#I’ve seen a couple accounts like this in popular ship tags

[pettyshippen]

My Personal Issues With Willet

Disclaimer: I wrote this post years ago but never shared it on any of my Tumblr accounts until now. This post is not meant to shit on Willet shippers or the futuristic four fandom or start a fight. If you can’t handle someone having a different opinion than you on the internet, then try reading a book.

Wait, what is Willet?

Willet is the crossover ship between Violet Parr from The Incredibles and Wilbur Robinson from Meet the Robinsons.

This crossover couple blew up around popular geek websites in 2007 after the release of Meet the Robinsons. I guess people assumed, “Oh, he has the same hair color as Violets and he’s kinda cute so they would be cute together.”

There’s fanart and fanfiction everywhere. I can’t go through the Violet Parr tag on Tumblr without stumbling upon the ‘willet’ or even the ‘futuristic four’ tag. Kind of annoying when you’re trying to look for content of your comfort character and your NOTP keeps popping up.

Now, I’ve seen Violet get shipped with a bunch of people outside The Incredibles from Danny Fenton to Peter Parker. I never cared for those crossovers myself but Willet is the one that irks me and makes me cringe the most.

And don’t get me wrong. I can be open minded about crossover couples. Just not these. Crossover couples can work and I’ve roleplayed some very unlikely ones as other characters. It’s not about how likely it is for Person A and Person B to meet. It’s about if they’d have chemistry.

Wilbur and Violet would not have chemistry. Here’s why;

He’s annoying af and she hates annoying people

Violet deals with an annoying brother on a regular basis. This is something everyone with a little sibling has the endure. So why would she settle for a loud, mouthy boyfriend? Wilbur is grabby and pushy too, and Violet wouldn’t like that. He’d be like a second annoying brother she’s being forced to tolerate.

And what if she has a question? Would Wilbur answer it or find out the answer for her? No. He’d go, ‘That is an excellent question’ and make no effort to see it answered. Tell me, would you overlook all that just because you think a guy is cute? Probably not.

His family be crazier than hers

Anyone who has watched Meet the Robinsons knows how crazy that dinner scene was. They weren’t just eating spaghetti. They were doing karate and shooting meatballs out of meatball cannons. And then family drama ensued. You think Violet wouldn’t throw her fork, pull out her chair, and leave? Or ask Mrs. Robinson to take her home? Because she absolutely would.

While the Robinsons are sweet and have a wonderful lesson to teach about failure, they’re not quiet. For Walts sake, one of them is married to a puppet.

Willet Work? It Willnot.

So, I’ve come clean. I’ve said I’ve severely disliked this ship for years but wouldn’t be vocal about it because I’m against ship bashing. While I don’t consider sharing reasons why a ship wouldn’t work ‘ship bashing’, some people would which was why I held back.

This is Tumblr so of course I’m expecting somebody to get mad. Throw your stones, I really don’t give a fuck.

I don’t like Willet because I love Violet too much and she deserves what’s best for her, whether it involves a boyfriend or not. Wilbur is not a good match for her.

[scararanara]

Hello! I’d like to talk about a sun and moon show fan who claims to not be a proshipper (someone who ships adults x children or family x family) that I’ve seen on tik tok that I haven’t heard anyone talk about. All of my proof of what they’ve done will be put on this post here. (I’ve never made any post on anywhere like this so if something is wrong please let me know!)

The user @random_sams_shipper who like I said claims to not be a proshipper is currently shipping lunar x moon, (the ship that got them popular) sun x eclipse, and earth x kill code. They’ve posted several videos of them shipping the ships I just listed and have only said why only one of their ships isn’t a proship, that proship is lunar x moon. They said that lunar and moon are not siblings and that lunar is not a minor because lunar is the same age as eclipse (he’s not) lunar is a couple of months younger than eclipse which doesn’t make him the same age as eclipse but also has the mind, appearance, and voice of a child. And although (old) moon and lunar aren’t brothers, both lunar and (old) moon see each other as brothers which does make it a proship since from what I’ve seen, they don’t have an head cannons besides lunar bot being a minor and moon not being his brother or seeing him as one. They’ve also made nsfw of lunar (which I will not post so it doesn’t spread) which is just really stomach wrenching. They’ve also made a ship video of sun x eclipse but they deleted the the videos of it and their reaction videos of people seeing it sadly (I posted where I found the information on the evidence post) They’ve also posted only one video of earth x kill code, I haven’t found any information about any posts or things they’ve said about earth x kill code so I might make a part two about them if I find more information. They have a Q&A attached to their account and the questions they have on there are stuff like “how am I a proshipper” “why do you think lunar x moon/ sun x eclipse is a proship.” This may not have anything to do with the proshipper but I saw that they are only following one person and from what it looks like, it looks like a main account that posts edits, of vids, etc. I’m not sure if that might be their main account but there is a low chance since from what I’ve seen the accounts seem to have very different things like the way they type, the way they show their tags, and the topic of their accounts. I think it might be the proshipper’s main account since they both have the topic of what they post about in their username for example “random_sams_shipper” (this account makes ships about sams) “wcue” (I didn’t put their full username just in case if they have nothing to do with the proshipper but it shows they post about wcue) I’m still not sure if this is the proshipper’s main or second account or not but like I said, I will make a part two if I get more information.

This is it for my post on @random_sams_shipper so if you have any info about them, please reblog this post or my evidence post so that I can talk more about them.

This is the end and thanks for reading this post, have a great day/night!

[batarangsoundsdumb]

hae interrogationes multae respondeant quia demens .

if you read this entire ask post you deserve a gold star and financial recompensation

Um, Obviously because when you’re adopted by a white guy you automatically become white duhhh

this is about this post lmao and yeah youre absolutely right, you have to hand your poc card in when you get adopted by a white guy.

Do you think Cass would listen to Yanni, the YouTube channel epic symphonic rock, or some other stuff? There's some cool mashups but idk if that's up your alley, I kinda feel like I'm pushing it with my weird taste of music by recommending an orchestra cover of metal, but i just love that sort of thing and mashups :P @harvestyourcherries 

i haven’t heard of that? but in my personal (correct) opinion steph listens to classical music, and then both modern and older, and then also stuff like black sabbath, iron maiden, but also hardrock and hardcore. i like the idea of cass just liking the most extreme screaming songs full of noise and then also listen to pachelbel’s 370th sonata yanno? THANK YOU for the rec tho

speaking of ur cass playlist hc...reminds of the time (yesterday) i found 2 playlists randomly on spotify from the same user. one was abt 3 hours of instrumental/classical "dark" & "nostalgic" music. the other almost 11 hours of nothing but hardcore bass/synth/electronic music. just an incredible tightrope act to put on in public. the synth one was also called like "psalms for synth sluts" which is Also incredible

tbh i LOVE synth SO MUCH like for no reason at all but then also cannot handle a poppy electronic beat lmao. but this seems like the kinda thing i’d do but just in one (1) playlist bc i just sort songs by vibe instead of genre? that’s how i end up with britney spears and billy ray cyrus in the same playlist. 

