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elismor · 5 days

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I see a lot of posts going by about comments and kudos and hits and...well... I've been thinking about the three quite a lot lately--as both a fic author and someone who spends a lot of my professional life looking at web metrics and determining which are actually important/accurate measures of user engagement.

Mileage varies, of course. And this is all just MY opinion, so do feel free to ignore it wholesale.

What I think when I see someone say that sorting by a hits to to kudos ratio is a good way to find "good" fic:

Hits are a measure of quantity (how many times your story or art has been viewed), but without knowing how AO3 defines a hit, it's actually kind of a meaningless number. We know that our own views of our work do not count toward hits, but...if my BFF looks at my story 7 times in one day because she keeps trying to read it but getting interrupted...is that one hit, or seven? And if it's seven, then the numbers are artificially inflated because it's really just Bestie trying to get her Codex fix. And...if Bestie looks at it three times today and four tomorrow...is that 7 hits total, or two?

Some transparency on the part of AO3 could clear this up handily, but until we get that...shrug. All it is is a number that may or may not be an accurate reflection of how many actual people looked at the page your fic is on. Did they READ it? Or did they nope out? No way to know.

Kudos are intended to be slightly more qualitative, but there is no way of knowing why the reader gave them. (Similar to likes here on tumblr.) It might be that they loved the piece. It might be a simple acknowledgement that the reader was there. It might even be a pity kudo. We have no way of knowing. It's, again, just a number.

Obviously, everyone is free to interpret both hits and kudos as positive reaction/interaction. I might do that myself if I didn't spend my workdays explaining to people that 50,000 "hits" to the website could be 50K people who came to learn about us or...simply the result of the computer labs on campus having the university homepage set to default.

Bigger numbers are just that....bigger numbers.

Comments are the only objective way to judge how someone is reacting to your fic or art.

So, what then? Sort by number of comments?

You can do that, sure. (I think. I confess I have never once gotten the AO3 search to work as well as people rave about.) But do keep in mind that many authors answer their comments. So, something with, say, 20 comments may be 20 people telling the author they loved it. Or it might be ten people and ten author-replies. OR, it might be three people having a conversation in the comments. You have to look and see.

Bigger numbers are just bigger numbers.

Okay, fine Elis. What am I supposed to do then?

Look, I'm not your mother or your therapist and you are free to assign whatever meanings you like to these things. I, personally, find "good" fic through a combination of things including: recs, the fandom grapevine, dumb luck, events, and just...reading some of it and not feeling guilty if I nope out for some reason.

This all sounds a little depressing when laid out like this, huh? Especially when you take into account the downward trends in interacting and the rise of folks treating fic and art as content to be consumed.

Here's what I have learned from writing fic for 30 years (well, 28 and counting):

As an author (and an artist, I would presume), you have absolutely no way of predicting which of your work will land and take hold and which will not. It's alchemy and luck and the weird (and not actual) algorithm of fandom. Sometimes, the piece you whipped out in 30 minutes and posted on the fly will land in the right person's inbox and they will share it and their friends will share it and it will get big. Sometimes, the piece you slaved over for weeks and weeks will do that...sometimes it won't. Sometimes your genius manifests and resonates, sometimes it does not.

My personal favorite fic of my own--the one I think is probably the best thing I have done in SW fandom-- has like 8 kudos and 4 comments (2 of which are my responses). Is it disappointing? Yes. Is it an indication that the fic is objectively "bad"? No.

The mercenary in me suggests that if you want to get lots of comments and kudos, you should pick the pairing that is THE pairing in the fandom and write for that--because that's where the eyeballs are, because that's where the connections are. But that is not why I write, so it's just that--a very mercenary way of looking at things. Not that there is anything WRONG with doing it that way. Supply and demand run the world. If the people want Codywan and you want the people....give them Codywan. No shame in that.

And there is no shame in wanting or seeking validation for your work, either.

But it breaks my heart to see authors (and artists) give up on themselves when they do not receive piles of kudos and comments. It's not you. It's...the luck of the draw. It's...fandom. It's...an artificial and murky set of measurements that have almost no basis in anything meaningful.

Keep writing. Keep drawing. Keep sharing. You are what you make, not how people respond to it.

#let's talk about fic baby #fandom #kudos and comments

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snickerdoodlles · 21 days

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I was gonna ask you for ☕☕☕ on Kim characterisations but I know that could put you at risk of assassination 💀 so free choice! Any ☕ on anything you need to get off your chest - I love u

😂 it is a choose violence game, let's play with fire 🔥 three Kim characterizations i don't much care for:

writing Kim as really old

like. hmmmm. i feel like a lot of fic out there is just really bad at characterizing young 20 yos, there are a lot of stories that write Kim's vibes like he's 38 yo or something. it's. bizarre. 21/22 yo is still so young. there's still so much uncertainty at that age and so much self-discovery to come. i've complained about this before so i don't want to just rehash that but. yeesh. some people really kinda suck at writing "kid in college" aged characters.

not letting Kim be playful

honestly, this one kinda follows on the previous point? there's a very annoying trend of writing ~older~ characters as only ever very serious. and like, aside from the irritation at the way people are really bad at early 20s vibes, people never outgrow playfulness. in canon, i'm pointing to Porsche trapping Kinn under the sheets and farting or them huffing their morning breaths in each other's faces (i love u canon ❤). but people still do ridiculous shit at 40/50/60/70/80/ALL THE AGES too. 40yo sisters who greet each other by punching the other in the boob. the 60yo neighbor who tells me my shoelaces are untied every time he sees me in sandals. the 50yo uncle who flicks popcorn in the mouths of anyone who falls asleep during movie night. there's no age limit to this sort of thing!

but while some of the ultra seriousness seems to be a weird age thing, it's like people also missed that Kim is playful? he's very intense when he's in mafia business mode and he's a nightmare to the guards (❤), but he plays along with Khun. he teases Chay. he has a good rapport with other university students. he can be more lowkey playful than others, but Kim's not made of stone, he has his fun too.

