#I’ve been reading and watching (more watching) a lot of creative works/media

[crybaby-bkg]

asking nerd Bakugou to give you a ‘pearl necklace’ and he starts grumbling about you tryna drain him dry but instead of pulling out his cock, he pulls out his phone to actually search for a pearl necklace </3

and to both his surprise and embarrassment, his phone is quickly tossed away in favor of you showing him what you’re actually asking for. he’s not mad though—not when you end up looking so pretty covered in white, grinning, and asking for another necklace <3

[erinwantstowrite]

I know you’ve probably answered this dozens of times (sorry) but how do you come up with ideas? I’ve been trying to get back into writing but I’m stumped

usually i go look at other media and ink about how i would put other characters into their situations. you can find a lot of AUs based on this, but there's also tropes from your favorite media that you might want to try writing.

for an AU: often times i see people draw conclusions about which characters would fit into an AU based on the character type (ex: a sunshine character acting like a sunshine character from another show), but i like to think about the situation the character is in. Say I want a Gravity Falls au for the Batfam. I could just shove the characters into the character types and it would be fun. Dipper and Tim are a lot alike with their smarts, I suppose. Or Ford and Bruce have a lot of similarities between each other.

or i could go a step beyond... Tim and Pacifica have similar backgrounds even if they don't have the same personality. Stan and Bruce are nothing like each other, but I can imagine Bruce waiting however long it takes to try and find someone he loves. I could combine these aspects into a fun au: Bruce Wayne lives in a mysterious manor in the woods. He's kind and the townspeople love him. He was raised by Alfred, a family friend, after his parents were killed in the woods. Bruce knows that his parents were killed because of the strange happenings in the town, and he follows his late father's journals while studying everything Gotham has to offer. Only, two of them are missing. Years later, his first adopted son Dick Grayson lives in the town and helps people who are afflicted by Gotham directly, and Bruce is searching for a young Jason Todd, his adopted son, who got lost in a portal. The local rich kid Timothy Drake found the one of the journals that Bruce hadn't found, and starts looking for monsters in the woods. Eventually, he and Bruce start working together.

Thus, I've expanded upon the AU with one simple shift in thinking!

for the tropes: let's use The Sea Beast as an example (wonder wonderful beautiful movie) (spoilers up ahead)

My favorite part was the growing parental relationship between the grumpy sailor Jacob and the young free spirit Maisie. Scenes where they grow closer and form an understanding of each other are fun, but I really liked the scene where Maisie brings up becoming family, and when she realizes that Jacob is turning her down, she grows upset and wishes for them to forget the entire conversation. That scene HURTS because Maisie lost her parents and thought she would find a family in the other Hunters. But she ended up learning that she could never be a Hunter since she doesn't have the heart for it. This is her last chance to find someone who might understand (at least, she believes it is) and Jacob basically implies it wouldn't work. But eventually Jacob figures out that he does want to be a parent for Maisie, and it's really sweet. I ended up wanting a scene like that in one of my fics, and now I've gotten it written into an outline. It won't be exact, but it helped me pull inspiration.

Basically: consume your media critically, think outside of boxes, and nurture your creativity. The more you understand what you're reading/watching, the easier it is to find ideas for your own story :) don't be afraid to push limits and see where it takes you

[connorsnothereeither]

was it hard/weird to go from being a fan to a cast member? And what was your favorite part of each?

I mean,,, in an odd way not really? There was a slight weirdness to it in the beginning, maybe, but outside of a few issues, it was honestly a very easy transition for the most part, and I think it’s because I was friends with the some of the cast before I was a fan? I sort of occupied this weird middle space already while I was in the fandom, almost.

I didn’t really start watching Fable solely from the place of stumbling onto it as a fan. I came into it wanting to watch and support my friends. Most of the cast and I were already in the same circle of friends and creators, or at least closely adjacent ones, when the server launched. Jamie and I had been great friends for a few years at that point, and had connections and friendships with a lot of the cast through my girlfriend and other mutuals before even joining the fandom. So a lot of the time, as much as I was active in the fandom side of things, I was also talking with the cast and my friends about the creator side of things (not to mention being a mod in the discord and in twitch chats), and had more of the cast I kind of knew reach out to me and become better friends because I was in the fandom. So I was sort of already a known presence and mutual when I was invited into the cast server as the VA for Deltavera, and after spending so long in that creative space (at least a few months) as a guest voice actor, not much really changed when I was invited as a player character, other than getting my own character. I was sort of already there in a way, I just… got to also be a cast member for season 3.

In terms of my favourite part of each?

From a fan perspective; I love the support the Fable fandom has for each other. There’s such an excitement and supportive atmosphere to the things everyone creates and the way everyone participates in lore together from the fandom side of things. Whether it’s people spending ours in vc’s puzzling out codes and languages together, or the way so many people came together to theorize, to even just how complimentary the fans are of each other’s work, there is such an aspect of community which is ironically not present in a lot of big fan communities I find.

And from the cast perspective it’s much the same. I love getting to see how people react to things I’ve made. I love people translating Telchin passages, or theorizing about little Ulysses lore drops, or make headcanons for him which I always adore reading. As someone who has wanted to be a writer since I was 5 years old, there is an excitement and happiness I genuinely can’t describe about seeing people react and engage with media I’ve made or had a hand in making, and I genuinely get emotional about it a lot of the time. I love being part of something which has a community in the way it does.