Oh, I want Kate Kane playlist next! It would be amazing if you could do one when you have time and will 🙏

how rude would it be of me to just say no? like sorry kate but idk you and also you seem way too keen on the us military for an institution that homophobically targeted you? (and also commits war crimes) but let’s unpack the fact that the institution that caused the death of your mom and sister and also got you blacklisted for being gay is still one you align with???

'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' 'yes i am' 'no you're not' --- when i tell you i fucking screamed LOL!!!!!!! i can imagine the cameraman not knowing if he should cut to commercial or keep it on these two weirdos fighting on stage (bruce definitely ruffled dick's hair/noogied him right?? 

about this post but yeah lmao. this cameraman just turns to like the audience to get a reaction and it’s just multiple moments of CLEAR shock.

you are the only funny person on this hellsite

how egotistical is it for me to say that i get this ask multiple times a month? bc it literally happens so often it’s hilarious to me.

Wish there was more john/Bruce content 😔😔😔 was so hungry I actually looked at canon media 😔😔😔 (Justice League Dark babeeeyyyyyy)

check out batman: damned for some mediocre content but at least it’s john/bruce (also very interesting story and stuff, just got very >:( over this weird part where harley quinn tried to r*pe bruce or something? it’s not for everyone)

dick grayson but he's nicki minaj

his anaconda don’t want none,,, unless...... 

Dick Grayson was never a cop, he played Marshall on Paw Patrol

you are SO right. also paw patrol is a fucking good show idc. that shit could’ve been the new steven universe on this hellsite.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CS1lI0bLI7-/?utm_medium=copy_link

...

why do people keep reposting my CONTENT. if you are not funny yourself don’t just grab shit off of tumblr and post it on insta,,, get a life. sidenote: should i start an insta and get all these ppl to take my content down that would be funny as hell.

Might I suggest for a Gotham City Meme: something about the true crime fandom thirsting for the rogues gallery

ok can i just say something slightly controversial?? no? i don’t find true crime ppl who are into criminals funny, that shits disturbing irl im not gonna bring that into my very chill universe.

i may have never seen a 'jason cleaning guns in sink' fic but i do know he WOULD

THANK YOU

bestie im sorry to say this to you but while you can, and people do wash their guns in the sink, that is a lot of lead in a very vital part of the kitchen.

people tend to do it in the bathtub.

WHY???? like damn why do you even have guns

i dont think i read many gun sink fics exactly but i have read lots of fics where jason cleanes his guns in the living room. usualy dissembles them and cleans them with a rag i think

lmao fair enough, like i think that’s a large part of what i remember as well.

if you say you've seen/read gun sink fics I believe you. I think those of us who didn't see them are lucky or maybe didn't search for fics by tags or something idk

i mean ive never sought them out but i HAVE seen them,, like definitely i know almost for certain.

saw your tags and I'm interested in Steph/Kara now. They would be the most chaotic couple <3

literally thoooo, i have a wip where they get together in a zombie apocalypse and like UGGGHhhh i am so in love with them.

I am the Breece anon. Thanks for the recommendation; am reading now. I’ve always been a hardcore Superman fan because I love my pure himbo farm boy. My logic is, if one Bruce is a Broose, then multiple Broose are a herd of Breece. And this is a hill upon which I will perish.

fair enough,,,, like moose, meese, goose, geese, bruce, breece. i get your logic and i stand by it as well. (glad you enjoyed the comic recs!!!!)

It's a beautiful day in Gotham, and you are a group of horrible Breece

OH my god dude lmao

there only being 42 fics on ao3 for tim and bernard is honestly so sad i need more

it’s like twice that now!!! we did it lads. (tho very sad that my fic isnt number one but like number 4 :((((  )

i'm too late you already did the poll lol but may i suggest bethy (bernard + timothy)

shit dude that wouldve been so fucking funnyyyyy. think ppl have just stuck to timber tho, tim/bernard kinda died down recently and i think it’s too bad, they’re a great couple and i love them.

Wait, hear me out

Bernothy @redlightofdawn

great recommendation (lmao this ask is from like a month ago) but very sorry to announce that NARDTH is the superior shipname

Wait, we know that bernard likes milfs (Tim's step-mom) but what about dilfs? gilfs?

Wait no, I regret sending that ask

these were two seperate asks and they’re HILARIOUS. in my personal opinion tho,,, milfs, gilfs, dilfs are just about vibes and bernard is just attracted to sexy ppl who may sometimes be milfs, dilfs, or EVEN gilfs.

crime in bludhaven would drop to half if nightwing had a boob window. in this essay i will-

WHERE’S THE ESSAY ANON, WHERE’S THE FUCKING ESSAY

Wait if Barbra and Tim r at opposite ends at all times what happened to Barbra once everyone’s Tim’s ever love before started dying lol

she won a lottery ticket and spent 2 weeks on a resort in the bahamas before returning home and finding out that the joker was arrested for tax evasion and then spent a month staying at her big tiddie goth girlfriend’s house before conner came back to life and she broke her pinkie playing table hockey.

Why is the opposite end thing so funny and compelling to me. Tim comes back from his depression quest for Bruce and Babs is now a literal god

lmao when tim loses his spleen barbara reaches nirvana.

Are you still taking music recs because I have three songs that remind me of Jason that I think you'd like

send to me or lose a toe

🌸 ⭐ put this star into the inbox of your favorite blogs. it’s time to spread positivity! ⭐🌸😋

thanks, i wont tho on account of i wont.

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMduBy3Sr/

⬆️

This is the whole of Blüdhaven and everyone anywhere.

Nightwings ass alone saves more people in a calendar year and does more for so society than most heroes do their whole career.Also u are one of the funniest tumblr pages out there. The vibes are unmatched and the memes and tags ✨send me✨.Thank u and goodnight @julia-flow 

fanksss also lmao.

