

After many nice comments, someone left a pretty nasty one. Hurt, I messaged them back. They acted super attacked that I'd responded (lmao) and after we argued, threatened to "rip my shitty story apart in the comments section" if I responded again. I told them "go ahead lol."

They went ahead.

Now know that it was a relatively small harassment campaign, but at the time, it was devastating. Right around then, I wound up in the hospital. After I got out, I went to excitedly check my fic, and found several reviews saying things I wouldn't repeat to my worst enemy. I was suicide-baited more than once, told "thank fuck you finally abandoned this shitty story, dumb cunt," stuff like that.

There were several accounts involved, and I can't say for sure, but I suspect at least a couple different people were involved, though probably at least half of it was one person.

All the other comments were screeching about how I hadn't updated, mostly. "NO UPDAAATEE WHY DOES THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS TO MEEEE??!!!" was one that stood out after I'd been miserable in a hospital for an extended period of time.

Idk what people think is going on when FT fic authors write this trope, and frankly I don't give a fuck. Because while I was partly writing the story out of some young, cringe feminist rage, I also did genuinely have a real story I was compelled to tell. I was inspired by another, popular fic I loved which used the trope to talk about how trying to shoulder our burdens alone really just hurts both ourselves and everyone who cares about us.

My own story was ultimately going to have similar themes, with more focus on strength, what it means, and in what contexts earning and having it actually matters. In retrospect, no wonder I wound up in hot water, because at the time "Lucy vs. Strength vs. Misogyny" was the FT fandom's Designated Nonsensically Activist Debate™. But that's partly why i wanted to write about it; engaging with the fandom had gotten me thinking about it 🤷‍♂️

Not too long after that, FFNet oh-so-benevolently granted us the ability to delete comments from our own stories (they never took my reports seriously at all, afaik). I deleted all or most of the harassers' comments (may still be a one or two up, and i'm fairly sure there's a couple comments defending my fic from the harassment) without saving screenshots, which I really regret now. I was just so mortified and full of self-loathing about the whole thing that i wanted to forget it completely. Something that had brought me joy at a very lonely, vulnerable period of my life had turned so negative, and i couldn't even tell the people closest to me about it without being made fun of for writing anime fan fiction.

I didn't understand why this happened at the time, but--after a period of trying to forget/bid out of it all with a slight anti lean (a common approach I see people use, and one which I'm not proud of adopting)--I just had to figure out What the Fuck Even Happened There. And I'm telling you, after years of reflecting, wrestling with both sides, and educating myself, that this "status quo of harassment" culture which pervades fandom goes way deeper than you think and comes out of a way darker well than you probably realize. An astonishing amount of this is, quite literally, TERF shit and evangelical shit.

Trying to be in fandom and take a stance of, "Anti/Pro shit? Ew, I'm Not Touching that," is like swimming in a heavily polluted river and being like, "Poison? Cringe. Not me lol."

You might be lucky enough to be in a less-polluted part of the river (AKA a relatively non-toxic fandom, in which case good for you!)...but tbh this rhetoric and peer-signalling will still seep in.

I can't stress enough that pro-fiction, AKA "proship", is the normal, leftist-about-art-and-sex opinion. Pro-ship is against all the horrible things you're against; in fact, pro-ship isn't trivializing real trauma by equating it with fictional trauma, or trying to apply literal evangelical/radfem solutions--which are proven not to prevent or help. Profiction/proship is literally just saying, "Fiction is fiction, reality is reality, and the two don't have a 1:1 relationship. And historically, trying to censor just things we've decided are bad has done nothing but get LGBTQ+ and POCs censored. Therefore, depictions of illegal things shouldn't be censored." That's it. "Proshippers all ship problematic ships," is a brazen lie. Many of them share other fans' disgust for those ships, they just don't believe in censoring fic authors over it.

It is also taking a stand against harassment because--and I hope my own story has helped drive this home--as with all groups who adopt ingroup/outgroup thinking, antis are defined by their tactics, not actual stances on real, serious issues. What happened to me was absolutely a result of anti, "it's okay to 'bully out' anything I just don't like" mindset pervading fandom. In a way, this was the mindset's final form. They didn't even feel the need to cite a reason the trope was "bad" or "wrong"; it annoyed them, and they viewed their own feelings as a valid enough pathway for policing to go right ahead and do so.

In the interest of offering solutions instead of just bitching about problems, I might make a "how to know if you've bought into these types of views"-type post sometime. Also might come back to this and provide some sources/citation.

#cw harassment #tw suicide-baiting #tw hospitalization #posts i actually wrote #fairy tail #nalu #fandom #fandom meta #proship #pro fiction #anti-censorship

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teaspoonnebula · 2 months

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Hullo, I am so sorry if this ask is a weird one but. You are in the fandom for a long time, and I need to know, is it me or is the ACD SH fandom *not* insane?? Everywhere else where I've been, I see people turning on each other, fighting over characters and the morality of liking them and not liking them, telling people to go kill themselves and here. I have been in this corner of Tumblr for a few months now, and everybody seems normal? Am I just not deep enough yet to sew the drama, or is this really just a place where people hang out to enjoy something together??? Are we just too old of a fandom to do this?

(feel free not to answer if this is too weird or anything)

Sorry my reply got really long. I've broken it up with memes in the hope that it makes it more readable.

I've been in the fandom for a few years now, and I don't have much to compare against because I've generally avoided fandom spaces because they seem pretty intense (and I've not had a piece of media grab me quite like this before) but yeah it seems pretty chill?

I think there are lots of possible reasons why.

It might be that the fandom skews a little older, with lots of people who have enough life experience to know how to de-escalate tension when they encounter it, and when to walk away from the keyboard.

It might be that there's a century-old understanding that we're all playing a silly tongue-in-cheek game with characters from magazine stories that were never supposed to be analysed this way. Remember the term "canon" as used in fandom circles was invented by Sherlock Holmes fans (specifically my boy Ronald Knox) as a joke, a deliberate cute misapplication of a term used for discussing the Bible to something frivolous. Not taking yourself too seriously is very baked into Sherlockian culture.

I sometimes get glimpses from other fandoms of this puritanical attitude that to like or not like a character or a piece of work is somehow a moral act, and I find that... bewildering. A bit scary. To be a fan of Sherlock Holmes is inherently to love something dearly which also contains things which should be hated: racism, sexism, imperialism. I think that fans tend to be people well used to approaching literature with the level of nuance required to process that dichotomy. To acknowledge it rather than hide from it.

It might also be because it's public domain. A big blockbuster movie or pastiche by a celebrated writer is precisely as legitimate as every fanfic on Ao3. Or the CGI movie where they're gnomes. Or a slightly wonky point and click game someone is obsessively making in their spare time (...coughcougheveryonewishlist 'The Beekeepers' Picnic' onsteam) Sherlock Holmes belongs to everyone equally regardless of how much money and power they have, which is why I love it.

Like, I love him as a character, I love the Victoriana, I love the mysteries, but the #1 reason I've gone gaga over Sherlock Holmes these past few years is the joy of loving a thing which isn't controlled by a corporation and which does not exist to make money (anymore).

I'm not saying there's zero drama because I think when you get a bunch of people passionate about something there will always be a little drama. I'll see things like the jostling of people who are very protective of asexual readings of Holmes and people who are very protective of gay readings of Holmes, things like that. Feelings can run high when personal identity is involved. But I've never seen anything got too vicious.

Errrr yeah idk if you wanted an essay as a response but you got one!

#sherlock holmes #acd holmes #fandom #ask #thoughts

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exit-path · 1 year

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Hey, remember this video? This is how tumblr made the Undertale “Stronger than You” parody.

Hi guys! Before we start, some of you on tumblr may have been in the Undertale fandom in 2015 when this was taking place, but I wasn't. So if you were at the devil's sacrament, then reblog with what you remember! I'd love to hear primary source perspectives of events.

(EDIT, 5/6/23: SO @galxie JUST PROPOSED TO ADAPT THIS POST INTO A YOUTUBE VIDEO. I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING)

(SO IF YOU'RE GOING TO SHARE YOUR STORIES THEN GET IT IN NOW)

But without further ado, let's begin, and watch as ordinary people made Internet history. (under the cut)

Part 1: gymleadercheren

It all started when @gymleadercheren drew a snippet of the Sans fight, with some Steven Universe lyrics underneath. This post caught the eye of @thepinkestpug, who had an idea.

Part 2: thepinkestpug

Later that same day—Oct 10, 2015—thepinkestpug sang a parody. Now, her Soundcloud link… how do I say it… doesn't sound very good? (He calls it "poor quality" herself.) But because he was in both the UT and SU fandoms, she was uniquely qualified to come up with these lyrics.