[spinetacks]

art summary for the year! and some rambly personal thoughts about it 🙇

soo for various reasons this has been my first full year with wrestling as my main fandom rather than a side interest. previously I followed a k-pop group (well I still do technically but it’s complicated), I’ve followed them since 2012. over that time I posted over 70 fics and made A Lot of art. I’ve done a bit of everything — I ran a charm & sticker store for several years, made my own prints, did a few mini comics, designed tattoos for people, made freebies for concerts, a few videos, a horrendous project where I drew every day for over 600 days. I was kind of known for being the rare pair guy for a ship for like 7 years. it’s been horrible seeing the way social media has gone from being a useful tool for artists to what it is now, but also watching this fandom change and gradually dry up over years and years. I have the extreme loyalty to interest autism and it’s been really, really rough gradually detaching from this and I’m just so thankful wrestling has been there and has become something I feel confident can fill my life the same way :’) but! point of saying this is I was wavering a lot last year over what I wanted to do and feeling really lost, between fandoms, my followers dropped like flies when I started posting wrestling art but I felt pretty silly posting on here to like 3 people (for the record I have 5k followers in that fandom and four (4) people liked my yearly summary post there. it’s definitely not true that if people like your work they’ll like whatever you do :’D). I’m disabled and pretty isolated (thank u wrestling for also giving me a reason to go places and a wonderful friend to go with !!), so having an online community has always meant a lot to me and I was terrified about leaving what had become an unpleasant and often abusive one in case I couldn’t start over. but I have, and I’ve been so happy this year ! we’re a pretty small creative fandom here but I’m so glad to have so many lovely mutuals, see other people creating, and to share art with people who enjoy it. I haven’t been this actively creative and motivated in years. the summer I discovered wrestling I’d been considering giving up art and writing entirely because it was making me so miserable. next year I’m hoping I can draw some more variety in wrestlers too, I really needed to build my confidence in drawing different types of faces and bodies after so long drawing the prettiest smoothest of boys lol. I would love to do a teeny tiny amount of items for wrestling sometime and revive my shop, that’s my goal for next year. but yeah !!! thank you if you’ve enjoyed and shared my art this year and if you’ve left tags I have definitely read and been motivated by them 💪

[dcafanzine]

Hi everyone! We’re super excited to start introducing our contributors! Let’s let them introduce themselves!

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Hewwo, I’m Ren or @ren-054 on tumblr, and I’m a page artist for the Backstage Pass bonus zine. This is my first zine ever and I’m admittedly a bit nervous working among much more experienced people but I’m happy to be a part of it. I became a FNAF fan because I’ve watched Markiplier for years and I got hooked on the DCA because I read a really well written fic of them by chance and really liked their vibe. Even though I’ve moved on to other hyperfixations, I still care about them a lot! Being in this fandom was the first step to me coming out of my shell and doing more with my art and I’m forever thankful for that.

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Heyo! I’m Piixel (@piixelpaint). I’m one of the merch artists for Glitches and Glitterglue! I was part of a previous DCA zine, where I got to be a spot artist and am super excited to now get to make some merch of the funky skrunklies for this one! Originally, I got invested in Security Breach for the familial dynamic between Freddy and Gregory, but then Sun and Moon stole us into the Daycare and it’s been very hard to leave since. The dramatics of Sun and creature nature of Moon just piqued my interest in a certain special way. And what’s more is just the sheer imaginative creativity and kindness of everyone I’ve met here that has made it such a joy to exist and create in this space ^^

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Hi I’m Nova (@sulfadimethoxine), and I am a page artist for the backstage zine. This is the first zine I have worked on and I hope to be in many more! I have always been a huge fnaf fan since the first game and an even bigger fan of media with anything robotic. Originally got into the DCA when I first saw them in game for their voice and mannerisms. Then stayed for the awesome stuff other fans of the dca made!

[disparition]

Whether you approach arts and media as a creator, a fan, a professional, or a hobbyist, you are probably very well aware of the rapid growth of AI in many areas of creative life and the conversation surrounding it. Whether we are talking about fiction or text of any kind, visual arts like painting and drawing, music composition and performance, sound design and audio editing - in all of these fields AI is something we now have to deal with, and there are many unanswered questions. How do we protect our livelihoods and practices as artists? What control can we have over our own work and its incorporation into machine learning tools and datasets? How do we as lovers of art and music determine if what we are reading, watching, or listening to is made by humans? Or how do we denote the particular degree of involvement of humans in a work of art?

It’s a complicated issue because it can be hard to say exactly where to draw the line. For example, well before the current conversation about AI, composers like Brian Eno were incorporating generative and algorithmic elements into their work. Does this mean such work is not “essentially human made”? Does it matter if the non-human components of a piece are created by randomness, or by natural elements gathered in e.g. a field recording, vs. being created by a computer program?

Those kinds of questions are more about the philosophical side of the issue. There are more pressing questions to do with how AI affects our ability to actually survive as artists. And, as the technology grows more powerful and the distinction between AI-generated or AI-enhanced material and human made material or basic documentation of reality itself, what methods do we use to signify that a given piece of media is or is not AI made, and what are the exact qualifications of that? Should the label “AI art” apply to work that is entirely generated by a computer, or should that label also be applied to any art that uses AI tools in any context - e.g. the new tools in Photoshop that make it easier to remove a specific object from an image and fill it in with background. What about the world of video games, where AI has been used for decades for things like pathfinding but is new and controversial when it comes to using it for story/dialog elements or certain visual assets?

We are, I think, still very much in the early days of all this, so it’s hard to come up with firm answers as the field changes so rapidly, but this is an essential conversation to be held now. I’ve been talking to a friend who put together a survey for an organization called Verified Human, who are looking specifically into the issue of how do we determine - going forward - whether a piece of art or media is “essentially human made”, and the question of how that should be communicated.

The idea of this survey is to gather as many points of view as possible for this conversation. I know a lot of the people that follow me here are artists and lovers of art, of all different kinds, and to me it is absolutely essential that creators of all kinds be involved in this conversation from early on. Please take a few minutes and fill out the survey via the link below, and if you are interested in helping out, please spread the word. And if you have any questions or would like to discuss, please feel free to contact me directly. Thank you.

https://forms.gle/BrSbGyq9wAyzwTa88

[gummy22]

If you don’t mind I’m just gonna spill my guts about Fionna and Cake and how much it means to me, you’ve been warned lol.