That's going to be a little bit difficult to explain, but

There's some music that you listen to and you think, "oh my gosh, I can perfectly imagine Dick Grayson singing this song, with the same voice as the singer because that voice matches with Dick Grayson"?

oh yeah totally lmao. i have a lot of songs that i think are just entirely dick grayson yanno? kind of all of my playlists have that vibe, but i really find bleachers to fit with dick? idk.

"Lois lane/Superman" fics this, "Lois lane/Clark Kent" fics that, (/lh) let's get into the real good stuff. Some people ship Lois, Clark, and Superman as a throuple. Most popular fic tag for sure

yes totally, i think they’d be absolutely killer on ao3 and clark gets so fucking embarassed about it.

I miss your post, hope you’re doing okay!!

haha this was like 2 months ago, but i was doing fine then too! just didn’t have a lot of inspiration in terms of content.

Doot doot!

noot noot

I’m confused. What did DC do now? Like with nightwing? And another sibling? Please spoil everything for me

lmao they gave him a secret sister plotline where they had his dad cheat on his mom with tony zucco’s wife, bc dick’s life wasn’t traumatic enough yet.

sorry but it's so funny that batman is called "the dark knight" when the gotham city baseball team is called the gotham knights. it'd be like if a vigilante was running around new york called like "the scary yankee"

lmaooo no. but like yankee comes from dutch names or something so wouldnt it be HILARIOUS if gotham knights came from like german names and bruce would be running around called the dark KLAUS UND NIEK @graysonnightwing 

(not a batcest shipper) it’s so funny to me that the responses are “i’m a batcest shipper because i can differentiate fiction from reality and and it doesn’t bother me personally, but i understand why you oils think it’s weird” to “i wish all batcest shippers a very fucking die”

yeah lmaoo. i personally basically flipped my entire stance around to ‘i dont care please leave me and everybody else alone’ bc i think there’s really no point in starting a moral dillema over some fucking fandom bullshit. Please just,,, go home,,, log off, find a nice forest to have a little walk in and remember that somewhere in history, somebody probably died in the place you’re standing. and you will also die someday, and somebody will have to look at your internet usage and see you fighting multiple people anonymously while being named ‘nightwingsbuttchin200186′ like... calm down, we’re all gonna die this is not the thing to worry about.

so since like "wards" don't really exist in modern society almost all the batkids are foster kids, right? i used to work in the system and imagine: monthly visits from social workers and guardian ad litems, bruce having to get permission to take the boys anywhere out of state, calling their social worker at like 8 a.m. like "yeah dick broke his arm again... a gymnastics accident this time...." their poor social worker. bruce send her a huge bouquet and box of chocolates every month to stay on her good side

i imagine the social worker just getting into the case like ‘yeah let’s get this kid a good guardian’ and then ending up having to work with 22 y/o bruce wayne and his 50 y/o dad. and so this social worker is like ‘okay we can work with this, this is the best home i can find’ and then like it ends up landing on its feet and then the kid gets adopted and then they get a call a year later like ‘uhm so hi, this kid tried to steal my tyres can i adopt him?’ and like 3 years later. ‘okay so basically, my neighbours’ kid imprinted on me and now they’re dead, can i keep him?’ two years later it’s like ‘okay so this assassin child-’

ever since I saw that one post of yours, the meme that's something like "I know that abba's backup dancer got me" with a picture of discowing, I've been haunted. Every once in a while I'll be minding my own business then the image of abba's backup dancer dick grayson aka nightwing aka discowing will flash in my mind and I'll be frozen in place. Today at work I was in the middle of folding clothes and suddenly once again discowing entered my mind and I suddenly lost the ability to see anything except He. Thank you.

wow. the IMPACT.

Braver than any US marine man props to you🤝

this shit is about the time i wrote an article on batcest, like man,,, the fact that i didn’t get cancelled is MIRACULOUS. also like,,, uh if anybody on here did gossip on me,, send screenshots i’d love to see it.

Hello, just wanted to say your article was great. Thank you for taking the time to provide an unbaised answer. It should provide people with nuances they couldn't possibly conjure on their own.

May I ask where your username originates from?

yes you may (also thanks!!!) i thought it up when i was trying to find an original username bc i didnt want to be called like ‘timdrakes something something’ or ‘jason todd something smoething’ or ‘dick grayson something something’ yanno? so i thought batarangs, they sound so dumb and that’s my username story... now it’s my whole entire brand lmao.

yno that bit in kick ass where red mist asks kick ass if he wants a hit of his blunt, was that the inspo for stoner tim

no? it’s bc i think stoners are hilarious and drugs are great. (dont do drugs tho) 

How would u feel if someone actually wore one of those bruce or ollie pride shirts u edited

fenomenal next question.

Dick as lil huddy and Jason as James gave me radiation poisoning and now I’m screaming crying throwing up so thx for that

(Rico suave as Tim is perfect tho literally no changes needed)

i was so funny for that shit wasn’t i??? lmao i loved those weird ass fancasts

You're doing the Lord's work by providing us with all these Gotham/Metropolis citizens memes, thank you for being so relentlessly funny @nellethiel-aranel

you’re welcome!! i really enjoy making memes, but getting validation for my content and my memes is REALLY nice.

Bruce is such a slut in your memes and honestly i love that for him @rhodey-rhudert-rhodes-main 

he’s that much of a slut irl too dw.

Bruce and Alfred have an emergency pride flag for the batkids. Oliver Queen printed an emergency "I love my gay son" t-shirt and as soon as Roy told him he was dating Jason, Oliver started wearing that shirt everyday and Roy always cringes when he sees it. Oliver also has an emergency "I love my lesbian daughter" shirt just in case for Cissie.

lmao YES i had a post like this bc like all of their kids/family members are so gayy

stop bringing back batfam fancasts it is not real it is not real it is not- 😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀😀

oh yes it is my darling.

did discowing burn down the notredam because he hates the bees? @allulily

no he did it bc fuck the french.

im gonna beg for 1 thing and 1 thing only. please please please put physical by olivia newton john on dick's playlist

okay then beg. bc i wont. physical reminds me too much of glee and that hurts me mentally.

your playlist is sorely missing some Madonna. Specifically Into the Groove, Like a Prayer, and Vogue

i’m scared of madonna that’s why she’s not on there. she haunts me in my dreams.

suggestion: son of batman by aaron dews for dick’s playlist🤩

sorry, i listened to it and the vibe didn’t agree with me.