Wik being a burden on Kim

this one starts running into differences in headcanon-- like personally, i'm looking for fics where Wik is Kim's home. i've cried about this elsewhere so i'll keep it short, but Wik is the life Kim poured blood, sweat, and tears into to build up brick by brick. Wik is the life Kim wants, it's the parts of him he thinks are the best of him. i actually make the MC of the ep4 university one of Kim's best friends (i call him Green), and one of my favorite headcanons i've come up with for them is that everyone thinks Green twists Kim's arm into doing outreach events, but actually Green is Kim's connection to university news because he loves doing them but never knows who to ask. Kim desperately wants to be a source of good inspiration to others and have purpose outside of violence, and Wik is his way of doing that. Wik is not a burden on Kim (in fact, i'd argue Kim all but said he is a burden on Wik, but i digress).

so, that's my personal preference for Kim's relationship with Wik, but obviously not everyone's going to have the same characterization and that's cool. where i start to get annoyed is when people write him as very...hmm. dismissive? of it. or otherwise seems like he doesn't like any aspect of it. i straight up back click on any fic that has Kim fuck up the name of some popular musician. this is not a specific call out, but for example-- i remember reading something where there was this offhand line of Kim being like "and there's a request for a show with some other musician, wangson jack?" and just. no. back click, goodbye, nope. shit like that really starts to bug me. some of it is personal irritation at how awful a lot of english speakers are towards asian artists (which like. random fandom people are not at fault for the crimes of USamerican music reporters. but maybe consider that until people overall are less shitty and dismissive towards them, one off lines referencing real life musicians like this are better off deleted). but over all i just...really, really dislike disrespectful attitudes like that (esp for something related to the arts) and i don't want to read them in my favorite character. Kim is pursuing a career in the music industry for himself--Kim being, u know, Kim, he's going to take it very seriously and with that, also hold a lot of respect towards his fellow musicians generally speaking. at the very least, he's going to be cordial and pleasant with them because no one likes working with an asshole and Kim is trying to keep his mafia bullshit far away from his Wik goals. not everyone's going to have the same characterization headcanons i do for how much i think Kim would pour himself into music and love it, but i really don't vibe with any take where Wik is a burden on or a drag for Kim.

and a bonus ☕ because i luv u too anon: anything where Kim doesn't love his brothers or sees them as actual competition instead of the ones he wants to protect the most. this is not a surprise to anyone here, u all know how much i love brothers, but i've noticed that fandom gets kinda caught up in the chess metaphors sometimes. and to that i say: 1. Terry Pratchett yall: sin is when you treat people like things. 2. Terry Pratchett again: chess is a stupid ass metaphor for real life. 3. kp canon agrees with that. Korn is shit at playing chess. (the fucking. ep1 game. omfg. Chan is all but eating his pieces to let Korn win. i'm still howling over the scholars mate in ep5.) Korn is noticeably shit at all his hobbies that are metaphors for controlling people. which is the point! the boys fail every time they try to play his games, because you cannot play people like you would a game. every triumph is rooted in overturning the game board completely.

[ send a ☕, get a bitchy* fic opinion ]

*personal preference related, we’re not here to be mean

#thank u anon this was fun 😂#kinnporsche #tea asks

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santacoppelia · 4 months

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Of fandom, age, and David Tennant being our own personal Time Lord

I read the fantastic post that @davidtennantgenderenvy wrote about David Tennant and aging (if you haven’t yet read it, go for it!) and, as a fan who is closer to DT's age range than to what seems to be the rest of the fan base's age (yeah, being well over 40 is A THING), I had an interesting mix of ideas and emotions. I was going to just reblog her post with some of these musings, but when this started getting longer (and I started searching for bibliography, ha), I decided that I was not going to hijack her post, but rather cite it (and reblog it on its own right, really, read it). I should say that this is a long essay, and it comes peppered with references to one of my preferred fields of study (but I make it light and fun, promise).

Becoming an “old geek”

The first time I came into the idea was when I found a thirst TikTok with that very nice audio that goes “I think I need someone older…” and clearly, the thirst was there, but also… David is 8 years older than me, and when you are 45, thirsting over someone who is 53 doesn’t feel as “edgy” (and thinking about “needing someone older” starts verging on thirsting over people well over 65, which is absolutely fine, but a very different category over all for the rest of TikTok). So yeah, it was weird. You see someone who you feel is "in your range" and everyone is calling them "old"… And you start thinking about aging, inevitably.

Of course, I "don't feel old", but most of my friends are younger than me, and I'm the oldest person in many of my "fun activities". Take, for example, my lightsaber combat team, where every sponsorship is pitched to people under 30, and you should be training at least twice a week and following a strict diet to reach the expected “competitive or exhibition” level (enter the “old lady” who is taking this training just for fun, who needs to take care of her joints and who is not going to be invested in becoming Jedi Master General or anything of the sorts in the near future). Or we can talk about the expectation about fandom in general being a “teenage phase”, and thinking about everyone who still is into it actively after certain age as “immature” or “quirky” at best (hi, mom! Hi, work colleagues! Hi, students!).

Society, aging and social constructs

Of course, this has a lot to do with societal expectations. For almost 80 years, popular culture has been built around "youth" and "young people": before rock & roll, most things (music, clothes, movies, art in general) were targeted to “adults”, and you were expected to be “a functional adult” since a younger age. There was a seismic shift in the way popular culture was built when consumer culture decided to see and cater young people: trends became shorter, being “hip” was desirable, staying younger for a longer period was a nice aspiration (a good, light reading to get a deeper view around this is “Hit Makers” by Derek Thompson. It is written for marketers, but that makes it an easy historic overview and I like that). This has a lot to do with the change of our view about old people, too: while being old 100 years ago (yup, 1924 still fits the bill) made you “a respected elder” and you were expected to be wise, to know best, to be the voice of reason and an expert, nowadays not even us older people like being seen as “old” or “older”.

Frequently, culture becomes entrenched in binary oppositions. The binary opposition between “young” and “old” is… well, old! And while the opposition is sustained, the meanings around it change over time (that’s what the past paragraph was about, really). If in the 1940’s being old meant “mature, respectable, wise, responsible” and being young meant “inexperienced, immature, foolish”, after the 1950’s those meanings shifted a lot: being young became “fun, interesting, in the now and in the know, attractive”, while being old was about being “boring, dusty, passé, uninteresting, dull”.