To say I’ve been wanting this show for years would be an understatement. I remember watching adventure time as a kid and seeing these guys on trailers for the brand new episode. I remember watching it when it aired on tv. I remember so desperately wanting to see more.

And then the episode with marshal came out. I thought it was the coolest thing ever and loved these interpretations of the characters. Also in general adventure time has inspired me creatively, and I know many artists share the same sentiment. I remember going to a book fair in middle school and immediately begging my mom for a comic with them. (I still have that comic and read it from time to time.) A couple years go by and it’s still my favorite part of adventure time, every time I rewatched a few episodes I found myself going back to these episodes specifically.

I thought it would always just be a wish I would never see get fulfilled. They were just gender-bends of the original characters, they already made adventure time what would be the point of just slapping a new coat of paint on it? Despite accepting my reality it is always something I hope for.

You could not imagine my excitement when I saw the promo for it on Twitter. A series of Fionna and Cake. A series of them. Characters I had loved since I was a kid.

The series had been out for at least a week before me and my partner had time to watch it, and it was as if all the problems I had been dealing with as a young adult were being displayed on screen. I knew I was already attached to these characters, but the beautiful story they had made out of everything got me even more attached. I cried so much, it was like seeing old childhood friends all grown up. It was an answer to problems I thought were hopeless. Without getting too personal my life would have been a whole lot worse if it wasn’t for this series.

I know it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, and with media nobody truly gets the same message or idea. But if I could cram together all the beautiful answers and lessons this show gave me in, it’s that life isn’t perfect and it’s what you make of it. And I know that seems simply or corny, but many people seem to forget that life is not just about your successes or good moments, and if you constantly try to think otherwise you will just be more miserable.

You have every right to be miserable…but you also have every right to get better and try your best at a good life. It’s going to take work, but you will find people there for you, you just have to put your trust into it too. We are all in this together and we are constantly fighting, so why not make this battle a bit easier?

You’re doing great, whoever and where ever you are, just please…don’t give up, there’s a whole life you deserve to live.

[seeinginthedark]

This is what I believe in my heart and in my soul . My heart and soul have synced in and the communication line between is clear . Same goes for my subconscious, after rigorous shadow self work. As for my mind , I’ve synced in my left and right brain hemispheres. I did this in 2022. So they are balanced and healthy . I am of sane mind . I won’t be gaslighted anymore by anyone , any man , any institution and not even gaslighted by myself .

Here we go, strap in .

If you’ve been reading my blogs , you will know that I’m on a mission. I have a psychosis but, as I keep reiterating, a psychosis means different things depending what culture your from. In Indigenous cultures(who are more closer to the Earth and nature) a psychosis is a ‘spiritual situation’ . In the western medicine world , it’s a mental illness. People get scared during a psychosis and don’t know how to handle it. I handle it. I don’t get scared or paranoid. I don’t have hallucinations or hear voices . I know the difference between a delusion and a sign , a message from the ancestors .

The videos I made in 2022, contain information that I didn’t understand at the time , suddenly now have become relevant. They were warning me of what to watch out for .

We are in a spiritual situation. A war. An attack on our souls . An ongoing oppression. Being drained of our humanity.

To be turned into something un-natural and mechanic. And we won’t allow this happen.

The ancestors that made it to the afterlife (instead of a reincarnation soul trap ) are building alliances with spirits of this Earth, of nature and of the inner Earth. I’m dead serious about this .

A lot of us today are souls of our ancestors who chose to leave the astral afterlife realm to come here in this modern world . They are Mother Earths army. We are at the front line now . The children of today have been absolutely bombarded with screens, technology and toxic social media . In an effort to neutralise us , make us forget who we are and forget what’s important in life . This wave of children , are born already spiritually activated and awake . They have immense spiritual potency and magic-like abilities. They are our salvation now .

A lot of people however , are getting confused thinking they a star seeds or thinking they were meant to be a different gender . These are trends and narratives that have been articulately planted on purpose for the reason to distract and confuse and cause social division . And self identity issues .

Please, if you have one of these special children , who are from magic bloodlines , please take care of them . Nurture them and their abilities. Do not crush their imagination- as it is one of their magical traits . Please limit the amount of screen time they are having. I know it’s hard and we are all busy trying to get by and have to work and have so many things on our plate but please don’t pacify them with iPads and tablets and phones . It inhibits their development. It inhibits their social skills . It socially programs them.

Get them outside in nature as much as possible . Listen to them. Let them have a voice . Let them express themselves creatively. Treasure them . Love them unconditionally. They are here to change the world. I don’t want to see any of these children grow up and be plugged into a permanent virtual reality . With microchips in their brains . With non -organic robotic add ons . Stuck in the simulation. Their souls recycled back into this system when they die . Their souls need to be free, as all of our souls should be .

We can beat this A.I take -over . Together . United . Strong . Keep your vibes high . Self care. Heal from your trauma. Be the powerful spiritual warrior you were born to be . For Earth. For our souls . This is it.

[farfromstrange]

GUESS WHO FINALLY GOT HER WI-FI BACK!

Me, that’s right.

Which means I can start writing again, and I won’t be MIA for much longer. Thank you all for being so understanding. I can’t wait to catch up on all that I’ve missed and interact with you all again.

Putting a read more now for those who don’t want to read this little life update.

Uni starts in less than two weeks, and I’m pretty nervous about how that’s going to affect the time I have to write because I’ve already got a reading assignment and I’m way behind on that. But anyway, I’ll find time. I’ve been gone for so long, I need to get back into it. And it’ll help me get through Uni if I write a lot in my free time. I’m majoring in English and minoring in sociology, after all.