Hear me out, metropolis citizens sending rare pair fics of Clark Kent x Superman fics to Lois to edit

yes, absolutely hilarious. even more funny if they send like physical copies, no address attached and lois sends it back marked with red ink, SOMEHOW

Imagine all the smut Clark must of read editing the fics

clark reads smut confirmeeed

NOT LOIS READING SUPERBAT PORN AND EDITING IT A 2AM 

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

hc that alfred is a meta that boosts healing factor of the people around him. if the bats are injured as much as they seem to be they would be doing bat stuff MAYBE half the year. no one including alfred knows about this. whenever the kids move out they inexplicably dont recover from injuries as fast and feel better whenever they visit the manor they just chalk it up to homesickness. bruce just thinks he heals really fast. alfred thinks everyone doesnt take care of themselves properly @finchcollector

that’s actually such a great idea, but i think that alfred would find out and learn how to concentrate it better so he can help more people, bc he’s great and i love him.

One of your dickfast posts reminded me of that tweet that goes: 'so you've had sex how many times? Yeah technically that's not a bromance' lol that's dickwally or dickroy

literally tho. like that’s all of dick’s friendships. once it gets past a certain time dick is like ‘wow i wonder what it would be like to make out with wally, wally come make out with me’ and wally’s like ‘we’ve done this like 40 times, dick, you know what it’s like’ and dick is like ‘sorry are you complaining?’ and they just make out.

superfam and batfam associations??

-batman and superman

-dick/barabara and supergirl?

-conner and tim

-jon and damian

pls enlighten me I am confused

nope,,, uhm batman and superman, but dick and superman as well, and then conner and tim, jon and damian and steph + babs with supergirl

I came across a fic in which Wonder Woman calls Batman "Stella" (like Stellaluna, the children's book) and I can imagine the batkids hop on the trend and maybe copies of the book appear at random places (aka, everywhere Bruce frequents)

sorry can’t reciprocate that was the name of my high school chemistry teacher and it gives me nightmares to think about.

good human what are your pronouns?

wouldn’t you like to know?

I need me some gothamites preferring harley over joker memes

everyone prefers harley over joker youre just very fucked up if you dont

don't understand why people try to add like veteran policy to the batfamily

dick pulling out his veteran batfam member card so he can eat first: step aside, peasants

Do you know the song Simmer by Haley Williams? It (the first verse anyways) reminds me of Jason? It's about rage.

damn yeah i LOVE HAYLEY!!!! youre right thoo

Okay so I like listen to your stoner Tim Drake playlist 24/7 but would he listen to skegss? Also I keep adding songs mentally it’s killing me 😩✋🏼 Anyways,, I literally love and worship your playlist 😃🤞🏼 And uh yeah have a good day ✨

stoner tim drake playlist is lyfeeee. also dont know who skeggs is? i’m stupid? have a good day!!

All the Robins (and Batgirl) decide to trade costumes for one night just to fuck with Batman and all the villains in Gotham. @subspacecadet 

batman knows it’s them youknow but like,,, what does he call them? he’s like ‘red hood?’ and 3 people answer and he’s not about to compromise some identities so he’s just Pissed.

I aspire to treat cops the way my dad treats them. This man is a 45 year old Asian immigrant to the US and the treats them like his pets. He talks about them like unruly children. Sometimes he pays off local cops to shut up and stop acting racist. And usually it works. I don’t know why but I can see Oliver Queen doing this

vibes... and also yes? oliver queen handing a local cop a donut to shut the fuck up lmao. but yanno i commit enough crimes to not really want to ever see a cop ever, so they kinda scare the everloving fuck out of me.

seeing as tim hasn't aged in years, that means he was 17 at peak emo tumblr era. im back on my emo tim bullshit and im not letting it go

emo tim had a wattpad account send tweet

People seem to think that batman is so dark and serious when the rainbow batsuit is right there. He wore it with no shame.

dude the 60s were a DIFFERENT TIME

dick grew up in a circus, jason grew up on the streets, and tim was probably raised by the internet

all of them cuss every other word and you cannot tell me otherwise

bitch i KNOW but dc has to change to an 18+ rating if they want to sell comix with swear words in them so we gotta deal with imagining the swear words in ourselves

thoughts on teen titans and young justice

haven’t seen teen titans on account of havent seen it and young justice was LITERALLY my favourite thing ever, tho i do gotta admit it’s not at all similar to the young justice comics unfortunately. i really wouldve liked to see timmy bart kon cassie and cissie animated on tv!!

ew ew ew how to delete batcest shippers I genuinely digust them

log off tumblr?

Okay as poc who was called racist for calling an Italian pastabrain: in the batfam are Italians bit Damian just yells various insults about the others being Italian. Just him yelling “What are you doing you moronic spaghettihead!” At steph etc

huh? i meant real italians. homeboy is telling steph he hopes she chokes on her fucking garlic.

I think it's dumb as hell to pull the batman is the best fighter in the batfam argument because like it's just irresponsible of Bruce to let his kids fight when they couldn't possibly be on his league or something

fair enough, but also like who cares they could all kill you just sit down and take a beating.

lady shiva, thalia al ghul and Selina Kyle are all milfs @notanothertimburtonenthusiastugh 

unfortunately, i have to admit,,, you’re right

why tf didn't someone give joker a death sentence already? like he's a mass murderer...give him the electric chair treatment wtf

idk i think plenty of people would have tried to murder him already (boring answer is: he is a popular character so they can’t kill him off bc he brings in lots of money)

There’s no such thing as “ copaganda”.

all american media is propaganda. happy to clear this up for you

is it bad that I find lady shiva owa owa

no. find her as owa owa as you want.

aight I'm guessing the order of your favs in batfam:

1. tim

2. Steph

3. dick

4. Duke

5. the rest

you’re wrong but it’s cute that you tried, i generally don’t have favourites, but i have a special place in my heart for steph, tim, dick and cass. bc they were like my introduction to batfam. but damian, jason, duke, bruce, babs and alfred are NOT FORGOTTEN OR UNLOVED

oh my god i was literally just readily willing to believe that italians werent white ty for clarifying it was a joke im so dumb sdkvjskdfs

i mean some italians aren’t white? italian is a nationality as well as an ethnicity, so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

since I saw so many people doing headcanons about the nationalities of batboys, I see Dick as an Italian.

dont know if youre serious or not, but sure.

super random but

jason 🤝 damian

old english

lmao fair enough.

tim absolutely has 1 gay uncle and his parents shit talk said uncle all the time so after bruce adopts him he specifically reaches out to this uncle to be like "heyyyy just so you know you majorly influenced my life yes i know i havent seen you since i was 5 and at the family reunion yes i know you dont remember my name idc thank you im gay too" and then they never talk again.

yuppp lmao that’s definitely something that could happen. i can also consider tim having no family members, like none. until he does like a dna test and he realises he has like an aunt living barely 2 miles away from him who’s like some illegitimate child of his grandpa.

