#(this is more about the subset of fans that i think are probably the same subset of fans that ship sterek and made all those edited

[many-gay-magpies]

really hate that the most pervasive fan-interpretation of isaac is (or at least used to be) "soft, sad, innocent puppy in love with scott". like in love with scott maybe sure. sad sure. but he's not SOFT or INNOCENT, he's a BITCH and he's MEAN and his automatic reaction to anyone he doesn't like is to try to fistfight and/or murder them. he has his soft moments but they are far overwhelmed by what a petty bitch he is. and to me thats like the peak of his character and why i love him as much as i do but so much of the fandom apparently saw him and threw all that out the window.

[somehow-a-human]

Deciphering the Angelic Language

DO NOT ASK NEIL ABOUT FAN THEORY

Oh boy, I'm finally tackling a post on this! I haven't seen a ton of discussion about this or progress and I think that's because it's very complicated. I've done a bit of work on it and I'm hoping by sharing here we'll be able to combine our brainpower and make some more progress!

SO! Let's get into it shall we?

Let's start with what we've been told about the Angelic Language:

An SFX team member said that the pillars in heaven "don't translate into words" (so maybe it translates into something like hex? ASCII?)

A speaker at Ineffablecon confirmed that the language "contains meaning and can be decoded"

According to the Chapter 6 VFX Breakdown video, "The creative team broke down the symbols into an alphabet of about 140 runes"

I'm going to start with that last bullet point. An alphabet of about 140 runes, which math-wise narrows down what type of alphabet we might be looking at. Specifically, I think it might point to Consonant/Vowel Pairs, which gives you 126 characters, then add in numbers and punctuation, you've got about 140. That's my best guess anyway.

The next thing i did was look at the Heaven CCTV footage of Gabriel FRAME BY FRAME to analyze the runes on the screen in these scenes. I think this is the best place to start for a number of reasons, first of all, being that the CCTV footage seems to only use a subset of the runes that don't include and modifications like extra dots or ticks. I consider them base runes.

Secondly, the runes cycle through a lot of changes here so it's a great place to look for patterns, and find patterns I did.

I found 4 sets of runes that cycle sequentially through a repeating pattern. Okay I'm going to do my very best to explain this.

The above we will call set A

The above we will call set B

The above we will call set C

The above we will call set D

The runes on the CCTV will *almost* always follow the sequence of their set, and when they reach the end of the set, they're marked with one of the following first two sequences below which I'm referring to as "indicator runes" after which they either repeat the same set or a different set.

The only time the runes change in the middle of a sequence is when they're denoted by the third row indicator runes before the change occurs.

So there does at least seem to be some pattern to the runes, at least when it comes to the ones used in the CCTV footage. These however are only about half of the total number of runes, the other half are derived from these initial ones, and have additional tick marks and dots added to them to add some sort of meaning and differentiation.

These screen grabs are from the Chapter 6 VFX Breakdown video, and during the lead in to these animations I think I can also say that the language is probably read right to left, as that's the direction the runes scroll in on the screen.

These scenes are also shown with a certain glowing overlay, so I'm wondering if when we can figure the language out, if there is an interesting message here to be read as well.

Anyway! If you have any other info or this has sparked any ideas about the language for you please let me know! I will continue to play with it and update when I have anything of note! :)

[artistnamedlg]

GARAGES SONGS ASSIGNED TO FANTASY HIGH CHARACTERS (AND SOME OTHER STUFF)

For context, the garages were a band who wrote songs based off a game called blaseball, mainly rock but not confined directly too it. I am assigning some of their songs to fantasy high characters for the very small subset of people who are interested a.k.a mainly me. Most of these are based off season 1 but there is influence from the others. 👍

FIG

-Pyschoacoustics: Very loud but also kinda team based! (The bigger the garage/ the better the sound/ we’re just so glad you came around)

- Vanessa tables, the cheesiest love song ever. I can totally imagine fig singing this.

- ALBUMS: either Underground (its heavy metal) or Short circuit (psychoacoustics esque, it’s so loud!!!)

- CHARACTERS THEY WOULD LOVE? Probably Betsy Trombone or Allison Abbot. Or Jaylen HotdogFingers. Big Garages Fan probably.

ADAINE

- so mediocre, it’s about not being good enough and being told your not good enough. Yeouch.

-Sidelined, same album same reason but this one ends happier cause people do believe in them :)

- the entire Kansas City breath mints team failed the bar exam,

- won’t strike out, it’s about a frog kicking ass. For everyone who doesn’t know blaseball google chorby short right now.

- ALBUMS: either unstable (the first two songs are from it) or, while not a album, The Mike Townsend Trilogy because she would one hundred percent understand the looked down on for not being good enough vibe.

- CHARACTERS THEYD LOVE? Mike Townsend, Chorby Short, maybe Sebastion Telephone cause underperforming sibling vibes. I can see her being a big Hawaii Fridays fan or more accurately Yellowstone Magics

KRISTEN

- And I mean all gods, the first line is “I need to email god because I have some issues”. Kristen would say that, 100%.

- solar eclipse, this one’s a little bit of everyone but it feels especially Kristen because of the direct callouts to god in it. She’d very much understand this one I think.

- ALBUMS weirdly enough, no clue. She would probably like the garages kill gods cause of the title and maybe pathetic/spineless cause repressed rage.

CHARACTERS THEYD LOVE? Most of the like goofy ones I think. She’d see pitching machine (a player who is an actual honest to god pitching machine) and start cheering. She would actually maybe enjoy the monitor who is a god but is also a pushover and eventually anticapitalist. Shed like Randall Marijuana if only cause he’s called “Randy weed” She’d also be a big Fridays person but I can see her being a Hellmouth Fan.

RIZ

- operation plasma (swing and a miss) it’s a song by the spies about how they want a spy to bring them stuff, riz core.