So, I’m going to watch the Eras Tour Movie tonight, which means I’m obviously not going to be able to write tonight, but tomorrow’s Saturday and I’ve got no plans, so I’m definitely getting back to it then. And I’ll see what I can do about Kinktober because my fingers are ITCHING.

AND I finally finished my wall, for those of you who care. Call me interior designer for fangirls because I really am proud of my own work this time around.

There’s still space for me to continue the wall of fame, so obviously it’s going to grow

And I’ve got another one.

I tried my absolute best to make the apartment 100% ME. And it worked, I think.

Anyway, I’m about to leave, and since I haven’t made any new friends in this city, I hope meeting fellow Swifties and sharing friendship bracelets will get me some contacts around here. It can’t hurt to try and socialize a bit, right?

I made SO MANY bracelets because I had no Wi-Fi and was stuck with the old criminal minds DVD’s I still got lying around here, but I have to say, it’s been kind of refreshing as well. I feel like a caveman, but not in a bad way. I didn’t use as much social media and I got creative a lot more, so that’s a good thing, I guess. It was a forced retreat, but it felt like one nonetheless.

I’ve got a whole ring of friendship bracelets and I hope to a God I don’t believe in that I’m allowed to take them into the theater or I’m gonna be sad.

Anyway, here’s a picture of my outfit because I feel like I’ve slayed with that.

I’ve been gone for so long, I hope you guys appreciated my little life update. And if not, I’m sorry for bothering you with this on your dash.

More news about my writing and everything else concerning this account coming tomorrow when I’ve finished going through all my notifications and drafts, and then I’ll make a post to tell you guys more about what’s to come and when to expect it.

Until then, I love you, take care of yourselves, and I’ll see you soon!

[oddygaul]

brand anti-synergy, 1 Year Anniversary

Wow, I’ve been doing this for a whole year now. Why not take a moment to be retrospective about it?

Keeping this journal has certainly accomplished its primary goal, which was to better remember the media I’ve engaged with and how I felt about it. If I didn’t have this blog and asked myself what I was watching / reading exactly a year ago, my answer would probably be “No idea!”; now, I can just scroll back through the archive and remember exactly what was going on and how it made me feel. Given the ever-increasing speed with which life seems to pass me by as I age, it’s nice to have little strategies like this that anchor moments in time, that help me remember how much time has really passed and all the things I’ve done.

Of course, it doesn’t work out in a conversational sense – I can’t exactly call a timeout and re-read my journal to refresh my memory mid-conversation – but even so, the increased time I now spend reflecting on the art I engage with solidifies my thoughts on a work better in my long-term memory, I think.

Although, suppose I should be doing this for more personal matters, too, and not just art? Hm.

I’ve definitely been more and less successful in keeping up with writing, depending on the month, although I think it’s safe to say my frequency has been trending upward for a while now. Plus, those peaks and valleys, in their own way, help chart the course of my life at those times. Like, yeah, I didn’t write a lot in the months after my dad died; no shit. I absorbed myself in tracking an album instead.

I’ve written some things I’m proud of, surprisingly. When I set out, the idea was that this was purely a journal, with no particular consideration toward readability. From the start, I knew I didn’t want these to be typical reviews, because reviews spend time introducing the subject to the viewer to give context, and I don’t have much interest in spending that time. These are for me, and for any little freaks that are so waist-deep in whatever the topic is that they’re diving through tags deep enough to find it. So, by design, the blog is inherently unapproachable.

Despite that, I still have a few posts that I think are solid, standalone pieces of writing, and a few more that I consider genuinely good analyses of particular works, even if they are likely impenetrable to someone unfamiliar with the work… and I think that’s enough for me. Some of them are certainly banal and worthless, but you know what? That’s fine. Sometimes I finish something and I don’t have anything profound to say, don’t have any interesting takes, don’t have any deep thoughts or self-reflection knocked loose from my brain while I was watching or reading… but I still want to remember if I liked it or not. And I think the willingness to record those insipid reactions anyway is healthy. Who knows – maybe it’s a baby step towards fixing my unhealthy relationship with perfectionism and creativity in general.

The longer it’s been, the more time I spend (read: too much time) taking screenshots and choosing images to put in the posts. On one hand, I genuinely do think this helps with memory – a picture’s worth a thousand words, after all, and seeing a scene or moment that meant something to me instantly recalls the work to mind in a way reading a summary does not. But also? I like pretty pictures, and I’d rather the blog be filled with them than not.

My biggest concern, a year in, is that I’m subconsciously compelled to actually read less, watch less, play less, because I have this shadow hanging over me in the form of unfinished blog posts piling up in a backlog. A similar kind of stress affects a lot of my creative output, generally, so I’m trying to be wary of letting that mindset affect things that are supposed to be for, y’know, unwinding, de-stressing, or experiencing joy. I don’t… think it is, though, too much? I’ve never really been one to binge things anyway, and even when I do, I absolutely do not retain any of it even a month later, so if anything I’m okay with correcting that behavior in lieu of more intentional consumption.

Time will tell.

Anyway, not that many people follow this intentionally, but thanks to anyone that reads my ramblings. The first time I got a classic tumblr reblog, with responses as full run-on sentences in the tags, I felt like I’d really made it in this world.

[thatkodochagirl]

▶️🎉1 Year on YouTube ▶️ 🎉

Today marks my 1 year anniversary of being a YouTuber. When I started creating Kodocha videos, I never expected to make so many new friends and gain so many subscribers who feel just as passionately as I do about the series.

Thank you ALL.

