#but my theories aren't new they have been going around in the fandom for some time

[writing-intheundercroft]

when you know, you know

Read on AO3

Word Count: 7,169

Rating: T (just some smooches)

Summary: You and Garreth Weasley aren't on speaking terms, not since you were caught stealing billywig stings for him and subsequently banned from Honeydukes.

But the dawn of your sixth year brings a potion brewing contest, and you might finally have a chance to put him in his place.

A/N: Happy first birthday, Hogwarts Legacy! The HL discord server I'm in came up with the theme of One Year Later, and this is my submission. Thankful for all the lovely people I've met through this fandom, who encourage me to write every day <3

“Welcome to your sixth year of potions,” Professor Sharp says gruffly, leaning against his desk. “I hope you’re all prepared to start exploring the theories of potion composition, and have read the first five chapters of your textbook over the summer holidays as instructed.”

Sebastian groans next to you, flipping open his book.  You snort, craning your neck around the room to assess your classmates. 

Everett, Sacharissa, Andrew, Nastai, Poppy, and Grace–all of them still have the post-summer slump, faces glum as they wished to be free of the potions dungeon. At the station next to you, Leander looks ready to fall asleep.  He was practically using his fingers to keep his eyeballs open during the double potions period.

Next to Leander, you can’t help noticing Garreth Weasley.  It's unusual to see him so engaged; Garreth is normally the class clown, always trying to figure out a way to disrupt the lesson.  Instead, he’s sitting stick straight, scribbling every word Sharp had to say.  His notes were neatly organized, ingredients for the day’s brew already portioned out and chopped.

“What’s gotten into Weasley?” you whisper to Sebastian.

Sebastian scoffs. “Oh, he’s probably trying to get on Sharp’s good side, with the potion making contest coming up.”

“What contest?” You ask, albeit a bit too loud.

“I was just getting to that point,” Sharp says your name; the entire class had turned their attention to the two of you. Even Garreth was staring, despite the iciness between the two of you.  It’s been months since you last spoke, exchanging choice words in a shouting match after he’d gotten you banned from Honeydukes.  After all, he was the one who’d assured you Mr. Flume wouldn’t be home, and that it wouldn’t be too difficult to steal the billywig stings.

Nevermind that, you think, turning your attention back to Sharp’s lecture.

“Every year, I challenge the sixth year class to create a new potion,” Sharp drawls. “Many of the students who’ve won in the past have gone on to become some of the Hogwarts’s most successful potioneers.  The winner of the contest will receive after hours access to the potions classroom, unlimited usage of the ingredient cupboard, and their name included on the plaque in the trophy room.” he explains.

Sharp continues droning on about the rules; you feel Sebastian’s breath tickle your ear “Garreth’s been assuming he’ll win since we were second years,” he whispers. “I’d love to see you put him in his place.”

You swat at the freckled brunette, who lets out another audible chuckle.  Scanning the room again, your eyes briefly make contact with Garreth’s.  He looks at you with something fierce in his eyes; it’s almost threatening, you think.  He also looks a tad bit deflated, but considering the two of you aren’t friends anymore, you don’t really care to know why.

“Sure, I’ll enter.” You say loudly enough for Garreth to hear. “I’m sure it’ll be a clean sweep.”

Garreth’s eyes turn to slits before he refocuses on his notes.  His face is turning red as he scribbles on the parchment, and you can’t help feeling a bit satisfied at his reaction.  Suits him right, you think, for being such a coward. You’re going to kick his ass and get back for the ten detentions he bought you last year.

Sharp’s NEWT level class is just as painful as you’d imagined it would be.  Sacharissa nearly slices her own finger off trying to cut open a sopophorous bean, and Everett faints from the blood.  Andrew sends his own bean flying across the room, thwacking Natty in the forehead; it incites a verbal altercation that has the two nearly come to blows before Sharp can separate them.  You and Sebastian can’t help but laugh watching them, falling dreadfully behind in your own quest to brew a draught of living death.

“Look at those prats,” Sebastian nudges you. 

You look over at the two redheads adjacent to you–they’re working diligently, ignoring the dramatics of the classroom.  Garreth is clearly guiding the process, Leander eagerly observing him as he chops and stirs. They’re the only two students in the classroom even remotely close to brewing the potion correctly, and it’s a little surprising to you that Garreth would be so tame. 

He tilts his head, copper colored hair falling in front of his eyes. His hair is longer, shaggier than last year. You also can’t ignore how much larger his forearms are, probably from detentions spent lifting the cauldrons to and from the storage room. They’re thick and freckled, a dusting of hair—

Garreth turns his head, glaring at you. You’ve been blatantly staring at him for a whole minute now.

“Oi, get it together, woman.” Sebastian chides, snapping his fingers in front of your eyes. “I don’t think your cauldron is supposed to be purple—“

“Dammit!” You curse, turning back to your own brew. .  Sebastian laughs as you thwack him on the shoulder, stirring your potion.  It’s no good–the brew has turned the wrong color, and now resembles a fudgy texture.

“So much for winning the competition,” Sebastian teases you.  Your face heats up with embarrassment as Sharp walks over to your cauldron, assessing your work. 

“Better luck next time, I suppose.” Sharp says gruffly, raising his eyebrows at the thick goop. 

As expected, Garreth and Leander win the day’s best brew.  It takes twice as long as usual for you to scrub your cauldron, cheeks red from both embarrassment and the extra elbow grease you have to put in.  Sebastian, despite his promises to stay as long as he can, has already abandoned you to get to lunch ahead of the rush.  At this rate, you’ll miss lunch entirely.

“You should really throw some ashwinder eggshells in there.”

Looking up, you see Garreth standing a few feet away, his hands shoved into his pockets.  In lieu of the traditional blazer, he’s gone a bit casual with a crimson and gold Gryffindor sweater.  It looks a tad tight on him, and well worn.  Likely a hand-me-down from one of his many older brothers, you think.

“Mixed with water, they’re quite abrasive.  It’ll help with the cleaning.” Garreth suggests, shrugging his bag onto his shoulder.

“So, we’re talking again.” your tone is flippant; you scrub even harder at the baked in potion caking your cauldron.

Garreth rolls his eyes, dropping his bag to the ground. “Let me help,” he says gruffly, elbowing you out of the way.  He takes a handful of ashwinder eggshells, sprinkling it into your cauldron.  You peer over the edge as he dribbles water inside.

“Now put on your dragonhide gloves,” Garreth advises. “Don’t want to get burned, do you?”

You do as instructed, slipping the gloves on.  Garreth hands you the wire brush again, and this time the sludge slides off the edges of the cauldron with ease.

“See? Not so bad.” 

You open your mouth to thank him, but Garreth has stepped away from your station.  Bag in hand, he gives you a wary look.

“Earlier, when you were staring,” Garreth trails off.

“I wasn’t staring.” you scoff.  In reality, you were , but that’s not the point.

“You were,” Garreth countered. “You weren’t trying any funny mind tricks, were you?  I’d heard a rumor that you and Sallow were trying to study legilimency–”

Eyebrow raised, you cross your gloved arms. “Why on earth would I need to read your mind, Weasley?”

“To steal my potion recipe.” Garreth blurted, eyes narrowed. “For the contest.  You’re trying to win, I overheard you and Sallow talking about entering.”

You scoff in his face. “Why would I need to steal a recipe from you ?”

Garreth straightened, pushing his copper hair out of his eyes. “Because everyone knows that I,” jerking his thumb towards himself, “am going to win.  I’ve been planning my submission since I was a first year, and I’m not about to lose to you.” 

Whatever warmth you thought Garreth Weasley was going to give you is long gone. You lean back over your pewter cauldron, scrubbing aggressively.

“I can’t believe you’d think I’d stoop so low, Garreth.” You seeth. “You know what? Just for that, I am going to enter Sharp’s contest now–and I’m going to kick your ass.”

“Like hell you are,” Garreth huffs, leering down at you. You hadn’t noticed just how tall he’d gotten over the summer–

Focus, you remind yourself, eyes flitting away from his form.

“What are you two still doing in my classroom?”

You and Garreth spin around, almost knocking your cauldron over in the process.  An exhausted looking Sharp stands in the doorway, his palm on his head.

“Not you two,” he mutters. “I had a feeling the two of you would be battling it out for best brew.” 

“We were just comparing notes, sir.” Garreth says easily, backing away from you. “She needed help cleaning her cauldron.”

“Not your best work today,” Sharp reminds you, peering into your now sparkling clean cauldron. “The two of you should be off to lunch, or else you’ll miss the meal.”

“Yes sir,” the two of you chirp in unison.  Garreth takes his leave while you’re stowing your cauldron away, and he’s nowhere to be seen once you get to the Great Hall for lunch.  You want to fight, defend yourself against his accusations, but it doesn’t look like he’ll give you the chance.

His loss , you think, meandering over to your house table.  

The first month of classes has been hell.  While you’d pictured your sixth year to be quite leisurely with the extra free periods, you’ve spent every study hall cooped up in the library, buried in your books.  Despite passing last term with flying colors, it feels like you’re going to spend your entire life catching up to your classmates. You might be the hero of Hogwarts, but you still feel stupid in History of Magic, stumbling over your words.

You’re cursing to yourself as you run through the streets of Hogsmeade, trying to make it to J Pippin’s before closing.  Sharp’s potions contest has fallen to the bottom of your priorities, but the events of lunch earlier in the day have pushed you to work on your submission. You’d been sitting at the table with Sebastian and Ominis, lamenting over your shared arithmancy assignment when Garreth and Leander walked into the Great Hall, loud cheers and whoops coming from the Gryffindor table.  They were sopping wet, hair windswept, having just tested Garreth’s potion submission.

“No one will be able to beat him,” Leander had declared loudly, rustling Garreth’s long red hair. Garreth was grinning broadly, a gaggle of fifth year girls surrounding him in awe.  That alone was irksome; as if they really knew Garreth Weasley.  

“Since when did Garreth Weasley become the hottest commodity?” Ominis asked, tilting his chin in his palm.

Sebastian took a sip of his pumpkin juice, snorting. “Probably because he grew five inches over the holidays,” he joked. “Lost the pudge too.”

“Sebastian,” you warned, flicking him in the head. “Don’t be so cruel.”

Sebastian rolled his eyes, shrugging. “It’s true,” he argued. “Anyways, I can’t wait to watch you put him in his place during the potions competition.  Do you have your brew ready?”

“Of course I do,” You lied, turning back to your parchment. “Don’t be silly.”

In actuality, you didn’t have your brew ready whatsoever–you’d spent the last month tinkering with several recipes, but nothing seemed good enough for submission.  With potions due tomorrow, you’ll have to spend the rest of your day working on the brew.  The rest of your classes for the day go unattended, spending the afternoon cooped up in the Room of Requirement to draft a recipe.  Nothing seems to be working, and you’re out of focus potions.  You could brew them up yourself, but perhaps some fresh air and a walk will do you good–therein, a trip to J Pippin’s was necessary.

The bell rings as you push the door in, Parry Pippin smiling at you from the register.  You entertain his small talk, questions about your summer holidays, all while anxiously checking your pocket watch for the time.  You still had your arithmancy homework, as well as a four foot scroll due in Transfiguration next week to work on–

“You haven’t run into Mr. Weasley, have you?”

Snapping out of your thoughts, you look up at Parry. “No, I haven’t.” you say sharply, taking the carefully wrapped package full of focus potions that he’s packed into your arms. “Why would I?”

Pippin clicks his tongue. “I’m fresh out of the stench of the dead, that’s all.  Mr. Weasley was trying to purchase some more for his potions project.  Nasty business, procurement.  It’s hard to find a supplier that’ll face up to the inferi in the first place.” The register opens, and he begins counting your change. “I recommended he reach out to you for assistance.”

You blink at the shopkeeper. “Me?” 

“Well of course,” Pippin snorts. “You’re rather fearless, aren’t you?  Not that it matters, of course, he was quite put off by the suggestion.  Asked me where he could find them, and I pointed out an old abandoned treasure cave a few miles north, up in the valley.  Can always find them lurking around there.”

“I’m sorry , you directed a student to an inferi den?” You gape.

Pippin looks at you, eyebrows raised. “Don’t they teach you how to fight them and what not?  Isn’t that what Defense Against the Dark Arts is for?  Anywho, Mr. Weasley seemed rather confident in his abilities.  Think he was a bit embarrassed that I recommended he ask a girl for help.”

You block out whatever Pippin is saying, tucking the package under your arm as you leave the shop.  While it’s not your responsibility to look after Garreth (considering recent events and his rather frosty attitude towards you) you can’t help feeling a bit worried.  Most students don’t have much experience with the undead; you only have a basic grasp on battling them due to Sebastian’s shenanigans the year prior. Inferi are tough, even for most grown adults to deal with; any wound inflicted by one can render even the strongest wizard ill.  

The sun is beginning to set, and while you know you should head straight back to the Room of Requirement to work on your contest brew, you turn towards the path north.  You’re certain you’ve visited the treasure den Pippin is talking about before, and it won’t hurt to check.  If the clearing is empty, you’ve just gotten extra exercise for the day.  If not–well, you don’t want to think about that quite yet.