In reality, being young can be a mix of all of these things (inexperienced and fun and foolish and attractive), and being old can be, at the same time, being responsible and wise and a little dusty and dull, because that’s life *shrugs*, and the wonder of lived experience is that, even if we simplify it, it is complex and rich and sometimes contradictory in itself: we can be old and foolish and interesting and boring, or young and dull and inexperienced and attractive. But, as we need to make “social sense” of things, simplifying them is… easier. That’s why we build stereotypes, and why we use them! We need to have a “base” of signifiers to build upon, so we usually take what we have on our environment and run with it. If you find this idea interesting, welcome to the world of cultural semiotics! *takes her Iuri Lotman picture out of her pocket and puts it on the desk*

(Iuri Lotman, people. He is my "patron saint").

Pop culture versus “real culture”

Another cultural opposition that piques my interest in this area is the notion of “pop culture”, of course. It is opposed to “real, serious culture”, the sort of thing that everyone expects "older, mature people" to enjoy. In the sixties and seventies, there were a lot of studies and writing about "high brow" and "low brow" culture, trying to keep this distinction between "things that make you familiar with the now, but have no intrinsic value" and "eternal things that cultivate your mind, soul and spirit".

Evidently, if you ask me, this is a whole load of horse manure: probably useful to fertilize other things, but with little intrinsic value on its own. My main point is not dolphins, but the idea of culture: historically, it has used to mean a lot of things; from the notion of (exactly) fertilizing something and making it grow to make it come to fruition, to the hodgepodge of practices that a social group creates when they are together and are trying to make common sense of things.

I like the latter better (that is the one I’d ascribe to if this was The Academia TM, but this is tumblr!), but another popular definition, which comes from the Illustration and has been quite prevalent, is the notion of culture as the set of cultural practices that make you a better, more intelligent, far more educated person. For example: if you want to have real culture, you have to read Shakespeare and know what a iambic pentameter is, rather than watching “10 Things I Hate About You”. You must read real books, not listen to audiobooks, and “real books” should be written by “serious authors” like (insert old white Western European or American cis men, preferably born before 1960).

Here comes the notion of “cultural canon”, grinning widely. Yup, that set of practices becomes an expectation of what and how you should experience any area of the human experience, and they become a sort of “nucleus” of the whole experience, with people playing “defense” around them and culture shifting all around and sometimes across them. This is not exclusive to “high culture”: Have you ever heard about “gatekeeping”? Yeah, same fenomenomenon (Shadwell, of course). Whenever something gets this “shape”, it becomes a “norm”, the “common” thing, the “rule” if you participate in that set of cultural practices.

As every cultural set of practices tends to generate its own “canon”, they also have a lot of practices surrounding it, which are ever changing, shifting, learning from new and old practices, and redefining what everything means in their common/shared space. For example: Neil Gaiman, my beloved, was part of the “comics” frontier when Sandman first appeared, but as he and Alan Moore (yeah, I know he did it first, but Gaiman is my study focus right now, so let me be) and other very talented and interesting people started creating fascinating stuff that hadn’t been done, and they found people who loved it, they not only redefined the world of comics, but became part of the new canon themselves. And then, Neil’s presence in the world of literature and fantasy became widespread and recognized and then revered… And then he is doing it again by adapting his own work to a streaming platform in a serialized way… I hope this explains why I’m growing an obsession with studying Neil Gaiman as an author who crosses through different media: a transmedial auteur, an anomaly in his own right. But that is not an essay for tumblr, but a thesis, one that I don’t know if I’d ever have the time or mental resources to write (being a runaway ex academic with ADHD who works on their own is hard, people). Besides, this was about aging and David Tennant, so let’s cut this tangent short and start talking about our Time Lord and Savior: David Tennant, the king of frontiers.

David Tennant as a Frontier Lord

David Tennant is another fascinating case in this sense, mostly because he is an actor who has been able to build a whole very impressive career through crossing symbolic frontiers. Through his massive filmography (161 roles just for screens, as registered in IMDb) and his stage career (I love this gifset for this exact reason), he has acted his way through almost everything, from classical Shakespeare to improvisational comedy, from procedural police drama to wacky fantasy sci-fi. This has a lot to do with his personality (he loves acting, he decided to pursue acting as a career thanks to his love for Doctor Who, but he is also smart and inquisitive) but, as it happens with a lot of “frontier figures”, it also has a lot to do with “unpredictable” circumstances: less of a strategy, more of an instinct.

David has talked many times about how his impostor syndrome made him feel, for the longest time, that he had to keep accepting roles, because you never know if there is going to be another one after. He is talented and open and curious (this is quite a good interview about his perspective), but this… anxiety? meant that he had also lower quandaries about saying “yes” to roles and projects that were “less consistent” with a typecast (which has been, for the longest time, one of the main strategies to build an acting career). Yeah, he has some defining characteristics that make a role “tennantish” (I’m not starting that tirade here, but yeah, you know that almost fixed set of quirks and bits), but he has also worked his way through many different genres, budgets, styles and complexities. And he has usually been as committed and as professional in a big budget-high stakes-great script sort of situation, as he has been in a highly chaotic-let’s see what sticks-small scale project.

That can be correlated by the way he talks about “acting advice”. “Be on time, learn your lines, treat everyone the same, never skip the lunch queue”… Acting is a job, and he treats it as such. Yeah, he looks for interesting projects anytime he can, but the “down to earth” attitude about it is, once again, not-usual, not-common: pure frontier. Then, when David talks about his own self (specially at a young age), he is pretty clear about his “outsider” or “uncool” status (this interview is fantastic), and how strangely disruptive it was to become not only recognizable, but cool and sexy and… everything else, thanks to Doctor Who. He went from living in the frontier to being put in the canon, but he is still, at heart, a person who is more comfortable not defining himself by that “expected” set of rules.

Him being a very private person, who insists on having a family life that seems, form this distance, stable, loving and absolutely un-showbiz just makes the deal (and the parasocial love and respect) easier to sustain; as does his openness to talk about social and political issues that interest him (passionately, again; against the norm for “well liked celebrity”, again). His colleagues also talk wonders about him, mostly because he is this sort of down-to-earth but also passionate about his craft and easy to work with. Again: not the “norm”, not the “rule” of being such a celebrity.

Many of his fans (should I say that I’m one? Or is it obvious at this point?) find this not only endearing, but comforting: he is a massive star, who has acted in a lot of terrific roles in huge productions… But he feels, at heart, as “one of us”. But he is, also, a well-respected thespian, a Shakespearian powerhouse, an international talent. He lives in a very authentic, but very unstereotipical frontier. And he seems happy about that and has made a career from it. Extensive kudos and all the parasocial love and the amateur-actress mad respect for that.