Not only did I become a YouTuber last year, but I also became a wife and an official resident of a new state in the US. 2022 was a big, and difficult year for me. With all the changes and adjustments going on around me, it was comforting knowing that I had the Kodocha community to go back to each day. 

So what inspired me to create a Kodocha channel? There are many reasons, so let’s talk about them! First of all, Kodocha is my favorite animanga series, and sadly there isn’t many Kodocha content creators online. However, the ones that do exist do such AMAZING work for this fandom. I want to give a shout-out to my friend Li over on Twitter (https://twitter.com/kodomonomochaa) for her incredible work gathering Kodocha media and resources for fans to enjoy. She has been a big part of my channel’s growth and is just a sweet person all around. Make sure to give her a follow on all her platforms!

I also want to give a shout-out to @thekodochaarchive, another great resource for fans to see rare content. There is a lot of interesting rare Kodocha media over on that blog/channel, I highly recommend checking it out! Watching the old Kodocha commercials is like being able to go back and time and experience Kodocha at the time when it was first being aired. I would have loved to have been a kid who grew up with that show!

Last but certainly not least, I want to give a HUGE shout-out to my girl @dailykodocha aka M, who runs the BEST Kodocha blog around and writes INCREDIBLE fanfiction. Please go and check out her fic about Akito during the middle school years; it’s SO good and she gets the characters so well. It feels like it could be an official Kodocha novel. Here’s the link to that! (https://archiveofourown.org/works/41971272?view_full_work=true) She also co-hosts our unofficial Kodocha podcast, “19 O’Clock News” with me. We have so much fun with it, and I look forward to sharing many many many more episodes with everyone!

So wanting to contribute more to a series I deeply love, I decided to create my YouTube channel, as I noticed there weren’t really any video essays about Kodocha anywhere. This felt wrong given how much there is to talk about with the series, and how deep the characters are. 

Many of the videos that you’ve watched from me for most of 2022 were formulated from ideas I’ve had in my head since I first saw the series back in 2016. That’s why I was uploading almost weekly, as the writing flowed so naturally as I’d had a lot of time to think about the characters and plot. 

I’m very proud of all the content I have put out thus far - but I will keep improving! I’ve been re-reading the series and am about to finish volume 10, and noticed some things that I should have talked about in previous videos. It’s crazy just how detailed Obana was when she wrote Kodocha! Just when I think I understand a character, I notice a new detail during a read-through and it completely shifts my perspective on them. I used to feel very indifferent about Fuka until pretty recently! Now she is becoming one of my favorite characters.

Another reason I started my channel was for my mental health. Being creative is what keeps me sane. Unfortunately, making music (my main creative hobby) just didn’t have the same spark for me anymore. It used to be my go-to activity for my mental health - but I think I had done it for so long that I got burned out. Also, I felt very limited in what I could do with music, but with my channel, I feel like I can exercise and hone my writing skills and also talk about something I love in a unique way. This summer, I created a second channel which I hope to upload more content on that focuses on obscure media, which I will use as another outlet to discuss things unrelated to Kodocha. I watch YouTube more than anything and would love to create similar content to YouTubers that I enjoy, where they talk about interesting things from childhood or just niche internet mysteries.

Kodocha is the only thing in my life that has ever consistently brought me joy. Ever since I found the series, it’s turned my life around in more ways than one. When I first watched the anime in 2016, it made what could have been a miserable year for me into something hopeful. Sana’s enthusiasm and positivity really awakened my own, and it’s stuck with me ever since. Maybe taking life so seriously isn’t the answer. Sometimes you just gotta shut up and smile, and not worry about things you can’t fix, and just go with the flow. I never knew by 2023 Kodocha would have brought me so many new friends and just a better understanding of myself and life in general. I hope everyone watching my videos can learn not only about the characters of Kodocha, but about themselves as well. My latest video, part 2 of “Exploring Sana & Akito’s Relationship”, actually helped me in my own marriage. Yesterday, my husband told me that he’s the happiest he’s ever been. It made me feel so good because the research and time I put into that video helped me better understand my husband’s love languages, which ultimately strengthened our marriage. 

Kodocha really is my light in this dark world and I hope I am able to spread the joy that it’s instilled in me.

Thank you for reading, and sticking around until now. There is a lot more Kodocha content coming in the future, as always. See ya! 💖

[kkami-writes]

HI OP HI KAIA I just finished bingeing literally everything that is out rn in the waiting for us series and. I have to start by saying im so sorry for spamming ur notifs

I HOPE U CAN FORGIVE ME I AM SO SORRY BUT IT'S 1AM RN AND I JUST DISCOVERED THIS SERIES AND I LOVE IT TO DEATH

the premise alone had me so so hooked but I absolutely ADORE the social media format?? like the combination of texts/tweets/writing is actually so genius to me like it is such a creative and engaging way to tell the story and I absolutely fucking love u for it <3

MIO MY HEART ACHES FOR MIO I WANT HER BROTHER (AND PARENTS??) TO DIE A SLOW AND PAINFUL DEATH SO SHE CAN JUST BE HAPPY FOREVER W HER 8 SOULMATES ALREADY :(

the amount of angst in this series I love sm. when seung was texting hyunjin about mio?? broke me. I am so not okay I almost cried real tears at that chapter like how dare u do that to my fragile little heart (/pos !!!) I also noticed u being super considerate with your sh tw for that one chapter, a lot of authors don't rly do that so thank u for that tldr at the end I love u and u deserve a kiss on the forehead

aside from the angst I absolutely adore the crack humor and fluff in this series LMAO <333 I just can't describe it but waiting for us!skz is just. so skz. like it is so them I have no idea how u managed to put their exact entire beings into these texts and tweets but u did and it's incredible and I'm so immersed in the series I love u sm

ANYWAYS I'm so sorry for the entire essay... if u didn't read this and u end up blocking me for spamming ur notifs sm I understand BUT I HOPE U KNOW I LOVE THIS SERIES SOOO MUCH <33 idk how the taglist works bc I think it said 50/50 but? please tag me in future updates if you're still open to adding people!! I can't tell u again how much I adore this series and how invested in it I ammmm thank u for your incredible writing op!!! <333

- heather <3

haha omg. I don’t mind the spam!!! i’m goad you’re loving it. the social media format has definitely been my favorite since I discovered it!! I’ve always enjoyed writing dialogue more than anything so texts are a great way to do that.

