#because there is a line between Mainstream Fan and Fandom Fan

[quarra]

Today i met a person who described themselves as a Hard Core Hockey Fan and, fam, it took everything i had to not ask them if they read hockey rpf.

#because there is a line between Mainstream Fan and Fandom Fan #its not nearly as big as line as Mainstreamers want to think #but it does exist #all i can think about is that recent tiktok #with the person who had questions for their dad about why he yells homoerotic things at the lakers #i did not ask the person i saw today if they too yell homoerotic things at the blackhawks or the caps #but you know i wanted to #the struggle is real

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

I love to see my biases get the BB 1s, but when one starts making that their goal, hmm that kind of disconnects me from them as an artist.

I won't say more. I just wish artists I stan placed more focus on the art. Let charts happen naturally.

You're blog isn't like the blind fandom, so I am saying this here.

It's not hard to see through things. Chapter 2 has been interesting so far. I am not making any opinions based of things that are happening, but if it becomes a pattern with the artist, well... that's a problem.

Anon, we both know who were're talking about, lol. I'm gonna use the names, for the sake of making it easier for me to write a response.

A few weeks ago, I was watching this documentary about Wham. Some light entertainment for me initially, but it did offer me the chance for a fresh perspective. I don't exactly remember the details, but they've reached a point in which George Michael wanted to have 4 songs to reach number 1 on some chart, the fourth being Last Christmas. He was a bit obsessed with this and he also wanted to be a bigger artist. In later archival interviews, Michael actually mentions it was his ego as an artist because he knew he could. And he did, he outgrew the boyish band and the situation was almost ideal because Andrew, his bandmate, also knew that. It also meant getting away from their carefully constructed image, the object of desire for teenagers and women everywhere. For George, it was also about stepping away from performing a specific type of heteronormativity that can be found in boy bands. It never crossed my mind while watching it that his ego is too big, or why is he so obsessed with the charts. Maybe because it was all in the past and I've seen what the future would hold for him. Or that when I heard him talk about what he wants to achieve and his inner struggle, there was sincerity there and also that drive that only someone really young can have when they believe they can do anything.

I've read Jungkook's Weverse interview and listened to what he had to say during the Seven promotions. And while there may be some comparisons to be made to how George Michael came across when talking about his musical career, there were also some differences.

I'm glad to see Jungkook being more confident. I remember some of the things he used to say in the past, about his self worth, a lack of confidence and meaning outside the group. That wasn't healthy. And to hear him now, especially on Suchwita, it's a 180° change. But in his case, there's a very fine line between being confident and becoming cocky. And that's not a good look. It's almost like he's trying to project an image of a new Jungkook but one that is still in the works and not all parts fit perfectly together. He's going through a transformation ever since the hiatus, which I expected. It was about having to adapt to a different pace, life after 10 years of being part of a group. Jungkook was always trying to find his identity and this single is only one step in that journey.

But that doesn't mean that I as a fan and as a person, have to like it. If it doesn't match with what I'm looking for in the artists that I'm interested in, then so be it. I will talk about it, but I'll also not follow that person's musical career anymore. If I don't like the artistic direction and I don't like this overconfident, slighly exaggerated bravado, then that's it.

It's also impossible to not make a comparison to Jimin. Not for some dick measuring contest (it's what pjms and jjks are doing), but because there is room and justification for it. Both are from the same kpop group, both have embarked on a solo career and both chose a more mainstream pop music, as opposed to their older bandmates. And both got that BB 1. And what we can compare is song quality, artist reaction and how the company's response came across into fan spaces.

In terms of the songs, I could write entire essays because at the end of the day, it wouldn't matter. It's all subjective. There is no rule that says a number one song should be about some personal experience, or the singer should have writing credits on it. And I also can't take away my subjectivity. I will chose Like Crazy over a song that not only sounds like a Bieber tune from years ago, but also has lyrics as if they were written by the boys from Larry Clark's Kids.

As to the reaction, Jimin did exactly what I expected him to do. He was humble, grateful and emotional and we saw that when he turned on the livestream. It's what makes him who he is and how he always behaves. As opposed to that, Jungkook wanted to be appear cool. And for what? Especially when later he said how excited he actually was but he refrained from expressing that. Where's the authenticity that he seeks so much through his livestreams? Because he released a song about sex for which he never officially performed live the explicit version, that means that the attitude should match that? I know the next day he was live and he was really nice. But that entire event is tainted in my mind with this almost expectation and confidence that he'll get that no. 1 and after he got the western validation, they decided to remember there's fans at home too and went to Inkigayo.

Which leads me to the last point that shows the obvious bias and preference that cannot simply be denied when it comes to BH. It's even more obvious because the entire BTS brand was that there are no favorites, which is not the same strategy as with other companies and groups. And now, all of a sudden, there is. It's great that BH celebrates an artist's success and they can immediately put on a show. But it doesn't justify how the first one to have the achievement was ignored. I have to admit, I was happy when Jimin got his no. 1 because I thought it only meant more promotions, more Jimin, more of everything. Just to be left utterly confused.

I've put that all in the past and I really try not to get too emotionally involved because as an individual, it has no bearing on my personal life and it doesn't have that many negative effects on my fan engagement.

I side eye Jungkook for how he presents himself in official promotions, but then he goes live and all of a sudden, it's the Jungkook that I'm used to. The guy who is a dork and funny and grateful to his fans. The one who cries hearing fan songs and who still beats himself up for hours because he messed up a song. I do criticize some of his actions and statements, but I'm not slandering him. The guy seems like a genuinely nice person and I still like him. He's still one of my biases for many reasons. But me having this reaction to content catered specifically for fans to create a more intimate connection is something BH was always good at. We only have to look at all the BTS footage out there. They've perfected the way in which personality comes first a lot of the times. It's what draws fans in (aside from music) and what keeps them interested. I'm part of that.

I'm convinced that it's most likely that a Jungkook fan or army or whoever disagrees with me, will read all this and believe I hate Jungkook. Which would be a shame because all I'm trying to do is explain how complex this situation is. It's never as black and white as solo stans would like everyone to believe and it's not a debate that can be generalized and tossed aside as solo talk by the ot7 chorus. I'm sure there are a lot of reasonable people in this fandom still who are able to have more than one thought in their head and see that only through a naunced discussion we can look at facts, see what's an exaggeration and what's false. To be able to distinguish between facts and personal opinion and also to admit that. That's not possible if we're not looking at these people as complex beings, instead of victims and villains.

#m thoughts #jimin #jungkook #bts solo careers

[persephoneflouwers]

First off i just want to say im not trying to play blame game, I just want to talk about a few things that is not really mainstream in larry fandom, I remember your thoughts about babygate and how it might be related to Harry’s level of visibility, what im thinking about situation surrounding Louis, his solo career, babygate and Harry is not that unsimilar to that line of thinking.

I think that Harry’s solo career is an extension of 1D project, he was the one that was chosen by big executives to appeal to the group of fans, which was huge in numbers so it would be waste for sony not to tap into that potential, the band managed to garner throughout the years. Sony created a new brand for those fans in a way that they wouldn’t be embarrassed to carry that brand into their new adult life which should be free from their teenage obsession so they heavily leaned into harry being inspired by rock legends at first (with a sprinkle of sex god harry) but it felt flat because the connection between harry and those legends didn’t go beyond critics calling harry fake (lol), and then they realized they needed to put in more work to this rock persona so they brought in the rockstar gf and amped up rumors about his sexuality bc the mystery around his ‘not so secret’ love life was a hook for many of those fans, i also wanna mention that imho harry is not contradicting himself and what his life is supposed to sell just to pat larries on the back in interviews, him saying i want privacy around my love life but we knowing every detail about all his relationships is playing right into that persona of rockstar that is caught in his love or him saying that these things wouldn’t happen for people like him is selling this fantasy of underdog coming from nothing and being everything to thousands of fans, people relate to that but the money they are spending on Harry is unparalleled and beyond that the power they have with media is nothing similar to any underdog quality having small artist could have. By the way im not saying that harry is undeserving of his highly publicized (and sometimes made of) achievements, im saying the work and money that go into it already guarantees this kind of ‘success’