You’ve forgotten how long the trek to the Hogsmeade Valley is, feet aching as you stumble over the rocky terrain. You bet that even if Garreth has gone to hunt the inferi, he’s likely given up by now, gone back to the castle already.  You doubt Garreth wants to battle the inferi–he’s always had a distaste for dueling, preferring to watch everyone battle it out during Crossed Wands rather than participate.  

You swallow thickly, trying to push the image of Garreth fighting the undead out of your mind. Despite your anger towards him, you really don’t want him to go up against something he’s not ready for just to win a stupid class contest.

The sky is dark by the time you round out the hill.  From a distance, you can see the wooden arch to the old treasure den, and to your relief, nothing is disturbed. You’re about to turn on your heel to go back to the floo Upper Hogsfield when you sniff the familiar putrid stench of inferi.  Your blood runs cold when you hear a familiar groan, and then anxious yelps.

“ Diffindo !  Ah, shit!” 

You drop your parcel in the long grass, disappearing into a blue wisp as you close the distance between yourself and the voice.  Of course, it’s Garreth, looking panicked and battered as he tries to slice through the inferi.  They’re not fast, but his leg is bleeding, and he doesn’t know that severing charm will do no damage to the undead.

“Garreth!” you yell, sliding through the rocks towards him.

Garreth’s eyes widen, crying out your name.  Despite his injury, he’s holding his arm out as if to shield you.  That bloody Gryffindor bravery, you think, swatting his arm away.

“Get back,” Garreth yells. “Get to Upper Hogsfield, I can hold them off–”

“Get out of the way, you idiot,” you shriek, waving your wand towards him. Depulso might be a bit extreme, but all you can think about is getting the wounded boy out of the way. As soon as you hear Garreth yelp, landing on the soft grass, you turn your attention back to the inferi, who are closing in.  

“Confringo!” you pant, unleashing fiery flames from the tip of your wand towards them. The heat of the fire has them shrieking and turning away. Several of them disintegrate, leaving behind the precious bounty Garreth had sought them out for in the first place.

It’s quiet, except for your heavy breathing and the screeches of inferi, all turning into piles of ash as you defeat them.  Once you’re sure the last one has been slaughtered, you turn back to Garreth, a few feet away in the grass.  He’s staring at you, dumbfounded, as he clutches the gash on his leg.  He’s looking rather pale, the blood seeping from his cut a strange dark color.  

“Garreth,” you breathe, falling to your knees next to him. 

“It must be infected,” he says slowly. “From the inferi.”

There’s no time to waste.  You dig through your hip pouch, pulling out one of your spare wiggenwelds.  Garreth will surely need a blood renewing potion and some more itensive healing potions when you get back to Hogwarts, but this will do for now. Pulling out the stopper, you push the vial into his hands.

“I can’t believe Pippin would direct you to an inferi den,” you snarl, tearing a piece of your cloak to make a makeshift bandage. Garreth is quietly sipping on the wiggenweld, trying not to look at the damage. “I have half a mind to report him to your aunt–”

“Don’t,” Garreth begs. “Please, don’t.  It’s embarrassing enough.”

“Garreth, you could’ve been killed.” You argue.

“It’s my own fault.” he says miserably. “Fire is what destroys inferi.  I can’t believe I fucking forgot.”

You give him a wry look. “Well, potions is your better subject.” you joke.

Garreth ignores your quip, downing the rest of the healing potion. “You came up to find me.” he points out, pushing the empty vial back into your hands. “Why?”

You shrug. “Pippin told me you didn’t want my help, and I assumed you’d go off trying to get the ingredients for yourself.  You shouldn’t go up against them alone, Garreth.”

“You fought them alone,” Garreth points out. “You could handle them.”

“Well, either I fought them, or else you’d be turning into an inferi yourself right now.” 

“Probably best to not waste my good looks on being a zombie.” Garreth jokes.  Taking note of your stern face and unwillingness to laugh, he winces. “Should we get back to school now?  Perhaps we can make it to Upper Hogsfield; take the floo from there.  But make sure to get some of that stench of the dead before we leave.”

Garreth carefully supervises you as you scoop up the murky essence into your vials; he eyes you as you tuck them in your bag.  Garreth tries to get up on his own, groaning as he balances on his good leg, swatting away your helping hand.

“Let me help you, you twat.” you urge him, slinging his arm around your shoulder.  It doesn’t do much–he really has grown, and you need to stand on your tiptoes to even support him.

The two of you stumble through the grass and you pass your sad little package on the way down.  Oh well, you think. Your potion is the least of your worries, considering Garreth is still dripping blood next to you. Despite his protestations that he’s doing fine, you know from the way he’s clutching your shoulder that he’s not.

“You’re not going to take me to the hospital wing, are you?” Garreth groans as you support him to the flickering green flame outside of Upper Hogsfield. “If you take me there, Blainey will tell Aunt Tilly, and I’m not sure I’m ready for that lecture yet.”

“I have somewhere else you can go.” you offer, biting down on your lower lip.  You’ve never invited anyone into the Room of Requirement before–Professor Weasley strictly forbade you from sharing the room, and you’ve kept it a secret from Sebastian, Ominis, and Natty for almost a year now.  But you’re sure you can’t get into too much trouble, especially if you’re healing another student.

“Do you trust me?” You ask Garreth, slipping your arm around his.

The redhead looks down at you, perhaps a bit skeptical.  “I trust you.”

“Good. Not like you have a choice anyways,” You remind him, turning back towards the flame.

“Okay, now this is truly unfair,” Garreth complains, splayed across your settee. “Aunt Tilly is officially my least favorite family member.”

You snort as you sprinkle mallowsweet into your bubbling cauldron. “Because she didn’t show you the Room of Requirement?”

“Yes,” Garreth barks. “You’re telling me I’ve been sneaking into Sharp’s office after hours just to trial potions, meanwhile there’s a perfectly good potions lab in the astronomy tower? Rubbish,” he mutters.  He picks at the piece of your cloak that you’ve tied around his thigh; it’s still bloody, and he looks peakish.

“The blood renewing potion is nearly done,” You assure him, walking away from the cauldron to assess his wound again. “Why do you need the stench of the dead so badly?” you ask, wrinkling your nose as you take off the bloody fabric. “Is it for your potion contest submission?”

Garreth swallows thickly. “Yes,” his voice is careful, trying not to give anything away.  He inhales sharply once the fabric has come off; his wound, despite the wiggenweld, still looks worse for wear. 

“Oh, come off it,” you roll your eyes, waving your wand to summon a fresh roll of linen. “Just tell me what it is. I guarantee you’re going to win anyways.”

Garreth gives you a funny look before bowling his shoulders over, letting out a loud sigh. “I’ve created a bottled tornado,” he admits, wincing as you bandage him up. “Bit of a play on the thunderbrew; you take the potion before entering battle, and you have full control of a windstorm against your enemies.”

“Is that why your hair was so fucked at lunch?” you muse. 

Garreth rolls his eyes. “It looked good, okay?”

The two of you glare into each other’s eyes for the first time in quite a while; after a terse twenty seconds, both of you burst into laughter.  

“Was it that bad?” Garreth wheezes.

You laugh, visibly shuddering. “Not that bad, actually. Those fifth years rather enjoyed it.”

Garreth rolls his eyes. “The most attention I’ve received from any of those girls, ever. Leander has been trying to talk me up to them, find us a double date.”

You’re quiet for a moment, stomach twisting with unfamiliar anxiety at the idea of Garreth and Leander sharing butter beers with those girls. Not that you care, really, but you miss hanging out around the Three Broomsticks every Saturday with Garreth.  He’d been one of your closest friends until the incident at Honeydukes, and then nothing . 

“Is that why you want to win the contest so badly?” You blurt. “For notoriety? Or just attention from the girls?” You joke.

Garreth shakes his head, shaking out his ginger mane like a lion.  Sometimes, you think it’s too fitting that he’s a Gryffindor. “Nah, not for that.”

“What for, then?”

Garreth chews on his lower lip. “Have I ever told you about my family?”

“Uh, no. Just that there’s a lot of them.” You admit, resting your palms on your knees.

“I’m one of seven siblings.” Garreth says, head falling back against a pillow. “There’s Arthur, Benedict, Cornelia, Deirdre, Edwin, Frederick, and myself.” he counts out his siblings on his thick fingers.

“Alphabetical order?” you asked, slightly amused.

Garreth rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately, yes.” Your eyes flit down to his torso; the hem of his shirt has risen, exposing a freckled stomach. You think back to what Sebastian had said–how Garreth had lost his baby fat over the summer, his once soft stomach turning muscled and strong.  You try not to linger on the thatch of red hair trailing down to his waist. 

“Artie, Deirdre, and Freddie played Quidditch for the house team. Cornelia and Edwin were both prefects, and Benedict was head boy.” Garreth explains.

“A successful bunch,” you offer.

“Successful besides me.” Garreth grumbled. “Mum wouldn’t let me hear the end of it when I didn’t get prefect our fifth year.  I’ve always been middling at Quidditch too, so no hopes for the house team.” he says moodily. “Just plain, untalented Garreth. The only thing I'm even remotely good at is brewing a potion, so I've been hoping to win ever since I was a first year.  All my siblings tried, but none have won.  Thought I might get my own name out there, instead of just being the youngest Weasley.” His eyes are glued to the ceiling, but you can tell from the furrow in his brow and hardened jaw that he's frustrated.

You tilt your head, giving him a disapproving look. “I think you’re talented, Garreth.”

“I think you’re talented too,” Garreth points out. “Which is why you’re probably going to win the potion making contest.  Sharp hates me, after all.”

“I think you have a fair shot,” you argue. “You’ve spent all summer working on your potions.”

“Yes, but you’re you.” Garreth fights back. “You’ve had magic for what, a year?  And you’re the most powerful witch I know.” 

“It’s not that easy,” you mumbled under your breath, smoothing down the front of your trousers as you stand.  You step back over to the station; the blood renewing potion has finished, a thick purple sludge that leaves a metallic smell in its wake.  You pull out a clean vial, trying to ladle the necessary amount.

“Everything seems to come easy to you.” Garreth pointed out. “You defeated a troll, took town the goblin rebellion–”

“At what cost, Garreth?” you shout, closing your hand into a tight fist.  “Ow!”

Garreth shoots up, propping up on his hands to peer over at you.  You open your hand, shaking it out–you’ve shattered the vial.  Cursing under your breath, you walk over the wash basin, muttering a quick charm to get the tiny shards of glass out of your hand.

“Let me help,” Garreth pleads, hobbling over towards you.

“Get back on the couch, Gar.” You seethe, pointing across the room.  

Garreth puts his hands up, still shuffling your way.  You wag your hand; it’s still stinging, but it’s just a surface wound. A wiggenweld and a bandage will do just fine.  

“Let me,” Garreth says quietly, his tone soft towards you for the first time in ages. “It’s my fault, after all.”

“It’s not your fault,” You sigh. “It’s me, being stupid.”

“You’re not stupid. You’re the furthest thing from stupid.” Garreth assures you. “I meant to say that it was my fault you got caught last year.”

You pause.  Is he really apologizing now?

Garreth takes the roll of linen, wrapping it around your palm. “You were looking for the billywig stings for me,” he says, tearing the linen with his teeth.  He sets down the roll, tying a knot around the bandage in your palm. “I’m the reason you got caught, and you covered for me. Flume could’ve called the aurors for burglary, and I let you take the fall.”

All you’ve wanted for the past six months is for Garreth to own up to his part in you getting all those detentions and losing fifty house points. You feel a little satisfied, but at the same time sad–you could’ve been friends all this time, instead of strangers.  Losing him made the other Gryffindors go icy against you, and it drove you further into Sebastian’s arms.  While you love your other freckled friend to death, you can’t help but wonder what trouble you could’ve avoided had you not felt so isolated. 

The thought overwhelms you, and you burst into a loud sob.  

“What’s wrong?” Garreth panics.

You wipe a tear from your eyes. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing at all.” you blubber.

“It’s clearly not,” Garreth says gently.

“It’s just we’ve been avoiding each other for months,” you take in a shaky breath. “And I’ve missed being your friend.”

Garreth lets out a loud sigh, his hand trailing down to touch your forearm.  It’s hard not to melt into his warm touch.

“I’m sorry,” he admits. “I was being stubborn.  I should’ve apologized ages ago, I’ve missed you too. I was just so intimidated by you, I forgot how to be your friend.”

“Intimidated, by me?” You gape.

Garreth gives you a look, raising his thick eyebrows. “You’re the Hero of Hogwarts,” he waves his free hand. “You only just discovered magic a year ago, and yet you’re at the top of the class.  You’re the best duelist I know; you bloody saved my life tonight.”

“I’m not a hero,” your voice falters. You’re not.  Garreth would be horrified to know what you’ve done–dabbled in dark magic, taken life (even if not by choice). 

“You’re a hero to me,” Garreth murmurs.  