I dare you one of them sends clark superman/clark fic and clark corrects the shit out of it and then goes like ps his dick is not that big, just telling as someone who has seen it. internet either explodes or goes who tf did he not fuck at this point.

i think everybody would call clark a buzzkill and try to cancel him over that.

so you're telling me Tim Drake wouldn't buy Starbucks?

no. dunkin donuts all the way

One of my favorite things is imagining people finding out jason came back from the dead and being like "oh no does he have magic powers now?!?!?" and he just pulls out a gun and tries to shoot joker

now he doesn’t even have the gun :) lmao

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

bruce gets codename ‘ugh’ everytime. he hates it.

crazy that tim being a 17 y/o ceo and a stoner who does brand deals are all actual canon things written in detective comics comics and not made up for shits and giggles by you, tumblr user batarangsoundsdumb @rowdeyclown

SO CRAZY HUH?

batman au where everything is the same but his utility belt is bright pink

absolutely, but i raise you, his boots light up like sketchers when he kicks people.

unbeknownst to the superhero fandom writers in the dcuniverse, clark and BRUCE are one of the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag on ao3. clark writes the best lois x superman angst, full of unhappy endings and scenes that are a so detailed you'd think you were in the middle of a superhero beatdown. bruce made an ao3 account to fuel "the do the butts match" thing, and makes batman/bruce fics from time to time. he wrote a superbat fic as a joke but ended up making it REAL porny. @concrastinator

dude they’re WAY too busy for that. Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan on the other hand are the most prolific fanfic writers in the superhero rpf tag writing what is Mostly porn.

When the dining table topic gets to politics, Steph says "eat the rich" as the solution

bruce just silently takes away her fork and knife while she’s talking.

[celebelei]

BL Drama Questions (questions by @pose4photoml, I wasn't tagged but this seemed fun and I had thoughts.)

1. If you had to watch one drama forever what would it be? I always say I should rewatch stuff and then rarely ever do… But my most rewatched BL series is Cherry Magic with Semantic Error as a close second.

2. If you could change the ending of a drama which one would it be? Kissable Lips comes to mind. I never watched the last episode all the way through because I spoiled myself of the ending and said fuck that. Or I’d have changed the last episode of Old Fashion Cupcake to include a kiss because it would have been the missing icing on the (cup)cake.

3. Name your favorite drama and tell who your favorite character was. Well, if I have to pick from a show that I absolutely love, I guess I have to go with Adachi from Cherry Magic because I relate to him a lot and he is my sweet baby boy. If we’re listing favourite characters without taking into account whether I love the show they’re from, then the list would be a lot longer (Vegas and Pete from KinnPorsche, Win from Until We Meet Again and Yok from Not Me.)

4. Name a drama you dropped within the first few episodes ~ we all have at least one! Well, I’m very quick to drop a show if I don’t like it and I get bored easily, so I have a few of them… Until We Meet Again (I LOVE WinTeam and have watched their compilation several times but for me the rest of the series was a snooze fest and the furthest I got was ep 5), Oxygen (also too slow for me), 2gether (just plain boring), Cutie Pie (not enough plot to be interesting and I only actually liked Perth’s character 😅), I Promised You the Moon (just… no) and My Engineer (I’d seen RamKing’s story before but the main couple was not it for me). I've also dropped a few shows right before the end with only a couple episodes to go, for example Love Stage!! (Thai version), Tasty Florida and My Sweet Dear.

5. Name a popular drama you've never watched and why? TharnType because it’s problematic. MewGulf’s chemistry is evident from the clips I’ve seen but I have no desire to watch the whole thing. There are also many BL classics that I haven’t watched and probably never will.

6. Name a drama you regret watching. Like I said, I’m quick to drop shows so I don’t remember having actual regrets about finishing a show. Some of them might have been quite forgettable and underwhelming but not exactly bad. There have been a few short films though that made me go ”why did I even bother?”

7. Name a drama you thought you’d never watch but did and did you end up liking it? Secret Crush On You. I don’t handle second-hand embarrassment well AT ALL but the characters ended up winning me over, so much so that I tolerated the embarrassment and white-knuckled through it and ended up liking it quite a bit.

8. Name a pairing you want to see? As in they haven’t been paired up before? Well see, here’s the thing. When I get attached to a pairing, I get so badly attached that I have difficulty watching them seperate in other shows, especially if they’re paired up with someone new. I need a lot of time in order to get over a pairing so that I can watch them in other things and with some pairs even time won’t help. So for example, no matter how much I adore both Boun and First (from Not Me), I have no desire to see them as a ship. (But Boun and First as BFFs in a show? Yes, sign me the fuck up because that would be glorious.) That being said, it would have to be people that are not part of an established ship that I like, so hmm… For some reason Toptap and Gunsmile popped into my head, I liked them both in 3 Will Be Free. That could be fun. When it comes to Korea, I wouldn’t mind seeing Jun (from k-pop group A.C.E, starred in Tinted With You) doing another BL after he comes back from the military but I’m not sure who I’d pair him with.

9. Name a pairing you didn’t think had chemistry? Don't murder me, but OhmFluke. Both in Until We Meet Again and Close Friend S1 (haven't watched the 2nd season yet), I just didn't feel any spark between them, it was too much on the platonic side for me. (I’m ace and I rarely feel romantic attraction either so I need to be smacked in the face with a couple’s chemistry, whether it's sweet and romantic or heated and passionate or a mix of both, because it’s the only way I get to experience it. 😅)

10. Name a pairing you have seen in another drama that you like? Do you mean a pairing I want to see in a new show? BibleBuild and FlukeFirst, in that order. Both pairs made me completely lose my mind and I don’t know if I’ll ever get over them. Absolutely insane chemistry, just *chef's kiss*. (BounPrem are also a favourite of mine, but they're getting Between Us.)