Upon seeing the "Stronger Than You" parody, gymleadercheren was ECSTATIC that she inspired someone with her post. The next day, she asked thepinkestpug for "permission to smoosh our lyrics together and make a comic?” If you've seen djsmell's video, you may recognize what she made next…

Part 3: The Comic

It took 3 weeks, but on Oct 29, 2015, gymleadercheren finally finished her comic. With 38 PANELS in total, the post was an instant success. She credits thepinkestpug for her lyrics, and links to an 8-bit "Stronger Than You" instrumental. Today, the post has over 20k notes.

Part 4: djsmell

Two days later, on Oct 31, 2015, @djsmell made a song cover of the comic. He NAILED the voice of Sans, and used the 8-bit song cover from gymleadercheren's post. He posted about it on his blog, while his YouTube video now has 11M views.

Part 5: alfa995

It wasn't until nearly 2 months later that on Dec 21, 2015, @alfa995 finally finished his animation. It used djsmell's audio, and filled in the gaps where the comic made you use your imagination. Today, the YouTube video has been viewed nearly 80 MILLION times.

These were alfa995's words about everything that had happened so far: "So basically someone… made lyrics for an Undertale version of [a song from Steven Universe] and a comic based off it, then someone else sung it, and now I animated it. I love the Internet."

Part 6: Reflections

And that’s the history of this video! This singular video has grown in popularity to such immense heights, it's a well-known piece of trivia that more people recognize the Undertale “Stronger Than You” parody than the actual Steven Universe song it’s based off of.

What I find interesting is how each person involved in this process had a tumblr blog. They saw each other’s posts and made more posts based off of them. By fandom standards this happened LIGHTNING FAST, the idea took 2 and a half months from conception to completion. It’s this connectivity that created the 4th most-viewed Undertale video.

The Undertale scene on tumblr spawned many more memorable fan creations, such as the “Underpants” series by SrPelo, which became the entry point for many into the wonder that is his animations.

It is this fandom that made Undertale a goliath of Internet culture. It is this fandom that made it so that Toby Fox will always have a loyal, rabid audience. Say what you want about it, whether you love it or hate it, the Undertale scene on tumblr may never happen again.

Thank you for reading, and I hope that you enjoyed!

This was my first time thinking about the Undertale fandom in a LONG time, and it was a nice trip down memory lane. Also, here’s a few things I found while researching that I couldn’t list above:

First, what's with all these "Stronger Than You" versions? I had no idea until I started researching that there were so many spinoffs of this singular video. Like, there's a CHARA response? There's a FRISK RESPONSE? THERE'S A TRIO VERSION?

And speaking of spinoffs, I want to shout out the video "Richer Than You"—absolutely phenomenal YTPMV that had a lot of effort put into it.

Finally, I want to shout out Super Eyepatch Wolf’s video, as it was my inspiration while writing this, and explains: “why did these videos get so popular?”

#undertale

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smoft-demons · 3 months

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Auva’s relationship dynamics: (In pact order)

Characterization notes.

Mammon:

Auva’s super attached to Mammon. He was her first friend in the Devildom as well as her first pact. She thinks of him as her best friend, her big brother, her guardian, her partner in chaos and bullshit, her safe place, her home. She LOVES him. She would kick anyone’s ass for him. She regularly scolds his brothers for being too mean to him. Mammon can’t resist big-brother-ing her, especially when she’s feeling a bit clingy.

Mammon saying she’s “his human” and “his baby” always makes her smile, because it makes her feel loved and wanted and safe. She responds to that by referring to him as “her Mammon”. It has the same effect on him. Whenever she’s scared or sad or sick, she wants Mammon.

She adores him, but can’t match his energy level. She tries, and he’s patient about it, but sometimes she overdoes it and needs to recharge. He learns to understand that, and slows down for her when he can, because he’s the best.

Mammon’s really helpful to her with math! He’s actually a living calculator! Whereas, she might have discalculia. She hates math. She insists he doesn’t do it for her though, because she genuinely wants to learn, so he has to put in the effort to actually teach her—AND reassure her that she’s not stupid, and calm her down when she gets frustrated with it. It takes a lot out of them, but it does help! He’s better at the emotional support than the explaining, but pretty capable of both, to his own surprise. Auva’s very good with written word, she is living spellcheck, so she helps him out with his own homework too by fixing all his spelling and helping him edit his essays.

His tsundere tendencies caused a bit of trouble early on, because Auva tends to take things literally and not pick up on subtext. There was a situation between the custard incident and the retreat when Mammon said something too mean out of defensiveness. Since he hadn’t said anything like that in a while, she believed him and took it hard. Mammon had to take it back, apologize, and explain himself. He learned that he HAS to be honest with her, because she will just believe what he says. It’s good for him. Good practise with admitting his feelings and thinking before he speaks.

She makes him more responsible and self-aware. She is a living reminder that he’s actually very good at being a responsible guardian figure, he’s not just some idiot who’s only good for taking roasts from his brothers. No, there is in fact someone in the family who genuinely thinks he’s awesome and would rather die than be subtle about it. He needs that.

Levi:

Auva loves Levi a lot. His room is a sanctuary for her. They bond over a shared love of video games and involvement in fandom culture. She can be as weird as she wants to be with Levi, he’ll never judge. He understands her in a way most don’t. She also doesn’t like parties and crowds and loud, bright places. She gets sensory overload and panic and depression episodes too, and she connects with him about it.

Auva absolutely revels in being Levi’s player two. It makes her SO happy.

Her mental health isn’t the greatest either, but that’s another point of connection. Their issues usually contrast with the other’s personality just right for helping each other. Levi struggles with feeling like he’s not good enough to be loved, Auva proudly flaunts her devotion for him and all her friends. Levi thinks no one cares about his interests, Auva listens happily and sometimes asks him to infodump to ground her. Auva is forgetful and has the emotional object permanence issue that makes her forget that people love her, Levi doesn’t forget a thing and insists on spending lots of time together to remind her that she’s loved. Auva feels no envy to the point of sometimes being a pushover, Levi helps with that. Auva helps Levi struggle a bit less with his envy too. They balance that way.

The main thing they don’t align perfectly about is, they’re both touch starved and enjoy contact, but Levi’s real shy and self conscious, whereas Auva is real clingy and also self conscious about that specifically. That’s a thing they have to work on together… and Levi HAS to take the lead about it, because Auva is scared to overstep.

Once they HAVE discussed it and come to an understanding, when they’re fully comfortable and open with each other, a very common thing in their interactions is like this:

Auva: (vibrating in place) “Hi Levi hi Levi!!”

Levi: (waiting for it) :)

Auva: “can i touch??”

Levi: (nods, unfolds arms)

Auva: !!! :D (launches herself at him)

Levi: …<3 (squeezes her)

Beel:

Auva ADORES Beel! She’s about as attached to him as she is to Mammon. Beel, as well, understands her on a level most don’t.

They have similar guard dog complexes. They’re both major foodies. They have the same earnest, gentle, protective disposition. They find each other refreshingly blunt and sensible. They’re both softhearted and open and introspective and understanding. They find it easy to talk to each other, to the point where they’re each other’s go-to confidant—sometimes even over Belphie (for Beel) and Mammon (for Auva). They’re emotional support besties.

When Beel feels bad but won’t talk about it because he doesn’t want to disturb anyone, Auva can pry it out of him. She gives him the same soft, worried, puppy eyes expression that HE uses to make his family (Auva included) open up to him. God demon king someone help the poor bastards that Beel and Auva team up on to get them to talk, they’re too powerful together!

(Like, an example interaction that could not happen with anyone else):

(In the kitchen at midnight, eating a snack together)

Beel: (observes Auva for a while)

Beel: (with big, concerned eyes) “…are you sad?”

Auva: (composure breaks instantly) :’(

Beel: “oh… come here, baby.”

(Auva stumbles over to Beel, crashes into him. Beel picks her up. Hugs her tight, takes her to bed and holds her for as long as it takes for her to calm down and talk to him. Listens quietly. Encourages her to fall asleep on him, then doesn’t leave once she has.) (He is PERFECT)

Their dynamic is like, big pitbull and small mouse who have adopted each other. It’s touch starved (needs to hold someone) & touch starved (needs to be held). It’s super fluffy found family. Her favourite place to sit is in his lap. He likes having her there too. They also both enjoy when Beel picks her up and carries her around. Auva wholeheartedly believes that more people should be like Beel (with less appetite though, the world can only handle one Beel sized appetite) and that’d make the world a better place. She looks up to him, trusts him, happily accepts influence from him. She takes his opinions seriously.

She only looks forward to going outside with Beel. She’s not usually a fan of outside, but with Beel it’s good because they’re either taking a nice walk somewhere quiet and peaceful, or they’re going to buy food. He motivates her to exercise too, and she’s surprised to discover that it’s fun when it’s with him. Auva makes Beel happier, and Beel makes Auva better.