I should mention, just in passing, that a “natural” archetype for this characters that traverse frontiers… are tricksters. Think again about the “tennantish” characteristics. Here goes another essay I’m not writing right now.

Aging: The Next Frontier

This takes me to the original post that inspired the essay: living in a culture where the “norm” is “being young and famous is a desirable aspiration”, we have a fantastic actor, at peak of his craft, who is in the heart of middle age (past 50, nearing 55). Not only that, but he is an actor with whom at least a couple of generations have grown older: from the ones who feel him as “our contemporary” to the ones who grew up looking at him (like Ncuti Gatwa!).

David, being the frontier person he is, has been navigating this transition in a very “unconventional” way: he came back to the role that made him iconic (The Doctor, now with more trauma!), is starring in another fantasy series about middle-aged looking ethereal beings that at times is an adventure thriller, at times is a comedy of errors and at times is a romcom (having another beautiful trickster of a man as his co-star… There goes another tangent that is an essay); he is playing one of the quintessential Shakespeare roles for middle-aged men (Macbeth), and is, seemingly, having a lot of fun doing a lot of voice acting for animation roles (if you haven’t watched Duck Tales, you’re missing a whole lot of fun, really).

Traditionally, middle aged actors navigate that period of their career trying to reinforce their “still young, thus a celebrity” status (for example, doing a lot of action-packed movies and keep doing their own stunts while seducing women 20-30 years younger than them), or strengthening their “prestige thespian, so now a real culture person” position (fighting for more serious roles, going from comedy to drama, or working their way into The Classics©). Sometimes, they face the internalized societal expectation by also becoming a shipwreck in their personal life (yeah… the stereotype of “getting divorced, having an affair with someone half their age, getting another red convertible, getting in trouble…”) because we don’t have a good “map for aging responsibly” yet as a society. We have been so focused on youth, that we have forgotten how to age.

Again, switching to the personal experience. I was raised as a female-shaped person (yeah, being queer is fun), so part of the experience of growing (and then growing old) has been closely related with that concept from the female point of view. I decided, pretty early on (but not so much, probably 25 years ago), that I wasn’t going to conform to the norm… And that included aging naturally. When I found my first white hair, it was a shock (I was 21 or 22), but I had already seen my father fighting his own hair being white since forever. I decided it was a loss of time, money and effort… And the judgement from people in my generation and in the one that preceded me (my mother, my aunts) was stern and strict: “it will age you, and it will date us. You shouldn’t do that”. Men could do it, given the right age (being over 50) but women must not. Same with wrinkles and sagging and gaining weight and getting “pudgy”. But when men grew older, they needed to make a “show off” of their ability to seduce, to “still be a man”. Aging, then, was undesirable by any standard.

As me and my peers have grown older, and my hair has gotten increasingly silver, there have been women that come to me saying that “I look great” and “they wish they were as brave as me”. I would like to state in front of this jury of my peers (hi, tumblr!) that the only bravery it took was deciding, somewhere between my twenties and my thirties, that I wanted to be as myself as I possibly could, so no bravery at all, just the same lack of understanding of social rules that took me to become interested in… you guessed it, cultural semiotics. We’ve come full circle with this. Now, let’s finish talking about what it means for an aging fan to have an aging star to look up to, shall we?

David Tennant as a cultural Time Lord

I am pretty sure that he wouldn’t have chosen this role for himself (as he wouldn’t have chosen being a massive star just by playing his favorite character and being so talented and charming), but he is, as Loki would say, burdened by glorious purpose. Being “the actor of his generation”, and him crossing so many frontiers with such ease and grace, without even thinking about it too hard, just because he is a hard worker and likes to try new things and is just so good at what he does put him in the exact cultural crossroad for it.

He is not in a sudden need to “resignify himself” as anything: he has already shown his very flexible acting muscles through his very long career. He is not bounded to “keep his public image relevant”: he likes to have his personal life clearly separated from the spotlight, and being married to the brilliant and funny Georgia, who herself grew up with a famous father, so she is no stranger to staying sane and in control in the eye of media, and who manages their social media presence with a good mix of humor and well-set boundaries.

Therefore, he is in a moment where he can (and probably will) chose to do whatever he likes. And he has the public support to do so: he is prestigious and respected, but likes to make fun of himself and is not self-important; he has a lot of awards, but he is also a very likable person with whom most people in the industry enjoy working. And he is up to do a lot of things: heroes, villains, morally grey characters; romance, drama, thriller, fantasy, sci-fi, procedurals, historical fiction, classic plays, silly parts, voice acting… We are going to see him aging on screen and stage, with no playbook: the playbooks were written for people that certainly are not him. And I have some evidence to prove it.

He is starring in a groundbreaking series (yeah, Good Omens) where the protagonists are two middle-aged looking entities, full of queer relationships, written by another trickster. This series, in an on itself, is a showcase for characters that are rule breaking in many ways: in the narrative, by being hereditary enemies who are inevitably linked to one another by a loving bond that may or may not be romantic, but that has been in the making for 6,000 years; in representation, by having the protagonists being represented by a couple of middle aged actors who are “not serious” and “not action” coded, in a role where they are delivering romance, banter, intrigue, joy and a whole other range of emotions that are “not your stereotypical” middle-aged male-lead coded.

He also delivered the baton on a relay race with Doctor Who: he came back after almost 20 years, to bring back the generation who grew up watching him in the role, and deliver us into the arms of Ncuti Gatwa’s 15th Doctor, with the promise of taking a rest and working on getting better from all the trauma The Doctor has endured in 20 years Earth-time (which, as any Doctor Who fan knows, account for centuries of trauma in Doctor’s time). Not your usual Doctor Who Anniversary cameo, but one built to deliver some zeitgeisty emotional health promises that made the specials feel… healing. At least, for some of us.

Even when it wasn’t the hit series it deserved to be, his Phileas Fogg in “Around the World in 80 Days” is also a great delivery of an unconventional middle-aged protagonist, who goes from meek and scared and too worried about societal norms, to a lovely, tender, slightly awkward and daring person, with friends half his age who look at him but are also his peers (another kind of relationship that is not very frequent in media).