[kirbyspits]

A lot of Makorra shippers only moved on because they’re afraid of being called homophobic for not shipping korrasami. I LITERALLY saw someone on Instagram yesterday call a makorra shipper homophobic just for saying korrasami came out of nowhere. Also, Korrasami shippers LOVE to bring up the "popping bottles" backlash to make fun of makorra shippers. I left the tlok fandom in 2014 bc it was so toxic as a teenager, but now i’m 23. I’m no longer afraid of shipping something i always loved.

Ah, yes, I realized I didn’t address the fandom's toxicity in the last ask, but I’ve spoken about it before. I don't talk too much about the past because I was at the edge of the fandom back in 2014/2015. I was aware of fights, but the discussions I saw were moreso on bi-erasure. I saw one post saying it was wrong to ship Makorra. I remember being really confused about why Makorra was actually problematic, but I didn’t appreciate being told who I can ship the only dark-skinned woman protagonist on a major television network with. Why are you forcing me to ignore Mako and Korra’s relationship? Book 1 is practically about Mako and Korra, all other characters be damned. Me preferring the story of one pairing and a popular romance trope, second chances, is not wrong, and no one would know how I view the LGBT+ community based on who I ship in one show.

I ended up leaving the community because I was disappointed with season 4 in general. When Korra was released on Netflix, I figured it was time to rewatch the series again (plus, I’ve been binging all my favorite romance anime). So imagine my shock when I created a new Tumblr and Twitter account to rant and rave about TLOK, and I saw nothing but hate and name-calling in the Makorra tags. I saw people casually throwing around the word “homophobic,” and one person said people who don’t like Korrasami are just misogynistic. 

I just wanted pretty pictures, and people are out here psychoanalyzing shippers! So, I dug through some blogs and to feel more grounded with this fandom I didn’t recognize. After reading through their commentaries and experiences, I actually became more upset at Bryke than the teenagers/children who comment on Makorra posts saying how much better Korrasami is or accuse Makorra shippers of being homophobic. 

Yes, I truly believe these comments are mostly coming from people in their late teens and younger, at least in 2020. I can’t speak on 2014/2015, but since we were younger, the early 20s/late teens, I wonder if our age group was also the loudest. Don’t get me wrong, adults can be horrible people and can get really nasty. However, every time I look up the rudest commenters' profiles, they were teens. When one Korrasami shipper wrote “screw Makorra” on my AMV, I figured I’d have some fun trolling them until I clicked on their profile and saw a child. Needless to say, I ignored them and reflected on how parents are allowing their babies on TikTok while my parents freaked out at the idea of showing my picture on FB growing up. 

*I’m not still mad about that*

Also, while it doesn’t give anyone an excuse to make such a strong accusation, part of me, as a straight person, feels like I can’t get too upset because I also become very aware of my privilege. The space I’m in is a majority of young LGBT+ fans (at least on Twitter where I’ve seen the most toxicity). Some people see TLOK as their safe space and imply why should there be Makorra shippers when they have all these other cis/het shows they can engage with. It doesn’t work like that, of course. TLOK doesn’t only feature Bi characters. They’re POC/Indigenous, women, and Korra has dark skin. That’s a lot of marginalized communities. Makorra/TLOK is my comfort show, not because she’s with a man, but because of the reasons I just listed. Also shipping Korra with Mako doesn’t mean she’s no longer bi. She’d still be attracted to women.

Here’s who I am upset with tho, Bryke. Mostly Bryan. While Makorra shippers called out Korrasami shippers for cyberbullying, the focus seemed to be on Bryan for making it seem like there was something wrong with them for not finding Korrasami’s narrative satisfying. It was especially sad to read bloggers who identified as being part of the LGTB+ community saying Bryan’s hetero-lens dismissed their experience and then having to defend/proving themselves to anonymous messengers. 

Fans saw it as a betrayal. They saw it as the go-head for the rude Korrasami shippers to harass Makorra artists because they “didn’t watch the show correctly.” When the creator, the person you admire, also puts the blame on you, that kind of pain is on another level.

Korrasami shippers played a huge role in kicking Makorra shippers out of the fandom, but we can’t underestimate how much Bryan’s statement is a slap in the face. He used his characters and social justice as a shield for reasonable criticism. Just because we say a story is bad and Asami is grossly underwritten doesn’t mean that we’re against the idea of Korra and Asami being a couple. 

Of course, I’ve seen some very problematic statements from Makorra shippers. After all, homophobia is real. However, aside from the actual bigots, people have no issue with Korrasami. They just wanted a stronger connection between the girls. Many people seem to think Makorra shippers were looking for more romance, but we know we couldn't expect that. We can expect more screentime, musical cues, and more emotional support, which most people can see as platonic, but be romantic if you really want to. Mako’s interactions in book 4 can be seen as platonic, but all of us Makorra shippers saw it to be romantic.

Popping bottles! I completely missed that joke in 2014 and I discovered it this year. I agree it’s pretty annoying, but I become a troll and say I’m popping bottles for my Makorra moments. I don’t get any engagement, but I don’t seem to lose followers for it. Maybe popping bottles represents “straight-baiting?” I don’t get it why it’s so funny after all this time, but we’re Makorra shippers. We’re the joke 🙄

Anyways, to wrap up, lately, there seems to be a bit of a shift on Twitter. When I first created an account. I stayed in my little corner live-tweeting about TLOK and Makorra. I had to stop looking at the Makorra tag because it was so negative. Now, I’m seeing people admit they’re cute, and then saying they’re platonic soulmates. I’ll take it, although, as one commenter said, “that’s boring!” 

Someone led a Makorra Week back in October, and it was really nice! I have feeling people speaking up on the name-calling and reminding people that we’re talking about 2D characters helped. We just want to be left alone and enjoy the scenes we have in the show, art, and fanfiction. 

Keep shipping who you want! Don’t let any stranger shame you for your shipping preferences, especially in fiction! I’m so happy you feel more comfortable shipping these two dorks! You’re not alone! I’ve been a Makorra shipper since 2012, and while I find Korrasami cute (I love Korra, and I love Asami), Makorra is my OTP. I really like them, and I think they were meant for each other.

[grxceblqckthxrn]

TDA characters as types of tiktokers

y’all KNOW i’m bored when i’m doing this shit lmao 

i’ll get around to doing the other TSC characters eventually TDA was just the first to come to mind also if you’re not actively on tiktok some of what i say might not make sense ahaha

also i named some tiktokers who yall can use for reference for some of them and from what i’ve seen they’re all fairly unproblematic so you should check them out!!