- beautiful day, I don’t know why I can very much see riz in this, half of it cause shit canonically hits the fan even harder after beautiful day.

- the unremarkable ballad of Derrick Krueger, I can’t explain this one but I think it does have slight riz vibes of like overlooked underdog at the beginning of season 1

- Albums, be my valentine cause some of the songs are very sweet and a decent amount are not even romantic in like partner partner way or percolate or lofi hip-hop brews to kill siesta/kill gods to.

- Players he’d love? Parker McMillan, he’d love the insane complexity of trying to piece them together and like interrogating their socials. He’d be a big Houston Spies fan as well, no surprise, but he’d also be a data witch or something similar on the side, just digging round in the code.

EDIT: he would also love one of my fav players, Evelton mcblase 2, a trans mad scientist who is evil and also occasionally a eel.

GORGUG

- heart full of love mouth full of blood, it’s a little romantic but also about killing to protect your friends

- Mike Townsend is back, I can see him vibing to this, especially with the goofy “I learned how to solo!!!” Part

- hurt people, it’s about desperately not wanting to hurt those around you but being unable to.

- Albums I don’t know! Maybe encore cause some of those are very hard hitting and he’d like that I think but also maybe lofi as well cause chill out vibes. Potentially Immaterial Shores which is a bunch of like sea shanty’s.

-Characters they’d like? Jaylen hotdogfingers as well, he’d understand the tradgedy. Also Theodore Duende. Definitely Nagomi McDaniel because she’s a buff as hell mother , maybe the dad versions of Lenny Marijuana. Generally the strong ones who have hearts of gold. He’d be a Dallas steaks fan (their joke is that they’re all dads or dad adjacent, they do cookouts)

FABIEN

- Top ten Tillman Henderson moments that actually happened, dude I cannot describe it but he would love Tillman, shitheel player who does the silliest shenanigans.

- Rise, I can’t really explain it but the extreme confidence mixed with the knowledge that Jaylen actually deeply regrets her revival and fame feels very Fabian.

- Betsy trombone (+ r - s version) I can’t explain it but specifically this version has Fabian feels.

- Albums. Uhhh maybe just straight up discipline, it’s super long but he’d like it I feel. Something shorter would be Caught in the Reverb I don’t know why but I think he’d like it a bit.

-Favorite Characters? Tillman Henderson, he’d love how much of a shitheel he is. I can see him also liking Nagomi McDaniel and Jessica Telephone. I can also seeing him being part of the Jaylen resurrection efforts and just supporting her girlbossing murder spree. He’d actually care if they’re good at the game, similarly he’d be a crabs fan since they’re pretty consistently good, if not the crabs then the hades tigers cause they’re sick as hell. I can also see him really really enjoying York silk because it’s a 12 year old with a gunblade who’s unironically super strong.

BAD KIDS IN GENERAL

- Well suck forever

- A horrible Mistake we will make again and again

Gilear (special edition!!)

-on fatherhood, im adding this just cause it reminds me of him. If you didn’t know people died in blaseball! That was a key thing! While figs alive this does give that vibe with how much she gets into.

[georgiapeach30513]

You are awesome. I love your response to the one anon who talked about Ryan vs. Chris.

I’ve always felt there was a subset of tumblr “fans” or fans of gossip that live to snark and say rude things about Chris. Way before soba noodles came along. There are some popular blogs on here I detest and loathe because they’ve said some truly cruel things due their anger and disappointment in him but since others loved these blogs they would agree with them. I can’t understand the concept of following a fanbase on tumblr for a celeb just to sit there and post negatively about them to other people.

Ryan is a bankable star but are his movies really that quality? Is his acting really quality? I don’t know if I agree because six underground remains one of the worst movies I’ve seen in a while. He also reminds me of Deadpool in literally every movie I’ve seen him. However, I still find him funny and likeable usually so I’ll tune in occasionally to his stuff. He and Blake are cute but also sometimes annoying but it doesn’t bother me.

I agree that CE is going through a bit of a career rough patch but honestly? I think you can kind of say the same about other actors too.

For example, I think Chris pine had a bit of a rough go with his directing debut (panned by critics and audiences alike - roasted by everyone). Dungeons and dragons was well received but didn’t do too much at the box office. Same with WISH. Same with don’t worry darling.

All happened this past year and this year. But are Chris pine fans roasting him 24/7? I mean, I don’t really know but I don’t think to the extent of which Chris E’s fans are doing to him. They probably hope he will get more opportunities to shine and want the best for him. Because they are his FANS.

It’s not really about comparing likeminded actors but I think CE fans and former haters have really crossed serious lines and it sincerely bothers me. The comments they’re left on that ASP post - throwing around the term nazism like it’s NBD. It’s revolting to me and I don’t see how they are pleased with themselves.

Sure I may have an unpopular opinion but I don’t think I’m wrong. I like that you remain positive but also realistic. You’re not a blind Stan and it’s really nice to see some spaces where you are maintaining your peace and giving others that as well.

Chris isn’t perfect, and I have said where I felt he lacks in his acting. But I’d much rather focus on positive things in his career. I see no point in constantly just focusing on the negative. What a miserable way to think.

Ryan can be bankable with the right script and role. But it can be very one note. This is someone who became aware of Ryan in Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pizza Place. I enjoy him but he’s not switching up his characters that much either.

I like one Chris Pine character and that’s Rise of the Guardians because I don’t have to see his face. I’m not a fan and that’s why I choose not to mention him. So we’re moving on.

I’m sure there’s a lot going on that most of us will never really know. There’s a lot of trolling, a lot of lying, a lot of distraction, and I just don’t care. I’m going to stay in my attic with fanfics and hopefully a new role real soon.