Asmo:

Asmo’s first impression on Auva wasn’t great. She found him tiring, scary, and too pushy at first, but as she observed him and got to know him, she realized he meant her no harm and grew fond of his boundless bubbly energy. She saw through his facade of vanity and self-obsession pretty quick. It’s obvious to her that Asmo’s trying to cover up some fucky self esteem. His drive to be beautiful enough to be loved makes her sad for him.

She really grew to love him though! His generosity to his loved ones, his emotional intelligence, his kindness and big, caring heart, his self expression, his sugary-sweet disposition that’s on par with his raging sweet tooth… even his sharp, vicious wit. It all becomes wildly endearing to her.

After they pact, she finds out that the avatar of lust is actually pretty ace positive! He’s a good friend, too. Platonically attentive. Asmo and Auva are by far the two most affectionate people in the house, and it makes them both really happy to have someone else around who is reliably willing to provide all the love and attention they need.

Auva’s style is pretty plain and simple, her skin is sensitive and always super dry, she finds makeup to be a sensory nightmare usually, and she’s big on body neutrality. Like, she barely cares to remember what she looks like. She gives zero shits about if she might be ugly, because she wholeheartedly believes that’s not her problem since she’s not the one who is looking at her. All she cares about is being comfortable. Asmo doesn’t understand that at first, but he’s determined to spoil her anyway. He makes it work. He finds her soft clothes in colours she likes that fit her properly, he finds skincare and makeup products that feel nice, sit lightly on her skin, and don’t smell too strong. He’s careful not to go too crazy and make all this less fun and comfortable for her. Eventually, to Auva’s surprise, she finds that she… really likes the clothes, and enjoyed the spa treatment a lot. She is a bit mystified to find that she… actually feels kinda pretty? And that’s actually a nice experience?? Wild!

She never quite warms up to makeup, mostly because she doesn’t care to learn how to do it herself… and she’s sure she would constantly ruin her makeup by smushing her face against her friends when she hugs them. She’s happy to let Asmo put makeup on her on special occasions though.

Satan:

Auva gets along great with him! They’re both nerdy bookworms, they both love cats, they both take issue with unexplained orders and bad instructions and condescending assholes… they get each other.

They’re well matched in cold logic. They never genuinely fight, because Auva is good at containing her emotions too, and explaining issues very clinically BEFORE they have time to snowball into big, emotional landmines. If they ever argued, it would sound like an academic debate. Usually, if there’s any problem, there’s no argument, just negotiation.

(Example of what I mean):

Auva: hey, man. I’ve been having this issue [explains it very clinically]. If you wouldn’t mind, I would like [these adjustments]. If this isn’t possible, let’s figure out what would work instead.

Satan: Thank you for telling me. I will [make these adjustments]. I think it will be difficult to [make other mentioned adjustments], so I will consider what will work instead and get back to you.

Auva: thank you for making an effort for me. I love you :)

Satan: thank you for trusting me. I… also love you.

The two of them have a standing policy of informing the other as soon as they start to get frustrated or angry in a situation like that, BEFORE it has a chance to build. They go into different rooms to scream at the walls or write stuff down or whatever they need, then text to check on each other in 20 minutes. It’s a very effective policy! They NEVER fight with this system in place.

This unnerves the others though. It runs counter to a lot of their personalities. They get worried. Auva and Satan both find that pretty funny, which further defuses any drive to fight.

Usually though, any thought of them fighting is irrelevant. They hang out a lot! They do homework together. Satan helps with everything Mammon can’t. Auva refuses to do math with Satan because she expects that they’ll both get angry. He’s the best person to go to about magic by far.

They also watch shows together! Satan likes mysteries and high stakes dramas, Auva likes documentaries and D&D shows. There’s some overlap there, and they’re both willing to go a little out of their comfort zones to see the other happy. Auva is very sensitive to second hand embarrassment though, and she always hides in his shoulder when that comes up. He only laughs at her a little.

Auva brings her love for very poetic and lyrical music to him too. They have a lot of fun analyzing good lines together. He breaks out the poetry books and the novels he finds interesting enough to do character studies for, and they have the best time.

Auva’s favourite thing, though, is when they curl up together and he reads aloud to her. It’s comforting. She snuggles up to him and blocks out everything but the sound of his voice, his breathing, his heartbeat. The warmth of him. The relaxing smell of him: the ink, leather, and old paper vanillin smell of old books, plus the peppermint scent of tea he likes, all over the fire and ozone smell of his magic. His hand strokes her hair as he reads, only pausing to turn the page. It’s peaceful. He is peaceful, when he’s around her.

Belphie:

Belphie and Auva are really similar. They have a lot of favourites in common—astronomy, trivia, performance arts, sushi, napping, cuddling, Beel, etc etc.

They’re both sleepy and clingy and babie. Their speech patterns are a bit similar. They even dress similar! Before she got Belphie out of the attic, the others would occasionally double take just looking at her, because she reminded them so much of Belphie.

Auva got attached to Belphie pretty quick. She knew she was being lied to immediately, knew he was obviously sketchy from the start, but warmed up to him—at first because Beel misses him, but then… just for himself. She thinks he’s shaped like friend.

Auva made a point of sneaking up to the attic to see him as often as possible. To update him about her progress with the pacts, yes, but more just to… hang out with him. To update him about what’s going on with his family, to complain about Lucifer, to remind him that Beel misses him every day and that he’s loved, that no one has forgotten about him.

She feels for him, really. He must be lonely and bored. SHE wouldn’t be coping well in his position. She can’t help but grow fond of the sleepy cow guy. He’s very cute. Looks huggable… and he’s trapped ALONE, no one is hugging him!! She would NOT be doing okay if that were her! And… they’re SO similar.

She thinks he’s funny, too. His snarky sense of humour is pretty entertaining to her. She spends hours just sitting across from him, leaning against the attic door, lying down on the floor, just chatting. Vibing in silence. Humming quietly to herself, spending time keeping him company.

She slips him snacks and little items through the gaps in the door. His tail flops through sometimes, and she combs through it with her fingers. Sometimes, when he seems particularly lonely, she reaches through to hold his hand.

She got really attached to him. She cares about him a lot. So… even though she smelled danger from the moment she met him, she discarded her suspicions. Even after she learned about his hatred for humans, she felt optimistic. Even though she… had a bad feeling about opening the door… she wanted to trust him. She was excited to meet him properly! She wanted to be real friends, without the complications inherent to the situation. She wanted to see him smile and be reunited with Beel. She wanted to hug him.

…well. She got to hug him.

The recovery was long and difficult. Repairing the relationship was delicate. Tricky.

It got done, though. After all that, Belphie is… exceptionally soft with Auva. Very gentle and sweet. He won’t be a brat to her. Won’t push her or prank her or be mean or treat her roughly. He won’t even be mad when she wakes him up for no reason.

He’s almost unrecognizable to his brothers (except Beel), seeing how gentle and patient he is with her. Personally, he thinks it’s the least he can do. Just to himself, he can admit that he’s wishing to be real friends with her too.

Lucifer:

Auva’s feelings about Lucifer are… complicated. She loves him, she looks up to him, she admires him, she wants to hide behind him, she can’t help but think of him as a sort of father figure.

But also, she’s consistently frustrated with him, because she HATES when people are mysterious on purpose! She hates when people expect blind obedience, she hates condescension, she hates being confused for no good reason. She hates when people think they’re above help from those who love them.

And she DOES love him. She worries for him, too. She thinks he’s too stressed, she thinks he needs a therapist badly, she thinks he could really use a hug and a nap and perhaps a juice box, if only he weren’t too damn proud to accept them.

She tries to convince Satan and Belphie to soften their tricks on him, to just confuse him instead of stressing him out or hurting him. It works sometimes.

But also she wants to drag him down to her level by his ear and lecture him until he decides to be nicer to his brothers AND to himself.

She’s so tempted to yell at him sometimes… sometimes she can’t resist telling him what she thinks, even though she expects that it’ll piss him off. She doesn’t like fighting with any of her friends, but… sometimes she HAS to call him out on his bullshit!

Still, she loves him. More than anything, she wants to be honest with him. That’s where that frustration comes from. She wants to trust him, and be respected and listened to.

Also, she wants to curl up in his lap and feel safe. She wants to hide under his wing and know that nothing can harm her, because like… be so for real, NOTHING in all three realms can out-scary Lucifer. She’s confident about that! (So is Mammon.)

And she wants him to relax! She wants him to rest, and delegate some of his work, and believe her if she ever works up the nerve to tell him that he doesn’t have to keep up his perfect performance at home! That she loves dorky big brother Luci more than impressive, scary work-Lucifer. That his brothers love him that way too.

She wishes she could ask him, just for a while, if he would put the mighty firstborn aside. Only at home, only when he’s not too busy… Don’t be the Morningstar, the right hand of the demon prince, the impressive avatar of pride. Just for a while. Maybe for a day off. Just be their Luci. Just hang out, chill, and let his family love him.