EMMA CARSTAIRS

okay so she’s DEFINITELY super popular and she uses her platform for good

she’s really funny and a lot of her audios go viral posts videos of her dancing saying that she cant dance but she’s actually really good at it

6M followers and growing fast 

 hypes up her boyfriend’s account ALL the time

calls out misogynistic/racist tiktokers through duets and KEEPS THEIR TAG IN THE CAPTION  

 she is not afraid of starting drama lmao

occasionally hops on POV and transition trends but its usually satire 

emma can’t act for shit lmao 

super active on tiktok and has a spam account

people are always asking her to drop the skin care routine but she doesn’t have one?? 

*pushes Zara down* “and no one’s gonna help her?? WOW some world we live in”

JULIAN BLACKTHORN

there’s no way he doesnt  have an art account lmao

a lot of his paintings go viral but 90% of his comments are 14 year old girls thirsting over him

yall know that pottery guy on tiktok?? the cute one?? (i searched up his account just for this post he’s @/daxnewman769) that’s the best way to describe him

literally all the famous tiktokers commission him

probably has like 4M followers lmao

will occasionally make about how respecting women doesn’t make you a “simp”

doesn’t get into tiktok drama tho

posts candid videos of emma and all his jealous 14 year old fans get so pressed but he shuts down anyone who says anything bad about her

sometimes does painting or drawing tutorials and he’s really good at teaching stuff lmao

CRISTINA ROSALES

omg okay so like yall know those really pretty girls on tiktok who are literal models and are always dropping tips on how to frame your face for pictures and best clothes and poses and whatever  ( @/ameliezilber is the first person that came to mind as an example)

thats her

alot of her content is just for the aesthetic

BLING EFFECT

GRWM’s all the time

10 step skin care routine 

GOOD VIBES

has a pretty decent following?? like at least 2 million

has a spam but it’s exactly the same as her main lol

also calls out problematic tiktokers but not by name

her entire account is full of body positivity and does a bunch of stuff on loving yourself

sometimes does POVs and all the comments are like “@ netflix hire her rn”

sometimes posts crack videos with emma and cute vids with mark and kieran

MARK BLACKTHORN

does a lot of reaction videos and duets

a lot of his videos go viral but he doesn’t have a huge following like maybe 800k

 everyone still knows him

gets at least twenty “are you wearing only one contact” comment about his eyes every post

he’s really funny without even realizing it 

sometimes goes inactive for weeks at a time and just forgets that tiktok exists lmao

shows off kieran and cristina ALL THE MF TIME AND EVERYONE IS SO JEALOUS LIKE HOW ARE ALL OF THEM HOT

KIERAN 

doesnt have a tiktok lmao sorry

but shows up so much on mark’s and cristina’s that a lot of people know who he is

DIANA WRAYBURN

unironically does POVs but is actually good at them??

lots of videos talking about the struggles of minorities like LGBTQ+ and POC and women

posts a lot of those vidoes that are like “what to do if you ever get kidnapped” “red flags in relationships” “most powerful parts of the body” etc

probably has like 500k followers 

at the end of the day she doesn’t really use tiktok that much tho ahaha

LIVVY BLACKTHORN:

does a little bit of everything??

posts dance videos sometimes 

omg her transitions are SO good

everyone is in love with her and she has to remind them that she’s a minor (i’m just a kid plays aggressively in the background)

posts videos that are just vibes?? like her skating at night, dancing in traffic with dru/her friends, walking through the city at night etc

lots of lip syncing videos to whatever sounds are popular and all her comments are like “i wish i looked like this” “guess im not eating today” and she gets so upset :((

she wants everyone to know that they’re perfect the way they are!!

also posts POVs sometimes and she’s not that bad at them ahaha 

probably has like 1 million followers 

doesn’t even need a spam just posts everything on her main 

shouts out her sibilings accounts all the time

overall just great energy

TY BLACKTHORN

never posts his face on his main but he does on his spam

yall know those accounts that post fun facts or psychology facts?? his is like that except he talks to explain them and everyone finds his voice SO calming 

he posts a lot of content of animals and everyone is in AWE with how good he is with them

his username is probably theanimalwhisperer or something djkfskjd

every single time he posts Kit on his account all the comments are like “OOH ICU” and “SHIP” and “ASK HIM OUT ALREADY”

he gives 0 shits about popularity on tiktok he’s just posting for fun because he likes teaching people about his interests

so he has like maybe 500k followers

lots of philosophical questions that has everyone questioning their existence

ugh i love him

KIT HERONDALE

be honest this is what y’all were waiting for 

yall know those unproblematic ppl that everyone refers to as the “king(s) of tiktok”???

yeah thats him

SO FUNNY

LIKE HIS CONTENT IS GENUINELY HILARIOUS

lots of sarcasm and satire

think @/adamkindacool  ?? (one of my favourite tiktokers lmao)

does reaction videos for those “pov: im the annoying hot cheeto girl sitting next to you in math class” videos

dark humor (not like rude humor but actual dark humor)

like “i put the baby in the oven and the pizza in the bed” type of jokes back when those were a thing

has like 4M followers but almost every single one of his posts go viral so he’s gaining fast

lots of pranks

starts a bunch of trends

any video he posts of Mina goes viral

sometimes he posts some really weird stuff that has everyone laughing so hard irl (@/benoftheweek)

he NEVER thirst traps but still gets a lot of those weird sexual fairy comments on his posts (iykyk)

TO BE CLEAR I MEAN THE FAIRY EMOJI ONES NOTHING TO DO WITH HIM BEING FAE 

reacts to the comments with a video of him just staring at the screen with the “oh to see without my eyes” or “im just sixteen” audio going on in the background which only encourages them to make more weird comments

anyways everyone loves him

any of his povs are pure jokes meant to make fun of pov’ers

posts maybe one serious tiktok every 5 months that talks about being respectful and using your platform for good

“i miss old tiktok”

posts a lot of random videos of Ty where, again, all the comments are shipping them except even more so on his account because everyone can see his heart eyes for Ty

collabs with Dru a lot and does a bunch of duets of her videos

everyone loves him bye

DRU BLACKTHORN

SO many memes

she deletes any hate in her comments bc she honestly doesnt care to respond to them and doesn’t need that kind of negativity in her life

but one time she got a “the f in women stands for funny” comment and she WENT OFF

does really dark povs sometimes that are really interesting

CLOWN MAKEUP + SCARY CLOWN TIKTOKS ( think @/avani ‘s clown make up posts

REALLY good at makeup and sometimes gets julian to do scary makeup on her for tiktoks and povs (like those ones with stitches over the mouth or skin peeling off)

huge ally!! posts a lot about minorities struggles and white privilege, and acknowledges hers

does movie reviews and stuff sometimes

“types of” videos

pulls a lot of pranks on her sibilings with livvy and sometimes with Kit

lots of body positivity + self love

calls out back-handed compliments

also has a lot of content like Livvy’s of just vibing in LA

julian and emma and mark go off at anyone who sexualize her in the comments

probably has like 650k followers

posts a couple of times a week

BONUS: 