Anyway i think this all kind of ties in how Louis has been struggling with industry-wide blackout all his solo career. Im just guessing but my life experience tells me that Sony wouldn’t let anything or anyone get in the way of millions of dollars they are getting through harry the brand and them, we all know that Louis is the biggest thread to that brand they have been supporting and creating, first they burdened him (and ancient/old/new larries or larrie narrative with babygate) and then they literally made it so that Louis could never the shadows (by the way the mystique around larry proved to big executives that people are intrigued by big stars having secrets or compassionate side that is willing to fight for their love and partners, so they were aware of the void harry’s solo career would have once louis was removed from the situation and they tried to create new larry in their own terms with xander and brad which is so laughable at best because you cant fake the genuine fight or love or yearning, not even proximity would warrant that as we can see with brad and breads lol)

So what is frustrating (to me) about this whole tattoo convo that some people are so hell-bent on minimizing what it really is -a dumb decision- because babygate is still going on as it involves a kid, it is morally fucked up situation on another level (while i agree with that i also question where was that energy when harry was letting olivia bring her kids to his show and his family was getting actively involved with those kids, he was publicly and very visibly inserted into their family situation as well.) Im just dumbfounded that some people bending backwards to give Harry a free pass for every questionable thing he does are somehow missing the fact that Louis’ involvement with babygate only doubled when Harry as a brand finally got the level of fame he or they wanted, im not saying some sony bighead are putting a weapon to louis’ head to say that you should be more hands-on father but they are playing a game of putting all the responsibilities -be it legally or verbally- on his shoulder.

Im sorry for talking your ear off in your asks but i wanted to get that out there even if only one person reads it and i realized i wrote in absolutes in terms of my writing but it is not because im trying to present my thoughts as the facts it is because i didn’t wanna put i think, i guess, i suppose at the beginning of every sentence i wrote to signal that these are my thoughts based on being involved with this fandom more than ten years and real life experiences.

I’ve been looking for someone to share this sort of opinions with all my life. I could have written this honestly, because it stands more or less where I stand with my takes on everything (especially the frontman push, the threatening larry rumours, the mega comeback of babygate coincidentally when Harry’s career has taken a turn for the sky). And I find very silly, very naive, very biased - three words that can easily describe this fandom - the opinion of those who say ‘babygate has nothing to do with larry’ or ‘babygate has nothing to do with Harry’.

I say the tattoo fiasco has been a wake up call for me, because it is a statement, a very dumb, very greedy, very mean - three words that can easily describe the people in the big picture- from Harry himself. It means he went full in for this stunt and from this there’s no coming back. And people will say it’s convenient and ambitious and they will also say they do what they can with their career, but you know… I don’t like these takes because there is a very fine line (pun intended) between ambition and ambiguity, because everybody and their mothers know that if you decided to get involved with the worst people in Hollywood you are not going to end up be a saint. OW being so close to H. W had always creeped me out, because look at how much organic success and organic achievements has brought to our beloved.

Anyway thank you for this very well articulated opinion. I’m sorry I’m only replying to this now. If you want to talk more, we can in private too :)

#casella di posta numero 32 #tw stunt #tw hot takes #im not saying harry likes it #im saying he was/never could be opposed to it #don’t send hate because I don’t have much time to waste on haters #babygate #forgot to say that this visibly unimpaired situation is why louis will always have my support #from up close or from afar i will always root for his nemesis #long discourse #long post

[mxtxfanatic]

Something that always confused me is why Xicheng is so popular. Both characters barely talk through the story, even when talking about the other in front of other people is unseen, I personally only remember JC talking about the Twin Jades as a whole and unless he refers to him as the leader/heir of the clan LXC refers to him just as a member of Jumeng Jiang.

Also, with their characters, it looks like Jiang Fengmiam x Yu Ziyuan all over again, the one that rather turn the blind eye iin order to prevent conflict x the one that only knows how to get what they want through abuse and violence (not being a surprice when it fails but still blames everyone/anyone else for it), and we all saw how that marriage ended.

Besides, LXC has canonly a close relationship with both NMJ and JGY, which simplified (really simplified) would have the known tropes of "childhood friends to lovers" and the other being the "I can make him worse" Wangxian(post-time skip ver) at the long run. Both are usually loved tropes in any fandom, and yet Xicheng managed to be more popular than those two, and it's like. . .

How? Why?

Some people join fandoms purely to ship. The logic of consistency of such a ship doesn’t matter, as long as they can “reasonably” argue that the ship “could” happen. The fact that Lan Xichen and Jiang Cheng never directly interact in canon despite being in the same room multiple times doesn’t mean shit to people who believe that characters who never direct lying interact while being in the same room together is prime shipping material.

I believe this habit, particularly in English-speaking fandoms, comes from the tendency of Western media to never directly portray queer relationships, so fans must always “read between the lines” or straight up make shit up (which works well when the source material is already full of poorly-made characters) to justify seeing their queer selves in the media. In fact, two characters never canonically interacting can actually be a plus in this instance, as it means they could potentially interact in the future and therefore it’s free game to headcanon how. It doesn’t work in mdzs because 1) all the characters are well-made with distinct personalities and motivations, so you can’t just make up a personality for a character and say it is reasonably canon and 2) the work already has canon queer characters and a canon queer couple.

This is how we get XiCheng: a poorly taped-together ship for people who don’t yet realize that there is a whole queer literature that exists in both China and Western (and African, and South American, and…) nations where if you don’t like the main queer couple, there’s another work that awaits you, and you don’t have to stick around in a fandom of a work you don’t actually like just to force two side characters to kiss like a toddler with unmoving barbie dolls. The fact that the characters are canonically straight, one is homophobic, and neither would like the each other isn’t a deterrent. The fact that them being together in their canonical personalities would result in an abusive relationship mirroring the Jiang clan leaders’ marriage isn’t a deterrent. Shipping fans can persevere off of the dust of shattered dreams, and the only thing that may curb Xicheng shippers is mdzs finally losing mainstream popularity.

#mdzs #mdzs asks #anon #this was more analytical than i thought it would be #also you should never have to feel you have to justify seeing yourself in a worl you actually like #you shouldn’t have to justify your likes by coming up with convoluted things to latch onto #just admit that you like or don’t like a popular thing abd move on #but hold up while i write up how fandoms create One Story and end up booting out fans of the source material

[frogfrizz]

FreenBecky (BeckFreen) and WLW representation after Gap the Series

I’m once again pulled into the world of Gap the Series, but in particular, the rich, warm fandom that has become FreenBecky or on occasion, BeckFreen, in its wake. As we all grapple with Gap the Series finally ending, the fandom seems to have gravitated towards the main stars, namely Rebecca “Becky” Armstrong and Freen Sarocha. This is a thing unto itself and vastly different from the fan service that the Rich Man’s Daughter gave us.

(Source)

(Source)

Here, we find an army of fans translating nearly all content from the actors across Tiktok, Twitter, Instagram, and Weibo from the Thai language to others’:

(Source)

It’s a concerted effort among a web of individual to fan-club-run accounts that drum up enormous coverage, enthusiasm, admiration, funds for billboard ads or fan projects, and even gifts for the pair.

The fan community is self-sustaining in its growth; it is massive in Southeast Asia and South America, hashtags trending in one country or another, and even globally nearly every day. I have the impression that this fandom never sleeps and there is new content to traverse and giggle over every 12-hour cycle. It’s refreshing to see this level of self-sustained, growing adulation for actors of an LGBT show in countries that have traditionally been so conservative in their views and sorely underrepresented in mainstream media.

But it isn’t just the fans. There is consistent, honest regard in Freen and Becky’s interactions with each other, a world of memes and a language of their own that they share between themselves and with the fans (ex. “mami” and “honey” lines, the “phi-nong” interactions *wink-wink*).

(Source)

We have so little of this attention and enthusiasm for and in the LGBT community with mainstream actors, but these two! They demonstrate a commitment to the fans that is unwavering and unprecedented. They are clear and vocal about their acceptance of the LGBT community, which make up so much of their fan base, trumpeting their advocacy at every opportunity simply by showing up together.