[utilitycaster]

Something I've noticed, and that I'd be curious to get your thoughts on, is that there's a subset of fans who were perfectly cool with FCG when they didn't follow a deity, but as soon as they decided that religion was something they wanted to have as a part of their life, these fans did a 180. As you said, it's fine if someone doesn't enjoy how FCG is exploring religion, but it seems to me like some people were a lot more attached to the idea of a goddless cleric than they were to him as a character who had the potential to grow and change

Oh absolutely I think this is the case, which is funny, because I initially could not stand that FCG was a cleric with no apparent source of power (and, to be clear, I am not bothered by clerics who have mixed or even negative feelings about their deities like Deanna and FRIDA, nor would I be mad about a cleric devoted to a concept rather than a god).

Like...this is also touching on what I want to talk about later but there are a lot of fans who just...hate that the characters (and, uh, by extension, the cast) have free will and are not just puppets to play out and validate their (the fans) own personal beliefs, but are instead here to tell a story, which is why they hate change (because they fixate on the characters most appropriate as these puppets in the first few episodes and so change obviously fucks with that perception and forces them to have to think).

I think it's just people who, as I said, haven't gone to therapy about their religious trauma or at least learned the basics of "how I feel about religion is not necessarily how other people feel, nor is it directly applicable to a fictional magical world" and who are mad that a character they believed would prove that they are right is instead exploring religion. Which already didn't make sense because even if FCG did remain godless, they probably would still have rushed in here. Not to tap the Brennan Lee Mulligan "personality pre-dates ideology" sign yet again but the martyr complex and the altruism both came well before the interest in the Changebringer for FCG. FCG already did not really trust himself to make decisions; he just now has a way to outsource it to someone else. Which makes their speech on the Grand Disc fascinating, because it is essentially FCG asserting that in the absence of a god, one must aspire to goodness on one's own. I mean...folks, that's literally humanism, in a world where gods objectively exist.

Speaking of Brennan, he told a great story on the WBN fireside chat this week. He said it was a Hindu parable although I haven't tbh been able to find it, but anyway, it's about an atheist who meditated constantly, with the mantra that the gods weren't real. Upon their death, they were taken to the side of one of the gods, upon which they said, essentially, "what the fuck is going on" to which the god replied "you never allowed the gods out of your mind. You are one of the most devout people who ever existed." I think about this a lot when it comes to people who are desperate to overlay their own atheism (which, I should note, is fully valid in the real world, just not in Exandria) because, truly, they are constantly thinking of the divine and trying to make stories about the gods being wrong instead of just hanging out and watching the story.

When we look at people who are taking out their religious trauma, they are often recreating many of the same harmful group dynamics of organized religion, just dedicated to ideals other than a deity. It's that old discussion of how ex-fundamentalists still practice so many of the same thought patterns unless they put in a lot of active work to relearn it; they think removing the religion will fix them when the problem was always the behavior that people used the religion to justify. It's why (for example), and this is getting rather harsh, people who would rightfully be horrified by conversion therapy will, without blinking, remark things like "wow, I hope Jester nearly getting killed will make her realize she's a lesbian". The problem is not a belief in god; it's the belief that one's sexuality can be changed; that only some sexualities are correct to have; and that it's completely reasonable to say that a way to change a woman's behavior to what you want it to be is to threaten her life. They have not unlearned any of those beliefs, and instead of making the slightest effort themselves to grow and change and heal they look for fictional characters to prove their own rightness in perpetuating the same harm that was visited upon them, just in a different direction. So yeah, a character like FCG, who is growing and changing and exploring religion in a nuanced and neutral manner is a fucking threat to them.

[rivangel]

Problem with the AOT fandom and a lot of other shonen animes is that it’s full of a lot of well…men. Emotionally unintelligent men. That make zero efforts in trying to understand complex characters. Not all but…too many.

oh. then to answer your last ask? i think? it’s weird over anon lol

isayama has said (and i’ll dig up the interview if someone asks) that if it weren’t for the survey corps after isabel and farlan died, levi would be “a very irresponsible person” lol.

i imagine with no goal or desire to do anything besides survive, without knowing what freedom there is outside the walls, he would coast along making enough money (by illegal means) to survive while avoiding getting arrested, and he’d do that until he gets tired of it. you probably know what i mean.

in that same vein, i just can’t imagine a scenario where levi would choose to leave the survey corps; fighting for freedom and humanity becomes the reason he lives and fights.

but if he did leave, the only thing next to do is leave the walls and abandon everyone, or decide he’s tired if you know what i mean.

so u see why it takes a special sort of brain dead-ness to say levi doesn’t have feelings, or levi doesn’t care about his friends. it just doesn’t make the most bare minimum sense for his character.

before i get into the men thing, it’s also extremely important to remember that the sheer size of any fandom WILL negatively affect its perception due to the number of fans. there will ALWAYS be a vocal crazy person, and a small subset of non-vocal crazy people, but this is EXTREMELY heightened by the size of the aot fandom in this case. it’s a landmark in animation in general and a cultural phenomenon, that can’t be argued.

but, what exacerbates that inevitable issue is

1 isayama very very rarely tells us the audience that ‘x is this way because of y’. it’s shocking how much of aot in every way is up to interpretation, and what’s more can fit multiple interpretations. it’s obvious how this popularizes discourse.

but, because of that, in general, shippers (for example) will take all the crumbs that suggests their ship is canon as they can get, and so they feel validated. they want to shout it from the rooftops. this type of shipper pisses off another shipper, which pisses off another type of shipper, and so it’s a mess constantly.

this mainly happens with the popular ships - so all of the levi ships lol.

2 popularity opens up the doors for children/minors to get involved in the fandom and wreak havoc with what amounts to their immaturity (especially morally), and tendency to feel indignant for no good reason.

this is different from bad takes in general, because you really can’t teach them any better when they don’t have the processing power to understand what you’re saying. (that sounds condescending, but think about yourself at 12 years old compared to now yk?)

so it’s frustrating. and that’s putting aside minors invading adult spaces.

3 the politics that do and don’t apply to aot. that’s a major one. (that’s way too broad to get into in this post.)