You look into his deep green eyes.  They’re warm and honest; the Garreth you’ve gotten used to has a cold stare, eyes flitting away from yours as fast as possible.  This Garreth makes your stomach flip, but not in an uncomfortable way.  He’d always elicited that reaction from you, from the day you’d met.  Garreth had always been cheerful and cuddly, an arm always tossed around your shoulder as you sat together or fiddling with the hem of your robe.  It had gotten to the point where you might actually believe the rumors that he'd had a crush on you, considering the way his hugs lingered or the way his eyes caught you across the classroom.

For a second, you wonder if he ever actually did have a crush on you.  You also wonder if he still might.

“You should take the potion,” you change the subject, shaking off his grasp.

Garreth obediently sits back down on the settee while you scoop the thick potion into a clean vial.  He looks up at you with a smile as you settle down next to him, as if his leg still isn’t shaking and bloody.  

“Bottoms up,” you press the vial into his hand.

Garreth takes the blood renewing potion, shuddering as the thick sludge passes through his throat.  He shakes out his hair, setting the empty vessel down on the side table.

“How do you feel?” 

“Feeling better already,” Garreth assures you, and you know he’s telling the truth.  His cheeks are reddening, the color flooding back into his face.  You look down at the gauze wrapped around his leg; thanks to the potion, the other healing potions you’d forced him to take are now kicking in. 

“You’re brilliant, you know?” Garreth murmurs. “You’re beautiful, brilliant, and so damn brave. That’s why you’ll win Sharp’s contest.”

“Will you stop saying that?” You snip at him.

Garreth gives you an incredulous look. “It’s a compliment.”

“You don’t realize how much work it is,” you say, fidgeting with your hands in your lap. “To catch up to all of you.  Having this magic, not being able to control it–it doesn’t make any of the day to day any easier.  It seems like there’s always something I have to learn, things I should know by now that I don’t.  I feel like a fraud most of the time.” you admit, tears welling in your eyes.

“Hey, none of that,” Garreth tuts, wiping at your face. “You’re no fraud.  You, my dear, are the real deal.  I’m the one bumbling around, getting scratched up by inferi–”

You shut your eyes, clutching at the hand he’s resting on your face. “I won’t let you talk about yourself like that,” you argue. The thought of Garreth, one of the most clever wizards you know, feeling inferior to his siblings is still fresh in your mind. “You’re marvelous, Garreth.  You’re one of the best potioneers here at school, and you’re going to win.”

“But what about your submission?” His eyebrows are knitted together in confusion.

You shrug. “You need it more than I do–I already have my own space here, and you deserve the recognition.”

Garreth purses his lips together. “I can’t finish mine, unfortunately. Not without the ingredients–”

“Trust me, we have plenty now.” You assure him. “I probably have the rest of what you need here,” you say, scrambling to your feet. You rush back over to the potions stand, conjuring a clean cauldron. “I’m assuming you’re using the same base as a thunderbrew–”

Garreth is over to the potions station in three quick strides, closing the distance between you.  He grabs your wrist, but his touch is soft.

“You’ll really help me?” he asks, his voice hopeful. “Even if I’ve been an absolute prat towards you for the last six months–”

“I think if last year proves anything, I’d do anything for you, Garreth.” You want to look into his eyes, but the moment feels too charged. "You were one of my first friends here, and I care about you."

Garreth’s eyes flit down to your lips. “As a friend?” The question hangs heavy between the two of you.

You shake your head. “Yes...but also, no. Not just as a friend.” you say slowly, hoping he'll understand.

Garreth doesn’t release his grip; his fingers move down, tangling with yours.  He takes a step closer and you can feel his hot breath on your cheek.  You look up at him, opening your mouth to say anything , but you don’t get the chance.  Garreth’s lips crash against yours in a tender kiss, the pad of his thumb running over the back of your hand.  You tilt your head up a bit too eagerly, your teeth clacking against his.

Garreth pulls away, and you’re momentarily mortified until he descends back upon you, this time wrapping his arms around your waist tugging you close.  Your hands are in his hair, grasping at the copper locks you’ve spent the last six months eyeing.  It’s just as soft as you thought it would be.  Sighing into his touch, you can tell the freckled boy is smiling against your mouth from the curve of his chin.  His tongue glides against your bottom lip and you grant him access, warmth pooling in the pit of your stomach as the kiss deepens.  You want more, even if you're being greedy.  You don’t want any distance between the two of you whatsoever anymore.  

Garreth pulls away and you whine at the loss of him.  He presses his forehead against yours, looking quite bashful.  The look in his eyes says everything you need to know for now.

I’m sorry.

I’ve missed you.

I have feelings for you.

“Should we get to brewing?” you ask breathlessly, gesturing down to the empty cauldron.

“Let’s. I want to get it out of the way–I think the two of us have some more catching up to do.” Garreth teases, his hands hovering over your waist.

You grin, turning your attention down to the cauldron. Garreth’s warm body encases yours from behind, listing off all the ingredients and their exact ratios.  His chin lands against your shoulder, breath tickling your ear as he whispers the instructions. It's only after he presses his lips against the nape of your neck that you slam the chopping knife down, hands shaking.

“If you keep this up, we’ll never finish.” You warn him.

Garreth’s chuckle sends a shiver up your spine. “Fine, fine.” he sighs, pressing a kiss against your cheek as he steps away. “I’ll observe some personal space for now, but the moment we’re done…” his voice trails off. “I’d like to kiss you again.”

You swat at him, rolling your eyes as he starts chopping mandrake leaves. The air in the Room of Requirement feels thick, charged with the tension between the two of you as you take turns stirring the altered thunderbrew. Before long, the cauldron is emitting sparks of lightning and gusts of wind, indicating your success.

“Back to catching up?” Garreth asks, chewing on his bottom lip as he bottles the brew.  As soon as the potion is stowed away safely, you nod, and the redhead wastes no time taking you back to the settee.

You never did manage to have the time to come up with your own potion.  Garreth had insisted on working through the night to help you come up with your own submission, just so he could win fair and square, but you'd shrugged him off.  You'd only entertained the idea of entering to compete with him in the first place.  Besides, you would rather save the precious time in the Room of Requirement for other activities.

Professor Sharp had just announced the winner of the potion brewing contest before the bell rang.  In a tired, yet unsurprised tone, Sharp announces that Garreth has won by a landslide.  The class is roaring and chanting for him; Sharp is perturbed that he’ll have to grant the budding potioneer access to his classroom and store cabinet after hours.  Nevertheless, Garreth’s name is quickly etched into a little silver tag that will be added to the plaque in the trophy room, and class is dismissed.

“I can’t believe you bungled up your potion.” Sebastian shakes his head, slipping the strap of his bag over his shoulder. 

You shrug, clutching your books against your chest. “Just wasn’t meant to be.”

“I was really hoping you’d put Weasley in his place,” Sebastian mumbles.  

You turn your head over your shoulder, eyes immediately locking with Garreth’s.  He’s standing over his cauldron, sprinkling ashwinder egg shells into the vessel as he smiles at you.  His cheeks are a bit flushed–you’re not sure if it's from the heat of the cauldron, or from the memory of the kisses you’d shared in the Room of Requirement after finishing his contest submission.

“I wouldn’t worry too much, Seb.” You assure him. “I think I’ll be putting him in his place much more often now.”

Sebastian doesn’t catch on to your innuendo, shrugging as you pass through the door.  “Fancy meeting Ominis for lunch?”

“I’m fine,” you lie. “I”ll catch you both later.  I think I left my quill behind.”

Once Sebastian is past the corner and out of view, you turn back around, slipping into the potions classroom.  You were hoping for a moment alone with Garreth, but Leander’s whinging cuts the silence.  

“The two of you couldn’t stop staring at each other all period,” Leander shakes his head. “What’s going on?”

Casting a quick disillusionment charm, you slip into the store room, leaving the wooden door slightly ajar to watch the boys interact.

“Don’t worry about it, Lee.” Garreth assures him, waving his wand to rinse out his cauldron.

“Are the two of you friends again?” Leander asks. “Sallow must be pissed.”

You shuffle forward, trying to get a better look at the two of them.

“He’ll get over it,” Garreth laughs, picking up his cauldron to stack it against the rest. His shirt is rolled up above his elbows, and you bite down on your lower lip as you watch the muscles in his forearms flex.

“I knew you’d win,” Leander snorts. “You’re the best in class, everyone knows it.  You deserved it.  But honestly, I’m surprised she didn’t even enter.”

“I know,” Garreth shrugs. “But she’s smart too.  Quick as a whip, hell of a duelist.  I don’t think we ever thank her enough for what she’s done.” 

Leander scoffs. “Why are you kissing her arse? Oh no, don’t tell me you have a crush on her again.” he complains, rolling his eyes.

Garreth chuckles, walking back over to the station to pick up his book bag.  “Crush on her?  Mate, I’m going to marry that girl someday.”

Your heart stops for a moment, cheeks aflame.  Garreth had confessed his feelings to you in the Room of Requirement, after the two of you had to drag yourselves apart at the risk of taking things too far. Now that you were back in his life, he assured you that there was little chance of him ever letting you get too far away again.  You’d agreed wholeheartedly then, but your mind hadn’t even gotten to the idea of life post-school. 

Marriage .  Marriage to Garreth Weasley.  The thought of it is comfortable, like a worn in sweater or a cup of tea.  You can imagine waking up every morning to his lips pressed against your neck, encased in his warm embrace. 

Yes, you might like that.  

Even though you have a disillusionment charm on, you swear Garreth is looking straight at you through the crack in the doorway.  He has a dreamy, faraway look on his face, one that makes you want to barrel out the door and tackle him to the ground right now.

“Now you really sound like you’ve been confunded,” Leander laughs. “You’re sixteen, Gar.”

“It’s more than that.” Garreth says fondly. “I know it is.”

“Whatever you say,” Leander snorts, heading towards the door. “Coming to lunch?”

“I’ll meet you there,” Garreth echoes.  

You hear Leander grumbling to himself, his footsteps becoming quieter as he gets further away from the classroom.  Finally, you hear nothing at all except the familiar hum of the boisterous Gryffindor boy you’ve been itching to spend time with all day.

The door flies open and Garreth reaches out, tapping your shoulder.  It disarms your disillusionment charm, and you blink up at him in shock.  He’s still beaming, a toothy grin accompanied by freckled rosy cheeks.  Before you know it, the door is shutting behind you, and he’s backed you into the shelf.  The taller boy has you pinned against it, muttering a quick locking charm before he slips his wand into his back pocket.

“I hope you heard me,” Garreth murmurs, brushing hair out of your face.

“I did,” you stammer. “You’re mad, Garreth Weasley.”

Garreth grins broadly, his hair falling against your forehead as he presses his body into yours.

“Maybe,” he sings. “But you heard me.  When you know, you know.”

You have no complaints. With Garreth wrapped around you, sixth year might not be so daunting. 

#garreth weasley #garreth weasley x reader #garreth weasley x you #garreth weasley x mc #writing-intheundercroft #you can't tell me garreth isn't the dream boyfriend #i don't write enough for him WAHHHH

[genericpuff]

What the actual fuck are they thinking-

Okay, the caption might seem overblown but... this is not good.

The main LO subreddit has been closed for weeks now. It closed due to the API protests but considering the options in the community poll were to either "stay open indefinitely" or "stay closed until the decision is reversed", there's a tinfoil hat theory going around that the single mod that overlooks that place saw the API protests as an "easy way out", especially considering how hands-off those mods are. By the time the main sub decided to take part in the protests (after the height of the protests were over) it had already been stated by u/spez that they were not going to reverse the decision. Essentially, the LO subreddit is done.

Do you know what's been happening since it closed? Activity in ULO has been skyrocketing, but we've also been seeing a lot more discourse from people who have been forced to stomach the ULO content after having their main community shuttered.

Listen, I've got a lot of issues with the main sub and the things they've done over the past year. There are definitely some really shitty folks in there who have ruined things for those who are just casual readers by just being way too protective of this comic. But that doesn't mean the main sub shouldn't exist. The main sub, as dead as it was by the time it closed, was still an option for people who didn't want blind praise or relentless criticism/shitposting. Though there were people who tried to gatekeep the shit out of the main sub (attempting to make it a "positive vibes only" space) the main sub was never explicitly designed for only praise, and by the time it closed, it was seeing a lot more balance between praise and criticism (to no one's surprise, because criticism has become a lot more mainstream in the LO fandom, simply due to the comic's undeniably tanking). All that said, it made for a nice middle ground. Even I enjoyed going in there and reading people's takes on new episodes every week, whether or not I agreed with them. ULO was not designed to be the only route for discussion concerning LO, it's very specifically run for one specific purpose and that purpose will not line up with those who are now without a space.

Without the main sub, there are people with nowhere to go. Some people casually grin and bear it through ULO, others have gone to /r/LowSodiumLoreOlympus, but considering how dead that sub is also, it's clear the popular opinion is swaying more towards criticism. I can't imagine what it's like to be a community refugee right now.

So what does that leave for those who don't want to use ULO? The Facebook groups, and the Discord. The Facebook groups are probably the most accessible communities - not everyone uses reddit, not everyone knows how to use Discord, but everyone uses Facebook.

So the fact that the Facebook groups aren't going on a small break, but are going on their own 4 month hiatus?

Not only does this further reduce the options for fandom interaction, but this is terrible for the comic. Hiatuses like this can kill long-term retention, and fandom communities are often the best way to keep that retention on some form of life support.