I accidentally made seungmin a little too angsty but!! he’s just a lil tsundere who’s kinda afraid of his feelings because he feels them so strongly and so intensely. there’s definitely a little more to his backstory that you guys can look forward to 🤭

of course!! tws are super important to me as someone who is easily triggered by things. I had wrote mio/yn as someone who struggles a lot because as someone who deals with depression and chronic anxiety, writing about it and having someone be comforted by it is really cathartic. I know it’s not for everyone and that’s ok!! I have much more less angst fic ideas too.

AAAAA thank you so much!! as a baby stay I’m really glad people enjoy my characterization of skz! I’ve been binge watching a lot of content and I was worried about writing them in the beginning because I am a baby stay but i’m very happy 🩷

don’t worry!!! I absolutely LOVE your long message and kind words!

right now the taglist is full but i’ll put you on the waitlist! thank you so much for enjoying waiting for us! this fic is my baby tbh.

[mcnuggyy]

Do you have tips for coming back to art after taking a break? I feel like I've been gone so long and I can't find anything inspiring but like. If I don't do something creatively fulfilling I will explode like a grape

Honest to god I am going through the exact same thing 🥺😭 I’ve tried different things and sometimes some work and sometimes they don’t but some things I’ve done that work for me have been: treating it like a job, you’re just clocking in, get it done and that’s it. draw traditionally and in a very chill way, crayons, marker on napkin, coloring book, maybe don’t draw at all! Do a collage or paper crafts(or my go to is sticker books :-]) Or treat it like school, sit down and find some figure drawing poses (there’s lots of sites available, including landscapes and animals) and just do some studies.

Basically I just try and trick my brain so it goes into autopilot mode? So I’m not thinking too hard about it. Cause the thing for me that always trips me up is that I end up building it up too much in my head and I get overwhelmed and freak myself out.

As for inspiration, I’ve just been trying to consume more media here and there but not just watching tv shows ykno? Reading, and getting back into collaborative storytelling like dnd and stuff! Hanging out more with my family and friends! Basically things that DON’T have to do with art ykno? And then for ‘what’ to draw cause that’s another huge roadblock for me, is I usually keep a list of ideas from when I do feel inspired, it’s years old but it’s nice to have something to look through to get the gears turning! Or I have my go to drawing subjects! my ocs, my friends ocs, figure drawings, and an inspo blog I keep with various images that I personally find interesting to try and draw :-]

But yeah!! I feel like lately I’ve been putting too much pressure on myself to make things so I’ve just been trying to do other things I enjoy cause the burnout has been brutal for me </3 but I think because I did take the time to do nothing art related I feel better about transitioning back into art this past week ;w;’

[lovesosweeet]

MAY THE BEST MAN WIN

competing for the best toast at their best friends' wedding, calum and tanner go from being pretend rivals to… something like friends. maybe a little more? may the best man win.

read on ao3

part one

“Tanner, right?”

The blonde woman dressed in a magenta sweater, baggy jeans, and green sneakers turns to find the owner of the voice that just spoke to her, ripping her gaze from the photograph on the wall. 

“Yep, that’s me,” she says with a bright smile.

The man holds his hand out to her to shake. “I’m Ryan. Big fan, and also a friend of Lou’s.”

Tanner smiles even bigger, but instead of shaking his hand, she pulls him into a hug. “Ryan! Oh my goodness, it’s so good to finally meet you!”

It’s the opening night of their mutual friend Lou’s newest photography collection at a gallery in London. Both Tanner and Ryan are photographers, which is how they know Lou, but they’ve never met, with Ryan constantly on tour with 5SOS and Tanner always chasing down new projects in new cities. Tanner has followed Ryan for so long and somehow had never been able to meet him, despite being a huge fan of his work.

“I can’t believe we’re finally in the same city at the same time,” Ryan says.

“I mean, I couldn’t miss Lou’s new stuff! Everything he does is so inspiring.” Tanner motions at the space they’re in, filled with fellow creatives and Lou’s photographs blown up to being a few feet tall a piece. 

Ryan laughs, watching as the blonde woman in front of him stares at the art surrounding them with stars in her eyes. “He always cites you as his biggest inspiration, Tanner.”

She shrugs, her eyes fixating on a photograph of an antique watch that Lou has manipulated a lot in Photoshop, warping the edges and adding in colors. She loves it and makes a mental note that she wants to talk to Lou about it later. “Life and art and inspiration and ideas… we all share it. It’s not yours or mine or his. It’s ours.”

Tanner refocuses her gaze onto Ryan to find him shaking his head at her. “Y’know, I always wondered if your ‘spiritual, perpetually philosophical and uplifting’ thing was just for Instagram.”

Tanner rolls her eyes. “I’m not like that. What you see is what you get.” 

Ryan smiles. “Good. The best people are like that.”

She nods, her smile matching his. “Totally.”

“Tanner! Ryan! You made it!” Lou appears from the crowd with his arms open for his two friends.

“You know I don’t turn down a chance to come to London,” Tanner chimes while she hugs the photographer. 

“The show is sick, man,” Ryan tells his friend, hugging him after Tanner lets go.

“Surprised both of you could make it, honestly,” Lou chuckles.

“Literally! I’ve been hoping to meet Tanner for so long now.”