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thedrarrylibrarian · 10 months

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I’ve thought long and hard about how I wanted to celebrate Pride month on this blog in 2023. My first year for Pride, I did a list of fics that were meaningful to me as a Queer person (just FYI - I identify as Bi and/or Queer. If reading the word Queer over and over is going to bother you, this post is not going to be for you). Last year, I did an inclusive list where I tried to find a fic to include every letter of LGBTQIA. But this year feels different, for a lot of reasons.

One is the ongoing homophobia and transphobia that the Queer community is facing, and very important to note, from J.K. Rowling in particular. A slew of new bills and laws that are designed to oppress, to eradicate, to force us back into closets, and to prevent anyone else from daring to leave the closet in the first place. Thankfully, in the US, they’re slowly being struck down but the heartache lingers.

Another reason this year feels different is because of some big changes in my personal life.

So, as I thought about how I wanted to celebrate Pride this month, I kept coming back to the thought of community. As lovely as fic recs are, and as much fun as I have writing them, it’s the community of creators and the friendships that I have found here that keep me involved in fandom.

As I was thinking about conversations that I’ve had about fandom friendships with @tackytigerfic and @babooshkart, I had the idea to reach out to them and other fandom friends to hear about their experiences and what keeps them in fandom. A beautiful thing happened — I asked one person to participate and they agreed, then recommended I ask another person. The next person also agreed, and had a suggestion of someone else I should ask. And on and on, until I was having lovely, in depth conversations with people I knew peripherally but hadn’t necessarily talked with before.

I first found fandom in 2013, through a chat room that has since been shut down. I was young, in college, reeling from a break up, and still trying to reconcile my conservative upbringing with these lovely, open, and accepting people that I’d found online who dared to be different and still so good in a way that I had never had the privilege of experiencing before. They answered my questions with patience, no matter how dumb or offensive they might’ve been, and were kind enough to ask gentle questions of their own.

Like so many others, I eventually realized I wasn’t as straight as my conservative, Christian upbringing would’ve liked me to believe.

It’s been ten years, and I still have friends that I regularly keep in contact with from that chat room. We’ve exchanged letters and cards, flown and driven across the country to hug each other, to go to each other’s weddings and stayed at each other’s houses. We don’t talk every single day like we used to, but I know that if I called them, they would answer and listen with every bit of love and patience that they gave me at the beginning. That means the world to me.

In those ten years, my circle of online friends has grown immensely. I love getting “Happy New Year!” messages all day from various time zones. I love that no matter what weird time of night I’m up, I’m never alone if I don’t want to be. I know the names of pets I will probably never meet and see dishes from kitchens around the world. All of these things bring joy into my life.

My partner and I moved across the country last year. It’s only a couple states difference on a map, but it’s 17 hours from my friends and family, and from the little in person Queer friend group that I had found. It’s a different culture, one that I’m still adapting to. We moved in early summer last year; my friends visited in June and we went to Pride events together, and I didn’t feel so alone. But now, a year later, it feels like forever since I’ve hugged them. It feels lonely sometimes, although I’m getting my feet under me again and finding different events to go to and organizations to join.

With all this real life change, fandom has been a lovely, stable rock in my life. No matter how godawful my day has been in my new job, I have online friends who cheer me up. I have people who message me and check on me, people who are excited to have those in depth, philosophical Queer conversations via discord messaging, even though we’re timezones apart and often messaging each other days later. These friendships have nourished my soul, sustained me, and I’m forever grateful for the way fandom has held its arms open for me.

So this Pride, instead of a themed rec list, I’m listening to and sharing other Queer creators about what fandom means to them. Stay tuned this week to see who else is sharing about what fandom means to them. We’re here, we’re Queer, and we’re supporting each other.

Much, much love,

The Drarry Librarian

#pride 2023 #drarry librarian #the drarry librarian #pride in the library #drarry librarian and pride #fandom community

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olderthannetfic · 11 months

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I've read through the End Racism posts (not all, but a good part of them) and think the people behind it do have good and honest intentions, and that a lot of things are being blown out of proportion. I don't necessarily agree with some of the ideas regarding out of archive harassment and AO3's responsibility, but I can see the thought process. Same with a lot of other things. I'm very wary of Stitch being cited, but can likewise understand why people may not fully clue into why there are.... so so so many issues with that. If you haven't been hyper involved in fandom (included those you're not in) you miss things. Which is a whole other issue lmao. But overall, I don't think anyone is being malicious

That being said, there's a lot that seems.... overly optimistic? Or perhaps very central to where the creators behind End Racism are from and their own biases and education. People have brought up HOW on earth what is or is not racist (beyond the incredibly obvious examples) can be decided, or how you can know who's writing a fic and why (is it a racist bigot, someone writing about their own experience as a POC, or someone who doesn't know something?) and the answer, as another anon mentioned, is never really stated. Because there isn't an answer in many cases, but that hasn't been acknowledged

I also worry about the insistence (in some responses to questions and in notes I've seen even in the asks you've received) that a diversity consultant will help as much as people seem to think. Yes, it's a step forwards.... but a diversity consultant cannot be an expert in EVERYTHING. I suppose the argument is "get more diversity consultants to volunteer" but that still causes it's own issues. I was in a server with someone who frequently read over fics as a sensitivity reader, and was extremely well educated and respectful. But even they flat out said they made a hell of a lot of mistakes once they stepped out of what they knew, and wouldn't give feedback on certain things. I worry a diversity consultant would be, well, very american centric, and while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, people have brought up how it could be, and those concerns are being completely brushed to the side.

I think there's just SO much to this, and so much more complexity than they're willing to admit. Again, other anons have brought this up, but there's a ton nuance in this. We're talking international views on majorly complex issues, with endless cultural lenses, people writing and reading from countless backgrounds, and so on. It really just feels like they don't want to even acknowledge that

I don't think most behind it are trying to actively push for censorship, or are operating in bad faith. That's my impression from reading on my own. There have been some individuals around tumblr that have been horrific about it (the anti-semitism that came out is.... something), but overall I think there are good intentions. But so many pertinent questions aren't being answered, and the very valid concerns people have brought up have been ignored.

I support the idea behind it, and having a diversity consultant on staff certainly isn't a bad idea, but the way in which they're going about things, the concerns they're ignoring, and the dismissal of people who are raising said concerns as racists is. huh. Well, it makes me wary to actively support.

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juliettedunn · 1 year

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Gus Porter: An Appreciation and Analysis

I loved Gus when he seemed to be a fairly simple comic relief character, but very quickly he shows himself to be more than that. He may not get as much screen time as the main characters, but he does have two episodes where he is a main focus, and he reveals a lot of depth.

Gus has the common trope of a nonhuman obsessed with human culture and thinking of humans as interesting animals to study.

His obsession with humans is very intense: he founded a human appreciation society, he collects human artifacts, dreams of traveling to the human realm, and memorizes as much information about humans as possible (even though most of it is incorrect). If it wasn’t obvious, humans are clearly his special interest.

Gus is very poor at picking up on other people’s manipulations. In Through the Looking Glass Ruins, he is instantly trusting of Bria and fails to notice several warning signs that she has less than pure intentions.

He is also incredibly eager to be accepted into the group. The whole time, he is basically completely blinded by excitement at getting to hang out with “cool” kids. We learn more about where this stems from in the second Gus-centric episode (and one of my personal favorites), Labyrinth Runners.

In a flashback, Gus doesn’t notice a kid is exploiting him until he happens to overhear the kid admit it. He fully believes the kid genuinely wants to be his friend, just like he does later in his life with Bria.

Both times, he takes what people say at face value, the thought not crossing his mind that they could have ulterior motives.

One of his lines in Labyrinth Runners really struck me. “Everyone thinks I’m the smart one. So why do I act so dumb?”

Gus is what is considered a gifted kid; he’s two years younger than the rest of the Hexsquad because he skipped grades.

And the way he is portrayed in the show is very true to the typical gifted kid experience.

Gus is praised for being smart. He’s been bumped up grade levels, he’s considered a prodigy, he very clearly does amazing on tests. So like all gifted kids, he takes that on as part of his identity.

But someone can’t be smart at all things. And Gus is poor at reading other people. So despite being academically adept, he misses social cues, cues which are very obvious to everyone else.

He doesn’t notice when other kids are pretending to be his friend only to exploit him. That’s something that a lot of autistic people have a problem with.

And in Labyrinth Runners, he fails to recognize Willow, his best friend of many years, as an illusion, whereas Hunter does, despite only having met her once. She was definitely acting out of character, but in a way that would require an understanding of her mannerisms, something Gus doesn’t have a good instinctual grasp on.