4 finally the role (western) (white) men play. i’ve stewed on this before on this blog, but i won’t get into the weeds.

idk about you, but western white men is the image that pops into my mind when i think of emotionally unintelligent men with toxic masculinity making dim-witted opinions of aot.

it’s a culture that goes wayyy beyond anything that you can quite comprehend bc of how ingrained it is in america in particular.

but so then, when the issue is popularity, what attracts these types of men? well… eren’s actions do. there’s really no question about it.

what these men seem to think - generally - is that eren should’ve done and was validated in committing genocide because of the way marley oppressed his friends, family, and paradis.

…not to get psychological but that’s literally how tweens aged 11-16 comprehend morality, the entire story considered… and the probable demographic for these men has to be late teens to young adults. (but again, i’m generalizing based on my experiences.)

it’s immature, short-sighted, sadistic, and frankly moronic. i think the major deal here is 1 the culture issue, 2 immaturity, and 3 eren’s genocide is about a power fantasy for these guys.

(i’m really not prepared to get into the weeds on this, but hopefully you know what i mean.)

this type of man goes on to affect the popular perception of women like mikasa, who’s strong, a woman, very loyal, and morally nuanced.

the popular perception of erwin, who’s extremely complex as a character. imo he’s the hardest to understand next to eren. but he’s reduced to this unfeeling sociopathic tyrant. it’s absurd.

and levi, of course. because levi is the strongest, and a man, as a hero there’s the expectation that he also doesn’t have feelings, that he has to be aggressive or dominant, that he needs a female love interest in the end, and so on.

but of course, those expectations aren’t true.

it’s the media illiteracy, on top of the unwillingness to understand any other perspective, on top of harmful biases they possessed already.

sometimes… it is partly the anime/manga’s fault for perpetuating harmful things, or bad writing. but in the case of aot, isayama plays such a minuscule role - if any - that it shouldn’t account for the controversy at all.

[desultory-novice]

oh my god i just had A Thought. ok so in star allies there's a celebration image called "rockability and blues" which has taranza reaching out to the dimension mirror with sectonia in the background and joronia on the other side of the mirror, and when dedede finds the mirror he instantly encounters his mirror world self, so. what if sectonia is somehow mirror world joronia and joronia is still in the mirror world somewhere. that probably wouldn't hold up canonically but it would still be cool

Honestly, seeing as how the OG, Dark Meta Knight, successfully sealed Meta Knight in the mirror world for a time, it's not that farfetched of an idea!

I think the only thing standing in the way of that theory being super plausible is that I imagine Director Kumazaki would probably prefer Sectonia be "responsible" for her own evil deeds and face the outcome of them, rather than the Sectonia we fought being an evil mirror clone while "our" sweet Joronia did nothing wrong. Sniffle...

(My many years as an anime/game fan has taught me that generally speaking "They were just controlled/brainwashed/body-swapped" is not a very popular lead in for "...which is why X did nothing wrong!!" A lot of creators want their characters to take SOME responsibility, even if the situation got out of their hands really quickly.

I think that's why most of Kirby's "sympathetic" last bosses all have serious character flaws. Hyness was stabbed in the back by his planet and put under immense pressure to care for an entire subset of a population, but the way he channels his anger is still considered "unjustified." Magolor "just" wanted to build the galaxy's best theme park, but there was some darkness there, a larger than normal dose of ambition, that allowed the Master Crown to sway his thoughts.)

It is still incredibly fascinating! Particularly when it comes to imagining what a Mirror Joronia's personality was like BEFORE she started body-swapping like mad. Joronia might have always been fascinated by the idea by being stronger, more beautiful... the perfect queen, but never really been able to act on it? Just like Meta Knight fights against his powerful love of battle, in contrast to Dark Meta Knight who doesn't let anything or anyone take him away from the fight. So Mirror Joronia would be the one to go, "...Why don't I just take someone ELSE's strength? Someone else's beauty?" 

And of course, then they could still go into the mirror-verse and rescue Taranza's Joronia. Hey, if the novelization of Planet Robobot let Susie's papa survive Star Dream exploding (:handwaves like wild:) that would be a decent way for a potential Triple Deluxe novelization to have a similarly happy/bittersweet ending. Taranza giving his thanks to everyone while saying something like, "The Joronia I know is still out there. I just need to find her."

Of course the novels went ahead and canonized her death before she even got to appear in them sooo...

...

...

You know, at the same time, I can't shake the feeling that anything could still happen on that front? Does everyone remember the Kirby Twitter account having Magolor talk about DMK and the Dimension Mirror kinda recently? Sure, they say it's because DMK's mask was popular the time but what if it was a hint we'll be revisiting that plot later? Sectonia seems pretty popular amongst the (non-brought back to life) last bosses. And look what popularity did for Magolor!

I also get the feeling that Kumazaki may have more to say about her down the line? RtDL as a game was very "chatty." TDX was light on talking (way too light, IMO) and I feel like that was to make-up for RtDL's bevy of dialogue.

But you know that, even if we didn't see a lot of world-building in game, Kumazaki did a LOT of writing and thinking about that story. (The friggin' sun stones, man. Their petals are the same as the Master Crown's leaves...)

Kumazaki also loves his girl bosses. Drawcia was from a spinoff game, but look at her now! She's the only "spinoff" game character to get a dress-up mask! She has, for all intents and purposes, been bumped up to "basically canon." An honor not even Fluff has gotten.

Sectonia, like Drawcia, keeps appearing in these unexpected places. Getting a nod from Ohmoto and Kumazaki at the music fest and such. (Or getting her pre-corruption name dropped in Gourmet Fest. No one asked them to do that, but they did.)

So I don't know.

It's probably not a bad idea to keep an open mind as to her status...

[quaranmine]

6, 12, and 25 for the mcytblr fic author asks?