(Source)

And oh! Do they have opportunity. They sell record amounts of product as the faces for a variety of brands on live streaming –from make-up, to magazines, to something as innocuous as seaweed chips.

Together or individually, they are constantly being promoted in magazines or on bright, LED billboards in Thailand and even so far as New York’s Times Square:

(Source)

A magazine seems to be released nearly every week, and it has left fans languishing with empty pockets as they faithfully try to collect every single one. Though these magazines aren’t distributed internationally, an informal network of locals purchase them for international fans (or interfans, as they’re called), and ship them out at the buyer’s expense, which interfans are more than willing to cover.

(Source)

Freen and Becky are adored, loved, and fiercely protected. It’s an amazing phenomenon to watch, and even more extraordinary to contemplate that their popularity has brought their relatively new promoters IdolFactory tremendous exposure and a mountain of ad cash. To an extent, because of such exponential growth, the company has been criticized for poor security and an inability to cater for a large fan base during events as it continues to hire woefully small, inadequate venues.

(Source)

(Source)

We deserve to be heard. LGBT content, specifically wlw content, is valuable, loved, adored. If it came to just the bottom line, it is also incredibly profitable. What a message to send to media creators, to brands! I want this to be heard loudly, and for media executives to realize that they are missing out by cancelling so many wlw-centred shows on their streaming services:

(Source)

I wish FreenBecky every success, good health, and happiness.

I want Gap the Series to have even more exposure and recognized as the phenomenon that it is –as the first wlw web series that has breached more than 17M collective views on YouTube. It is the singular show pushing very, very hard against the norm: whether against the persistent cancellations of many wlw shows, catering to a mainly Western audience, or the more Western narrative perpetuated in majority of famous LGBT media today.

#freenbecky #beckfreen #freen sarocha #becky armstrong #monsam #gap the series #gap the series meta #meta #media representation #lgbt #wlw #gl series

[mcytblr-archive]

Early MCYTblr Interviews: warpedfungusonastick

today's interviewee is warpedfungusonastick, who's been in MCYTblr since the summer of 2020 and is a member of dreamlying! below is a transcript of their account of early MCYTblr.

Digging back into what I have of my online history, I started the tumblr blog warpedfungusonastick in late July 2020. Beforehand I had a very small <20 follower dttwt account and saw that the Tumblr community was more my vibe. I was 18 when I got into being a dteam ~fan and my personal views on fandom and stan culture and parasocial relationships were, while still evolving, kind of against a lot of the culture that was growing up around especially the twitter fan community.

(This being said, this was the depths of COVID lockdown and I rarely left my house because I was a senior in high school in the U.S. and living with someone who absolutely could not get sick. So I was terminally online and can definitely say in retrospect deeply invested in the fan culture and even the creators/their online personas while being semi-ironically self aware of this relationship.)

I first saw a dteam video in later 2019. Funny enough (and not funny at all, because I think about these Patterns quite a lot), I had then just left the Cryaotic fandom. If you don't know, he was an old friend of pewdiepie who split with him around the time of or before the multiple pewdiepie scandals and pewdiepie whistling off several alt-right dog whistles and that whole thing. But back to the point, like a month after i became a regular Cryaotic Twitch viewer, a long expose came out about him being abusive to his ex-girlfriend and a groomer of underaged fans. Cryaotic was a faceless streamer whose iconography was this little blob thing and I will not abandon the theory that the origins of Dreamwastaken fanart are the direct successor to humanized fanart of this Cryaotic persona.

Through the whole Cryaotic thing I first found out about kiwifarms/lolcow. What stuck to me, beyond the abhorrent stuff said on those sites, was that they had a pretty clear system of archiving things using sites such as archive.is and were completely unafraid to post "doxxed" materials anonymously.

Commentary on DL interviews: - I fully second what georgesoot said about "No it's not odd, I at least partially strove for infamy. Any attention gratifies the ego after all, not just positive attention. Then there was the absurdity of it all". I tried to be a lot less controversial than some other DL members, but I did run with them and did say some things that weren't within the typical conventions of more mainstream and popular blogs of the time. It was a dopamine hit for people to interact with my blog--like any social media--but I/we did it in a kind of absurdist way at a point with the things we said and the ways we kind of transgressed whatever the normal way of being a fan blog was. - Re: Wormweeb--I was also kind of mentally ill and depressed and really only interacted with both friends online (even if they were friends from school). And as a result I took it all a bit more seriously than it was at the time. This is is less related but I used to get these--visceral? reactions to when Drama would happen because I was personally invested more so because I didn't want my online friend group who (although seen as a united front on the outside sometimes, I think) each had our Faves in the mcyt space and had had petty infighting over the morals of that (both seriously and unseriously, but everything starts to bleed, in my opinion).

More about my previous exposure to Minecraft fandom: I used to follow mianite back in the day and watched a lot of captiansparklez & aureylian. Since I joined the dteam fandom before any blog presence I was there for their very first streams (which got like…5k views 10k?) and the birth of the dsmp as essentially a server for friends (which led to minor discourse later when the line between roleplay and people on a MC server blurred.)

So my points of reference for these types of fandoms were a fandom that was very much for younger children (Mianite) and therefore the creators were treated with more distance and the recently up-in-flames Cryaotic fandom.

Back to doxxing/archiving/odd relation between: I used to joke about the tension between the right to privacy and to be forgotten on the internet and the right for nosy teenagers with too much time on their hands (and literally obsession brainworms) to dig up your past. Two things I think that were interesting about the most (in my opinion) morally dubious element of mcytblr and most people formed their negative opinions of critblr on was the having/knowing "forbidden" information. Most of this we were either told by randos or knew through other people online. A lot of it also ended up on Dream's kiwifarms, but that was a bit of a two-way street.

And the second part of this whole thing is the way that this information would come up among The Discourse. Because knowing some of the things we/I knew, you could call out creator's lies/misrepresentations of their histories/online pasts in ways that people who didn't know couldn't. Which was kind of where some of the in-jokes came from. I also took the habit of archiving things (old accounts, posts, whatever) to archive.is and such at the time because I fell on the 'I don't want this digital history to be erased if only for my own sanity.'

I think this has been rehashed before, but at every corner, the mcyt/dteam fandom was a fandom like any other, complicated by the fact that it was a real person fandom. And especially on tumblr where the Culture was a little different because no creators (few creators) were on Tumblr, people kind of just said and did whatever. I struggle to think of any of this as important in the grand scheme of anything, but there was a massive outpour of content because of the sheer size of the fandom across all platforms. There was 24/7 content, big fomo, and so I think blogs acted like pundits--like a forum on the newist in DSMP or Love or Host or MCC or whatever. My memory of that time has atrophied a lot but I think that DL and co. cropped up as the pundit subclass (however some of us had actual talent like wormweeb and made fanworks) and the fandom overall was sustained by a sprawling form of Conversation on the Latest Content.

Q: right-- and while other blogs caught people up on streams, dream lying was more interested in meta on the creators themselves?

I think that was a part of it. We were all united in this semi-ironic cynicism about fandom culture as a whole while being fans ourselves, and we socially shared this Vision of a number of variably worded critiques about - stan culture - cancel culture - the dangers/pitfalls/intricacies of these.

I think a lot of it was just shits and giggles, but at least I at one point had this idea that I was a tiny little measured response to the excess of fandom culture. I looked down on uncritical fandom and thought that especially because some of these creators cultivated deeply parasocial relationships with their young fans (I was not much older, but all 18 year olds are Like That) it was some sort of imperative to talk about that at least a little bit.

As I read through my old posts--these was a lot of self important a lot of rambling a lot of nonsense. And I don't really think that these fandom culture can be changed by one little microblogger with a couple hundred followers, but I stand by a lot of my initial criticisms of the ecosystem as a whole and mainly the creators themselves and their (heh) lying, their harm, their overall misconduct and above all the systems that created and enable their whacky ass bullshit to this day. .

But the doubled edged sword of (I return to the forbidden info thruline) I never really shared info that was private because I wanted to be somewhat ethical, so it always felt a bit like we/I was going crazy with things I knew to be true but obviously wouldn't share because that's nor super moral.