His attempts at cheering people up aren’t always the best either. Though Luz did end up getting admitted to Hexside, he prepared for her to fail, and got consulting messages ready. This took the form of giant blue letters saying “Better luck next time.” Obviously, these words are very blunt and come across as quite cold. It is not something that would have made her feel better, but Gus clearly thought that it would, further showing that he doesn’t quite understand how best to comfort someone.

Same with Willow, where he sends her a bunch of illusions to console her and just ends up making the situation worse, unable to figure out the right ways to comfort someone in need, even though he has a huge heart and really wants to be there for his friends.

He’s the best at being there for Hunter. He teaches him the breathing technique, and gets him involved in the Cosmic Frontier fandom. Hunter is also bad at reading social cues and also is autistic I believe, though that’s a whole other discussion. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that that’s who Gus is best at comforting, someone who is also rather unconventional with emotional issues.

Gus’s failure to see through people trying to manipulate him, and his failure at knowing how to comfort his friends, leads him to believe he is “dumb,” which greatly hurts his self esteem.

Notice, also, that Gus is always trying to entertain his friends. He’s funny, and he knows this and is actively trying to be. Why? Because if he isn’t smart, at least he is funny. He wants to be liked, wants to be seen as cool. And he’s just starting to enter the age where most gifted kids start to falter, where the lack of studying abilities really starts to catch up.

When I hit that stage, I definitely also tried to be “the funny one.” Autistic people are almost inherently funny to neurotypicals, and if people aren’t praising you and admiring you for being smart, at least they’ll like you if you’re funny.

If he’s not fulfilling his “value” as either the child prodigy or the comic relief, then what is his purpose? Such is the crisis many gifted kids go through when they go from being far ahead of their peers, praised as geniuses, to still being above average but certainly not the absolute one in a million wonder that many people told them they were.

Now for another amazing part of Gus - he has shut downs. When he gets overwhelmed, he hits a breaking point and curls up, completely unable to function any longer. Because his magic is so powerful, it impacts his surroundings too. In Labyrinth Runners, he is so overwhelmed he casts a spell over the entire school.

Shut downs and panic attacks feel like this. Of course, they don’t involve real magic like in the show, but the way the school appears as a trippy, foreign landscape they have to navigate is true to how it feels to be overwhelmed as an autistic person. Even though there is no illusion magic, the familiar quickly becomes foreign, and places I’ve been a hundred times before feel wrong.

Willow teaches him a breathing method, and I actually use that breathing method too. I don’t know if it inherently works or if it’s because it’s connected to The Owl House, which is my comfort show, but I actually move through panic attacks and disassociation episodes much faster ever since I started using that technique.

Finally, Gus stims! You can’t tell me that him grabbing the bubble wrap, knocking over items due to lack of spatial awareness, happily shouting “Look at all this human stuff!” and then intently focusing on popping all the bubbles until it was over was not the most autistic thing you’ve ever seen.

Gus is a great portrayal of an autistic gifted kid heading into burn out, academically intelligent but far too trusting, believing everyone acts at face value, and falling very easily into exploitation because of it. Adopting the identity of child prodigy and witty entertainer, and taking a serious blow to his self esteem when he can’t live up to those ideals.

Happily, he now he has real friends, most of whom are neurodivergent like him! As I said before, the almost instant understanding and bond he and Hunter have is largely a result of them both being autistic; they read each other very well and instinctually know how to help each other. I love their relationship so much.

This was a lot longer than I anticipated, but I just had a lot to say about him. He’s getting a lot more appreciation form the fandom recently, but he still is fairly underrated as a character. I love him so much even though I don’t talk about him as much as I talk about other characters, and I do wish he would get confirmed as autistic on screen (though the most I can ever hope for is Luz getting confined to have ADHD, and even that I really doubt). Still, I know he is autistic, and he is amazing.

#gus porter #the owl house #toh #gus toh #gus the owl house #autistic #actually autistic #the owl house gus #julietteanalyzes

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hollow-dweller · 2 months

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Talk Shop Tuesday: as someone who is involved in a lot of fandoms (and has seen a lot of horrors), has there been a significant shift in how fandom is today compared to the “good old days” as much as people say?

there are. SO MANY.

to start and to be entirely clear, there is no good old days of fandom. there are things i miss about fandom tendencies of the past, which i'll get into, but as many many many marginalized fans have and will continue to say, Ye Ol' Fandom was as much if not more of a cesspit of racism, misogyny, and queerphobia as it is today. because fandom platforms were more diversified, they were also more gatekept--and i mean actually gatekept, not just "people are mean about this thing i like" gatekept. to an extent this was necessary--fandom itself was much more culturally stigmatized, and existed largely in a legal gray area, so fandom spaces needed to be semi-closed communities for their own protection. however, if you were a fan who tried to bring up systemic fannish issues--such as racism--you could and would be kicked out of whatever fannish space you were in, and there would very rarely be other places to turn.

also as a caveat: this is not anywhere CLOSE to a comprehensive view of the changes in fandom nor the myriad factors that contribute to those changes. fandom is a cultural ecosystem existing within a broader cultural ecosystem, and the ways those things interact with and inform one another are literally innumerable. anyone who claims they know the One Thing That Ruined Fandom is oversimplifying the issue. anyone claiming they know the Twenty Things That Ruined Fandom is oversimplifying the issue. fandom is a living system, and living systems exist in a constant state of change.

but broadly speaking, i think there are two major changes that have informed The State of Fandom.

Consolidation of Fandom Platforms

as mentioned, fandom used to exist as a variety of closed or semi-closed forum spaces, blogs, archives, and other websites, each dedicated to its own fandom or, more often, subsets of a particular fandom. authors/artists had their own sites, particular ships had their own sites, fic had its own sites, art had its own sites, discussion/meta had its own sites, and any or all of these could be hosted in any combination across any number of websites depending on the fandom. some of this was the result of the structure of the early internet, and some of it was, as mentioned above, a function of necessity.

as the internet evolved and fandom platforms became consolidated, this necessarily changed fandom norms and behaviours. the way we write fic is different because of the advent and dominance of ao3, the way we construct meta is different because of the nature of sites like reddit and tumblr, the way we build community is different because of sites like discord, etc. notably, most of the changes we've seen are not created by social media or mass fandom platforms, but rather enhanced by them. ship wank, whether masquerading as legitimate analysis or not, has always been a cornerstone of fandom--it like all things is simply much more accessible to people now than it used to be. the subdivision of fandoms into different subgroups, even within a ship or media, has also always been a thing--people form friend groups with like-minded people and that's normal, actually. the types of conversations and conflicts fandom has have not changed that much--just the places and manner in which we engage with them.

modern fandom platforms are both more accessible and more comprehensive than they ever have been--so fans can more easily than ever be exposed to different corners or subsets of fandom. but also. fans can more easily than ever be exposed to different corners or subsets of fandom.

The Scarcity of Long Running Media and the Dissolution of the Monoculture

the type of media that fandom now orients itself around has changed drastically as a result of changes in the broader media landscape, and this also changes fandom norms and behaviour. it is increasingly more rare for a fandom to develop over the course of years, because long-running serialized (or even episodic) narratives are becoming less common. tv shows especially are released with vanishingly short promotion cycles, and with less and less certainty of continuation. creators have to therefore hedge their bets--the binge model means there is no room to pivot mid-season if things aren't working out, and the lack of certainty around renewal means that seasons have to be relatively close-ended in order to try to deliver a satisfying experience. similar trends affect book publishing--we are seeing fewer and fewer multi-part series being released, and fewer books dominating cultural discussion in the way blockbuster series of the past have.

thinking of cornerstone megafandoms of the past (and present), we tended to see a couple essential elements that contributed to both fandom engagement and sustained fandom activity: they were released over a longer period of time, and they took up a larger portion of the dominant cultural landscape. the Harry Potter books were released over a period of ten years and were, of course, a huge cultural moment. Twilight was released over a shorter period of time, but was similarly a cornerstone of the monoculture, enhanced by the immediate and almost-eclipsing (heh) release of its movie counterparts. The X-Files was released over the course of, again, a decade, and they will be releasing new Star Treks until the mountains crumble into the sea and the stars turn to dust. these fandoms all have greater and lesser degrees of longevity and output, but they and fandoms like them all had the benefit of time and cultural dominance in order to enable the development of the fandom.

this is not universal (nothing i'm saying is universal), but fandoms nowadays tend to be a lot shorter-lived and migratory simply because they have less material to work with and less time in which to work with it. Voltron, as one example, was a megafandom that developed rapidly and burned out quickly, and while it had a decent amount of material, its eight seasons were released over the course of two and a half years. fannish momentum can only be sustained on so much material for a certain period of time, and fannish investment is necessarily going to be curtailed if fans live in uncertainty about the continuation of their favourite media.

this also is reflected in the type of fanworks that we see proliferating. while AUs were not absent from Ye Old Fandom, i do think they were a lot less common/prominent. the longer release cycles and difference in structure between releases (open-ended finales as motivation to hook viewers into the next installment that they knew/were pretty certain was going to happen vs close-ended finales that hedge bets if a series is cancelled) led to a lot more speculative fanworks set within the canon, imagining what was going to happen next. a famous example is of course the HP fandom's Three Year Summer--the period of three years between the release of the fourth and fifth Harry Potter books that was intensely productive for that fandom. fanworks in that period were famously long and plotty canon divergence/canon speculation works branching from the return of Voldemort in book four, and that tendency towards long and plotty canon-based or canon-adjacent fanworks persists within the HP fandom to this day.

fandoms nowadays do tend more towards works that are stripped from their canon contexts (the infamous coffee shop au, media fusion aus, modern setting aus, no powers aus), and while these works did exist in Ye Old Fandom, they were both more rare and their reach was more limited.