Think of it this way - if I didn't have the ULO community, I probably would have dropped off LO ages ago, cut my losses, moved on. But it's the fact that I have a community to keep in touch with and have fun with that keeps me on this series. This goes the other way as well, into the casual and praise communities - while I'm sure many will still eagerly return in October, for those who are more casual readers, Lore Olympus will essentially be out of sight, out of mind. And that is NOT something you want to happen to a comic that is already losing traction.

I genuinely do not know what Rachel is thinking closing these groups. And yes, I am pointing to Rachel on this decision because she literally runs the official LO Facebook groups. LO going on a mid-season hiatus over the summer when HALF OF HER DEMOGRAPHIC IS HOME FROM SCHOOL is already such a huge risk that will likely kill her numbers; but to go and cut off her official groups from being able to stay connected and talking about the comic during the hiatus, on a platform OCCUPIED BY THE OTHER HALF OF HER DEMOGRAPHIC, LITERALLY ADULT WOMEN ?? What is that supposed to achieve? If she wants to give her mods a break, sure, okay, do that for a few weeks, but four months? Is she so allergic to fans being able to theorize or "figure her out" (because god knows Rachel doesn't like being predictable) or, god forbid, is she worried about giving them too much "freedom" to reflect and discuss the comic during this time without the weekly dopamine distraction hits that they actually stop and realize how shitty the comic is right now?

All I can say is, as much as we're theorizing that LO is going to be getting a 4th season, I really do hope this midseason hiatus is its last. Whatever life this comic has left is being choked out by Rachel and Webtoons' own hands.

And when it does go out, it better go out with a bang. That's the least it can do for itself and its community at this point.

#lore olympus critical #lo critical #antiloreolympus #anti lore olympus

[qsmpbutwithsignlanguage]

I don't know if now is exactly the right time for this, considering everything that is going on, but I've had this post in the drafts for a while, so idk. A collection of random things I've noticed after a year of the QSMP in action (though I've only been involved in the fandom since late October).

Genuinely something fairly long, and I don't want to clog up anyone's feed with this mess of a post, so >

(colors don't mean anything in particular, I just needed to break up the text for my own attention span's sake)

Regardless of the fact that the translation feature exists, QSMP members always seem to make an effort to learn a few words in the language of other members. I frequented Tubbo's streams a lot, and I can remember him looking up Korean greetings back when Acau was just joining the server. Tina, while not fluent in the language, made an effort to converse with the newer Korean members in Korean on multiple occasions, and succeeded in that regard. BadBoyHalo and Foolish both went above and beyond to try to learn bits and pieces of the other languages on the server; Cellbit has been absolutely insane in picking up the languages present on the server, and even Quackity has worked on learning Portuguese behind the scenes with Mike. They aren't the only ones either, not by a long shot, though they were some of the few I watched happening in real time. The first days of different members joining the server were filled with exchanges of words and slang, and it was always incredible to watch. I could go onto the streams of Quackity or Tubbo or Tina when the new Korean members were joining, or Hugo, and walk away with a handful of new swears and slang under my belt. I find it incredible that everyone works so hard to communicate with each other beyond only the translation feature.

The impact of the QSMP was not on the permanent members of the server alone. While this is only one example of a great amount, I've been able to watch Aimsey's intermittent streams where they work on learning Brazilian Portuguese on Duolingo, their most recent only around three weeks ago. They joined Purgatory 2 months ago, but they made lasting friends with the Brazilian members of their team, and they still work on learning the language. They still talk about taking a trip down to Brazil to meet up with their fellow Purgatory 2 teammates, alongside Tubbo. I find that to be quite sweet, if I'm being frank.

The fandom has also worked across that language barrier. QSMP Language Day was one example of this (rip, such great idea, I had so much fun but oh my goodness did that day end terribly), though I have to give a shocking amount of credit to QSMP Twitter. It's always awesome to see the posts that trickle through in different languages, just seeing people discuss different headcanons and theories that they have in different languages, like it's nothing. The translation feature has come in clutch many, many times, but a lot of people have been working to genuinely learn a language since the server started. To those of you reaching your 1 year streak on Duolingo this week, I commend you. I just reached my 60 day one, and while it's not a lot compared to what some people have, it's a pretty big deal for me. I've seen Twitch chats filled with French, German, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Korean. In one stream I could count spotting seven separate languages being spoken in the span of roughly seven minutes (not including French, idk where you guys went but I just did not spot you once): English, Spanish, Korean, Portuguese, German, Pashto, and Russian. QSMP Language Day was amazing, even if it was cut short by news about the admins, and it's just been really cool to see people communicating in their own respective first languages.

Translation in general. I've seen an uptick of translated closed captioning in videos created by different QSMP members, and while it isn't a lot, it's incredible to see when it does occur. I have to give a shout out to both Quackity and Baghera, for their translated closed captioning. Even if it's only a few videos, it's epic to see. I also find it very interesting that the only Offline TV video I've seen with closed captioning in more than one language was the one that Quackity was in, with Spanish subtitles. It shows that the creators care enough to add the captioning, and I think that's pretty awesome. It's also nice because often adding captions in another language forces you to add captions in the language you're primarily speaking throughout the video, which can help people who need context beyond the often messy auto-generated closed captions.

Fanfiction! Fanart! The most kudosed fanfiction on AO3 in Portuguese of any type is a GuapoDuo fanfic! Almost half of the top twenty most kudosed fanfictions in Portuguese on AO3 are QSMP. I talk about it a bit more in depth here, but it's still incredible to see just how dedicated this community is. I've been involved in multiple fic-gifting events and I've seen some genuinely incredible works come out of this fandom. Heck, I've created a lot of things for the QSMP that I'm incredibly proud of. I've seen some of the most incredible creative expression ever come out of this fandom. The tiniest accounts on YouTube posting full-length, colored animatics complete with the smallest of details (shout out to Artydrawsthings on YouTube for I GOT LOVE, that was absolutely incredible), fanfic authors writing massive A.U.s that explore every character in depth, and livebloggers that will analyze each and every movement to gush over it all. The fandom that the QSMP has built has been incredible, and it's been amazing to see it grow.

Just in general, the sense of community, and overall joy the QSMP has created. You can tell that this a passion project, created by someone who genuinely cared about and believed that what they were doing was something they wanted to be doing, and managed by people who believed that the project was doing great things. I think this is what made the QSMP flourish. It was built off people who were happy on the server, and it truly accomplished what it set out to accomplish: uniting communities. I could have said this two weeks ago, three, a month, five months, half a year; it would have held true nonetheless. However, for the QSMP's first anniversary, I think it's fitting to give it this achievement.

The QSMP without a doubt has its gaping flaws. That isn't something we can ignore, and it isn't something that we should try to. However, to ignore everything that this server has done in the year it has existed would be a crime in my eyes. I'm glad to have been a part of this fandom, and maybe I can't speak Portuguese or Spanish or German and I won't ever be able to French or Korean or whatever languages the QSMP will go on to add (sorry French, rip), but I know a lot more than I did when I started, and I think that the server has done a lot of good in the roughly year it has existed.

So thank you, to the fandom, to the server, and to everyone who made this happen, from the fanartists and the egg admins to Quackity at the top of it all. It's been a great ride, and I hope that it'll be able to continue.

#qsmp #happy birthday qsmp #sorta #i can't remember its exact birthday lol #quackity #baghera jones #badboyhalo #cellbit #because I talk about them a bit #I don't really know what to tag this with to be honest #y'all have been great #and it's been awesome to see how far this fandom has come since I got involved in it #shout out to bbh and yd who have been absolute gems #it's been so cool watching everyone's language skills grow both in the server and outside of it #that's really all

[just-promise-me-jm]

An essay no one asked for

It was a long stressful day today so when I was taking a break from work I decided to do a quick scroll through social media to see what had been going on today.

Unsurprisingly, I almost immediately came across a number of posts trying to shade Jimin or make fun of his fans along with the typical "fuck solos" type narratives that seem so popular these days. All I really wanted to see were cute pictures of Jimin on his way to Hungary or hear some theories on what he might be doing there.

In fact, here is a cute Jimin pic to thank you for taking the time to even read the rest of this:

credit to @UpdateParkJimin

So here is a short list of a few of the things I saw just today:

Jimin is obviously copying JK by going to film something in Hungary (such a stupid theory and I saw someone post that Seventeen actually went there first)

Jimin isn't as popular as JK because he didn't get mobbed by his fans (tbh they seemed very well behaved and I was proud that they didn't act like absolute fools and put Jimin in danger)

Jimin and the remaining members should just shave their heads already and go to the military so that we can get the promised 2025 reunion (absolute nonsense and a highly problematic take)

Solos are the worst and should be eradicated from the fandom (just because you are a solo it doesn't make you toxic, just like being an ARMY doesn't mean you are a good person)

Obviously I'm sure there is a lot more than that but that is all I had the pleasure of seeing on my break. Now most of these aren't totally new, just the same story with a different font, but it doesn't make it any more fun each time they go around. I could go into detail on any of these but to be honest most of them are so shallow and stupid that it's not even worth bothering.

What I really want to focus on today is the narrative that solos are toxic and something that needs to be removed from fandom spaces. The reality is that almost everyone in the fandom has a self-professed bias that they proudly display in their bio or profile pic. Even if they have a tiny seven somewhere in there, it doesn't make that fact any less true. I think it's natural to be more drawn to one person, one type of food, one pair of shoes, etc. as your favorite and it's incredibly rare that anyone can honestly say that they "love everyone equally" (even if it's your mom saying she doesn't have a favorite child, I don't believe her).

Like I said above, I know that some solos are toxic just like I know some ARMY are toxic. Again, I think that unfortunately it's natural that some people are going to just be shitty people no matter what. What it really all comes down to is how you treat others and how you conduct yourself in these fandom spaces. I said this in my first post but I'll say it here again - you and I don't have to agree on everything to treat each other with respect and decency. But if you come into a space and harass others and generally act like an idiot then yea you should be barred from those spaces. Painting a whole group in broad brushstrokes, however, is not the solution.

Saying you "hate solos" (which let's be real - it's often just a thinly veiled way to hate on PJMs or other Jimin supporters) just means that you are stereotyping a whole group of people that hold a variety of beliefs, feelings and behaviors. If you see something truly problematic that someone is posting or saying do what you are supposed to do - block and report. If it's just that someone doesn't agree with you or if you have some sick obsession with Jimin and his success - do me a favor and turn off your phone for a bit. Calling other people names and harassing them because they don't think your fave is the greatest thing ever is just pathological.

We live in a really messy world and I will never understand the desire to make it messier for others by being a dick. A much better way to spend your time and energy in a fandom is to actually do the things that help support your bias - stream, buy, vote, and share them with others who might not have found them yet. Or be like me and write multiple paragraphs that people may never read in an attempt to call out some real bullshit that is going on.

If you read this, I appreciate really it 💗.

Here is another Jimin for your time:

#bts jimin #park jimin #jiminie #pjms #bts #solos #social media

[moongothic]

I LOVE your crocodad theory I'm an obsessed believer but did u ever get romantic vibes from crocodile & robin business relationship? Many people get lover vibes from them & I never understood why. They seem VERY strictly business/stab each other in the back relationship. (Plus crocodile is TERRIFYING).

I think Croco/Robin as a ship exists kind of like... out of circumstance? Kind of?

Quick disclaimer, I only got into OP in like 2008~ish at the age of 13, I can not comment what it as like being in the fandom before that because I wasn't there (and when OP began in 1997 I was like two whole years old). So whatever I say here doesn't come from like, a fandom veteran who knows the entire history of the OP fandom or anything. I'm just attempting to rub my braincells together here

Like in the year of our lord 2023 we have many wonderful Crocodile ships to classify as OTPs and NOTPs etc, but if we go back to like 2006 or so, long before the Summit War Saga was even a thing, try to think about what characters you would have shipped Crocodile with? Because for a long time, the only canon material Crocodile had appeared in was just the Alabasta Saga (+one brief cover story), and we don't really see Crocodile interact with that many characters during the story. Like. Really the only character Crocodile has multiple, extended interactions with aside from Luffy and Vivi is Robin. All the other characters he interacts with maybe once or twice for very brief scenes, so based on canon material alone, there isn't much for fuel for shipping purposes.

It really wasn't until Marineford when we finally started getting other characters to ship with Crocodile, mainly the Ever Loyal Daz who seems to be willing to follow Crocodile anywhere (romantic as fuck) and Doflamingo after he and Croc tried to kill each other twice at Marineford (people seem to love a tsundere Croc) And now with Cross Guild we also have Mihawk (and Buggy) as far as shipping options go. And of course there's MORE than just these ships, there's the more crack-leaning ships (like Dragodile and whatever you'd call the Cobra-ship) and some others (Jinbei, Whitebeard, Ivankov, Galdino, Luffy even) etc etc

The only difference is that Croco/Robin got to kind of be like, "the default Crocodile ship" for like 8 years without major competition. And because the ship has "history", even when new ships pop up the one that has been around the longest will still stick out. Not to mention, although we have options now, even those have very little canon material to actually work with when compared to Croco/Robin. Like Dofuwani exists because the two had like three whole pages worth of interactions, but compare that to the screentime Croc had with Robin? It's not even a competition

Not to mention, Croco/Robin is just. Like it's kind of the mandatory het ship. Like there aren't many straight options with canon material to work with, and there's gonna be people who really want to have a het ship with Crocodile if you know what I mean. But also, let's be real. There's a lot of straight women who're horny for Crocodile. Valid as fuck. And Croco/Robin could have like, a self-insert-y quality to it, like some people might be able to see themselves in Robin? Also valid. And that can apply to some straight men too, like I'm sure there's cishet men who look at Crocodile with that "god I wish that were me" energy, who love seeing Crocodile ship fanart with Robin, as they can project onto Crocodile etc. This is also valid. Point is that the ship appeals to cishets by simply being a het ship, but also it might make for an easy ship for a lot of straight people to project onto for one reason or another.