6. Do you like using the mcyt multiverse as a concept? (all SMPS and MC content exists in the same universe)

Yes!! To the point where it will bother me if I can't make them all fit, lol. Usually I like to keep the Dream SMP, Hermitcraft, Evo and Life Series all within the same universe. I like MCC as an event where people from these servers can intersect. Empires though is a problem to me, as it often contradicts things quite heavily due to the characters' lore. So whether or not Empires (S1 or S2) is canon sort of depends on what I am writing. I also often disregard random one-off SMPs as well--I'm not going to try to figure out how Rats SMP fits into Hermitcraft fits into Empires, it's just a nice little series in its own right.

12.Funniest comment you've ever gotten in a piece of work?

I think the funniest is when I posted a Firewatch AU chapter and @ivi-prism sent me a screenshot of her fake-buying plane tickets to Texas on an actual airline website to come kill me

Also I do find it pretty amusing that I am so loudly fixated on fire lookouts that I am aware of more than one person who have started reading my fanfic without even being familiar with Hermitcraft LOL

25.What works and/or authors in the fandom do you recommend?

Well, I've got to rep some of my friends first! Ivi is the creator of this ask game, and you should definitely check out her works -- Off-world vacations is a sweeping dsmp x hermitcraft crossover that has been in the works for years, great for Fundy fans. chrysalizzm is one of the most talented writers I've ever met, and I've seen firsthand the incredible research and depth and soul he's poured into the wasteland series. another excellent writer is prismartist, who probably has something for everyone since they've written life series, hermitcraft, dream smp, qsmp, and empires.

Really though, I need to get better at actually bookmarking my favorite works. I often kudos and then lose them oops

I have to recc definitelynotshouting's hunger au, although I feel like that's quite well known in the fandom already (for good reason)

sunlight over me no matter what i do by odaigahara is a GREAT oneshot, but mind the gore and body horror (grian cuts off his own wings to get rid of watcher influence)

I'm pretty fond of a specific subset of Watcher!Grian stories where the old Grian died and a Watcher/something else just kind of uhhhh took over his body with his memories? So I must recommend tempering by sixteenthdays, as well as You Say You Feel Hollow (and you know it's 'cause you are) by writing_and_worrying. still slightly similar in concept but not quite the same is the body is an object by ruffboi. And it's probably distinctly different enough that it shouldn't even be grouped here, but I also adore Covet by Oceanbreeze7 for a good Creature-y Watcher!Grian.

I like Enderwoah's Jimmy/Bad Boys fics. The two I have in my bookmarks is i've got problems (not just the ones that are little) and i can see the pattern (but i don't know what i can do)

Finally, I don't always blog about hermitshipping but I do sometimes read it, so I'll leave you with a scarian fic that has killed me like three separate times: Baby, just let me bleed in peace by mossman_mothman

[ziskandra]

*cackles* 7, 10, 11, 13, and 24

7. what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them? hate is probably too strong a word but i've developed a knee-jerk reaction to fellow anders fans over the years because of the subset that truly seem to think he can do no wrong and that all of his actions were entirely justified and had no negative consequences for anybody in kirkwall other than the templars. on one hand, i kinda get it, because i know anders fans have also gotten a lot of flack because... this fandom is incapable of being normal. on the other, i have a knee-jerk reaction towards anyone who assumes everyone plays these sort of games the exact same way as them (or indeed, the same way each time). i totally respect people doing whatever they want in their games and in their fanworks, but it's when it comes out in harassment of others or making bad faith assumptions about the character of actual living human beings that i'm like. no thank you. obviously there are fans of other characters who also engage in this behaviour, anders is just the one where my negative fandom experiences outweigh the positive ones, personally.

oh also, while i'm being salty (the name of the game i SUPPOSE), i fucking love f!handers but m!handers leaves me cold (especially in canon-verse fic, i don't mind it as much in like, modern AUs and the like?) idk i feel like them being the same gender changes their dynamic in a way i can't articulate--probably that hawke being female shifts the power dynamics a bit and. yeah. 10. worst part of fanon

again, 'worst' is probably a harsh word, but when it comes to pervasive fanon that i personally just don't like, it has to be visibly mixed-race alistair. i don't mind it as much when his ears have like, a subtle point to them or whatever, but speaking personally as someone who is visibly mixed, to the point that i have fielded complete strangers asking "what are you" on regular occasions, alistair's narrative would be. quite different if he wasn't human-passing. and while i get that some mixed-race people find solace in making their blorbos more representative of who they are and their identities not causing any issues, it leaves me cold. and again, i don't care what other people do, but it's when some people act like fellow fans who dare depict alistair as he appears in canon are being racist or what have you that i get annoyed. like, yeah, dragon age fandom does have problems with race, but like... this is imo not one of them, and it detracts from like. bringing awareness to actual issues. yeah yeah people can care about multiple things at once, but by the same token, people can only care about so many things at once, yknow? also this fandom in particular has a real problem with treating poc like we're all a monolith, and that includes both white people and poc. i find it especially frustrating that the dominant discourse centers north american race politics the most, but god forbid anyone try to address that directly .... but that's a rant for another time lmao. 11. number of fandom-related words you've filtered i have about 16 fandoms i'm not in filtered mostly bc they just turn up on my dash a lot, and a handful of characters/ships filtered for fandoms i am in! the one that has been consistently filtered the longest is reyes vidal. 13. worst blorbofication

oooh, this one i think is a toss up between alistair and varric. as someone who loves both these characters more for their flaws rather than their virtues, fandom can be. a difficult time! alistair often gets reduced to this...perfect prince charming, which i think is kind of disappointing considering there is so many different ways for his story to develop depending on the the outcomes of origins? varric, otoh, gets reduced to hawke's bestie a lot. and look. i get it. he is hawke's bestie. he is. very uncritical of hawke, which is not as much of a problem if hawke's a good person but. what if they're not? what if they're not, varric. god, what i would give for like. a fucking complicated characterisation-rich fic which explored like. hawke and varric's friendship and how they're like. codependent messes. (and i say this as someone who loves codependent messes lol). and i guess like.... everyone treats varric being viscount as a meme. and yeah, i get it, the dude is everything everywhere all at once. but i'd really love to see more content focused on like... his relationship with kirkwall, and his feelings regarding his friends and becoming viscount and yeah. anyway!! being a blorbo of mine is the worst because i enjoy pain and suffering. anyway, 24. topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

mage rights and also the chantry boom. i don't think i even have to elaborate on this do it 😭 🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