Some Kind of Conclusion Because This Is An Essay Now I Guess

to present a synthesis scenario: a particular trope is generated and popularized by one fandom. due to its presence on consolidated platform sites, it becomes ubiquitous within that fandom, spawning further derivatives, copycats, reimaginings, and variations. as people migrate from fandom to fandom, both as a result of the media landscape itself and the ease of doing so on social media/multi-fandom sites, the trope or AU spreads to other fandoms, and is again further transformed by those fandoms. this continues ad infinitum.

this pattern is not limited to tropes in fanworks--it is applicable to every element of fandom, from discourse to meta to creative works to behavioural norms. the state of modern fandom is interconnected to the platforms on which fandom is hosted and the media on which it is based. no longer is the one common unifying element of fandom the source media--the unifying element is fandom itself. this is why we see, for example, people stating they get involved in fandoms for media they have no experience with--they do not know the source text, but they know fandom.

i could literally go on and on--i didn't even touch on things like the destruction of the fandom fourth wall, or the relationship to the practice of filing off the serial numbers, or the existence of BNFs (actual BNFs not people like you seek who just Have Friends and Make Things), or the connection to nostalgia, or the relationship to commentary and analysis-based fandom outlets such as rewatch podcasts, or-

there are literally so many elements here. i could talk about this forever. i probably will be talking about this forever. please god someone let me out of here HELP-

#fandom #fandom meta #fandom history #fandom analysis #what do i even tag this as #long post #asks #i cannot express how much this barely scratches the surface #obligatory charlie day conspiracy board meme

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mcl38 · 2 months

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lmao i had to unfollow a mclaren moot because they took the "twink" thing to an extreme and were pointing out how he's just oscar's little twink and would always be fragile and small instead of big and strong and fit like "broadscar" and i really just had to. 🤦‍♀️ fit? FIT? lando was the only driver not on the brink of fainting after qatar, not everything in f1 is about how "broad" and "muscular" you seem. i wanted to give the benefit of doubt at first but when the fetishizing gay relationships turned into pushing these bodyshaming stereotypes onto a literal professional athlete i was out.

i mean its so wild bc half of them seem to give the twink descriptor to both drivers and half specifically pin it on lando because hes smaller than oscar & make it into a whole Dynamic of lando being sooo toppable or whatever. which just shows that there isnt actually any weight to 'twinklaren' at all and it rly is meaningless, bc surely if it was clear cut and obvious these differences wouldnt exist ykwim? like its just about what serves their fandom purpose in that moment

idk i think as much as the term broadscar is unfortunately quite funny to me, f1 fandom discussions abt weight and bodies r kind of bound to become problematic (real sense not 2014 tumblr sense) bc of the requirements of the sport. the way lewis has said that hes not allowed to bulk up because it would make his weight balance too lopsided (as a side note u guys do not know how ready i am for post retirement bicep BEAST lewis hamilton. the only way im gonna survive him retiring) etc like its not just about appearance for them.

in terms of how lando is fit like ur 100% right - stuff like qatar shows that he (and jon) has been doing his due diligence w preparing for these conditions. u can also just see in that last quadrant video how hes obviously very physically fit and ready for the season. its just that bodies have natural differences between them - oscar is genetically taller, lando is genetically more flexible; oscar is naturally broader around his arms, lando is naturally broader around his back, etc. and its not necessarily an issue to point these things out or even joke about them (when ppl say daniel's got birthing hips it still makes me laugh and its been years since i first heard it) but at some point it does start to show a fundamental misunderstanding of what f1 drivers do. like do i need to pull up the real sweat im a high performance athlete clip or what

so thats on the body stuff. re: the twink stuff i think the reason it rubs me, you, many ppl wrong even before we consciously realise it is like. a twink is a type - not just a body type, a *type*. in the gay male* community, you identify yourself as a twink (or bear, otter, etc) because some people are particularly attracted to twinks, bc they have a type. then obviously because the gay community is way more than just sexual attraction & has a lot of cultural capital, the term twink gained connotations and cultural history etc and grew past that. but the origins are still very much in gay male* attraction. so now that the term has become accessible to ppl who arent in that community, and therefore arent *participating*, identifying someone by their physical characteristics (and maybe implied penetrative sex preference) no longer has the subtext of appeal, but of derision. because no longer is it implied that everyone involved is a gay man*, which means calling someone a twink also implicitly calls them gay. and i think 'twink' specifically gained traction compared to other types also bc of its association w femininity in one's physical appearance - which, again, ur just derogatorily calling someone feminine and gay. even if, say, ur a member of the lgbt community who isn't a gay man*, it still carries the subtext - like anon u completely correctly identified the condescending undertones of whoever ur talking about. which is why i say we should just bring back fag #justsayfag

#anon #ask #lando #oscar #meta #* - using these words for the sake of simplicity not w the purpose to erase the nonbinary and trans ppl who do participate in that communit #also bc i cant help myself. part of y lando was alright in qatar was bc he never normally drinks during races so hes used to the dehydratio #dehydration army rise UP is u hear me put ur hands upppp lemme see those veins

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lightfeltmemories · 5 months

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hxh theory: is feitan a p3d0phile?

tw's: mentions of l0l1c0n, paraphilia, p3d0philia, sadism and torture because its fucking feitan, cp (debatable if you consider l0l1c0n cp), mentions of problematic hxh ships such as feitan x kalluto and hisoka x gon

just a note: before you come at me with your pitchforks leaving hate in my asks and dms, i am not a fan of l0l1c0n nor am i trying to defend it, this post is a simple theory i have gathered by evidence in the manga, no one is saying that you should believe this theory, it's more of a "do with this information what you will" kind of thing.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

so, you may be reading this title and you're thinking "what the actual fuck?" and you probably believe that i pulled this straight out of the deepest parts of my ass, but what if i told you i had some plausible evidence for this theory?

so, for starters, this thought actually came to me when i was reading a post by a user on here named @/cautionworks (i'm not going to tag them here because i don't know them nor do i want to seem like a bother) who made a post relating to their favorite ships (warning as the post does contain problematic ships such as hisogon and such, not saying in particular im against the ship, im just giving out a warning to anyone who is triggered by minor x adult ships) and there was a ship listed as feitan x kalluto.

in the passage it mentions that they found out that feitan may be into l0l1, which at first thought was a bit strange but once you think about it more, the concept isn't the most absurd for someone like him.

i haven't seen anyone actually talk about feitan possibly being into l0l1c0n, much less being a p3do, probably because of the anti's in the fandom.

so, lets get on with the actual evidence!

in the yorknew city arc, after he was done torturing the owl, he is seen reading a book by an author named trevor brown, and as stated on his hunterpedia page, trevor is a controversial artist who's work involves paraphilia; atypical sexual urges.

according to trevor's wikipedia page, "His work explores paraphilias, such as lolicon, ero guro, BDSM, and other fetish themes. Innocence, violence, misogyny, and Japanese popular culture all collide in Brown's art."

there is also a reddit post relating to this topic as well, and according to said post the topic was popular on tik tok at a certain period in time (not very important but i thought it was kind of interesting since im a tik tok user and content creator kind of)

so, does this make feitan a p3d0phile? i can see why people would think so, and i can also see why people wouldn't.

why i would is simple; trevor brown's art speaks for itself, the usage of fictional little girls in... lets just say, VERY interesting situations would make one assume off rip that feitan may be a p3d0phile, or at least a l0l1con, not to mention, togashi isn't afraid of making a character like this especially since we have hisoka (not saying hisoka is a p3d0, but many do, and im just trying to prove a point and give an example as to why the concept of feitan being a p3d0 isn't something completely out of the ordinary, hxh does get pretty dark after all).

why i wouldn't: i've seen some arguments that feitan may not hold the same views as trevor despite him doing some questionable things, similar to how people may like a certain character or even person in real life but not agree with everything they say or do, not to mention he doesn't seem to act weird or overly charming with kids like hisoka, he certainly isn't afraid to hurt or torture one (gon) but theres no actual implications outside of him reading this book by a controversial artist that he is sexually attracted to them.

but in my personal opinion, unless specified by togashi himself, or given any more details about how he feels about such things i wouldn't go as far as to call feitan a p3d0 just because he's seen reading a book by someone known to create l0l1 art, hell, he might be reading a book that doesn't include anything relating to p3d0philia, since the cover art isn't explicitly shown.