But to be fair, I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I think Croco/Robin has the potential to be a really interesting ship. Like they ARE the Baroque Works Boss Pair, literal partners in crime, the most powerful members of the secret criminal organization who run the whole operation, they worked together by themselves for four whole years, Crocodile protecting Robin by allowing her to hide under his wings. They were together, ready to take over an entire country and obtain a weapon of mass destruction And then Robin betrays him. And Crocodile admits he never trusted her to begin with.

Like on paper alone, this is great material for a juicy romance.

Especially now when we understand why Robin was on the run and why she feared being betrayed, and how looking back at Crocodile's reaction when Robin "reads" the Poneglyph for him, he genuinely seems a little sad about her betraying him (mystery trauma etc). This is a genuinely interesting character dynamic, like even without any romantic context I would love to see Crocodile and Robin meet again in the storyline and like, see what Crocodile thinks of Robin having joined the Strawhats vs what Robin thinks about Cross Guild, how the two might interact etc. They are interesting to me

Like personally, I agree, I don't think the two were actually ever romantically involved with each other (frankly I don't think Crocodile trusts anyone anymore enough to let them get close him like that, dude's been voluntarily celibate for like two decades lmao), their relationship was surely just business-only. And while the ship doesn't personally interest me (just kinda "meh" for me), I do understand why the ship appeals to others and why it's popular to this day

But yeah, I do think a lot of the reasons Croco/Robin is as popular as it is due to circumstance. It's been around the longest, it still arguably has the most canon material to work with, it appeals to lots of people. God knows shippers don't actually need the characters to like each other, otherwise people wouldn't be shipping Croc with Buggy as we speak

#Moon posting #OP Meta #Sir Crocodile #Nico Robin #Long post #I feel like I should tag this with the shipname because this IS about the ship but while it's not explicitly negative don't wanna bother pp #I don't know how this turned into a psuedo fandom history lesson (based on vibes alone and no actual facts) I am so sorry man #My brain just started running and I had to release the worms #Sometimes a ship that's just big scary powerful murder man and small murder woman makes brain go brrr #The appeal is not lost on me #(Personally I've just become an absolute sucker for CrocHawk. I am so invested in these two. Oda I need to see them more together)

[911-on-abc]

the second they made buck bi i watched the whole show for the first time, took a week, finished just before the latest episode came out. this obviously means i do not know my first thing about anything, most theories and fanon storylines included. what is the most important stuff that i need to know? the more deranged and delusional the better 🌸

oh LORD buckle up anon!! but also... hi!! Welcome!!! I'm so glad that ur here and that you've enjoyed the show enough to (hopefully) stick around!!!!

Full disclosure, I've only started watching 911 since season 6, so there are years of fandom lore/drama that I'm not even aware of. I really recommend checking out blogs such as @captain-hen @gracieryder @maygrcnt who have been around here MUCH longer (I'll tag more people in the morning) & follow @911bts who keeps track of literally EVERYTHING 911.

Okay, 911blr 101 is couch theory. What is couch theory you ask? well, it all starts at the beginning of S6 when Buck's couch (or lack there of) was used as a metaphor for Buck's romantic relationships. In S5, when Taylor moved into Buck's apartment replaced Buck's couch (that he got with Ali) with her own. When Buck and Taylor broke up, she took the couch with her, leaving Buck couchless. The connection between girlfriends and couches first comes up during a conversation with Buck, Eddie, and Christopher. Buck's struggle to find the 'perfect' couch reflects Buck's struggle to find the perfect person to partner up with. At the end of the episode, Buck decides to move his armchair where the couch used to be, signifying that he is trying to become comfortable with himself outside of a relationship.

Then we get to the start of S6b. Buck's parents come to town, Buck gets struck by lightning (as one does), and his parents buy him a new couch. There is probably some metaphor there about family and blah blah blah, but that doesn't matter because the couch is uncomfortable and Buck can't sleep on it and everyone keeps bothering him, and who does Buck run to? He runs to Eddie. And then he falls asleep on Eddie's couch.

and like this is a big fucking deal. because it shows that he is comfortable with Eddie! he feels safe in Eddie's home! he is more safe and comfortable on Eddie's couch than he is on his own and Eddie welcomes him there!! and couch = romantic relationship, so falling asleep on eddie's couch = relationship with Eddie???? There is another scene in S6 where Christopher falls asleep on the couch and people are like!! we are connecting the dots! (we were not connecting the dots)

and then!!!! the Kameron gives birth on Buck's couch and the couch is ruined and then y'all never guess what happens. In one of the last scenes of s6 Buck asks his brand new love interest Natalia if she wants to go couch-shopping and everyone is like WTF???? aren't we past this?? didn't we just have this conversation about NOT buying a couch with ur gf at the beginning of this season???

uhhh this explanation was NOT supposed to get this long. okay, let's speedrun this shit. The Christmas Elf!! Very important!! OG Buddie Queen!! Buck Navy Seal AUs (ugh. he literally talked about how he was too emotional for the Seals I hate this AU so fucking much!!) everyone is fucking irrational about the lawsuit arc, just filter that shit out. eddie = gay and/or demisexual. buck = christopher's second dad. literally, everyone is bisexual. Chimney? bi. Bobby? bi. Maddie? bi. is this canon? no, except for in my heart. there is SO much that I am missing. but if u are still reading this drop ur favorite/least favorite fanon theories in the chat and drop the @'s of some good blogs to follow. OH!!! ALSO!!! do NOT trust Tim (the showrunner) that man LIES!!!

#this is literally the just the tip of the iceberg #couch theory #there is also fridge magnet theory #also u should check out neethu's (captain-hen) blog bc she has some great posts explaining some of the production issues the show has had #especially re: S5 #asks #anon #911 #911 abc #I'll make another post in the morning when I can be more coherent #but thank you anon for the ask!!!

[atopvisenyashill]

do you have any idea of how jon’s ending is going to be? 😄

me answering this two months later should tell you that i have no fucking clue alsjfdlk. i mean...i have some guesses but i'm not completely sure on any of them and i reserve the right to change my mind as soon as 3 seconds after i post this answer and i actually had to psyche myself up to post this bc i crave validation and i feel like i'm talking out of my ass here lol.

jon's story is honestly the one that trips me up more than everyone else's. for one thing, the show is basically no help at all here - i think a lot of the stuff they did with jon in the show they mostly did because it looked cool and fit the action hero trope they were trying to fill even though "action hero" isn't really what jon's story is about or even follows. for another thing, the fandom just differs soooo much on what's going to happen to him that it's hard to sort of sift through how everyone feels and come to a specific idea on how EYE personally feel. there's a few things i feel strongly are or aren't happening so i guess i'll just ramble on a bit here:

there is one thing i am absolutely sure is going to happen and it's this:

His lord father had once talked about raising new lords and settling them in the abandoned holdfasts as a shield against wildlings. The plan would have required the Watch to yield back a large part of the Gift, but his uncle Benjen believed the Lord Commander could be won around, so long as the new lordlings paid taxes to Castle Black rather than Winterfell. "It is a dream for spring, though," Lord Eddard had said. "Even the promise of land will not lure men north with a winter coming on." If winter had come and gone more quickly and spring had followed in its turn, I might have been chosen to hold one of these towers in my father's name. Lord Eddard was dead, however, his brother Benjen lost; the shield they dreamt together would never be forged.

I really think this is foreshadowing Jon and Bran's ending wrt each other - building up holdfasts and raising up new lords and ladies not as a shield against the Wildlings but to help the Wildlings as well as the large amount of Northerners in need of somewhere safe after the destruction of the Long Night. Land and resources to help this group of people desperately in need of a new homeland - it's Brandon's Gift to his brother!

the other thing i'm mainly convinced of is i think a bit spicy of a take not just amongst the greater fandom but even amongst the jonsa side more specifically - jon isn't going to be king nor is he legitimate. it's not to say that I don't think the crown will be offered to him because I definitely believe that jon is going to have several other moments similar to stannis offering him winterfell where someone is offering him a crown and a way to jump ahead of the other starklings in the line of succession. i do not believe he will say yes. not only that, but i think his story is going to end with him leaving Winterfell and KL specifically because he doesn't want anyone building a faction around him and his name to topple his family members' claims. like maester aemon, his beloved mentor, he is going to purposefully take himself out of the succession AND get himself out of sight and out of mind so Sansa and Bran face no real backlash.

the thing is - i just don't know when that is going to happen. i generally fall under the idea that this ending will come about halfway through a dream of spring - after sticking by his siblings, supporting their claims, dealing with his identity crisis, doubling down on making Sansa QitN and Bran King on the Iron Throne, he's going to realize there's a political faction building around him and just peace out to the Gift to deal with resettling the Wildlings. Completely out of politics, completely cut off from most of Westeros.

THAT. It's the only thing I'm sure of in his story. All my other theories are a lot more vague and I'm a lot less certain of them but Jon helping resettle refugees from the Long Night (whether it's displaced people from the Riverlands and the North, perhaps the remnants of the Unsullied even, as well as Wildlings and former Night's Watch members) and purposefully going there to make sure no political faction builds around him to usurp his brother and sister's claims after rejecting a crown, that is the one thing I would bet money on happening at some point in the series.

But the other stuff...I'm gonna bullet point because I'm less sure:

Jon as Hand/Regent - there's a lot of foreshadowing about Bran having a Regent for awhile and while I'm not sure Bran is going to have a lot of say over his regents, he will have more say over his Hand and I think if Jon does access any sort of power, it's going to be as Bran's hand. But once he realizes people are still kinda itchy about the new political structure (a parliament style rule with a disabled king), that's what prompts him to leave entirely.

Jon as the Mummer's Dragon - Dany is going to show up thinking he's a "proper dragon" because she's already killed the mummer in Aegon VI (or so she thinks) and rumors have started about Jon's parentage (part of why Jon is going to refuse the Winter crown will be because any claim he has comes through Lyanna which puts him at the bottom of the rankings anyway! No way Howland is just going to let Jon get crowned without pointing all of this out!). But Jon isn't a dragon, he is a wolf in dragon's clothing. I don't fully believe he's going to stab her a la the show - I think it's more likely Arya kills her and Jon takes the fall for it to protect Arya.

Jon as a Romantic Hero - we all know I go back and forth on whether Jonsa will be canon or not. IF it does go canon, I think what happens is they fall in love through TWOW, find out about his parentage so it's surprise not incest, and then broach the topic of marrying (maybe they even do get married secretly) only for it to get put on pause because of like, ice and fire magic plot reasons, then Jon's reputation is ruined by "killing" Dany, and he leaves. I THINK that's how the story is going to end - with them separated due to the politics but with some hope of one day reconciling. if they DO end up together though, it will be after he builds a reputation for himself in the Gift (maybe even colloquially referred to as King of the Gift by the people there, the way he's called King Crow by the wildlings in the show), Sansa broaches the topic of them being together once again and this time they can because of how his reputation has built, and because it combines their claims without usurping Sansa's (and I think it's likely Jon insists on being called Prince-Consort and not King-Consort). That's the only way I see it ending happily for them but tbh I vastly prefer the idea that he lives in the Gift forever and secretly marries Sansa maybe but they are never able to live together due to the politics. But that's because I love a bittersweet romantic ending, I want those two full of longing for the love that could have been!!!

Jon as a Dragon Rider - also something i waffle on. part of me feels like you don't have a dragon named after a main character's secret father and not have that character interact with that dragon. another part of me feels like the set up of all three dragons have defined, loving relationships with their riders might be set up for dany's feelings on losing her dragons to enemies (euron/victarion and aegon) than for those dragons actually getting relationships with main character riders. i like the idea of jon, like nettles, having a close relationship with his dragon because he's serious about keeping this dragon away from other people, and treating the dragon like a pet (the way he treats ghost) instead of a war machine but i'm not sure george finds that compelling, ya know. Don't ask me which dragon he could possibly ride, i have no strong opinions one way or the other.