[thousandflame]

A while ago, Momo posted this and I've been meaning to do this for my OCs for some time because the reputation is clearly what strangers would know about them

what is your muses reputation & how did it develop?: back in the day, Cymbeline was a high profile mage and even after she left the spotlight decades ago, some of her reputation still sticks to her though much of the original facts have been twisted due to the passage of time and her lack of cooperation with the press. once upon a time, Cymbeline was a famous mage of her guild. she was S-class, after all, and part of a prominent team. she was also the niece of a very famous mage which all further dragged her into the spotlight. and when tragedy hit and almost everyone around her died, she became a tragic figure. and while people like to say "sex sells", tragedy sells pretty decently, too. Cymbeline had the reputation of someone who is "deeply unlucky"---but others wondered if maybe, she was curse. if all the deaths around her had happened because she was cursed. more recently, the idea of her being bitter and angry has reached the mainstream.

is it accurate/fair?: I think that while Cymbeline is certainly bitter over certain events, she is tired rather than angry. however, no matter how tired she is, she will hold people accountable. it is not in her nature to just sit back, even if it would be better for her own (mental) health

how do they feel about it?: Cymbeline does not care about her reputation. the people that matter to her know the truth. everyone else? why would she care about their opinions when clearly, they do not care about hers?

what are some rumours about your muse? what would the average person know or assume about your muse?

Rumours she cannot get rid of

001. she's cursed, that's why she has white hair and red eyes! (she really is not) 002. she is Lyon Vastia's mother. (this is a recent one. she is not and she only knows Lyon personally because he is in the same guild as Logan with whom Cymbie is friends) 003. she is somehow related to the Strauss siblings (again: solely based on her hair colour) 004. she is a very accomplished fire mage and fire magic runs in her family. (actually true.) 005. way back, she was romantically involved with her teammates. (she was not, but they were all dating each other.)

Actual Facts people might know

001. she used to be in FT where she was an S-class mage 002. she is the only currently known user of her specific subset of fire magic, but it was passed down in her family for generations. her uncle was also adept at using it. 003. her uncle was killed in the Tower of Heaven 004. she maintains friendships with other former FT members while keeping some distance from the main FT crowd, presumably due to the age difference 005. she generously donates to various charities as her name can often be found in press articles on this topic

what are things most people Dont/Wouldn't know about your muse? (we all hate when someone has their muse know something about ours that they shouldn't know)

001. why she left FT 002. the depth of her feud with Yajima 003. details about various meetings she has had more recently with Ivan 004. where she had her former teammates buried. the team was very popular, back in the day, but they did not just have fans. especially their romantic relationship caused some people to hate them. Cymbeline did not wish for their gravesite to become a target for worship or for vandalism 005. her medical record---allergies, etc.

How does your muses reputation affect them?: if Cymbie was still a public person, her reputation would probably affect her more, but she is trying to keep a low profile. she is content with where she is now, and while she knows how to leverage her old reputation for her adventage, she is not attached to it. and since she is not attached to it, she can shrug off negative articles about her. she does not mind being reviled by some media outlets for how she decides to live her life because she knows they are taking aim at phantoms

[misccy27]

About the leaks

There's a lot of discourse about whether or how important it is to watch it on the official air date through official channels or w/e at this point. Kinda missing the point I think.

The problem with the leaks is that it undermines the fandom. The release of a new episode should be an Event. Everyone getting to experience new content at the same time and react to it together, and interacting with each other discussing the content.

As it is, we now have a portion of the fandom that's seen the entire episode two weeks ahead of time. They're reacting to it, but they can't discuss it with the fandom at large, and they can't get much feedback about the episode from others yet because most fans haven't seen it. So by the time the episode "officially" airs, they'll have kinda already processed their emotions about it alone, or with only a small subset of the fandom.

And then most of the fandom probably has seen some leaks by now, whether they intended to or not, which always sucks. But it also leaves most of us stuck in a kind of limbo. Can we control ourselves until it drops? Do we have to avoid social media/the fandom for the next two weeks to avoid more spoilers? Should we just watch it to prevent it from getting more spoiled? If you do watch ahead of time, you end up with the same problem of not being able to discuss it with the fandom at large.

But this shouldn't be our problem. Fans are going at each other's throats, but this isn't an issue of any given individual choosing whether or not to watch the episode. This is an issue of two multi-billion dollar companies not getting their shit together.

TTT was leaked a week ahead of time, also through itunes IIRC. So not only did Apple and Disney not fix the problem, but this time the ep got leaked two weeks ahead of schedule. This is our second-to-last chance to experience a new TOH episode ever. We should be able to experience it together. We should be discoursing over the content of the episode, not whether or not to watch it.

Like, there's nothing we can do about it now. The cat is already out of the bag. It sucks.

But we've got a solid fandom, so I know we'll get through it. Looking forward to everyone's reactions in a couple weeks <3

[eyesontheskyline]

I have a confession, I've developed a dislike for Jemily (stans). I used to love Jemily, enjoying videos and bookmarking lots of Jemily content. However, since joining Tumblr, I find myself avoiding Jemily hashtags. Perhaps it's because of my personal stance against cheating in any form, or it's because some fans insist that Emily is 100% lesbian and that JJ is her one true love. I don't mind if Jemily happened before Will, similar to Jeid. I have no issue if Emily is with a woman on the team, like Tara, for example. However, I can't see the appeal of breaking up a marriage with two children. I dislike the implication that her marriage for all these years was just a facade for her true love, as some Jemily stans suggest. Besides, Emily has dated guys before, she could be bisexual. I truly don't understand why people keep pushing her sexuality, and I despise it.