Another note about The Rumors and DreamLying--in my memory we kind of thought were Something. And I guess we've been nudged along in that perception but I think the most vocal and controversial of us just said wild shit that stuck in people's brains and for the longest time I didn't associate myself with dream lying at all on Warpedfungus because I wanted to be Somewhat Normal, if measuredly critical and just…vibing. But I think at circles back to a lot of this being wank amongst a handful of terminally online people who at the time didn't get out enough and, like, fixated on this Thing because it was community (or a facsimile of) and at the end of the way we're all just archives or archived pages or gone forever.

(Which reminds me that for the longest time I had you and Roxytonic blocked because I thought archiving was corny but I now think it's kind of cool. It's a nostalgia trip, if anything else. I'm now in another fandom that would've really benefited from some hardcore archiving because so much of the old internet (and fan spaces amongst them--ie ff.net, livejournal, even more underground spaces) are completely lost to the sands of time and the deletion of those hosting sites, etc)

Q: i am very interested in your thoughts on, as you mentioned before in reference to cryaotic, the way that creators cultivate and manipulate fanbases, and the effects you think it had on how the mcytblr fandom

Dream, along with "learning/studying the algorithm" and getting insanely lucky, did many specific things to cultivate a fandom of immensely parasocial fans. And regardless of my cynical vision of what his motives were, his actions of wanting to be seen as a 'friend', sharing many personal details, being accessible to fans, DMing young stan accounts, following fan accounts, OKaying a lot of fanworks about him/his personal and the whole…gaybaiting (you know what i"m referring to) thing had the result of a very large very dedicated fanbase.

As far as cryaotic, it's my theory that dream knew the effect on having a very…intimate…relationship with his conventionally not ugly young white man friend, and used that. And as far as the other element that I associate between dteam/cryaotic--these were men who had very boring lives and probably saw themselves as undesirable to women Until they had this massive following and this kind of situation happens time and time again where people get Influence that didn't used to have and do messed up things with it. And I don't know what's to be done, but it's quite bad and completely goes against the "wholesome" image they try to cultivate. If not some of the stuff being actually crimes.

I think the common perception is sometimes that these cases are "bad apples" when there are so many bad apples And not even in the man aint shit way, but unlike more conventional routes to Fame, mcyts have no oversight unless they join and esports org and still then…the org may just side iwth them if it's worth it. And that's not to say that this stuff doesn't happen with conventional celebrity and even on college campuses and in everyday life and whatnot but I think people in such a public eye should be held to standards of conduct that may prevent some of this.

#early mcytblr interviews #Volume 14 #warpedfungusonastick

[meraki-yao]

So, this fandom we're in is kinda on the smaller side, not like Heartstopper, which is a whole different level of drama. But you know, each bit of drama we get here stays kinda contained; it doesn't really blow up and go all mainstream.

What I've noticed is most of the fans are way younger than the actors, and that makes their social media vibe totally different. Like, they expect Taylor and Nick to act the same way, thinking a follow or a like means something major. But, I'm a bit older than Nick, and we're from the same generation. We didn't overshare like they do, but now fans expect him to be all out there. He's not 22 anymore. And the mental health convo around him it's another topic I feel most fans didn't really understand. Yeah, he's open about it, but the way he deals with anxiety or depression now is not the same as everyone else. Feels like they're kinda babying him a bit. Case in point, the GQ event he left early. He did look a bit nervous, but trying to ease their minds with an explanation of why he left early (because "he was anxious") didn't sit right with me. Because it's a possibility, but we don't know how he actually feels. Like, he might've been in a rush, or it was a last-minute attendance thing because he has commitments with Fendi, and he just left. Like, he's not really an open book, even if he's easy to read. So trying to use his own mental health felt wrong in that situation.

Honestly, it's pretty simple—they've changed. They're keeping things more private, maybe it's got something to do with management, but I don't think it's a rebrand. I'm with you on that one.

Both Taylor and Nick blew up, got people interested in them, and that's crazy overwhelming to see from the outside. Like, imagine people digging into your private life, asking you to spill all the tea, and giving explanations when you really don't have to. It's just exhausting. Case in point, some fans got "upset" (and I'm using quotes because it was mostly jokes, but their humor crosses a lot of lines) 'cause Nick has to promote other stuff and, if he doesn't attend events, he's letting them down. Some folks tried to tell them it's not on Nick, it's Amazon they should be mad at. But no, that group just shrugs that off. Just 'cause Nick's humor is dark, silly and sarcastic doesn't mean they can do the same in such an invasive way.

I follow a couple of girls on TW who've been following Nick for ages, and they say he usually takes these long breaks from social media, then drops a bunch of pics or covers. I think he's trying to find some balance.

Overall, most of the drama happens 'cause some people lack common sense, real-life experience, and there's this big age gap between the actors, the author, and the fandom. Just the way it is, I guess.

I'm not entirely sure about the comment on the age range because the mutual I interact with are pretty much well into their adulthood, but at least I belong to the category you mentioned: I'm about ten years younger than Nick lmao

But like overall, I agree with what you said. We're not them. We don't actually know them. And aside from the obvious ones like they will be upset to some degree if they see insults thrown at them, I'm starting to think it's problematic to presume we know what they think. I had this from another ask that said "I think people diminish what the boys are doing, and pit them against each other because neither is doing what they want." And I think that rings true.

Parasocial relationships are weird man.

#rwrb #red white and royal blue #rwrb movie #taylor zakhar perez #nicholas galitzine #anon ask #answered

[jiminsass-istant]

Bye bye old BTS

This video aged so badly, ngl..

Bighit and Hybe totally went the American popstar way in 2023 for 1 member. Good that they finally cracked into the US music industry bubble. Hope it helps the group as a whole with their 2025 comeback.

(For context, the above Boracity video explains how bts has been always snubbed due to their lack of US label push, lack of radio support, lack of playlist, spotify support, minimum remixes, fewer album versions, chart rule changes etc)

The problem is - they decided as a company (and with scooter) that the only way they can make it into the US gp, was to debut a soloist, with all english tracks (because there's no way US would accept more than 1 soloist from the same korean group singing korean songs).

One thing they got right was that the US GP would not embrace a whole Asian pop group. And releasing english songs is not something BTS would keep doing either, because they clearly have different individual ambitions. When it comes to pop, it's always the solo/ individualist culture in the US. It is much easier to sell one personality than sell 7 different ones to the GP. (the General Public, not army, not people who really get INTO bts and get obsessed).

So, I totally understand why they went for mainstream US popstar way for 1 member only and also because it aligned with his own personal ambitions.

But of course they made a couple of big mistakes-

1) Underestimating the popularity and OG fan power that can give chart ranks and achievements even to non-US promoted members and their music. (BTS have done it before with a korean song and jimin did it again).

2) While they paid attention to heavy promo, charts and playlisting for Golden, they failed to create a connection with the music- which seems highly non-personal and lacking in depth and has a non-interesting concept. The promo did do the work of making jk a common name, showcasing his talents and introducing him to the industry. But for a lasting impact, they have to create better stories with the music. Idc, army are acting too defensive when people are disappointed that he didn't write his songs. It's okay to not write, but the very least singers can do is connect to song meanings and relate to personal experiences during the promos. But thanks to idol culture, jk has never been able to talk about his dating experiences. Even in the interviews, it would have been nice to see him talk about how he related to the lyrics, what the concept was etc etc.

SILVER LINING:

The constant mention of 'ARMY' by JK in all of his US promo stuff. I do see Hybe's bigger plans here. JK is a medium to bring in new fans for BTS's comeback. When they look up JK's past content, they can't do it without learning about BTS. And it doesn't matter if you are a JK solo fan, you will still be called ARMY (BTS fandom). Hybe will still call you army, even if you are just waiting for more Jungkook music and Jungkook shows. But guess what, the next time these new fans get to see Jungkook will be at a BTS CONCERT. Not a Jungkook concert.

More thoughts..

JK concert will come immediately after though. Why do you think they increased the no. of tracks in Golden when the original plan was to release a mini album? It's to collect more songs for his name. A few more releases and he'll be ready to have his own concert.