#jon snow #a song of ice and fire #king in the north #jonsa #queen in the north #ados speculation #twow speculation #i'm not putting this in the vs tag bc i don't want like 50 targ stans yelling at me about the 'arya kills dany' thing #also - if you can't say it nicely don't say it at all. i'm fine with a disagreement but if you're patronizing or rude #you're getting a reaction image and probably a swear as a response. talk like a normal person and i'll talk normal back tho #anons #asks #getting on my soap box

[cbrownjc]

i think you're right people came blind for the romance and i was maybe too harsh. i've been sideyeing people's reaction to this show and themes since half the fandom called daniel a voyeur pedophile for... demanding proof that claudia's diary actually said what louis was claiming. like this fandom is sensitive AS HELL and if/when louis chooses dick over claudia/it turns out episode five went way different i'm kind of scared how people will react

Hey Anon,

It's okay, I don't think you were harsh or intended to be.

The Daniel situation is interesting. I get people who sided with Louis and the idea that he was protecting Claudia when that episode first aired. Even I did, in theory. (Having to care for my mother, who had Parkinson's, for 10 years made me completely unobjective about Daniel slapping Louis when Louis manipulated Daniel's Parkinson's, however. I personally would have punched Louis for that one, even if it would have gotten me killed.)

But in my head, I also knew what Claudia's diaries, even being around, and a thing in the show, actually meant. Because I knew their significance in the book Merrick and what Claudia had written in her (one) diary that was found - and that was her hatred for both Lestat and Louis.

And so, I couldn't shake the feeling that Claudia's diary was being edited not just because Louis was trying to protect what had happened to her.

And as we see by EP7, Daniel was right to question the pages that were taken out. Because even though Louis took the pages of the SA out to protect Claudia, we see that even more pages than just those have been taken out of her diaries.

One section, in particular, where Daniel can clearly tell Claudia hated Louis' guts. Which matches up with her diary in Merrick.

Investigative Journalists aren't there to be friendly and sometimes can lack tact. And they aren't there to reinforce a story you want to tell yourself. I really don't know what to think of people who thought Daniel was being a voyeur pedophile for asking for the missing pages, because wow for missing the point. Daniel was asking because he could sense something was off when it came to the story Louis was telling and Claudia's diaries - which were being used to reinforce Louis' story - were not being presented unedited to do that, and he was right.

If you look closely at this image, you can even see pages have been taken out of where Claudia recorded Lestat's last words:

Armand is likely the one who's been editing the diaries when the edges are clean-cut like that. But the main point is that Claudia's diaries are being edited. Claudia's story, which she told for herself, is being changed to suit whatever story Louis has been needing to tell himself about everything that happened.

Daniel is being told an account of the events to suit what Louis needs to believe and removed of the things he can't face up to. Particularly when it comes to his own choices and actions.

Spoilers Below For The Second Half of the Book IWTV and Possibly Season 2:

I know much of the non-book fandom will flip out when Louis goes off with the man/vampire who orchestrated Claudia's death. Not gonna lie, when I read that in the book years ago - after having seen the 1994 movie when it first came out, which changed that bit - I was side-eyeing Louis hard for that one.

But Louis isn't supposed to be some heroic figure. He's tragic, with some maddening faults.

This whole story is a tragedy. IWTV ends tragically, not happily. And I just don't know if the part of the fandom that doesn't know the story will be able to deal with that fact.

These vampires are monsters. They love deeply and passionately and crave love like they crave blood, but they are monsters, each in their own way. And they are all going to do some awful shit, in season 2 and any others seasons we might get. Because that is the nature of their story over the course of the chronicles.

We'll see how those new to the fandom deal with that. But not all of it will be well, I can already tell.

#Interview with the Vampire #Daniel Molloy #Daniel Malloy #Claudia #louis de pointe du lac #Merrick #book spoilers #Armand #ask #ask and answer #amc iwtv #iwtv #iwtv season 2

[analyzingadventure]

To be fair I haven't paid the best attention to the promo info for the new movie (if I do watch it I would like to go in knowing little-ish), but I did kind of get the impression that the First Chosen was meant to like. Not a retcon of Daigo's group but to be like, a plot twist chosen who somehow predated Daigo's group by having been chosen To Do A Thing before them? But hey I might be just behind on the info there

(It would be kind of funny though if Toei did lowkey retcon tri., after all the Zero Two retconning the fandom went on and on about pre-tri.)

Regardless, I do kind of prefer to look at Adventure's lore in a bubble and borrow as little as possible from the other franchise entries anyways because. Man. The lore can get really messy and hard to keep up with, and sometimes you simply might not even like a particular lore addition some entry might make

Like I was literally just reminded by a friend that the villians did get revived in the Wonderswan games and while there may be some cloning and/or timetravel shenannigans in some cases, in theory the revived villians should be the exact same ones from Adventure (including Vamdemon, which makes no sense since he was supposed to be hanging out with Oikawa). Which (as far as my original post goes) would probably mean that unless we could pin down the villians being naughty boys even when revived on Milleniummon (as in, he was infecting them when reviving them with his malice), then they would be just inherently evil Digimon, doomed to do evil things forever because that's just what they are

But in the end it kind of doesn't matter what which lore bit from what entry could imply, because all of this stuff is like. Things Toei is never going to explore in a story. Like it's understandable why, but in the end Toei is exclusively interested in making new entries to the Adventure-franchise if they're centered around the kids one way or another (even if they aren't kids anymore). And what I want to know more about is the potential stories about some of these Digimon, and not just the villains (what might happen with them if they were to be reborn and/or how they ended up the way they did to begin with). I would love to have a story about Wizarmon and His Whole Deal. I would love to see Leomon and Orgemon get married finally. I'd love to see what all the minor Digimon characters are up to and how they're doing. But we're not going to ever see that. And it makes me sad. Because there's so many interesting stories you could tell with/about these characters, but unless you can make it about the kids with a big epic showdown, it's not gonna happen.

#What wouldn't I give for a 12 episode mini series about short Digimon stories in the Adventure world #I don't need an epic movie about bringing back Wizarmon #Just give me one 20-minute episode about his deal with Witchelny and how he came to the DW #Etc etc #I yearn for the simple stories #Text post

[outrunningthedark]

joined the 911 fandom few months back and…has it always been this annoying or did something shift recently. someone on twt said maybe mehta coming back doesnt have anything to do w buddie at all and now they are getting cooked for “raining on people’s parade and being a negative nancy for no reason” …. this whole cycle of setting expectations and bullying people for not having the same enthusiasm then getting annoyed that the tv show isnt delivering the same expectation you set is just so annoying??? glad that your blog exists and you exist because this fandom is in heavy NEED of rational minded people 😭🫶🏽

I've been actively involved in fandom since the start of s4 (was a lurker in s3) and from my perspective...things get worse as the seasons continue! In s4, there was *some* hope for canon!Buddie, but Ana came back into the picture and TayKay soon followed so expectations were lowered (because we didn't know how long they'd stick around). Thennn...the shooting happened. Plus the change in guardianship. People were on board again AND we were introduced to even more new fans who couldn't believe "the gay firefighters" weren't together yet. Season five? Eddie breaks up with Ana, Buck breaks up with TayKay..."If Buddie not canon then why did they break up with their girlfriends?" And now season six is about how "all signs point to canon Buddie" no matter what happens. (ie They were convinced Eddie would be a big part of Buck in the coma to hint at feelings and when he wasn't they changed their theories to "explain" why his absence was a good thing; same with the sperm donor arc - all that non-communication was going to pay off once Eddie confronted Buck about a decision he didn't think through and now the lack of 6A content is going unmentioned because Oliver has (twice) emphasized that there's nothing for Buck to come to grips with, he knew what he was doing when he said yes.) I think the fandom just really, really wants to be right about this one thing for two reasons: 1. It would be a game-changer. How many fans of a queer ship can say that they got the endgame they wanted? Furthermore, how many can say their canon ship started out with two straight characters who fell in love over time because a show thought that made the better story? (Not the SPN fandom, that's for sure. They're some of the biggest naysayers you'll find around here because "I've been where you are." Mind you, most us are old af and remember a time when queer ships stayed in fandom spaces because TV shows wouldn't dare take the risk of alienating audiences.) 2. Having Buddie go canon is an opportunity to get back at any and everyone who doesn't believe it'll happen; the ultimate "I told you so!" victory lap.

I do agree with the fandom when it comes to keeping opinions out of other people's inboxes unless they're open to reading it (obviously me :P), but expressing an opinion on your own page (whether that be twitter or tumblr) is what having a social media account in a fandom is for. You don't have to agree with the person. You don't even have to read it. But you can't stop them from feeling how they feel. And quite frankly, while having hope is nice to see (I do, too!), some people could use a reality check. We're not in the writers' room. We don't know what the writing staff is really thinking when they come up with stuff. Even when Kristen makes comments and Oliver gives his perspective, the fandom calls them "liars" or twists their words to fit a narrative that makes for (what they think is) a better outcome. They'll also advise people not to read the articles, but...nobody actually lies in those because they don't give away all that much information, and the information they do give is to tell fandom when things aren't about Buddie, lmao. Kristen said the coma arc was about Bobby and Chim and there fandom was hyping up Eddie's importance only to realize she meant what she said. Oliver says Eddie going after Buck in 6x10 isn't hinting at anything and they're envisioning feelings realizations at Buck's bedside, which never came. They're TELLING fandom to not get its hopes up right now and the speculation has only gone deeper into "this can't be about anything other than Buddie" because everyone is too invested to turn back now.

As for Captain Mehta - I have my own theories about this. Could his presence bring about a mention of the shooting? Yep. Could his presence inspire another conversation? Yep. But *why* him and *why* he finally has a first name? 1. Is everyone at that table supposed to call him Captain Mehta or just Mehta? Nobody knows him on a personal level? 2. Is it possible that throwing some third no-name/relatively unknown firefighter into the scene (along with Capt. Williams and possibly Julie) does nothing to gauge the audience's interest? At least the audience will remember Mehta and there's a connection between him and both halves of Buddie whereas we've seen Julie in limited quantities (and not even as one of their friends off the job) and Miranda Williams was last seen in early s4.

I'm not saying him being back can't be the precursor to important things, but people also thought the Buckleys were coming back after two years so their kids could yell at them some more and they would decline to be with their son in the hospital (why else would they have returned right then, duh!) and we all saw how that turned out. This fandom loves to say "Bestie, you're watching a FOX procedural" on the ~discourse~ days while routinely ignoring the fact that we're watching a FOX procedural. Sometimes what you see really is what you get when the show runners are (currently) pandering to an audience that includes everyone but us.

#they asked and i answered. you don't need to agree with me. #anonymous #tina speaks #tv: 911 #tv: 9-1-1 #eddie diaz #evan buckley #buddie

[aihoshiino]

hello there! first of all i wanna thank you for your translations of the side stories! we get so little about b komachi and I found it really fascinating to see that some of the lyrics from idol seem to have been lifted from 45510 especifically. ( could be mistaken, haha)

but in any case, there's a particular outfit of Ai's that you tag as beautiful dreamer, at first I had only seen this outfit in cosplay websites and I was skeptical of it even being anything more than an effort to sell more costumes. I was wondering if you knew what official art it is from? I'd love to see the original picture, cuz as hard as I try I don't seem to be able to find it!

even if you don't have i still thank u lots for all the theories and analyses you've been sharing here! ( not enough people talk about ai being neurodivergent and the ai on stage being a mask)

thanks!!!!

ANON THIS WAS SUCH A LOVELY ASK TO WAKE UP TO, THANK U SO MUCH 🥺 Honestly it has been years since I actively took part in a Big Fandom enough to contribute meta so knowing that people are enjoying reading my thoughts about this silly little series is kind of mindblowing to me lol. Ai's neurodivergence and the way it factors into the way she navigates the world is suuuuuuuch a key foundational part of understanding her (at least imo) so it makes me glad to see people are vibing with me talking about it so explicitly.

You are correct, tho! IDOL's lyrics are directly based on 45510 and parts of Ai's dialogue scattered around the first volume of the manga - it's always kind of a surprise when I go back through it and I'm like oh my god right, yosasobi just came for the THROAT with some of these lines!!! I've been working on my own TL of 45510 just to keep myself occupied and I've been having a lot of fun trying to make my translations of those lines actually scan to the appropriate lines of IDOL hehehe.

To answer your question tho! That particular Ai design is an official alt outfit/AU design for the Lies and Ai (展 嘘とアイ) exhibition and collab cafe that was held in Japan!

As you can see, everyone got a cute, mahou shoujo inspired look as a tie in.

You can read a little more information about it in this news article but it was basically a little art installation based around Oshi no Ko where certain iconic scenes and outfits from the anime's first episode were recreated for folks to see and a collab cafe with character-themed foods was also hosted. If you'd like to get an idea of what the exhibition looks like, happyuchannel (who does a lot of videos on OnK events in Japan!) has a video about their visit where they show off the parts they were allowed to photograph and some of the merch they got.

The reason I tag this as 'Beautiful Dreamer' is because I run a magical girl AU roleplay called Beautiful Dreamer over on Dreamwidth and Ai is one of the characters I play there! By total coincidence, this art dropped like the day after I decided to play her there and had to work out a mahou look for her and then I guess the universe rewarded me for good decision making LOL

("Claire is this a transparent ploy to get people to come over to Dreamwidth and play in your mahou game?" Of Course It Is)

Unfortunately there aren't any full/high quality images of the art anywhere that I know if since it exists just for the collab cafe but I imagine that when an art book specific to the anime inevitably drops, we'll get full spreads of a lot of the collab cafe/promo art.