#feitan #feitan portor #hxh theories #hxh analysis #hxh #hunter x hunter #tw pedophila mention

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hopefullyitsextensivebule · 9 months

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An educational TedTalk with your truly, if you hope to engage. I don’t involve myself in shit but here I go.

🌸🌸🌸

Homophobia is still very visible in this fandom

For those who have encountered it or went looking for it, an account by the name of joshandhispartner has been posting pictures of Josh and his alleged partner (we still don’t know and we SHOULDN’T know).

Not only is this homophobic, but this is even more so disrespectful and dangerous.

When a heterosexual person or hetero-presenting (if that’s even a term) is in a relationship, nine times out of ten, it’s usually honored. No one really questions it.

But the moment a queer person, who has been viewed as ‘straight’, comes out about their relationship, it is scrutinized to the very T, and invaded within hours of them coming out. This also strips the person of their identity and invalidates their sexuality as if you’re either gay/lesbian or straight.

Now let me speak on the danger aspect.

The LGBT has been under attack as of recently, people being unalived for who they love. And now that this person is putting who they believe is Josh’s partner, not only is an invasion of privacy, but there is such a huge risk in him getting unalived.

We know that Jake and Jita are in a relationship. We know that Hannah and Sam are in a relationship and I don’t know maybe Daniel is in a relationship too (but I know some of ya’ll won’t care because it’s not centered around the last name Kiszka, right). The level of privacy they’re given is not the same given to Josh and their significant other. Why are we more focused on Josh and his relationship if we already had suspicions or supposed suspicions that he might be queer.

And Let’s talk about the word queer, because it needs to be said. The word queer is in umbrella term to cover all bases of someone sexuality whether they are lesbian gay, bisexual, pansexual, and any other sexual terms that I may or may not be aware of. It’s no different from using the word Asian to cover all bases of specific Asian cultures like Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesia etc.

Josh literally just said that he was in a same sex relationship.

This is exactly what Joshua was trying to explain to all of us when he made his post.

It wasn’t just about him, but about the value of life being minimized because legislators are trying to eradicate queer people, and how we need to fight for what we know is right.

So in other words:

Don’t put queer people in danger of losing their lives all for a bunch of likes and reblogs!!

Thank you for my Ted Talk

🌸🌸🌸

#🌸🌸🌸#greta van fleet #gvf #josh kiszka #josh gvf #jake kiszka #jake gvf #danny wagner #danny gvf #sam gvf #Sam kiszka

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absolutebl · 9 months

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Hello!

I was wondering if you’ve seen Good Omens (2 seasons out on Amazon Prime) and if you would consider it BL? It has some similar aspects while other aspects are considerably different. Thoughts?

I started watching Season 1 but like Our Flag Means Death it's not really my thing. I don't watch much TV in English anymore unless I have to for work.

I do not consider it in any way BL. It has none of the tropes, origins, source material, country, archetypes, settings, characters, or yaoi heritage. There's nothing BL about it.

It's kinda gay, I guess?

ALL BL has a queer romantic arc, but not all content with a queer romantic arc is BL.

Also, Good O doesn't NEED to be associated with BL. It's not in it's marketing or DNA. It's not relevant to its fanbase or demographics. Why would they want to slap a BL moniker on it? Why would you? Why would anyone?

I mean there is crossover watchers (between BL and us) but that's about it. But that's because it's Gaimen (not because it's at all BL) and for some reason Gaimen is a big deal with lots of fans. (Don't @ me I can't STAND his stuff. It's like Stephen King. I'm never gonna get it. You do you massive fandoms, don't involve me, I don't like your content. I'm side eyeing Star Wars, Twilight, and Harry Potter too. Look I'm either too old or too young and that shit just sailed by me and I toddled along in a weird kid fog of trying to find queer shit as a total geek - which, as a few of you reading this know, took us olds to some very odd places in the days before the internet... bootlegged Ranma ½ anyone? Just me?)

See my feels on Heartstopper for more on this kind of discussion.

Also, I do think I'm coming down pretty firmly on the side of...

BL has to be Asian.

Something about the cultural and linguistic backbone means BL just doesn't seem to work if it comes from somewhere else.

I'm thinking also about the great 2020 Dialogue around Date Me, Bryson Keller - which is an English Language derivative(?) work of my favorite BL of all time, Seven Days.

And I really don't want to get into that kind of debate again.

All of which is to say:

Good Omens is not BL.

IMHO of course. But...

I'm right.

So there.

*** Added note from the comments chatting with @heretherebedork

The point of genre (or sub genre) is to manage our expectations. It's like the label on a TV dinner. We gotta know if we're getting Spaghetti or Pad Thai. That packaged meal could very well be a terrible execution of either, and they ARE both noodles, but I want my expectations met. And if I opened a container labeled Pad Thai and got spaghetti I'd be pretty darn pissed.

If someone sold me Good Omens by saying it was a BL? And I watched it thinking it was? I'd be mad at both them and it.

#insert cloud of grumpy curmudgeon trash fire smoke over all of this #asked and answered #i haven't eaten yet today and I'm hungry #so there #not tagging this because i really don't debates starting up all over again #I do think author intent matters and plays a role in these things #but also fandoms and what they decide is the ultimate end point of art #so #who knows?#my little fandom heart says NO tho

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bluedalahorse · 9 months

Text

So here’s the thing: I’m not sure if Lisa Ambjörn and the YR Powers That Be intended for us as viewers to understand and interrogate August from a safe position of moral certainty about his ultimate fate.

Of course, authorial intent only matters so much, and the author can’t tell you how to engage with their story. This we know from many years of being in fandom and doing whatever we please with canon.

That said, when analyzing the show, I can’t ignore the choices that Lisa et al made when constructing the Young Royals world, and how that plays out in everything from the craft elements involved in writing the scripts to the camera angles to the set design. The YR creative team has done everything they can to present a universe with a complex moral framework, where characters are nuanced and influenced by the systems they live in, where some characters may do more harm than others but everyone is capable of both good deeds and bad ones. Young Royals is constructed very differently than something like Disney’s Snow White or Sleeping Beauty, and deliberately so. It is meant to make us ask larger questions about justice and morality.

I think August is meant to be uncomfortable for us, in a way where we can’t just easily divide into binary teams of “Lock August in a dungeon for a thousand years and never mention him again” and “Malte is pretty so I guess August isn’t that bad and should get away with everything.” (Does the latter team exist? I have heard of such things existing in an uncharted-by-me corner of the internet, but I have never encountered them with my own eyes.)

I think August is meant to make us ask complicated questions. Questions like:

If someone has harmed other people, do they still deserve to heal from their own trauma once separated from those they harmed? If so, who is responsible for that healing? Is it the state? Someone else?

To what extent does the age of the perpetrator of a crime impact the legal process around that crime? (Sweden and my own country have different answers to that question. It’s likely that neither answer is perfect.)

What makes meaningful consequences for someone who has committed harm? Who gets to decide what those consequences are?

How do we reconcile the positives a person has brought to our life with the negative things a person has done? How do we sit in that place of emotional dissonance? A question for Sara, and for anyone else with a loved one who has done harmful or abusive things.

To what extent is it worth interrogating the widespread culture of voyeurism that enabled the spread of the video after August released it? (This is not to draw a false moral equivalence between releasing the video and watching the video, because those things aren’t morally equivalent. But I do think the show is asking is to think about this culture of voyeurism and the ways in which we are complicit. Think about the internet comments we see flashing on the screen after the video is released, and the fact that we get the curtains closing so decisively in 2.5. August is an engaging character in part because he plays upon our own voyeurism as viewers—in season 1 he’s constantly leading Wille into new secret layers of the Hillerska world, and we follow Wille into that, wanting to know more.)

Do we trust a legal system that would take down August, knowing those in that legal system could use the same tools to prosecute Simon and Wilhelm?

To what extent can a person’s actions also be an indictment of the system? Even if August faces consequences for his actions, can we really rest easy knowing the systems that created his worst traits are continuing to operate as usual?

And the thing about asking these questions is that I think they are more likely to yield additional questions than grant us simple answers. That can be a valuable thing, and fiction that encourages us to ask these questions is worth engaging with. I also think that you can condemn August’s actions and advocate for him facing consequences while still asking yourself these questions and not always coming to a place where everything feels resolved. August is written that way on purpose. He is meant to make us feel conflicting emotions.