Yeah so I think there's a subset of the fandom that took "they originally wanted to make Emily a lesbian" and then decided that they would make Emily a lesbian themselves. Which is fine and valid and whatever. I think I've said before though that what I can't really get behind is holding other people to a version of a character that never made it onto the screen. It feels pretty clear to me (ymmv) that canon Emily Prentiss is either bi or straight (I think bi), because she's had multiple relationships and (unnecessary) flirtations with men and chemistry with more or less everyone. (I also like her with Tara.)

There are people who go their whole lives in relationships with men and come out as lesbian, obviously, but there are a whole bunch more people who are bi, so invalidating all relationships with men in order to make the wlw ship work just feels biphobic to me. Same for JJ obviously - she and Will have a loving relationship for years, and it doesn't feel fair (to me) to the character to hand-wave that away with 'she was gay all along here's the proof'.

So yeah I get your frustration.

I don't think this is about the ship though, really. There are always little pockets of fandoms that start giving 'truther' vibes - as if their interpretation is the only one that's right, like, factually and morally, or whatever, and it's just kind of hard to get any enjoyment out of the fandom with that vibe around. (It's a little subset of the Grebecca crowd in the Crazy Ex Girlfriend fandom, if there's anyone else here who's familiar with both - people who can produce a fistful of receipts to show you why they think the writers were pointing toward a specific ship, instead of just letting people ship whatever they personally find the most compelling.)

I'm a casual early-Jemily shipper, but nothing about Jemily is enjoyable for me past the point where JJ and Will are established. The gifs and edits and fic can be fun, but I think I'm probably with you in that the reality of establishing a relationship between them at that point just breaks too much of what is working in JJ's life to be any fun for me. I think other people ship differently than that, though, which is fine. There just needs to be a bit more 'ship and let ship'.

[helyiios]

asks #...5?

Are pasta and noodles the same, is one a subset of the other, or are they entirely different?

Is it ok to write in a book?

When you go on vacation, which cardinal direction do you travel in the most? (N, S, E, W)

What's the worst part about a country to the southwest of you?

Is chocolate or fruit-flavored candy better?

What's your favorite genre of music?

Who's the most famous person you've met (in person)?

Who's someone not famous that you'd like to meet someday?

Who's someone famous that you never want to meet?

How should someone celebrate birthdays as an adult?

What is the best

What animal do you think best represents tissues?

What musical pitch do you associate with reading?

What would x, f, h, and k taste like?

-pastas and noodles are the same, they just aren’t necessarily made from the same ingredients.

-sure! Annotate it. Makes it feel more alive.

-more often in the south.

-can i pick Spain? I don’t like the Basque part of it.

-I’m not a candy fan...

-I like a good jazz or electro swing!

-I don’t know, the Pope? Probably the pope.

-Hum. My biological parents I think?

-I’d like to meet some of our french politicians.

-Like they’ve always wanted to. And if they don’t want to, it’s fine too.

-You didnt… finish your sentence…?

-Probably caterpillars?

-I dont associate anything with reading.

-metal, hummus, egg, pineapple.

[whatudowhennooneseesyou]

i saw your discussion post about hypersexualization and i wanted to give my two cents on it since it sounded interesting and ive had this internal conversation with myself on the ethics of it.

going on anon but the only necessary things to know about myself are that:

1) i write and draw fanart of these people that are both sfw and nsfw

2) im somewhere in the aromantic-asexual spectrum

in an objective sense, these idols and artists are definitely being hypersexualized by many fans. there are many who thirst, who definitely try and chase to see the idols in more skin and tight fitting clothes not just for the aesthetic appeal but also because it satiates an inner sexual desire. imho this isnt limited to kpop since celebrities of different backgrounds and industries get similar treatment (exhibit a: pedro pascal) but to be very real, its super prominent in kpop.

i find that bit unfortunate. whenever i consume official content from the kpop artists that i love and admire, i always try to consume them in ethical ways and i always want to humanize them. thats why i always think twice when i buy merchandise directly from stores because im very critical about capitalism and consumerism (im not getting into that now though lol). i genuinely only think that its a real danger or that lines are being crossed when these fantasies are trying to be realized or brought to light in front of the artist. thats why i cringe at fanservice and adjacent things: youre pushing your y/n fantasies on the artist when i feel like you should know if theyre even comfortable about it first. :/

where the lines start to blur is when we talk about rpf (real person fiction) ethics. i personally engage in rpf and even rpf nsfw, which probably should contradict what i just said earlier: i think its a little more different than that. whenever im in these spaces, its like a switch turns because at this point, i dont see any of the “idols” as the artists, but instead i see these as characters based on their onstage personas. does that make sense? for example, if im reading mingi smut, i see the “mingi” in this story as a completely separate entity from kpop boy group rapper song mingi from real life, and this “mingi” is instead a character who shares his name and onstage traits but is altered in many ways. in the same vein, i feel less comfortable reading idol!aus because it seems too grounded in reality when i generally mentally and emotionally separate the two things. these characters in my head and personal interpretation of the fics and art that i create and consume are just versions of the personas and characters that these idols play up onstage. honestly, lets face it—mingi in ateez’s lore universe is a character and not a true reflection of mingi, so in the same vein, the versions of mingi that i write and draw about are characters who are explicitly not reflections of how i see mingi in real life.

thats why in concerts and fanmeetings, no matter how close i am to interacting with these people, i never behave out of my limits as a fan. i always separate fandom or at least this subset of fandom from its source aka real life. i read a quote somewhere where an artist commented on fanfiction (i cant for the life of me remember who said this, i think hes from a rock band, oh my god im so sorry) where he said something along the lines of “its not something i should see since its not made for me, its made by fans for my fans.” that quote stuck with me becauss, even if other artists such as kpop idols may perceive this differently and may not be as comfortable with fanfiction and such, the objective point stands that this should be “from fans for fans,” and not “from fans for the artists and their fans to actually get together and smooch.”

sorry this is long! just wanted to chime in. have a nice day :)

Hey, im just about to go to bed so I can't give a detailed response to this but the points you make are very valid and I'm grateful that you sent posted this in.