And, with all fearlessness, he has played a lively old duck in Duck Tales! Scrooge McDuck has never been a middle-aged character: he is, quite openly, an old gentleman. An adventurer, quirky, with a lot of spunk… but also quite clearly an elder to Huey, Dewey and Louie, and obviously older than Donald Duck (who is also not a young adult himself!). When you watch that series, and if you have the opportunity to catch any glimpse of him behind the scenes while recording the part, you can feel the joy he got from playing the part (and he has said time and again that he IS Scrooge McDuck, so it will become his “recurring bit” for the future).

Hopefully, David (and some other actors and actresses, for sure) will dare to build that new “aging publicly without making an arse of myself” playbook, and I (and I can imagine, many other fans in our middle age, but also fans that are right now leaving behind the “young adult” stage and becoming “adults” fair and square, and others who will arrive to this place at a future time in their lives, so I hope) will be there to bear witness, support, cheer… and learn from the model. Because that’s what fandom is about, but also because that’s how culture itself gets shaped and changes, continuously. And that is exciting and a little scary, and that’s why it is better if we do this together.

And I'd love to imagine diverse (in the full sense of the word) role models for this process and this playbook, too!!!

If you read all the way through this, I'm very grateful, take a cookie, have a gold star and suggest names for our aging interestingly role models on the "non-white-male" side of things!

Class dismissed!!

#david tennant #aging #aging gracefully (or not)#long essay #long post #cultural studies #cultural semiotics #I need someone to pay me for writing this sort of stuff really #when I said I was writing again I meant it #this was 6 pages long in Word #and it includes references #look at my (written) child #the doctorate in cultural studies would never #neil gaiman

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kcrabb88 · 2 months

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Not to vent on main, but I do want to talk about this because I think it speaks to a bigger issue in fandom recently. So, there's been a small but noticeable trend recently of people coming onto Quinlan/Obi-Wan content that I make and either saying "I liked this except for the QuinObi and/or Quinlan himself" or commenting on something as to why it was QuinObi and not another more popular ship. This happened recently in a comment I got on a fic and also on a piece of QuinObi art that I paid for, among other things. First, that's a shitty thing to do. You don't come into comments and complain that it's not what you like. Second, I gotta say, I have not experienced having people who like super popular ships coming to me, whose ship is a rowboat, and complaining that my content, or content I paid to have created, isn't their ship in any fandom I've ever been in. You're right! It's my ship. I love them and will continue to write about them. If a few people have written QuinObi because of me (and they have! Which is so nice!) I'm still not rocking the fandom boat. I am not making a dent in the behemoth ships that are out there. I ran a QuinObi week which was so wonderful and I will do it again, but it's not going to suddenly steal writers away from other popular ships (also, multi-shipping exists!) I'm not a threat. Not that we should think of things that way, but it does start to come across like that when stuff like this happens, like I'm getting in the way of an agenda.

I've been in fandoms where I shipped a big ship and got complained to by someone shipping idk, I hesitate to call it a rival ship, but that's the only word I can think of. Still not nice, but coming to me about my SMALL SHIP is much more unexpected and much more unkind as far as fandom power dynamics go.

People have gotten truly aggressive about both fanon and popular ships. No one, whatever the fandom, is obligated to ship the popular ship you like. Not everyone is going to fit the mold of popular fandom trends, and they don't have to. They should be able to create what they like without being bothered about it. People seem to believe now that if you ship a pairing that you also hold an Approved slate of beliefs about every other character in fandom. That you follow what I've been calling a Fandom Map. Well, some people like to mix it up. Fandom isn't a hive mind and diversity of characters and pairings should be encouraged. I think it's ironic that I have to be extremely nervous to make a post critiquing a popular fandom trope but people can come to me and be rude about my way less popular shipping preferences. I’m not a fandom vending machine. If you don’t like one thing but enjoyed others tell me what you did like and leave the rest out. Or don’t read it. Crits like this aren’t even dislikes about story elements (and even those are more for Goodreads than Ao3) they’re crits about my personal taste.

(As to Star Wars fandom in particular, I continue to think it's really off that people are so weird about Quinlan generally, and dumb him down, among other crimes. You have to start to wonder why and when you wonder, the results of that wondering aren't great).

tl ; dr don't be a jerk. We're all here because we enjoy something.

#KCrabb rambles #Star Wars tag #Quinlan Vos #QuinObi

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olderthannetfic · 9 months

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/724781513472868352 I resonate with this on a deep level. I get told at college all the time that I don't look LGBT+ (they refuse to say queer, respectability politics is a helleva drug), I don't act it, no queer person is into my major or my hobbies, and it's weird that I'm queer but not into astrology or dressing more aesthetically ("are you a cottagecore or a dark academia gay?" I'm neither I'm a me) or playing Pokemon because outgrowing Pokemon is for cishets. People talk about gays/LGBT+ not being able to drive or do math or sit normally and then act like I'm some kind of ridiculous weirdo for not laughing at what they assure me is a true statement that does not apply to them or to me. People encourage me to experiment with my style or hair and "come out of your shell". I am informed I need to listen to certain musicians because all LGBT+ people are into them. It's weird that I'm not. It's even weirder I don't like The Owl House or hate Steven Universe or keep up with Heartstopper like the good queers do.

Basically it all boils down to, "Why can't you be more normal? Why can't you be like us?"

Because I'm not. My dad is a Pashtun Muslim and my mother is a Bukharan Jew. I have lived in the Deep South half my life and Wyoming the other half. My media interests are unrelated to queer rep and wholly based on liking the plots of things. I grew up on oldies and TV shows like Starsky and Hutch that my parents loved, pirated and played on repeat. I don't believe in astrology, I'm not a witch and I'm not an atheist with a Christocentric worldview who assumes all religions are Christianity Lite. I don't listen to the correct musicians mostly because I discover music entirely by accident and have a mishmash of genres and bands in rotation. Pokemon fell off and I'm not into it. I would sooner die than dye my Pashtun red hair that people made fun of me for as a kid. I like wearing button downs, clean shirts, nice jeans and my Magen David. None of this is incompatible with being queer. No one is going to kick me out of a gay club for not having played Pokemon Violet or listening to Tracy Chapman or trusting in science over crystals for healing.

And I really hate that after years of being avoided and pitied in high school by jackass backwards rednecks for being weird, I got to my dream university, the university in the most liberal city in Montana, and get the same fucking treatment.