Okay final thoughts-

Hybe is going the right way from a business perspective. But they have mismanaged a lot of things. Underestimated the power of individual members and fumbled their priorities. BTS are not underdogs anymore. They are big, and whether you like it or not, Hybe is going to move like a big corporation now, revenue being top priority, not artists. If they don't strike a balance between keeping OG OT7 fans happy, the significance of ARMY will be lost. Unless...they want that to happen and do not care about the fandom that moves on its own now.

And before you camp in my asks or comments, saying the same things about sabotage, company fraud etc, I am aware of it all. Please do share your opinions that can add to this discussion.

[itspyon]

i think we should go back to the og era of fandom a la star trek fans writing letters to each other. jk but like. this might be a word dump essay but i am so so happy that fandom in general has become a more mainstream thing where people get to express themselves and talk about the things they like with like-minded people and stuff. but... like u said there is a line. and for a while there was a lot of unspoken fandom etiquette that i think we really need to bring back in full force because, again like u said it's baby's first rpf fandom (and even in non rpf fandoms there were still these rules!!! some things u just don't bring up to the creator of a work!!! fuck spn fans) and a lot of these younger people in fandom grew up/had a lot of their formative years during covid and i think not just in fandom spaces that a lot of kids didn't get some of the social skills that comes with being normal to people online or otherwise. the lines between fandom and the piece of media itself are blurring fast, not just over here in mcyt world but i've also seen it in some of the sports rpf fandoms i'm in, like hockey (that whole booktok debacle that ended with a hockey player and his wife getting harassed on instagram) and f1 (social media admins of the teams and brands are using ship names from the fandom on twitter and tiktok and fans are feeding into it and shit) and its kinda terrifying honestly. tldr my favorite post on this damn website is the "if pete wentz is mad i'm writing about him getting blasted in the ass then he can go look at his bank account about it" because i agree that this is ultimately in the grand scheme of things not a huge issue. BUT i feel like there needs to be more clarity among fans about where the boundaries are not about an individual person, but about where fandom ends and the piece of media/person begins. i have more thoughts on the like. nsfw stuff/side of things but this is getting really long lol so if u wanna hear lemme know and i will essay andy more

.

#posting without notes i agree wholeheartedly #giving you a big kiss anon #you're always welcome to essay andy in my asks

[entropic-fantasy]

A frustrated ARMY's perspective on the fandom: Let's do better?

Intro

This post isn't as polished as I would want. My intention here isn't to hate or create division, and I don't aim to call out anyone in particular. As it says in the title: I am frustrated, and honestly merely want to talk with other people in the community about what is going on and hopefully create a space where we can discuss ideas as to what we can do to improve said community.

____

Main Text

I have thought about writing something about the fandom for a little while now, but after this particular weekend, it felt more important than ever. For some context: I’ve only been an ARMY for a little over a year now, joining the fandom right before the release of Proof and just in time for that infamous Bangtan Dinner. That is to say, I have no knowledge of what the fandom was like before that point in time – and especially not before BTS became a household name for the mainstream media overseas.

My perspective is limited, but even with this taken into consideration, I am growing evermore appalled at the behaviours I have to witness online.

Let’s take a look at the events, both in real life and in the fandom, that was just too much to ignore: Yoongi’s latest concert in Seoul.

Famously, Jimin, Taehyung and Jungkook (Vminkook) attended, and as expected, the fandom was excited. Which is completely justified – them coming to support Yoongi was speculated on, and seeing them arrive creates hype of course. The turning point, however, was when shippers got involved.

Now, I don’t have a particular problem with shipping as such – I myself am not completely free from it even though I am now actively trying to dial back/remove myself from it – but a line has been crossed, and this isn’t the first time.

When it’s suddenly more important who arrived in a car with whom, who interacted more, than the main event itself (aka Yoongi’s concert), people should take a step back and evaluate their priorities. Especially, when it turns into the starting point of disgusting name-calling and unfounded attacks against the very people they claim to be fans of. And no: no-one here was the better sub-group. It’s not okay to accuse members of “using” one of their friends for PR purposes, and it’s not okay to accuse members of “forcing” their affection onto one of their friends against their wishes.

To put it shortly: are you out of your mind?

Now, of course members of these sub-groups will rush to defend or deflect – saying “oh, that’s just some of us” or “but they started it” or “that’s just solo stans” – but at this point none of this matters. As long as these sub-groups don’t manage to regulate themselves in their safe-spaces, cultivating an atmosphere of respect and love – like BTS actually stands for – there’s no hope for the fandom in its entirety. The “us vs them” mentality will continue to spread, these sub-groups only growing if not in numbers then in ferocity, and that is actually scary.

What they’re doing is trying to create a “canon” for the relationship between real people whose private life we are and should not be privy to. Most if not all of that canon is conjecture and opinion by fans – yes, there’s what some might call evidence for certain intimacies between members but as long this “subtext” (for the lack of a better word) doesn’t turn into “text”, going on a crusade for or against a ship to the detriment of BTS as a whole is insane.

To add my two cents:

No one in BTS is overstepping boundaries with another member. They have been brothers in all but blood for more than a decade. More importantly, they have practice in addressing problems within their group and great rapport because of that. Why would we as fans assume that there is anything fundamentally changed in their bond just because we don’t see them interact as they did before? Just because it suits a narrative doesn’t make it factually true. Yes, BTS are in another phase of their lives right now – a time of much upheaval and change – but like many friends that go through times of physical separation, they are more than able to still be brothers while doing their thing.

Neither BigHit nor Hybe are conspirators to force members apart. They are not showing real preference to one member-interaction over another – that’s not how contracts or business work. Do they engage in fanservice? Yes. They are a company, they know what creates the biggest buzz online and thus know what to highlight when it comes to the interactions between members. Emphasis on highlight. The members still do all the interacting themselves, and no-one needs to force them into doing anything. The only jobs the editors have, is finding the moments that create the most coherent video and make fans happy. Also, the notion that BTS are that constrained by their company is a bit silly – especially Jungkook has shown us how little he cares for the rules they do have (aka alcohol consumption before/during a live-stream and sleeping on stream, both of which are legitimate rules for both moral and capitalistic reasons).

No other company for that matter has any actual insight into the relationship between members, especially not one like Dispatch who does not have the same moral obligation to BTS that BigHit and Hybe have but DO have a monetary interest in them. Anything they post is not confirmation but a clever move by their social media managers that very well understand who the biggest sub-groups in the kpop fandom are.

Clothes mean nothing. We have seen on multiple occasions that various members have the same items, be that from promotional material they were sent as part of an endorsement or just personal preference. Any parallels in dress are just coincidence at this point. Especially for their official schedule appearances where we once again don’t know the details of whatever endorsements going on. That goes for colour schemes as well as accessories like bags.

To sum it up a little bit:

The only people who are overstepping are ARMY, and yes I am including everyone in this. As long as those of us who consider themselves better for whatever reason don’t step up, this is a fandom problem.

Pitting the members against one another, accusing them of paedophilia, sexual harassment of one another or manipulation of their friends for their own benefit is plain disgusting. Sending threats, spouting hate and vitriol online where it’s not impossible for the members to see? Again: what the fuck.

No one is the hero here – no one wins. All that will happen is ARMY as a whole losing whatever good opinion BTS still has of us. RM might not have meant this “discourse” when he said the fandom changed, but let’s not be naïve and think it isn’t a factor. We are, as fans of a kpop act, incredibly privileged in regards to the content we get to see. But instead of appreciating that privilege and using it for the good of the whole band, the focus gets always yanked towards three people who don’t want that and did not ask for that. The maknae-line is not the main character here, and they don’t want to be.

It breaks my heart a little bit to think that them visiting their best friend’s concert, celebrating his and their success at what is easily the highest point in their careers yet, turned into an excuse for their fandom to tear each other’s throats out. And that is just me, an individual so far removed from the real-life situation my opinion doesn’t have any bearing on it.

Imagine for a moment what Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung would feel if they knew the muddy and disgusting lengths their fans go to in order to “support” a relationship that might not even exist. They deserve better, and we can do better.