BONUS: Here's what those mahou Ai standees look like in real life. Aren't they cute?

("claire how many ai standees do you–" normal amount.)

#oshi no ko #oshi no posting #hoshino ai #ai hoshino

[floaromaxtowns]

For the fandom edition asks, can I ask for G, I and Q <3

Ask me: FANDOM EDITION [Accepting]

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

OKAY SO I started shipping all the way back in 2006-7 when Youtube was the new hot shit around, and I was an itty bitty kid on early internet. Whom had Pokemon and Sonic as her main big interests at the time. I'm forever thankful for those old as fuckkkkkk tribute videos, with the biggest bops from that era. Although, I'm unable to pinpoint which ship I stumbled upon first, so I consider I started shipping them at around the same time: Rival Barry/Dawn (Twinleafshipping) and Shadow the hedgehog/Tikal the echidna (Shadikal).

FUN FACT- I have been SO long into Twinleafshipping that when I first saw it, Barry had YET to receive his official name for either Japanese and English versions. Gen 4 had YET to be released in the west, and we still didn't even know all the pokemon species introduced in it. So, the fandom nicknamed him as Damion, and for the longest time that's how we called him by. Until his official name was revealed.

And my very first queer ship was Alucard/Richter Belmont from Castlevania. That was mindblowing for sb who lived in a country, where even to this day same-sex couples and lgbtq topics are treated as a taboo.

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

I got into Tumblr all the way back in 2015 BECAUSE of my hyperfixation on League of Legends, and by 2017 I was done with the entire franchise. I can't say I blame tumblr entirely for me falling out of love with LoL, there were a number of factors that caused me to distance myself from it (the fact I had stopped playing the game altogether, bc my computer couldn't run it anylonger). But I can say that LoL's fandom is already infamously toxic as it is, and on Tumblr that shit becomes unhinged. And I'm certain that since the inception of Arcane, that fandom must have got even worse.

The only reason we don't hear that much about it nowadays is bc, there is now actual competition for the prize of 'the worst community'. Genshin Impact somehow managed to speedrun those levels of toxicity and unhingedness.

It was through LoL's fandom on tumblr I first saw the lengths, some not-sound of mind individuals are willing to go, to """defend""" their ships. It was the first time I saw anyone receive genuine hate and death threats, just bc they didn't sign up to the popular and most wide spread ship. And I heard through a friend of mine who is still into LoL, that side of the community truly became the worst, thanks to Arcane. Bc now you got a bunch of motherfuckers who never touched the game, wanting to weight in on shit from ppl who aren't interested in the animated show.

Im gonna spread hate on League of Legends, Arcane and anything else related to it LOL

Q - A ship you’ve abandoned and why

It's really difficult for me to drop any ship... At all. So much so, I don't recall dropping any ship in my previous fandoms (Pokemon/Star wars/Castlevania). I may not focus on some ships as compared to others, but that's mainly due to me likely having folks to talk about another ship. But I'm still most definetely a shipper.

As such, I think the very first case of me genuinely dropping a ship happened in the Saint Seiya fandom LOL. I've mentioned it a few times, I shipped Sha.ka/M.u for maybe at most 15 days. It was literally the very first ship I came across, and I genuinely loved how pretty ppl's works for the ship were. Then, the more I dug into StS' lore & content. The more I realized how this couple has little to NO actual substance to offer (by which I mean those two characters literally barely interact with one another, in the entire series).

It actually took me awhile to find out about Aldebaran/Mu, and when I did...

Nevermore looked back at it since LOL.

My theory as to why that ship is massively popular bc most of its fans likely are going off their really vague memories of watching the show, in their childhoods. And solely bc those characters look really good together (I'll give it that, their aesthetic is nice. But that's all you get bc LOL). And they feel entitled to crapping/disrespecting other ships, just bc popular ship brainrot behavior uwu.

#[ rambles ] #thank you for the ask! #attacking-those-pesky-kyojins #long post

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

do you have an example of a post where an academic theory is rephrased as a hot take? most of the dracula content ive seen is just memes, so that sounds fun to read. (also, thanks for teaching me the word "acafan", ive been one for a few years now but didnt realize there was a term for it)

@ckret2 talks here about takes being bantered around on Tumblr that show deep academic knowledge of Dracula!

I'm not actually in Dracula fandom. I've got the world's biggest case of sour grapes about Dracula. My Canadian university had a campus in Italy where you could take a course on like, Dracula and the Origins of the Vampire Mythos, that included its own two-week trip through the Balkans and Central Europe, and I wanted to go SO badly, but there was no way I could afford it, so I decided that I Didn't Care, Dracula was Probably a Stupid Book Anyway. (I know it's not, but it was that or have more money angst, you know?)

ANYWAY. ACAFANDOM.

The rest of this is not Dracula related at all, but this is my blog and I'll rant if I want to. What I'm really fascinated by is the academic study of fandom, treating fannish culture and the works we create as legitimate objects of the academic gaze.

Did you know: The Organization for Transformative works, which runs the AO3, also has its own open-access peer-reviewed scholarly journal?

Transformative Works and Cultures

Their current Call for Papers is for a special issue on Centering Blackness in Fan Studies; the most recent issue is about Fandom Histories, which is to say, how fandoms tend to preserve, remember, and represent our past.

(dreamily) One day I'll get my shit together and write an essay for the Symposium section of TWC, which is the space they've set aside for voices from fandom who aren't part of the Academic Establishment.

Two of its founding editors, Kristina Busse and Karen Hellekson, also edited the 2006 book Fan Fiction and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet: New Essays. Which has an essay that blew my mind and changed the way I think about relationships forever.

Specifically, it was Elizabeth Woledge's "Intimatopia: genre intersections between slash and the mainstream", where she took a conversation that was happening in academic discussions of romance novels and brought slash into it.

Basically, romance scholars were talking about what the difference is between a romance novel, pornography, erotica, or any book that features a love story, because readers sure as hell know that those are all different things. And one of the theories was that the romance genre has this ethos it called the romantopia, an overriding sensibility that what this story is about is the main characters coming together to form a strong marriage. (This is compared to the erotopia of pornography, where the story is "about" the main characters coming together to reach sexual climax.)

And what Woledge said she found quite frequently in m/m slash written by women was a focus on intimacy, on the experience of being deeply seen and known and loved by someone, deeply seeing and knowing and loving them in return, and building a relationship based on that mutual intimacy. Her "Intimatopia" theory says that what these fics were trying to get at was not just a relationship where the participants had agreed to fulfill certain societal expectations together, like "husband", but to deeply interrogate the needs and desires of everyone involved, and define the relationship based on those.

(This theory explains some parts of why slash fandom is perpetually enamored of tropes like fake dating and forced intimacy. You can have characters who achieve both marriage and orgasm, but don't really know each other('s feelings), so the story isn't over yet.)

Which... as a bi girl in the mid-2000s who longed for sex and romance, but was completely starved for positive queer stories, and also didn't find most mass media depictions of heterosexuality appealing: Yes, that is exactly what slash provided me with. Beyond the queer representation, I found that the occasional het written by slash writers was also way more focused on the female partners as individual people, and didn't push them as much into traditional roles, compared to the times I wandered into primarily het-oriented fandoms and was startled by just how heteronormative everything was.

A lot of the writers I adored were queer women who didn't face as much pushback writing flawed and messy men as they did if they dared write problematic femslash, but they were still writing really authentically about the queer lives, experiences, and sensibilities they lived with. Male characters were just as affected by homophobic laws, attitudes, social forces, and military policies as they were, after all. Their male characters reacted, in real-time, to the events that changed their writers' lives.

(About the femslash, I... look, I tried to like femslash in the 2000s. I tried so hard. But albeit some exceptions like The Devil Wears Prada fandom, it seems that there was huge internal community pressure to represent lesbian relationships as idyllic and friction-free. Everything had to be neat and clean and good and giving. Everyone was automatically good at empathizing and accommodating and compromising and nobody felt like people. Especially not the people from the source material I'd fallen in love with. When I found later that one of the big femslash sites was called "Passion and Perfection" it felt like, of fucking COURSE it was.)

So I mostly got my first experiences of sapphic relationships not from the fanfiction itself, but from the personal lives of the writers. They'd blog about their relationships, about who did the dishes and how to persuade your doctor that no really, you're sexually active but not at risk of being pregnant. They talked freely about how changing legalization about same-sex marriage would affect their lives. And they'd often interact with each other in public; a lot of relationships were between fans who both participated in the community, and would collaborate artistically, or organize each other surprise birthday gifts, or write stories to cheer each other up or comfort the other person during times of separation. They represented the diverse queer quotidian possibilities of relationships where you threw out the gender roles and got to be weird together.

And I think... without acafandom, none of that would have felt important or real. For a long time, I would have said that I didn't have any real connections to the LGBTQ+ community. Early on I got a lot of messages that bisexuals weren't welcome in most of the in-person spaces I found, and nothing that I tried later fit either. I didn't like clubbing, loud music, drinking, or loud parties, so none of the LGBT events in my area felt like they were "for" me. And to be honest, unless they were in slash fandom, the reactions of gay men to fanfiction had pretty much all been somewhere on a scale from "derisive" to "scathing": "This isn't about real men. This is garbage and it doesn't represent us."

Which like, fair, I don't feel "represented" by 1950s pulp novels or 90% of recorded lesbian porn, or frankly, most femslash of the 2000s. I wouldn't recommend that era of slash to your average gay man as comfort reading.

But there was something there, in those stories, in that culture, that nourished my soul in deeper ways than I could even say. There was something in this thing we were doing that was important. And Elizabeth Woledge helped me start to explain why.

And in my life as a student and employee, it didn't matter as much how I got my knowledge, but if I used it and showed up on LGBTQ+ issues. It mattered if the old forms I typed up at work got edited to use gender-neutral language. If I corrected academic or direct-service discussions on relationships and intimate partner violence to include more accurate information about LGBTQ+ people. If I pushed for privacy and data management policies that would allow LGBTQ+ people to be open about their identities in some situations without exposing that information to others. If I could make sure that other LGBTQ+ people in the vicinity could see they were welcome and safe. If I could explain proposed legislation changes to people with the power to vote or agitate in some way about them, to make them more sympathetic.

(And yes it's fucked up that I feel like, as a bi woman, I have to pierce my breast and bleed out for the community before I will really "deserve" to belong there. But I do.)

So... yeah. Acafandom's really close to my heart, the way fanfiction is, because without it, there's a lot of my experience that would just feel too weak and frail to form into any sort of social narrative. By using the incredibly powerful tools of scholarly analysis, and taking fan experiences seriously as objects worthy of study, we can figure out what about these things we're all doing actually works. We have more tools to face the future with.

#long post #rambling #acafandom

[kenobihater]

my star wars opinions and a lengthy explanation of my dislike for die-hard jedi apologists

if you don't agree with these, that's okay! you can follow, but don't expect me to change any of my views bc i've held these stances for years at this point.

my main opinions: the sith are worse than the jedi, order 66 was bad, the republic sucked shit but was better than the empire for a while, the separatists had the right to secede from the corruption of the republic in theory but in execution they were both 1) brutal and 2) sith-infested and therefore worse than the republic, mando clones is a fun headcanon, the children of the watch aren't a cult at least up to s3 (haven't watched it bc the s2 finale pissed me off), and anakin was ultimately responsible for his own fall but his actions didn't occur in a vacuum and were due in some small part to an absence of open communication on all fronts, a lack of support, and the jedi allowing palpatine to spend time around him as a child (and the council asking anakin to spy on him).

finally, i dislike hardline jedi apologists for reasons i will explain under the cut, and despite me being a mandalorian enthusiast (save for the kryzes and new mandalorians), i enjoy the jedi as well and totally reject the jedi-fan-vs-mando-fan false dichotomy. i'm going into a lot of detail below bc this is the most widely held belief i don't vibe with in the fandom. feel free to ignore the following if you don't want to hear my ramblings on the jedi!

so my personal stance on the jedi apologism thing is that i disagree, but i can see where they're coming from bc that used to be me. around the time of my blog's creation in 2020, i was mutuals with ppl who held those beliefs. i agreed almost entirely with them and followed basically all of the BNF blogs that i've now either blocked or been blocked by as of writing this.

anyway, the more i interacted with the apologists, the more i found myself disagreeing with some of their opinions as time passed. i found them brushing aside criticisms that i thought deserved to be addressed e.g. the jedi's involvement in the GAR and the ensuing exploitation of the clones. then after mando s1 came out, i started getting into legends mando content and enjoyed their particular flavor of moral complexity a bit more, partially due to the fact that there's very little mando apologism and black-and-white takes on them in comparison to the overwhelming amount of jedi apologists, which i had already started to view as overly simplistic.

that said, obi-wan is my absolute favorite character, and that held true even after i started having gripes with the apologism crowd. i like cal kestis a lot too, as well as ahsoka. i loved these characters who were good individuals and also jedi, and so i felt that the order had to be wholly good to create such people. but the order was chained to the corrupt senate, which was the beating, rotten heart of the republic. they inacted its will, got sucked into its war despite holding peace as a main principle of their belief system, commanded an army of clones viewed as no more than property by both the kaminoans and the republic, and then gave into political pressure to expel ahsoka from the order after she was framed for the bombing.