Tanner blushes and shrugs. “I am just a girl with a camera and a dream.” 

Ryan and Lou laugh loudly at her comment and share some kind of knowing glance. 

“The guys are gonna lose their minds when they find out I used my days off to come to London and meet the Tanner Thorne.” 

Tanner raises her eyebrows. “The guys?”

She knows who 5SOS is, and she assumes that’s who he’s referring to. Who doesn’t know who they are? How do they know who she is? Sure, photographers and some models know who she is, but people don’t just know who photographers are, even if they’re the ‘famous’ ones. 

Ryan laughs quietly. “You know, the loud, tall, gangly men in 5 Seconds of Summer.” 

She rolls her eyes. “I know who they are, Ryan. Why would they lose their minds that you met me?”

She’s really that clueless? Ryan thinks.

“Tanner, you and Valerie are one of the most iconic best friend duos on the planet. Everyone knows who you are,” Lou explains. He’s used to Tanner being like this. She’s humble and unaware of the effect she has on people. It’s endearing. 

Valerie Summers is Tanner’s lifelong best friend. She’s also one of the biggest supermodels in the world. Tanner and Valerie were discovered simultaneously, with Tanner behind the lens of each photograph of Valerie that caught the media’s attention. When Valerie got her first modeling contract, a photographer that worked with the agency asked Tanner to be their apprentice. At the age of 17, the best friends move to New York to begin their careers in fashion. 

Their careers took off, with Valerie eventually moving to LA to pursue work there and Tanner beginning the start of her nomadic lifestyle that she still leads. They don’t see each other much, but at every fashion week or awards show, you can find them attached at the hip the entire night. Tanner knows Valerie is a star, but thinks of herself as just a girl in a press pit, taking pictures and hiding in the wings.

“You didn’t hear it from me, but Ashton is obsessed with Valerie. Watches every single interview she does, buys any magazine with her face on it, says it’s the biggest goal of his life to have her breathe on him.”

Tanner snorts with laughter. Ashton Irwin, the drummer, has been Valerie’s celebrity crush for years. Val has never had the guts to approach him, even though they follow each other on Instagram. It’s too funny of a coincidence. Valerie bought Ashton’s solo album on vinyl and has it framed in her bathroom. Their obsession is mutual, and nobody knows it. Until now.

“You’re shitting me,” Tanner giggles, but when she looks at Ryan, she can see he’s being completely serious. 

“Obsessed.” 

“Val’s into Ash, Ryan,” Lou says, laughing just as much as Tanner is.

Ryan’s jaw falls open. “What? No, no way!” 

Tanner shakes her head, still laughing. “Obsessed. Superbloom is her most played album of all time.” 

With wide eyes, Ryan shakes his head too, starting to laugh with his two friends. 

Deciding it’s fate that brought them together, Tanner knows what she has to do. She needs to get her best friend on a date with Ashton Irwin, and the way to make it happen is right in front of her.

“Here, let’s get them together, Ryan. Give me your phone. You should totally give Ashton her number.”

[enneamage]

I was reading your post about RPF and was hoping that you could explain to me why so many people like to write it. I would go so far as to say I am repelled by it and don't understand the appeal whatsoever. tbh I don't even like fan fiction for what I think is the same reason: it isn't canon. It seems presumptive of any individual that has nothing to do with a creative project to contribute to it as if it is part of the original. It is even worse if we are talking about something that is irl. Why is it not enough to create a fictional work with all of the same traits that the writer believes the fiction or irl subjects have, and then just change the names? If the content is good enough, it doesn't have to be propped up on irl people in order to get readers.

Oh nelly here we go.

Whenever people ask about RPF fic I’m used to trying to use what footholds they do have in fan culture to direct them to why people write these kinds of taboo extremes, but you seem to be pretty squarely affirmational in a sea of transformational people, so this is going to start right from zero.  

I wouldn’t choose an RPF fandom to be babies first fandom justifying experience because of how deep in the pocket it is compared to some other transformational fandoms, so starting there is hard. If you’ve never had the experience of being exposed to something and wanting more of something, or different from something, or had your imagination wander off with what you’ve just seen, a lot of what transformational fandom does in general will seem baffling, let alone rpf spaces.

Basic Transformational Fandom

Transformational fandoms tend to kick off in media that provides a fun sandbox or (even when it’s good) leaves a little bit more to be desired. From there, the people left wanting start to group up and create markets for the creation of fanwork, and eventually someone puts hand to keyboard to make something. People sometimes think that transformational fandom is recent but the truth is that Fanficiton Fanzines stretch back well beyond the creation of the internet, people have been craving transformational content and art for a long time, and are very stubborn when it comes to finding each other to do it.  

Speaking from personal experience, even though fandoms often reliably form around media, I haven’t participated in the fandom for every piece of media I’ve consumed, so I know what it’s like to be interested and disinterested in the fandoms around what I watch/read/ect. There’s been times where I was very into a fandom in a traditional “I want as much of this as possible and also X and Y to smooch” way, times when I was kind of put off by what a given fandom was doing so I took the pass, and times when I was more interested in what the fandom was putting out than the actual content itself. It can take some shopping around to find a spot where what a market has lines up with what appeals to you.

So there’s… a bit of a leap between the usual premise of transformational fandom and rpf spaces. My understanding of the people who pipeline from regular fiction to RPF is they develop the instincts in one context and then they just retain and use that capacity when they switch to another. That sounds a bit slippery-slope but I mean that they just don’t have to start from scratch if they came through more traditional and less taboo fandoms. People still tend to draw the line because RPF is still mostly taboo (the fact that this fandom has such a large, open presence of it is wild to me, I’m really not used to it but such is the fine line of Minecraft roleplay) but some people find it easier to cross because of their background.