#bts #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #agust d #bangtan #namjoon #jimin #jungkook #bts taehyung #bts jhope #bts suga #i wont tag every ship because that would be insane #apobangpo #let's make that mean something again

[pulchrasilva]

What's an anti-anti? Or an anti for that matter

Oh my friend I am so sorry to introduce you to the shitpile that is antishipping discourse

Anti is short for "antishipper", which is someone who believes certain types of ships are immoral and nobody should ship them or engage with media about them. Exactly what types of ships that includes varies (because morality will always be vague at best and you can't meaningfully categorise anything into "always good" and "always bad"), but people usually take issue with incest, ships involving one or more minors, age gaps, etc.

I consider myself a proshipper/"anti-anti" purely because I think this kind of discourse is extremely inane and potentially harmful.

Antis tend to say "problematic" ships "normalise" harmful dynamics in real life, ignoring that exploring these ideas in fiction is a safe way of engaging with darker topics and sometimes people do so to process personal trauma. Personally I've found that reading fanfiction about dark topics made me wayy more emotionally prepared to handle discussion of them in real life.

And, as I said, it's nearly impossible to draw a solid line between what should be allowed and what shouldn't be allowed. Age of consent is an arbitrary number that's chosen because legally you need a strict number if you're going to enforce the law, but a person 1 year older and 1 year younger than the age of consent aren't actually that much different. Plus the law varies from country to country, but antis tend to choose the US age of 18 because the US dominates the internet. Age-gaps between two non-minor characters get even more blurry!! And let's not forget that a ship between two men is way more likely to be flagged as pedophilia than a ship between a man and a woman. Imo if you can't make a concrete rule about it there's no point in making a rule at all.

Plus it's fiction, and not even mainstream fiction, so it's hardly gonna cause any significant shift in real life culture. These ships get criticised to hell and back in fan spaces and people get properly harassed over it, but there are plenty of professional writers portraying these things in well known media and don't get much flack for it at all - because it's way easier to tear down a fan, your equal, than a creator. It seems to me that the problem isn't really "normalising" these behaviours, because if that was the case mainstream media would be a much bigger contributor than fandom

For some reason, toxic/abusive ships are less commonly criticised despite being objectively harmful to the characters involved, and incest is the one people hate the most despite it being (imo) the one least likely to cause actual harm to the characters. Also depictions of rape and sexual abuse are usually considered off limits but you rarely get the same criticism of, say, depictions of murder. The sexual aspect of the topic seems more important than the actual harm.

AND THEN there's the fact that antis generally only argue against the ships that make them personally feel uncomfortable. Different people have different boundaries for what they consider too far, and I lose my shit every time I see antis shipping something I know other antis claim is the devil. And often the whole thing gets coopted by someone who doesn't like people shipping characters A and B because they ship B and C. ("You can't ship these unrelated characters because they're sibling-coded which makes the ship basically incest" is something I've seen a truly bonkers amount of times)

So yeah. That's the whole mess. Like I said I dont really care about whether or not antis follow me? I'm proship purely because I don't think this is a conversation that needs to be had at all. Like who cares But, go wild, romanticise the hell out of the most repulsive things!! It's nobody else's business but yours. But if I see a mutual who followed me first reblogging "any proshippers who follow me should explode and die teehee ^-^" ONE MORE TIME I might actually explode

#take what i say with a pinch of salt because im obviously biased and youre free to come to your own conclusions but. yknow #also i feel wayyyy safer around people who openly ship filth (affectionate) than people who insist everything they ship is Pure and Correct #because 1) ideas of 'purity' are largely based in unexamined bigotry and you never know when that's gonna jump out at you #and 2) i think it's important to consider the dark aspects of ships bc to some extent youre considering dark things that exist in real life #antis dont want to do that they want to hide it all under the carpet and pretend it's not there #I'd much rather discuss fictional teenagers being groomed and isnt that fucked up? and call things 'groomercore' #because how are you supposed to spot groomer tactics if you dont do that? #ask #shipping discourse

[rikeijo]

Hello! I hope I am not bothering but I just wanted to get someone off my chest. I was wondering what the Kubo meant when she said that rinks were similar to what members of the same club wears. It just kinda confused me when she says that considering how romantically the ring exchange scene is (seriously who gives each other rings in front of a church platonically!?)

No need to worry, I like discussing things too deeply😂 so you are not bothering at all! But another fujo rant comes in 3... 2... 1...

So yeah, the those rings are for clubmates interview... Imo, to understand why she said that, or why it was written (because she didn't say that publicly, so we can never know for sure), we need to talk about the difference between how western fandom approaches "representation" and how Jp fandom does.

Japanese fandom and representation

Things are progressing in Jp, too, but even to this day, a lot of people (that doesn't mean all) who call themselves "fujoshi" don't want "representation" and don't want to be allies. They simply consume BL and, let's face it, p0rn, for their own enjoyment. It's in Jp only, but some time ago, somebody posted on twitter their graduation project on this topic - an article and video - if anyone can understand some Jp and is interested in this topic, it's worth giving a watch. The title is "同性愛嫌悪的にBL・GLを愛でる私たち", "We, who homophobically love BL and GL" .

I've mentioned it before, but in case of YoI, there was, eg., a random article from a gay journalist, a figure skating fan, who wrote about how good that dinner scene in ep. 10 was. And it was really, really good - Jp is a country, where a lot of people still think that being gay is bad for society, that gay people are unproductive, so it's okay that they face discrimination. So that scene, where Phichit just congratulates Y&V on their marriage like it's the most natural thing in the world, is incredibly powerful. Yet in fujo spaces, that article was bashed, obviously - "Why did he write something like that? It doesn't have anything to do with those LGPTs. We just like playing with the characters, but they are not gay...".

BL is not LGBT?

Why you ask? Well, if you like fantasies about semes raping ukes etc. then you probably don't want to be told "hey, that's actually discrimination and homophobia, you really should stop that... Semes and ukes don't exist, most people switch...". That's why a lot of fujos insist that BL is something completely separate from LGBT issues. And that leads us to...

Another thing that I also ranted about in the past - that fujos hijack almost all depictions of same-sex attraction between men in mainstream media deeming them "fujoshi fanservice". So YoI is most often discussed as "fujo-pandering anime", and not as "anime with gay representation" the way it is in the western fandom... And it also had a lot of antis, because quite a lot of people dislike fujos. Some of the most popular lines you see in YoI reviews are: "it would be so much better without the weird fujo pandering...", "it was good, but that weird fujo pandering was unnecessary".

Went so far, so why no confirmation?

So finally giving the answer to the question... I believe, that there was very little incentive from the marketing point of view - society is homophobic, industry is homophobic, fandom is homophobic - to actually announce that Y&V are really gay and in love. Most fujos are only interested in Yuuri being uke and Victor being seme (so many fujos wished for IceAdo to fail and I hope that karma will come back to them...). So after the show ended, in my opinion, what is in Jp called koushiki (so people who run the IP and seriously it's not "Mappa"...) really wanted to get rid of the "fujo pandering" reputation (and fujos to a certain extent too, probably, because they've got so rabid that a bunch was even sued for online harassment) and started to backtrack on some things - avoiding rings, avoiding Y&V only arts, even avoiding Y&V only merch, which would sell like crazy. And yeah, Mitsurou and VAs sometimes pushing the narrative that "it's not that serious". They also started promoting Yurio instead. I think, from their perspective, it was the safe choice for the IP... Make it for "everyone", not only for fujos.

Where we are now...

Only it wasn't, in the end... The great koushiki vs. fujos war started (fujos started acting as "rings police", attacking staff members on twitter, doxxing Avex's employees, so on) and long story short, two years later YoI+IceAdo trailer did very bad at cinemas (in the first week out of ~170000 seats, only ~17000 were sold, that's ~90% empty seats - well, a little less maybe, because I'm not sure if special tickets are included in these statistics)... That's my opinion, but I think that was the most likely reason why IceAdo wasn't released in 2019. With such a big Jp distributor, they probably started to fear it will flop. Or the other way - the distributor decided that it would probably flop after seeing these numbers - allegedly, the first rumor that something is wrong was from that distributor's employee.