Commenters like the one anon mentioned remind me of all the people who act like I'm doing it wrong. What is 'it', in that sentence? Living my life. Being queer. And when it crops in fandom - and I've gotten it sometimes for writing queer characters who are like me, Southern and into uncool shit and not sharp dressers and religious - it just makes me want to start screaming.

I am queer. I am not incorrectly queer. I am who I am and therefore, because I am queer, that is a correct way to do queerness.

Some gripes about Gen Z are overblown but this weirdly narrow view of what queerness is allowed to look like or be is 100% as awful as other generations say it is and it's fucking exhausting to live through. I don't have to sit differently in order to be doing queerness right or be unable to drive. I exist and I am queer and that is all I need to do and be.

I wish fandom was different from real life. I wish it was more open to the reality that queer people have a multitude of backgrounds and lived experiences. We're facing enough shit IRL, can't we just have one place where we're NICE to each other?

As a 40+ queer, I'm laughing myself sick at the current crop of "required" queer interests.

In my day, it was oldschool cis gay male culture for the men (think being obsessed with Bette Davis) and But I'm a Cheerleader and Dykes to Watch Out For for the women or something.

Not that you have to like any of those things either. It's just hilarious how clueless people are about what's a temporary trend that will probably be different in 5 years.

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gaywarcriminals · 20 days

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How much lesbingqiu is there?

Since exactly One (1) person asked for the femslash slash stats on my post about the proportion of hetswap in the bingqiu AO3 tag, I have obliged.

I used the bingqiu tag and filtered by F/F. Obviously many of these results are F/F side pairings with M/M bingqiu, so from there, I counted them by hand.

I excluded crossovers from my search criteria, but I did a separate search to include the fics tagged with both SVSSS and Scumbag System. At time of writing there were 257 and 18 fics respectively, or 275 total.

I have included fics with multiple pairings and polyships. Iirc this was only relevant to Bingliushen.

I counted collection fics that had at least one fembingqiu ficlet/chapter.

I included art posted to the archive.

I included podfics posted to the archive, and counted them and the fics they were based on as two separate works.

I am excluding fics where male characters' bodys or genitals are temporarily changed for a plot device but the characters maintained their original gender identity.

By these criteria, I counted 140 lesbingqiu fics on AO3. At time of data collection there are 7005 total fics in the bingqiu tag, meaning lesbingqiu makes up 0.01999% of the bingqiu tag

For funsies, I have also noted instances of trans bingqiu!

I am including fics where amab Shen Yuan Transmigrates into a cis woman and decides they're okay with this body in the trans category.

If gender was not mentioned in a fic I defaulted to cis.

I am lumping all iterations non-binary bingqiu into the trans category, including afab non-binary bingqiu.

Not all fics with trans characters are tagged as such, so I skimmed any fics I was unsure of, but I'm sure I inevitably missed some.

Cis bingqiu - 118 Trans SQQ x cis Binghe - 8 Trans Binghe x cis SQQ - 6 T4T bingqiu - 4 Monsterfucking body weirdness, gender fucky omegaverse, or high tier SQQ gender shenanigans that I didn't know how to categorize - 4

Reflections

WAY LESS THAN I THOUGHT??? I think my perception has been skewed by what a high proportion of my fandom friends are lesbians, and how often femslash AUs feature in our discussion.

Similarly, the fact that there are only four T4T fics was genuinely shocking to me-- I forget sometimes what a bubble I'm in lmao. I also noted that trans bingqiu was a more recent development, at least on AO3; the first fic I found to feature trans girl SQQ was from January of 2022.

I don't have exact numbers because I didn't think of it until halfway through, I noticed that in almost all the NSFW fics where just one of bingqiu was trans, the trans girl topped. This was an interesting mirror to the trend I've noticed where, in cases where just character is a trans man, he almost always bottoms. I'll shelve speculation about that for another post tho.

#This is the adult equivalent of counting my favorite rocks #some times you just want to count and/or sort things (normal neurotypical sentence)#svsss #luo binghe #shen qingqiu #genderswap #genderbend #lesbingqiu #bingqiu #fandom meta #fish.txt

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beautifulpersonpeach · 5 months

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I’ve been reading your blog for the better part of the year and it’s helped me rethink many things. This year was weird for me and I’ve been reflecting, I finally got courage to write this confession and I only feel comfortable sending it here. It’s okay if you post it. I think there are other people like me.

My Confession:

I’m an Orbit-Blink shooter who used to fight with an Army shooter daily until she died during the earthquakes in Turkey this year. I didn’t realize how much of my life and fan experience was tied to her until she died BPP. The way I got into shooting was through my Blink friend who introduced me to Loona when they debuted. At first I thought I was defending Loona and then defending Blackpink, but at some point shooting on its own for any reason became addicting. I would jump in on a ratio, throw insults and post gore and graphic images to people’s DMs for any small reason.

There was one Army shooter I hated because she was always there with screenshots or videos to drag Blackpink. Whenever there was a fanwar I knew I would see her there. And times when she wasn’t in the fight, I would use another account pretending to be an Army to tell her what was happening so I could rile her up to join the fight. I didn’t know it at the time but I loved fighting with her. She made me feel alive. The way she was passionate about BTS made me want to get some of that passion directed at me in any form.

Now, after months of reflecting, that’s what I realized. Because when the earthquake happened, I didn’t know she was dead. I kept checking her account for days, sending DMs from my fake Army profile, wondering why she was not replying. I even created a new scandal for Taehyung in our shooter group but she didn’t tweet. Then 2 weeks later her cousin tweeted from her account to say she died in the earthquake. BPP, it was like my whole life stopped. I became extremely depressed and dealt with extreme self loathing. I couldn’t look at any fandom fight without thinking about all the things I did to her. I hated myself and wanted to die. I went through that Armys profile and saw how her love for BTS was genuine. After months of therapy now I understand more why I acted like that, but it’s something I’ll forever be ashamed about.

In the depths of my depression I deleted Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. After some weeks of missing what’s happening, I got Tumblr and found your blog talking about fandom behavior. In so many ways you’ve saved my life BPP. The way I was shooting was more for other shooters than Loona or Blackpink or even myself. I realize now there’s a whole subculture of kpop shooters and I think what they have is an addiction. I notice the same things with how solo stans behave. They think they’re doing it for the idols but it’s for them and other stans they’re fighting. It creates destruction. Life is short. Why spend it on something destructive?