I'm going to pop a pin in this and then can you just sent through again on the 1st of May so I can add it to the discussion?

Thank you, and if you want to DM about this. That's okay too.

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think that media literacy among people online has lowered in more recent time? (Specifically I mean like media literacy for movies, games, music)

I don't think it's that black and white. I think in certain arenas, media literacy has gotten significantly better! With the internet at our fingertips, sharing and discussing analysis of media is easier and more accessible than ever before.

I mean, at the height of the VHS tape boom, where everybody was making and selling video shows, did we have hours-long video essays deconstructing media? Were zines these tome-length books where multiple people wrote 20+ pages on their favorite movies? Probably not!

More people are having more in-depth conversations about entertainment than ever before! There are whole entire TV talk shows now that air after the show in question to break down and analyze what's happened that week.

But that's only for people who want to engage in that kind of depth. On the other side of the coin, we have a society more and more and more obsessed with shorter forms of entertainment. Movies that were considered "timeless classics" are now derided for being too slow, as editing in modern movies gets faster, and faster, and faster, and faster. Services like Netflix, Amazon Prime and Disney+ are leaning in to the idea that movies and TV are disposable. They aren't meant to be these monolithic events or pieces of art you proudly display on a shelf, they're something you watch once and forget about in two weeks.

They are pure, thoroughbred pop culture, but they have fans who are increasingly upset when they aren't held to the same level as things with real cultural depth and weight to them. That speaks to something for how well these things are hiding just how fluffy they really are, thanks to decades of serialization that makes these movies seem to be more grand in scope than they are individually.

But that's just the effect of the internet overall. At some point you expect the concept of "mainstream" to evaporate entirely as people stop gathering under big, general population tent-poles and all spread out into their own niches and sub-communities. There's a little bit of everything for everyone, nowadays. We don't need titanic, catch-all media when we can have smaller, more frequent, and more focused material, personalized to a specific subset of people.

If you think media literacy is getting worse, that's just because the bar is raising in other places to make you notice where other people haven't caught up yet (or don't care about catching up at all).

But it's less that they're getting worse and more that you're getting better.

[falinscloaca]

absolutely fucking hilarious to me (aka i'm actually no joke mad whenever i think about it) that a "maligned" yuri bracket that as the creator admits started about lesser known or disliked femslash just about IMMEDIATELY derailed as soon as the creator allowed leniency for "oh well a lot of people seem under the impression that something is 'maligned' (synonyms: vilified, slandered, infamous) if its UNIVERSALLY FUCKING BELOVED by the fandom but the story itself gets in the way of it for reasons ranging from "author is a dipshit" (perhaps a valid reason to consider it maligned) to "its a fucking tragedy and the fact they can't just live happily is MEANT TO BE SEEN AS FUCKING SAD *YOU ARE THE DIPSHIT HERE*" so like, all these polls are just popularity anyway so who can say if "most popular out of a succession of lesser-known, shitty, not-shitty-but-people-act-like-it-is, etc" is any more meaningful than "literally just the most popular ship we put on the bracket. like you could've answered this without even doing the polls just go over the initial bracket and choose the most dedicated fanbase and extrapolate"" and now its just a succession of Farcille sweeping every single matchup despite the fact that i've never met a single fucking person worth caring about who actually dislikes it. like i assume the pervs who just write the usual isekai monster x innocent girl "fanart" (...did they even read it...?????? i kinda feel like they got maybe 2 volumes in lmao. fake fans) don't really care for it but who gives a shit about them they should die. its not unpopular in the slightest aside from *probably* i assume overexposure or the one sad little laios x marcille shipper sitting in the corner who doesn't simultaneously also ship farcille in that kinda wierd freudian-isn't-the-right-word way that makes my stomach churn. FUCK THESE SENTENCES BRO WHY DO I WRITE LIKETHIS ok i wrote ahead but didn't address a point bc i my skull turned off but- Farcille doesn't even get like, morality discoursed much??? Like theres always those ships out there which are popular but get picked apart for potential patterns of abuse or unhealthy behavior or if you *think* about it Adora and Catra were both raised by the same (nonconsentually adoptive) parental figure which can make it incest Which Is An Argument That I Struggle With Completely Disregarding Because Of The Subset Of Incest Shippers That Do In Fact Take It That Way (But As A Positive), y'know. that kinda shit. Not even getting into the cases where a ship is more unambiguously fucking bad on a morality standpoint fandom popular or not. I could use this opportunity to soapbox but I won't.

hell even some of the contestants that actually have some leg to stand on are still an ill fit - kyosaya is from Madoka, which means that while fans can feel whatever way they please there Is a certain malicious element to their existence which isn't just excusable as "part of the tragedy/conflict", but its STILL one of the two "heavy hitter" ships outta the original series's fanbase (i don't know dick all about magia record). HELL madohomu at least gets the "is there discourse about it being dysfunctional/abusive/one-or-the-other-involved-painted-as-a-predator" treatment, despite being like... THE relationship the series itself fucking circles around. idk maybe madohomu was in there and i didn't notice. still wouldn't really fit though (maybe back in 2014....)

anyways delia x jessie would belong on there more than like 90% of the bracket just for the "they're basically canon" sweep-kerfuffle (if they WERE in this bracket. lol lmao that'd be hilarious actually wonder who they lost to)