(And if you don’t feel conflict and have a set opinion of him, that’s good and valid too. See what I said before about the author’s intentions only going so far. We all engage with characters in the way that’s right for us.)

I also want to make it clear that engaging in these questions around a work of fiction and a fictional character does not mean that we are condoning revenge porn and blackmail in real life and letting perpetrators of such get away with it. In real life, these things should be condemned and prosecuted. And in real life, sometimes the people who do these things are people close to us or in our general circle. Sometimes people end up thinking through these questions anyway as a result of just being a human on this earth.

Anyway, I’m hitting a crucial part of August’s arc right now in the fic I’m writing, and I find myself bumping up against these questions constantly. It’s an emotionally meaningful part of the process for me, being able to sit in that and write about it and dramatize it. And I want to offer discussion space for those in fandom who want to have that conversation—I feel like I’m always creating space for people to have that conversation in smaller group settings, but it can be harder to have a conversation like that on my public dash, because of the way discussion plays out on tumblr.

I also reserve the right to change my mind after season 3 drops. Developments could happen there that make me feel differently, but for now I just wanted to state my piece.

As much as we long for the sword of justice to cut cleanly, it almost never does. Sometimes it’s good to have stories that wrestle with that. I’m really glad that YR does.

#young royals #august young royals #august horn of årnäs #my meta

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greentrickster · 10 months

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Canceling Internal Cringe Culture to Start Writing

Okay, I just got asked on AO3 about how to start writing in the face of cringe culture, especially the internalized sort, and I have a feeling this might be applicable to more than one person. So I’m gonna share what I told them with all of you as well! Here it goes:

Hmmm, this one's actually a little hard? Just because I've been writing for over twenty years now, and when I started, cringe culture just... high-key didn't exist. Neither did AO3. Tumblr was Right Out.

All that said... hmm... well first? Instead of using any sort of app or program, get a notebook - whatever floats your boat (I like to use ones with nice pictures on the front, but my sister uses those little pocket-sized ones) - and write in that instead. Even if you're not used to writing like that, give it a try anyway, because writing in a book makes it private, makes it personal, makes it just for you. And if it's just for you, then who cares if it's cringe? It's for you, no one else, and it's makes you happy, which is much more important! I like to use pens with green ink in my writing books. It sparks joy and adds an extra layer of good to the process. It may be slower, but it’s also an activity and movement that’s completely disconnected from all the nonsense on the internet, which can hopefully make it easier to ignore all that.

(If the page looks too big and blank and intimidating, I suggest adding stickers or a silly sketch or something. You can write around them, it’s fine.)

Just as important? Love what you're writing. This isn't 'content' or a product, this is a story or a poem or a memory. This is something you're writing down because you want to remember it. So love it. Indulge yourself, then indulge yourself more. Put everything you want to see into this, because you're also sitting in the audience, a very eager audience member and- hey, what do you know? The audience-member-who-is-you also just happens to be an up-and-coming new producer, everything they touch has been a hit so far, and they're taking an interest in your work. They think there could be something special there, that you, yes you, could be the next big thing. So be super sure to cater directly to this audience-member-who-is-also-you, it could lead places in the future.

Another thing that I find surprisingly helpful? The concept that there are no original ideas left in the world. A lot of creatives find this one super demoralizing or depressing, but I find it encouraging. Because it means, if I've had an idea, then someone else has had it, too. And that someone else probably wants to see it, even if they've made their own version of the idea. Heck, there could be a lot of someones! And they're cheering for you, so go for it!

And finally, the hardest part... you have to make a choice. Which do you care about more: listening to the part that cringes or writing? You can't care about both equally. You just can't. Writing is a lot of fun, but, like any creative form, it's also a lot of work. I didn't sit down and start writing at my current skill level, this is the result of two decades of practice, polishing, and honing my abilities. Looking back, the amount of work I put into all this is kind of staggering. But I didn't do it because 'I have to' or 'it's necessary.' I did it because I love writing, because I knew I could get better and I wanted to. And yeah, sometimes that involved doing stuff that was scary. There will always be aspects of it that are scary. I still get scared when I introduce certain new aspects to this fic, or enter new fandoms, or try something different. Writing can be hard and scary, that's just part of it. But the idea of not writing... that's so much worse.

You're starting in a really rough time for beginner creatives. Cringe culture, purity culture, cancel culture... all disgusting trends that need to end yesterday, if not sooner. It can be hard and scary to try because of all that. So step away from all that, take a chance somewhere private and safe that's just for you, and be brave. Choose to please yourself before anyone else. Love your stories, your characters, and the part of you that loves them, and take that first step. The best time to start a new project was probably yesterday, but the second best time to start one is always now. ;)

#Writing tips #writing advice #life advice #writing stuff

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selfproclaimedunicorn · 4 months

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If my OC was Canon what God Awful Fandom Hot Takes would their be for them?

Ohhh what do you think they would perceive Aldreda/Alicent?

Not the ask I expected, & I'll be honest I've thought about this more with the Roycegaryens, so it took a minute but I think I've got a good thought process going here. I'm gonna tackle it first with Aldreda herself, because I think that's a lot of important context, & then I'll talk about Aldricent. [Also, content warnings for below the cut: mentions of sexual abuse, discussions of violence, mentions of emotona abuse, general unhinged fandom bs]

Aldreda would be fucking divisive. There's no way around it, I know she would be. Because she's only Gender Weird & not a man, she'd get viewed more negatively than someone like Daemon or Aemond, who are also divisive in their own ways but get more positive attention. She has all the makings of getting seen like a girlboss (she fights & raids, all her hobbies are masculine, she's “sexually liberated”), but she has way too much grit to get boiled down to that unless you want to be really fucking delusional (& trust, I know a lot of fans of HOTD are/can be because of how young a lot of them skew). She's mean & petty, early on in her arc she pretty obviously objectifies other women (regardless of how nice & respectful by comparison she is), she revels in violence if she's the cause of it, & she really quickly turncloaks in The Dance because wrong place/wrong time & getting captured & offered the position of Aegon’s Master of Ships in exchange for her & her remaining men's lives (nevermind she personally was determined to be neutral/wasn't really engaging with the war before getting conscripted by Team Green). Because she's not easily sanitizable & on the less popular side of the war, she wouldn't be getting any favors from a lot of fandom. And that's not even touching on how, like, way hard-core Team Green stans would feel about her, I cannot even fathom if it would be positive or negative (if anyone has thoughts there lmk, I'm curious).

So, just in general Aldreda would be getting hot takes about how she's not really one of the Ironborn & making up all kind of shit about honor & doing a disservice to her whole House & culture (like Sansa got/gets about Not Really Being Northern), & about how she should have either let herself get killed or have somehow murdered her way out of being surrounded by trained soldiers who'd disarmed her & were literally only leaving her unharmed/unacosted because they watched her rip a man's ear off with her teeth. Really vindictive Aldreda antis would come out with hot takes about her deserving all the emotional neglect & emotional incest & sexual abuse from her backstory & how it should have been worse, or that she should have “shut up & married her cousin instead of getting involved in the war & sticking her nose where it doesn't belong/betraying Rhaenyra [whom she has never fucking met].” There'd probably be a pretty vocal minority that ships her with her abuser/cousin just because he's “hot & possessive,” & that is a very rancid hot take. People would victim blame her & also claim she was the direct reason her murdered/not dead by happenstance brothers got murdered.

Aldricent, I don't think, would be super popular outside of tumblr. Like, Aldricent just is for the tumblrinas because it's “becoming less toxic yuri marriage arc,” & that would speak to the tumblr-flavor-chronically-online girlies (gender neutral).

I approach this next bit as a Rhaenicent Enjoyer, but a lot of hate for Aldricent would come from there, imo. Aldreda would get called “bargain bin Rhaenyra” due to the places their stories kinda overlap, & depending on which bias you approached the ship from would determine your hot take from there. It'd either be “Alicent is replacing Rhaenyra with Aldreda who's a lesser model, & she'd probably leave her in a heartbeat if she came to her senses & started supporting her girlboss one true love” or “Aldreda is sexually manipulating Alicent & is literally only one step above Larys or Viserys due to her issues/trauma surrounding female sexuality that she's obviously never going to grow from/improve upon. Criston should kill her.” Before the growth arc, there'd probably be hot takes/jokes about Alicent being a pillow princess & finally getting to nut, & some of them would probably come from a good place, but it's still a Bad Hot Take to me because Alicent's lack of active participation the first time they fuck is an Aldreda choice.

There'd probably also be hot takes about which one of them is fixing the other with their magic, problem solving pussy or w/e, because that's how relationships work 🙄 (whoever you think is fixing the other is determined by who you like more &/or whoever you think is worse, I suppose. Pick your poison/bad take).

#asks #oc: aldreda farwynd

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