I’ve changed everything about how I behave online. Through therapy and reading your blog, I realize people use fandom to express themselves, and if that expression is mostly negative, there’s deeper problems with that person that needs solving. Now I curate my space and avoid shooters and fanwars completely. I now focus on what I enjoy which is good lore and good music (I still enjoy a good fight but I now satisfy this need by getting engaged in Munk Debates in my city). Loona’s lore was the reason I was interested in them, so after weeks of stalking that dead Army’s profile, I learned that BTS has lore too. I fell down the BTS rabbit hole and officially became an Army on Jimin’s birthday (after reading your blog I’m now Yoonminkook biased hehe)

I’m a very new Army but an ‘old’ kpop fan and reformed shooter. I’ve committed to live a life that’s critical and compassionate. Because of how I’ve become Army, some things I’m seeing in how fans of diff fandoms act has a different meaning to me. I still struggle with shame and sometimes when I see fanwars or see solos trending hashtags and things, I remember me from what feels like long ago. I remember that Army shooter who feels like someone I owe my life to. I remember how so much is going on in the world and we could do with more kindness but people use fandom to be awful assholes. I was one such person, attimes I still have to bite my tongue. But what I do now is log off, go do something physical and positive that makes me tired, or scroll through your blog archives.

There might be people like me trying to get away from the shooter mindset and struggling because it’s hard. It’s like an addiction. I want those people to know it’s doable. Recognizing the problem is the hardest part for real so if they are at that point, it gets easier from there.

Thank you for having this blog BPP. I hope you stay here in 2024 as well.

***

Happy to hear you’re in a better head space than earlier this year.

Take care of yourself. Really.

#bts #kpop #kpop fandom #fandom behaviour #BTS army #BTS fandom #bts solo stans #fandom shooters

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discordiansamba · 10 days

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My personal opinion on the "humans are space orcs" trend in the VLD fandom is that I think people overdo it. It's funny if there's shit about humans that's weird to the other aliens, but it's also funny if there's shit about the aliens that is deeply weird to humans. The Galra can eat almost anything and have a contact sport that makes football look like a kindergarten brawl. Alteans canonically have a weather condition that's boiling, sharp rocks falling from the sky. Humans can't just be the weird ones. There has to be balance.

also it makes Keith's entire existence even funnier.

#keith combining weird shit about the galra with the weird shit about humans. harmony.

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thegoodwitchglinda · 6 months

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magazine matchups

vil x reader

you and vil were supposed to just be colleagues, but as your work kept pushing you closer and closer together, you couldn’t help but fall for one another.

a/n: this is another repost of a previously deleted fic I posted. also can’t believe i ever deleted this, this is like the funniest thing I’ve ever written (imho)

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His absence was something you barely noticed, just as his presence. You weren’t oblivious to it, however. It started out as a coincidence, the two of you ended up modelling for a few projects together, which had the internet going wild. Soon enough, it turned into free advertising, and your managers were intentionally pulling the strings so that you’d be working together. If anything, the nonsensical rumours that came out of it were kind of annoying - other than that, you had no strong opinion about working with him, or his personality.

He wasn’t exactly a constant in your life either, that’s why you almost didn’t notice his unannounced break from the public eye. You remembered him after seeing a now slightly old article about the SDC, ah that’s right, he’d taken a break from almost all of his work to focus on the competition, which had ended a couple of months ago. Despite this, you can’t recall him coming back to the limelight since.

Might as well check his magicam page, you thought. He still posted there, would it be weird to follow him out of nowhere? Eh, who cares- you did it anyways, and then went to bed.

As always, it felt like the sun rose far too early to wake you from your slumber. Your alarm hasn’t gone off yet, or you hoped it hadn’t at least. You checked the time, and you were fine, you didn’t oversleep.

In the meantime you should probably check the texts you got from Neige, your certified best friend who doesn’t usually text you at six in the morning.

“Hey, Y/N! You’re trending on magicam, so is you and Vil’s ship-name, did you know?”

Um, what? That was… strange? Honestly, you really wanted to see what was going on, but you’d be late for school if you let social media get a grip on you right now.

Break time. It felt pretty exciting to hear the bell ring this time around, since you’d been itching to find out what had you on the trending page, it’s not like you did anything either spectacular or offensive recently.

Damn, Neige really wasn’t lying, then again, you couldn’t recall any time he ever has. Your expression died down comically quick, as you kept scrolling through the tagged posts. Your fans were literally insane sometimes, to the point were maybe following someone new on your public account was a bit of a mistake. Basically all of your conjoined fandom was trying to theorise over Vil being added to the list of people you follow, which was otherwise only Neige and your manager. Really, it was a slight disappointment, but it was also kind of funny, at least the internet didn’t decide it was time for a dose of unjust cancel culture just yet.

A few days later, after school had let up, you went to hang out with Neige in town. It was a tradition between you two, a way to keep in contact despite your busy schedules. The two of you often cycled round different attractions or areas in the city, sometimes just opting to walk around and talk. This time, you were headed to the local museum. It was interesting to read about all the history loaded behind what seemed like a simple piece of pottery, or learn about how certain things were used to supplement both the lack of technology and magic of the older world.

It was mostly things you’d seen here before though, but you’d never paid much mind to the modern art section, you realised after thinking about it. “Hey Neige, should we go look over there? Who knows, they might have your portrait framed or something.”

Your joke was received with a light laugh and, “Sure, let’s go take a look!”

This section of the museum felt a lot smaller, but there were even less people willing to marvel at the paintings that adorned the walls. Coincidentally, the one other person that was there happened to be someone both you and Neige recognised. You wondered if he visited the place a lot, people don’t tend to look so blank whilst visiting a museum by themselves.

Neige turned to you, excited to ask if it’d to be alright to approach him. That’s right, you’d somewhat forgotten that those two knew each-other. “Yeah sure, I don’t mind.” As soon as the sound of his name filled the room, his head turned, and his expression looked mildly annoyed. Did he look like that before? God, you’d have to hope the two of you weren’t upsetting him. Your friend however, didn’t appear to notice anything out of the ordinary as he continued to make small talk.

Gradually, said small talk came to close, and Neige had invited him to spend more time with the two of you, though Vil politely declined. He was rather curt, but he didn’t seem like a bad person, if anything your opinion hadn’t changed since you first worked with him.