The Fantasy Market

There’s something of a midway between fic and conversation that doesn’t get covered as much even though it feels like the missing link between regular idle fantasising and RPF. People tend to want peer-to-peer contact with other people who share the same interests as them, and exchanging ideas or scenarios surrounding those interests is a go-to for that.

The line between trying to find the truth vs feeling out an appealing scenario brings be back around again to my imago post, so if people wanted to collect their “parasocial relationships are the devil” ticket here’s an easy one. You may have seen these kinds of posts around—“[name] would like a teddy bear. He would pretend he didn’t at first but eventually he would become the type of guy to get all the way out of bed if it fell on the floor in the middle of the night to go get it.” It’s not fic, but it’s a longform hypothetical that someone would post to their peers, maybe to get a full on conversation going about how much milage [name] would get out of a stuffed animal. From there they get to feel closer to their fellow fans, and also feel like they understand a bit more about the person they’re all interested in, since pattern finding is a big part of human cognition in general and it's fun to do it together.

On the hormonal end of the spectrum, thirstposting is a deceptively complicated art, somewhere between personal venting and posting for the people around them to resonate with. I know people mostly like to act like thirst tweets are always embarrassing and unwelcome, but honestly having a brother in arms in Times Of Great Thirst usually bonds a community pretty tightly.  

Self-inserts and X readers have never been my thing, but they’re an important link in the evolutionary chain of how we get from one person daydreaming to a whole community of readers and writers. There’s a market for good ideas about a certain person or situation even if they aren’t fleshed out, but a few steps in you start looking at content that looks more like fiction. A good offshoot of this step that people don’t often talk about or understand in these terms were the original POV tiktoks and concept/Imagine blogs. The people love a good scenario, and environments where some of the best imaginations are grinding out content to fuel your daydream can be great for that.  

I think that the people who didn’t enter through ‘regular’ transformational fandom probably found their way through this door instead. Fantasy tweet becomes thirst tweet becomes thread fic becomes wattpad, graduates to ao3 maybe, whoops we’re reading novels now.

The Reader / Writer Market

I use the word ‘market’ a little differently than some others might when talking about this stuff. A while ago I started poking around Economic Anthropology in a very amateurish way, because that was the first place I came across an idea that managed to line up with the majority of my fandom experience, the idea that ‘economics’ are the dynamics of human exchange based on wants and needs, not just the study of money and assets. Money only covers a fraction of the number of exchanges that happen in life, non-monetary economy is what I find really interesting, and what I relate to parts of fandom as. Think of the strangely elaborate systems that seem to reliably pop up when people want something, I have seen amazingly complex fandom coordination from young teenagers as long as the desire and the drives were there. Economics gets a lot more saucy once you start to relate to it as a study of human desire and how those desires get met.

The people want what the people want, and in fandom they often want more of the thing they’ve invested in. It’s often not enough, or even very appealing at all, to write something “original” or removed from the scene when the party is in the scene itself. Some people probably give it a go, but truth be told they often don’t get seen as often as work with the built-in audience that a fandom has/is. The goal probably isn’t even to be seen by a lot of people, but to show stuff to the people who would be most interested in that stuff, even if there’s only five people who are invested. People get content, author gets validation and engagement, it’s a little loop that’s a lot harder to get to in the cold world of original publishing. Most people don’t really want to become career writers anyway, they want to see their favorite boys smooch in the form of the kind of stories they read, which are likely already fic.

Footnote about old lit on transformational vs affirmative: A lot of the old conversation is gendered in ways that I understand, because they absolutely mattered / do matter, but modern fandoms like the MLP fandom are shaking up that binary. Men do take part in transformational fandom, just not as often as women on the whole.

[demonicintegrity]

I’ve been seeing a lot of old su clips on my fyp as well as one of those criticism videos on the movie.

And for a while I’ve been able to look at the show more objectively because time has passed since I’ve watched it. Not that I was like a huge fan to any degree, but still.

My general opinion these days is that “the executives actively made it harder on the crew and definitely were unfair and unreasonable in certain aspects” and “the crew actively fumbled the writing” can be two coexisting statements.

Honestly didn’t form that latter part until I was getting into TOH that I realized some crews can have strong writing still despite executive nonsense. Not to say there aren’t still flaws, but still. A couple of things were messy in SU, and unfortunately they all happened one after another and it was all important plot points that needed to be handled well. And that’s why a lot of us were unsastified with Change Your Mind.

(SU was the last long form tv show I remember. It have five seasons. I can’t help but wonder if such a poor reaction to CYM scared off producers from having any more longer form stuff. Which sucks cuz it was at least in part set up to fail. They shot themselves in the foot.)

The other two coexisting opinions I have of the show was “it wasn’t complete garbage like some people suggest but it’s also not amazing. It’s just kinda. A Show” and “SU is vitally important in terms of what had to be done in order to pave the way for future representation in shows. Bordering on/is historical significant in that way.” I genuinely believe we couldnt have shows like She Ra and TOH without the work Sugar and the crew put in to push back against executives.

(We claim great fame and importance to most if not all Shakesphere’s works. But I can’t help but think at least some people of the time just thought of it as a play. Not a good or bad one, but just a play. Because they didn’t realize the historical significance of it yet. Because there’s this idea that historical significance must be only done by outstanding and shining works. A classroom full of high schoolers reading Shakespeare or Edgar Allen Poe sure would disagree.)

It seems like whenever I look at media I want more out of/see great potential in I just deeply y e a r n for better Creative Commons legislation. I want other people to take a crack at this, see what they could do. I want people to try again and again and again on media, rewriting and reworking and see what we could get from it.

One show could be a seed that blooms a beautiful field of new media, we know this because we see how actively imaginative fandoms are. I just wish there was a way to encourage that into the mainstream a lil more.