The very sad reality is that we are in 2023 now, and koushiki pretends YoI doesn't exist... If you think about it, it's really extraordinary... Even without the movie, they could release "VicYuu merch" and it would sell like crazy, but their stance has always been "Well yeah, but we prefer to not earn money, actually 😘 Want to play a game where Victor and Yurio bully Yuuri together, maybe?".

That was long again... I'm sorry, but it's just not possible to give an honest answer in a few sentences.

#yoi fandom and fujo culture #ask

[sanversandfriends]

Fic isn't just an act of repair as Henry Jenkins says, but sometimes a safe place in which to tear everything apart. Here to talk about diving into those darker and grittier character spaces is @nerdsbianhokie, a writer who's been captivating Sanvers and Director Sanvers fans for years.

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started writing fic? Have you written for other fandoms? What are your favorite tropes?

Over two decades ago, I was six years old and reading a new book and had the sudden realization that I wanted to make people feel like that book made me feel. Since then, I've been a writer. The first fic I wrote was before I even knew fanfic was a thing. I was barely thirteen years old and all about CSI and had this vivid idea of a very short scene. I quickly found places where fic was hosted, and began to read and post.

Since then, I've moved through fandoms, sometimes staying for a time, like with Bering and Wells, other times only lingering for a brief moment. I watched Supergirl between season 1 and two, after learning that Maggie Sawyer, one of my favorite comic book characters (one of the first openly lesbian characters in mainstream comics? out before the comic code was done away with? what's not to love) was joining the show. I didn't watch beyond the first few episodes of season 3, but the characters have a hold of me and aren't letting go.

Since my time in the Bering and Wells fandom, angst and aus have been my favorite spaces to play in. Exploring darker spaces in the safety of fiction has always been a draw of writing to me, and the Supergirl characters can fit so well in so many different universes.

What were your inspirations for this particular story? What was it about this/these ships that grabbed you?

This fic started as a tumblr post by magicmumu2 about Alex and Maggie reuniting years later because their kids keep getting in trouble at school. I then made it sad by giving Alex a recently dead wife.

I really fell into the idea that Alex and Maggie did move on after their breakup, but then remeet at a later point in their lives. When thinking on how Alex might move on in a way I find interesting, I landed on my beloved Lucy Lane. My ultimate ship for Supergirl is Director Sanvers, so I've written all combinations of Alex, Maggie, and Lucy over the years, but the idea that Alex was happy with Lucy, but then lost Lucy and found Maggie again while still mourning, really pulled me in

Has the time spent away from your story changed your outlook or approach to any of the storylines or themes? Have you had any new inspirations or breakthroughs/revelations in the meantime? 

The time away hasn't really changed much, as I've been distracted by so many other fics, but having new eyes on it has really helped me figure out some things I was stuck on that kept me from working on it more.

 Any advice for new or aspiring fic writers?

Write. The best thing you can do is get ink on the paper. Writing is an art that needs to be practiced just like any other. As somebody with a degree in creative writing, I think the time I've spent writing and the amount of writing I've done has, cumulatively, done more for me than all the classes I took. 

If you were going to promote this fic with a single line, what would it be? 

A deep look into grief and healing, mourning and love.

If you’ve already posted some of your work, please provide a link. 

This is the original post, with the prompt and my initial addition.

I have also posted two separate fics that aren't part of this one but are in the universe as I worked out how Alex and Lucy got together and their family dynamic.

#Supergirl #Fanfic #Sanvers #DirectorSanvers #Finish the Fic

[sussexbound]

Following slightly off of that last reblog, I think another reason why fandom creativity has declined is the way that fandom creativity and fandom drama has evolved over time, moving away from a culture of 'counterculture' where deviations from the mainstream were expected, celebrated, and embraced, and where most debate and discussion in community, was in good faith, and was about reaching across rather than punching down, to a fandom culture that has, again, been heavily influenced by commodification and. hence, dominant cultural norms.

In the past, transformative works were expected to be exactly that. They were works that explored things that the source material would not, or could not. It was a place to explore themes that fell outside those dominant cultural norms. Fandom communities banded together around a communal feeling of being 'othered' and an understanding that you stuck together as fandom, on the one side, and didn't cross streams with the large corporate entities and corporate-backed creators, creating the source material.

Now, once corporations started to get their grubby little hands all over fandom (I partially blame Twitter for this, because more than any other platform it blurred the lines between those creating the source material and those creating transformative works - the old fandom adage of 'don't cross the streams' was forgotten), new folks coming into fandom started to see fan fiction and fan art as a consumable extension of the source material, rather than something that ran counter to it and that was created to build community. This is when you started to see more insistence on things aligning with source canon, and the idea that there was a right and a wrong way to interpret fan works. This shift then met the rising popularity of online, performative 'activism' in the early 2010's and resulted in a fandom culture where things one didn't like in fandom also started to be considered moral and ethical failings, worthy of censure and even abuse. This shifted things even more away from a transformative fandom counterculture, where the general motto/theme tended to be, "Hey, we're all outcasts here, with weird views on stuff, so live and let live, ship and let ship, celebrate what you love, and ignore what you don't, and if you want to discuss our differences, let's do that across the table 'in-community'!" towards one where anything you personally disagreed with because something that needed to be squashed, publicly shamed, shut down, silenced and sanitized.

So now, not only would people get angry if transformative works didn't align with their own preferences, or expectations of source canon interpretation, they would also turn their anger over this into a moral and ethical argument. Powerless to effect change with large corporations, they would 'punch down' and attack fandom creators of transformative works, for not portraying things, like queerness for instance, in a way that aligned with how they viewed it. And not only would they get angry over this, things quickly devolved to the level of doxxing people irl, over these things. I've known people who almost lost their job due to online outrage over fanfic they had written or art they had created.

This had an extreme smothering effect on creativity in fandom circles. The fandom communities that marginalized folks had been building for decades, with understood rules that helped insulate and protect it's members from outside threat, started to crumble. They were literally being eaten away and eroded from inside the house. This was probably exacerbated by the swiftly increasing online influence of conservative morality and gatekeeping that started to sneak it's way into fandom spaces due to the broad influence of neoliberalism and terf rhetoric on popular fandom platforms. The 2010s saw the rise of puriteen culture, the normalization of mass, in-house censorship and gatekeeping, and other ills that have always historically put a damper on creativity.

furthermore, by allowing the crossing of streams between marginalized, transformative, fandom spaces, and corporate, mainstream cultural entities, a cascade effect of rapid deterioration began. Corporations had successfully divided fandom into content creator and content consumer. They had wooed fandoms into engagement and used the fans' creation of additional content to shore up promotion of their products (we became free promotional tools essentially) to consumer fans. Perhaps due to this, large swaths of fandom started to feel like these corporations owed them something in return, i.e. - to create content that aligned with our individual preferences.

This, of course, was never going to happen, so when the corporations failed to meet this expectation, and online backlash against them had little to no effect, fandom consumers turned on fandom creators inside the house instead. Fandom creators started to be expected to take the place of the corporate powers and create material that perfectly aligned with every consumer fan's individual preference, opinion, and moral standing. This was impossible, of course, and was never the purpose or responsibility of transformative works within fandom spaces.

Fandom started to collapse under the weight of this new corporatized model of content creator and content consumer fan. In the past fandoms had been a community where people created for the fun, joy and social aspects of it. Fandoms did not see themselves perfectly reflected in mainstream media (marginalized groups never will), and so they created community around a sharing of creative energy. Folks would write fic, which they shared for free. Fan artists, in turn, would draw art for those fics, which they would share for free. Fans who would read and enjoy this fic and art, would then, in turn, share and spread it. It was an exchange born of shared passion, joy, and creative play.

Everyone one would collaborate, communicate, trade, share, etc. It was a space free of commodification and all the ills that come with that. Instead of buying and selling content, things like fandom giveaways, trades, exchanges, etc. were common. You never encountered issues of fan-created content being locked behind paywalls. Anyone and everyone could view, speak to, collaborate, cross-create. There was this more communal flow of ideas and creativity that was seen as running counter to the outside, mainstream culture of commodification and status quo morality.