Before waving goodbye, you rushed to scribble your phone number down on a crumpled piece of paper to give to him. Momentarily, you pondered wether that was a good decision to make, as he almost stayed silent, but soon put on a smile and thanked you. It was an awkward first meet.

Vil turned away after the two of you had left, it was due time to head back to his dorm, despite his visit to the museum serving a different purpose than intended. For Vil, he had hoped to come about some inspiration in preparation for returning to his work but meeting Neige was a frustration in its own right, considering how a large part of his break was dedicated to self improvement after realising his envy was severely holding him back.

Regardless of his efforts, it was disappointing to see Neige thrive under the same conditions as him and yet thwart all the hardships that Vil faced. Whilst his perfection was his pride it robbed him of approachability.

You however, offered him your number despite how out-of-reach he often is to people through your slight uncomfortableness. He thought it was folly of you, but it was a rare boldness that wasn’t unbeffiting of you - having only experienced similar things from Rook, who sometimes took it to an extreme.

Maybe it came from you also being in the industry, but he found himself thinking fondly of it. When Vil arrived at pomefiore once again, he decided to follow you back on magicam, not unaware of you doing so a few days back, although he made no effort to add your contact to his phone. You were still asleep by morning, enjoying the extra time the weekend was granting you. When you did wake up, you checked your phone, a part of your usual morning routine. ‘Oh, he doesn’t hate me’ was what came to mind after seeing that Vil had followed you back.

Not having any plans today you thought to message him on the app, curious as to wether he’d reply. “Hey, how are you doing? Hope we didn’t bother you yesterday.”

After sending that short message you looked through your feed for a bit. Reasonably soon you got an awfully formal response back. Apparently he didn’t mind your presence the other day, which was nice to know. Now however, you were in a position of not knowing wether or not to continue the conversation or what to say. Reaching out to someone over something so minuscule without making an attempt at getting closer with them proved kind of useless, so the two of you briefly discussed your musings about school and work before cutting the conversation.

That was the last time either of you had talked to one another until the two of you inevitably crossed paths again, outside of the internet. This time, the two of you met at a more understandable place, a model’s holy grail, the skincare section.

Another thing to note was that this time, he was not unaccompanied, unlike you. His purple-haired friend was actually who drew your attention away from the ingredient list on the bottle you were looking at. Being a bit louder than intended, he was complaining about this excursion being a waste of time and effort. When you did turn around, you saw Vil glaring daggers into the poor boys soul. Maybe they weren’t friends as you’d initially thought?

Ignoring it would’ve been your best bet but as you heard Vil sigh and mutter something along the lines of ‘I thought we were past this’ you realised he was dragging himself and his possible-friend in your direction. The two of them started looking at the labels of product after product, after Vil had scanned the shelf for a short while. Vil looked quite nonchalant while doing so, but his friend seemed awfully confused when absentmindedly staring at the product. Considering you knew one of them, you thought it might be good to offer up some advice, and recommend a couple brands.

Vil was actually quite thankful for your help, due to him only using products that he’s created himself, he was only aware of what was currently popular rather than beneficial. And this wouldn’t have been the best way to teach Epel how to pick out certain products without any good examples. He thanked you, and invited you to hang out over coffee some time as a thank you.

It was perhaps a little overboard, but neither of you really minded, considering how it was starting to seem that you could become decent friends. And that was how you ended up here, finally settled in to a popular cafe, that at first proved to be a bit of a poor choice, specifically due to its popularity.

When the two of you met up, the people already around the place started to form a crowd around you. It was reasonable, after all people don’t see celebrities everyday, and whilst you were used to it, it could prove to be rather bothersome. Of course, both of you handled the situation well, but there was something so enchanting about how graceful he was with each and every person who approached him, and how he was able to express his appreciation all the while making sure his air of perfectionism never slipped.

When you eventually got a moment of quiet together, you made sure to learn a lot about each other. He wouldn’t say it out-right, but you could surmise that the purple-haired boy from before and a huntsman named Rook were his set of friends. It sounded like an interesting group, but cute nonetheless. You also figured out that a lot of his personal life revolves around his work, or maybe it would be better to say that they happened to coincide.Despite that, he still seemed less daunting now that you’d got to know him a little.

Naturally, you two hung out a lot more after that, and it was fun as you got more comfortable. You even got to do things like convincing him to pose for you to draw him because, “come one, it’ll be extra practice!” He didn’t look amused at all, but he still let you.

Sketching Vil was enjoyable, but he wouldn’t let you notice how he got increasingly anxious as time passed. Vil normally had no reason to feel anxious around anyone, he usually felt confident in himself, but the issue was that his confidence was surprisingly conditional.

It was strange though, the only person to ever make him feel insecure before was Neige, yet you didn’t make him feel threatened. He could only come to one conclusion as to why he was becoming increasingly sensitive to your opinion on him, and being as self aware as he is, the answer didn’t come as a shock to him. But acknowledging that he was in love was a scary revelation to make.

As you finished up your drawings and showed them to him whilst raving about how pretty he was, he calmed down. His appearance was the main factor in his confidence, and reminding himself that he would always have power in that regard soothed his anxiousness, but what really relieved him this time around was the fact that you weren’t judging him.

The next time you were on-set participating in a photo-shoot together, you’d known beforehand. You were both affiliated with the same company, and had managed to put two and two together when discussing your work schedule.

Things felt a lot more light-hearted than all of the other times you’d worked together. Seeing him there as you’d entered the room put a smile on your face.

As you’d taken your last shot together, and everything was getting cleared up, you went to take your arm of Vil’s shoulder, but as you were doing so, he grabbed your hand. You could feel him tense up, and the walls started to feel slightly closer than before. “What’s wrong?” You couldn’t help but be worried. You saw him take a second to compose himself, before he leaned closer to you and whispered a short confession in your ear, “I’ve happened to find myself loving you… Would you be mine?”

That was… unexpected.

But when you said yes, Vil found himself experiencing a joy he hadn’t felt in a long time, and enveloped you in a gentle, heartfelt hug. The two of you stayed there for quite some time, ignoring everyone else around you because they didn’t matter.

#twisted wonderland #twst #twisted wonderland x reader #vil schoenheit #vil shoenheit x reader #vil x reader #vil #twst x reader #dtw

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