all of these actions are hypocritical at best and horrifying at worst. the jedi undoubtedly fucked up in canon, without even taking legends into account. they were founded on noble ideals and did a lot of good in the universe, but they were dragged down by the republic and ultimately destroyed because palpatine recognized their weakness was being tied to the republic and he made it even worse through his political machinations. they did not deserve order 66, and order 66 wasn't necessary to restore balance, but they weren't faultless paragons of virtue with no control over the universe or the republic, either. they had enough clout to fix some of their mistakes or at least attempt to atone for them, but they ignored these options and continued upholding the republic's immoral status quo.

individual jedi could be good, they could be great, even! that said, they were often constrained not by their code, but by the fact that they had become bound to the senate and in a bad spot politically with the public. they were quite literally between a rock and a hard place, but being in a tough situation doesn't absolve them of their culpability.

in conclusion, the jedi were flawed to a degree, and anyone who doesn't believe that probably won't like my blog. thank you for coming to my ted talk ❤️

#about len #may also add to this later? depends on whether i remember any other of my deeply held space opera beliefs #makin this unrebloggable so like this if u read ig. this is now linked to my pinned bio

[enneamage]

Not directly to Generation Loss, but I've been given a lot of thoughts to the younger generation of minecraft streamers and their attempts to do big projects to "break out of" the minecraft mold: obviously, with Ranboo, we have Generation Loss, which seemed to go over well with his fanbase (enough so that he's stated he's thinking of quitting MCC, which is really the only tie he's had to the game for about a year atp), with Tommy, we have his New York vlog series and now his liveshows, and with Tubbo, while still Minecraft-adjacent, we have Tubnet. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts about what would make a cc successful at shifting their core audience into a brand new project that isn't necessarily the type of content that they got famous for. Do the audiences of all three ccs differ enough that they would need different strategies to shift their content? My running theory is that Generation Loss was mostly successful among his fanbase because it played on the tropes that were apparent in his minecraft lore from the beginning: mind control, a protagonist forced to do awful things against his will, a base npc type character that occasionally has overwrought freakouts over their lack of control, etc. It was just in a medium outside of Minecraft.

Meanwhile, Tommy is finding himself in a rut because he can't fully apply his storytelling skills to a non-Minecraft setting (in part because he's focusing more on comedy, and while his fans like his sense of humor, I think, in his lore, they also liked the Marvel-esque main character energy, which doesn't translate when it's just the cc having a huge ego, and the angst) and his vlogs, when they aren't completely on the backburner, seem too formulaic to have their early charm. As for Tubbo, while obviously a minecraft server is, well, minecraft, there wasn't enough "entertainment"/lore/a connection to the streamer to encourage his core audience to play Tubnet, at least not in the form it was released as. In short, I feel traditional mcyt-ers are looking for narratives or entertainment value from these bunch of ccs. Although maybe Lovejoy's success goes against this theory. It just seems like all the younger minecraft streamers have attempted to release a large project within the last year or so, and while that might not be indicative of them trying to leave the fandom, I sense a restlessness in all of them and a wish to move on.

(Okay so this is going under a readmore because it is a long’un)

As of 2023 in a post-lockdown and post-DSMP world I got the sense that a lot of people were restless regarding what to do and where to go next, CC and audience alike. I think that because the DSMP was such a specific time and place in people’s lives it’s inevitable that the majority of people (because those numbers were huge) will have moved on to watching/wanting other things, so retention through sameness may not work, but you’re onto something with the feeling like there’s no in-character story to follow anymore. The thing I poke at from time to time is that there’s no out-of-character plot to follow anymore either, most of the irl narratives have been resolved or brought off-camera so even the RPF people have to scavenge for food.

Lovejoy has a rising star narrative that people can invest in if they want; with them breaking free of associations with mcyt to be treated like serious musicians, and I think it also serves a purpose ofpeople trying to wash off post-mcyt shame in themselves. (“this is Wilbur Soot and this is WILL GOLD” they tweet, as though that is not a literal man onstage performing, but they’ve already decided what they want to believe in.) I’m sensing some misguided stabs to try and not be treated like the bottom of the food chain in the vocal fanbase by desperately trying to push away from the MCYT association, which is probably where those peoples heads are at all around. Most lovenjoyers are fine with it and just enjoy the music because it’s obviously how they got there, but there’s clearly a friction going on.

Ranboo has a kind of watered-down version of that following them. I remember when I first saw someone say very defensively that Ranboo wasn’t an MCYT, they were a variety streamer. Ranboo has been drifting away from MC for a long time, both moving into the variety realm and daydreaming about Genloss. When people win the internet lottery young it makes sense to want to put the money towards a project that they would only be stuck imagining otherwise, and Genloss very much feels like that kind of dream. I would say that Ranboo has successfully pivoted to variety and even completed their first big project, but they’ll need to re-capture that audience every time they make a Generation from now on, which could be hard to do with breaks in between.

Tubbo has also moved into variety streaming, which is kind of a necessity for the hours he keeps. He also has an ongoing love for big projects like Recipe for Disaster. Tubbo’s longterm investment and labor of love was Tubnet, which would have established him as the owner of a server like the one that he used to play on when he was younger. I don’t know what Tubbo’s relationship to storytelling is, I’ve heard he does it on a small scale but he also has a unique love of engineering, which Tubnet was more about. As far as I know there were a lot of things that eventually led to Tubnet’s low player turnout, but one of them had to have been low demand; I remember people saying that there was no use re-inventing Hypixel when Hypixel already had all the Hypixel players. Regardless of if this was fair or not, Tubnet didn’t wind up developing a large player base from his fame, which unfortunately shows that not all attention rolls over equally.

Tommy has been pouring his storytelling skills into writing his live show, which he’s advertising as the best thing he’s ever written as well as his biggest self-disclosure. It’s autobiographical theatre, but also a puppet musical-- we will see what the audience reviews think. Tommy’s been experimenting the most to see that he wants to do next, I know he’s stated that 2022 was a big ‘try’ year for him and he’s also talked about focusing on the quality of viewers over the quantity because focusing on hard statistics made him miserable. I know Tommy doesn’t want to move away from Minecraft, he’s actually very tightly holding on and trying to find ways to love it again, as well as make it worthwhile for audiences. Some of the things Tommy has been saying lately make it sound like he wants to turn back time a bit, recapture what streaming and video gamed used to feel like for him when he was younger, so we’ll see what resonates with the others. There’s a lot of really dense nostalgia around Minecraft (look at these comment sections they’re haunting) and judging from his current taste in video essays he’s got a moderate case of it.

I think the pattern here is marrying the thing that you want to with what audiences want, which is infinitely harder to do than it is to say. Human motivation is fluid and weird, and not many people are going to be able to say what it is they’ll want or like until something or someone is put in front of them. What people want also changes over time, so it can be a bit like chasing the wind or catching an updraft to get in the air when it comes to getting an audience. There’s a formula for the YouTube algorithm, but there’s not a clear map for the less cheap or predictable parts of the psyche. 

Even when you’ve got an audience, when it’s time to pivot over to something completely new it’s kind of time to be a whole new person to them; your function and role in someone’s life is changing. It’s rolling the dice and seeing if you can do and be something that resonates in a new form. People fall out of love with other people all the time, and I think that CCs get the same effect as the seasons change-- sometimes people change and cause a split, sometimes people stay the same and get stale over time. For the same reason that people can be ride or die because a CC is themselves, when someone falls out of love with a cc there’s not much that can make them stay if the rest of the content doesn’t deliver. I don’t see people talk about it at length, but I have seen this image make the rounds so it’s a shared thing.  

Shortest answer is I think there’s no formula that can be divined outside of a retroactive twelve hour video essay breakdown of each individual’s creators strengths and weaknesses, and a matching breakdown of where the audience’s head was at. It’s much easier to look back on something specific and say ‘this is why this worked / didn’t work’ than grind out guidelines beyond ‘avoid making the audience feel completely alienated or betrayed.’ It can really come down to the audience, who can be attracted and put off by people for reasons that seem borderline intangible, like ‘authenticity.’

The good news is audiences need change and newness even if the content they like has a pattern, otherwise they would keep watching the same video. Even channels that make ‘more of the same’ put out a continuation of what they did last time, moving things along or adding to the collection somehow. Whether it’s in-character or out of character or a kind of abstract “I show up to this channel and things I like are on it,” I think people like to be able to make sense of what they’re clicking on so that they keep doing it. As long as the core remains intact, the people who are sufficiently invested in the creator tend to stick around unless life gets in the way.

As for the restlessness, I think that being on the frontier is kind of addictive. Not long ago someone pointed out to me that I had started wondering what the next big thing would be on behalf of the CCs because it’s an interesting question, especially coming off the back of the DSMP blowing up. I think that online can be a very punishing place if you don’t keep up with trends and frontiers since things change so fast, it’s rewarding if you get in early but you’re in danger if you’re left behind. This is actually as true for regular internet users as it is for CCs, think of the strangely potent social shame of using an out of date meme or not being up on the state of The Discourse, you’ll genuinely get punished if you’re too far out of sync with things. We’re in a year that is both hung over on lockdown and desperately trying to get moving again, right in the moment before the answer to what happens next is ‘obvious.’  

#Tldr it’s so many specifics that it wraps back around to being uselessly vague when it’s time to talk about it #this blogger sure can blog this was a long one #this counts as a #mageessay #tubeposting #gen tmmy tag #gen rnbo tag #gen tbbo tag

[kookaburra1701]

Summer WIP tag game!

I was tagged by @thana-topsy, I am so excited about what might happen with Halfway to the Sky, I am 💓vibrating💓 and also 👀 at a potential Dark Brotherhood story

I tag @ms-katonic-of-tamriel @mswhich @canonicallymoriche

1) Describe one creative WIP project you’re planning to work on over the summer.

I am working on a trilogy of novel-length fics called Wives of Shor (WIP snippet here: Moth to Flame.) It's a fic that started out as a pastiche of bodice-ripper romances starring Kaidan and Lucien Flavius getting sex-pollened by Sanguine, but it has become a tale about loving someone from an entirely different background than you, having a crisis of faith, and learning how to move on and live a good life when you've done unspeakably terrible things in the past.

I'm planning on having the entire first novel written out + at least most of first drafts of the second and third before beginning to post, so it will be awhile.

OK the game says one but screw that here's some other WIPs I'd like to chip away at, even if they aren't my highest priority:

A Wives of Shor prequel that explains why Lucien only made it to Falkreath before deciding that he REALLY needed some protection on the road.

A fic that explains why there's a bandit trapped in a hay bale in Swindler's Den when a) hay bales require industrial machinery to produce and b) who the hell was baling hay inside a cave. It will also explore the character of Ennis, the goat farmer in Rorikstead, and his relationships with other characters from Rorikstead.

Because I Could Not Stop for Death a short-ish novella that explores how Thane Bryling navigates the transition of being ruled by High King Torygg to his young bride, Elisif the Fair. It was inspired after I noticed that the Holy 80s High School Movie Girl Trinity of Jock-Prep-Goth was present in Bryling, Elisif, and Sybille Stentor. (Yes, all the chapter titles are Emily Dickinson poems ha ha)

I'd really like to get the full summary/outline of a fic my friend TheInducer and I yes-anded into existence. It involves a retelling of the Odyssey by way of Mor Khazgur needing to find a new Chief after theirs went missing. TheInducer did a great write-up on the theory we came up with on r/teslore: Durak is (probably) from Mor Khazgur.

And of course, I continue to hope I will be seized once again by the fit of utter depravity that caused me to write 2K words of Sanguine/Hermaeus Mora tentacle porn a few months ago called La☆Blue Daedra so I can actually finish it and inflict it on the rest of fandom.

2) Rec a book:

The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt. Her first novel is often overlooked by more celebrated/literary ones like Tuck Everlasting but to me this book is the quintessential fantasy story, and it's a very fast read without sacrificing vivid world building and descriptions. Here's my favorite, I think about it whenever I'm struggling with trying to describe something:

There was a lovely greenish glow in the forest, a glow pierced everywhere by tree trunks like fingers thrust into an aquarium full of tinted water; and Gaylen slipped between them like a small fish. With the trees all around him and the rain dancing on the leaves high over his head, he felt as if he were going deeper and deeper into a world that existed tranquil and quite separate from the one he had left behind.

3) Rec a fic:

I have an entire bookmark collection of The Elder Scrolls fic recs!

If I must pick one for this tag game, it would be Like Lightning by Jotting Prosaist. This fic single-handedly changed my opinion on 2nd person POV. It's absolutely masterful and I couldn't imagine experiencing the story it tells any other way. Mind the warnings, it goes to some very raw places.

4) Rec music:

Uh, my musical taste is...eclectic. I guess right now I've been on an early European music and metal kick, so I guess Corvus Corax fits the bill.

5) Share one piece of advice.

Floss daily, check your fire extinguishers and smoke alarms twice a year.

#tag game #fic wip #wip #skyrim fanfiction #summer wip #lucien flavius #skyrim kaidan #kaidan 2 #kb writes