That isn't to say that there wasn't fandom drama back in those days, there was. People still got their knickers in a twist about canon interpretations, characters, ships, they didn't like. They still sometimes didn't like certain tropes or kinds of fic. People had different tolerance for what they wanted to see or not see in nsfw fanart. People could get in pretty heated debates on these topics. But generally the drama that arose played out in a way that didn't cast other fans as morally degenerate, or someone who had to be destroyed at all costs, so that some 'morally superior' reading of canon, or some level of in-community censorship could be upheld.

Anyway, the general collapse of creativity and community within online fandoms is something I have been really grieving the last few years. More and more fandom communities have moved to places like Discord, just so that they can vet who joins the community, and feel free to voice their opinions in a place where they can be safe from other fans dogpiling, bullying or doxxing them for having an opinion and that is really unfortunate.

And while I fully appreciate artists needing to make a living, the corporate acceptance and promotion of fan art, as a genre, while at the same time heavily censoring nsfw content has also led to almost every fan artist out there having a patreon and charging for people to see all tiers of their work, which has led to a decrease in open, free sharing, and the sense of community that comes from that.

Fan fic writers can't charge for their content, of course. But the in-house attacks on fan fic writers over the last few years have become so vicious, that many folks, myself included, have backed away from publicly sharing their fiction due to the fact that we just don't have the time or energy to deal with that, especially when sometimes it escalates to the point of people getting doxxed in real life.

Our culture is sick, that is clear. I mean this isn't just a fandom problem, it extends across online culture as a whole, and outward into real life, as well. But I guess it feels extra sad to me, that it has so negatively effected fandom, too, because fandom used to be a relatively safe space, a community for marginalized folks built around a shared love, passion and joy for stories, transformation and exploration. I feel like my life is richer due to some of the fandom communities I have been a part of, but I have seen a deterioration of that since the mid 20-teens that has, overtime, caused me to just draw away more and more.

It makes me wonder what fandom will look like in the future. Will it self correct and start to build community again? Will it move more and more toward cooperation with corporate source creators, and just become another sad victim of late stage capitalism? Will it find a new path altogether?

I like to think and hope that it will survive. I'm curious to see what form that takes. I hope I and many others have the energy to come back to the table and help rebuild that at some point. Right now I'm just tired, and a little sad, and wondering what will become of us all.

#fandom #also if your fandom experience has been 100% positive and you have experienced none of this #then i'm sincerely happy for you #you are very lucky #but that experience doesn't negate what I'm talking about above #because I've heard people raising these sorts of issue more and more over the last few years #it is an issue in fandom culture by and large #they are issues that are going to have to be tackled in some way and at some point #because I don't think that what we have currently is sustainable

[pyropsychiccollector]

do you have any nagisa ships other than the canon 3? ive seen hayami in the 3dmodel pics sometimes but not in any txt stuff, was wondering if you have anything of her and nagisa. Or just any other probably crackship, for me, i feel like nagisa could be shipped with almost anyone from 3e imo.

also a hc of mine is kayano feel a bit territorial of nagisa around yada anytime she even goes near, those 2 being 1st and 2nd place in bitchsenseis ranking isnt doing any favors, too big of a risk of them being paired to 'refine their skills & high talent', gotta keep him away.

XD.... Yukiko is SLIGHTLY a stretch to be lumped in with the "canon Nagisa ships".... Don't get me wrong, I enjoy dabbling in the potential with Nagisa x Yukiko, but I know that compared to Kaede and Rio, she can be harder to pin down for a concrete ship. That's just me musing out loud here, though. I'm still a die-hard for NagiYuki, NagiKae, and NagiRio. :3 I focus on them 'cause they're my favorites. And in the grand scheme of Nagisa ships, they're still pretty rare for being "mainstream"... Reason being that Karmagisa is very much celebrated in the fandom, and I'm just not a fan.

That aside, Vergilsama92 has certainly produced Rinka sprites for me. Though... only the two. XD I'm open to Nagisa x Rinka - she's got Mukuro Ikusaba's voice actress, so it's hard not to enjoy Hayami. For me, anyway.

(credit to @vergilsama922 for the sprites)

I suppose the only real reason I haven't dabbled in Rinka too much is because I'm not a particularly greedy shipper. For example, Fuyuhiko x Peko is one ship I support in spite of a buddy of mine being a die-hard Makoto shipper... XD I support both Fuyuhiko and Makoto 'cause neither of them is an abuser or anything bad. That's basically my condition for ships; as long as I'm not left with a bad taste in my mouth, I'll either support it or leave those shippers to their corner and just be "okay" with it. Hence, Chiba has my seal of approval 'cause he's not bad.... But much like Makoto, I don't mind dabbling in the Nagisa shipping possibilities. Nagisa's got some sharpshooter skills himself; he's not as specialized as Rinka and Chiba, and that's fine. Nagisa x Rinka would probably be along the lines of Naekusaba (Makoto x Mukuro), so I don't mind looking into them one of these days. :3

I don't particularly ship Nagisa with every girl in E-Class. Again, I'm not greedy. I do have my favorites, and I'm just comfortable with them. (Oh, I get lectured on for being "comfortable", believe me. (人◕ω◕)) But I suppose I can name the girls that I'm open to aside from the ones I usually cover. I like Rinka, Fuwa, and Yada. ... And I'm not opposed to Ritsu-chan, but... she is an AI, so I'll set her aside for the moment. It should be fine to appreciate Ritsu-chan whether you ship her with anyone or not. XD

Fuwa-chan is a goofball.... Nagisa and Kaede usually react to her fourth-wall-breaking antics, and it's just cute. :3 Nagisa likes Sonic Ninja, so I can see Fuwa sharing other series that he might like if she can hit the right buttons~ Moreover, she's usually casual - though she can definitely be dramatic at times. Nothing bad with having a dramatic girl in your life, though. Nagisa doesn't seem to mind, look at him~ (人◕ω◕)

Nagisa x Yada is probably my biggest "crackship" for him.... in the sense that these two hardly interact. Ever. XD But there's no animosity between them, and she IS besties with Kaede... even if Kaede has her reservations about chest sizes. :3 Yada is a physical, bubbly, even romantic girl.... And she brings something unique to the table with her negotiator skills. Can't say the other Nagisa suitors have that going for them~ Also.... Yada is apparently ranked #2 in terms of the best kissers of E-Class, so declares Irina-sensei. And that can be fun to look into later. ........ Kaede will kill me violently, of course, so we'll just keep this on the down-low, hmm? :3

(credit to @shinobisage09 for the cards~ :3)

#Assassination Classroom #Nagisa Shiota #Rinka Hayami #Yuzuki Fuwa #Touka Yada #NagiRinka #NagiFuwa #NagiYada

[thewitchqueenofharrenhal]

So I've been thinking about this lately and I feel like we, the non-targ stanning faction of the fandom lol, need to not give Rha*ly* shippers or R/L fans any more attention than they deserve which is none lol. If you think about it, they really don't make up a big part of the fandom - in terms of fan content and fic it's actually really abysmal and large part of that is because there is literally no substantive r/l content from the books. They have defenders and very, very casual shippers sure, but no one outside of the select ten hardcore shippers is going out of their way to make fan content. They have no book content so fanon and vibes is the only thing they've been running off of for a decade at this point. Freaking Tyrion's 'love' life has more exploration in the books than whatever happened between R/L. I say this because a lot of the R/L stanning is basically just reactionary. They remember R/L exists whenever they see people being critical of that pairing which triggers them to act like overly emotional bozos and defend that ship within an inch of their life. It's so boring and so middle school. Not seeking out or engaging with R/L content and bringing more attention to their braindead 'metas' or posts is usually the best course of action in my personal opinion.

Your personal opinion is absolutely right. Contrary to what you may have been informed, LOL. I don’t interact with Rhaelya shippers nor do I seek out their content, I actually don’t even use their tags.

The only exception to what I mentioned above is when they (which they’ve done religiously) attack and harass Elia fans or general fans for that matter.

Also R/L shippers are the generally mainstream ship and far outnumber Elia fans so it does annoy me a bit when I see Elia fans being attacked for “not falling in line”

However beyond that I actually don’t hate Rhaegar’s character nor Lyanna’s for that matter and people are entitled to ship as they’d like.

#Anon