JAIME ROSALES

lots of skateboarding videos idk he just gives me that vibe

doesn’t post that often but is super popular

like maybe 1.5M followers

really passionate about systematic racism

HATES all those privileged white boys using the “this is america” audio to pretend they’re oppressed ( this is a may 2020 thing so it probably wont make sense to anyone who sees this after lmao)

POSTS A LOT OF THIRST TRAPS LMAO 

also posts lots of videos that’s just him yelling about stuff but they’re really entertaining to watch ( like that guy sebastian @/sauceyogranny)

everyone thinks he’s super hot he always shows up in those “hottest boys on tiktok” videos except sometimes he’s just the token POC boy and it makes him mad :( 

DIEGO ROSALES

HIS ACCOUNT IS SO PRACTICAL LMAO

lots of tips 

“what to do if you’re trapped in the desert” “what to do if you’re kidnapped and stuck in the trunk”

doesnt reply to comments EVER unless it’s to clarify a point he made in the video or answer a question

has like 200k

okay thats it lmao im done bye this took me like an hour to make

i’ll get to all the other characters from the other series’ eventually 

also if yall are wondering abt the lack of f*ckbois in this post they’re coming dw

TMI CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

TID CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS 

TLH CHARACTERS AS TYPES OF TIKTOKERS

[tyrantchimera]

AO3 tag

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 49. Nearly at the 50 mark, cool.

2. What is your total AO3 word count? 422,321. Huh. Not bad!

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? Including crossovers: AO3 says 20, but some of those overlap (like compilation of FVII/FFVii and rockman zero/rockman zx)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1)Goddess Damn it, Minerva!. 2)Stick ‘em with the pointy end. 3) Double Trouble. 4)Intrigue of Reeve. 5)Paintball wars

Pro tip I’ve figured out recently. Do a lot of oneshots like me? Put ‘em in a collection and people will actually pay attention to them! Also huh, figured my most popular fics would be FFVII. It’s a pretty active fandom. Back in the day “Happy Anniversary” (Megaman zero/ZX) was my most popular, but the megaman fandom has pretty much died, so...

Fun fact. Over on my FF.net account, HA has more favs than GDIM does. Fun!

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not? I try to respond to most of them, but some of them are just so short, an other’s I’ve found are just.... hard to understand if I’d be starting an argument or not lol.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending? Probably “Death”, STRIFE”, or “phoenix down”. All FFVII because of course they are.

7. Do you ever write crossovers? I have a couple, but they’re not much of a stretch/stay within their own overall franchises.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic? Couple of flames on my early FF.net stuff, but not really

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? No.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I’m aware of. Art? Yes. Fic? Haven’t seen any story stealers yet.

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yup. Most recent one was probably “Frog-Gone it”.

12. What’s your all-time favourite ship? I don’t do romance. But if we’re talking about platonic character interactions, I love seeing ASGZC in FFVII, or seeing Grimm and Ghost in Hollow Knight, or Hat Kid and Snatcher in A Hat in Time. There’s just something really fun about seeing these characters all play off each other.

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for? Megaman Zero/ZX. Also the fandom I wrote my single longest fic for (

14. What’s your favourite fic you’ve written? Uh.... off the top of my head? “Shenanigans”. It’s a megaman ZX one, and is exactly as described on the title, with a neat little side helping of “Whelp, we’re screwed”.

I'll tag: No one. But you’re free to try this if you’d like.

Want to read my stuff? Check out my AO3 site!

[breezeinmonochromenight]

Why would fandom blogs have beef with you? Sorry you just seem really nice and I’ve never seen you get into petty drama.

I mean... perceptions aside, no one’s obligated to like me or anyone else lol. That’s the best part about the internet. You can filter people out. Rude but true. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also I’m not sure if you’re referring something specific, but...

If it’s DMC (particularly after gaining more followers and I guess being more notable or whatever the fuck that even means): me being very openly repulsed by Spardacest has gotten me blocked by a number of long-time/popular DMC accounts, no harassment policy in place or not lol. Seemed strange at first but checked some twitters on a weird gut hunch for a couple of blocks that seemed... very oddly-timed... and they follow a shitload of Spardacest accts if not those almost exclusively. Just because they’re not out and proud about it/making art of it/etc. doesn’t mean they’re not totally for it/into it lol.

(I honestly have a modicum of respect for the out and proud Spardacest blogs — I might be repulsed but goddamn at least they tag their shit and let you know what’s up from jump street so you can avoid it.)

If you mean FFVII: I openly dislike “fandom old guard” — despite that being largely people around my age group give or take a few years — because I cannot stand gatekeeping and/or people who are like “you must enjoy this series this way or it’s wrong” and then scream and cry if you point out a hole in their theorycrafting logic. Like, holy shit, just shut the fuck up, man. You’re a fucking adult. Telling some 16 year old that they can’t enjoy Crisis Core because you think it’s trash isn’t making you look good or making me care about anything you have to say. You just look like a bitter old bitch.

(Speaking of which, Ship Wars ppl and Compilation haters/OG purists are next down the line. Then the straight up canon deniers lmao — excluding the fun “wow this is sad lemme fix this” type ones lol. Love those guys.)

If JJBA: I don’t do anti and anti anti discourse. Period. If you’re brainless enough to take an extreme mindset and not look at things calmly, logically and on a case-by-case basis, we don’t have anything to talk about. That’s all there is to it.

Also quite a few non-U.S. ppl in the first two of those fandoms in particular are weirdly very conservative/traditional even if they don’t show it. Like. Up to the point of “follows notably racist/anti-Semitic/homo&transphobic U.S. politicians on Twitter” type conservative (again, weirdly timed blocks and a gut feeling). So like of course we ain’t gonna get along lol.

Anyways the moral of this story is this ain’t Tumblr Best Friend Race; vet people harder and block anyone that annoys you or makes you unhappy or uncomfortable. It’s a two way street. The end. 😂

[blakemetothemoon]

THIS IS GONNA BE A DOOZY HOLD ON TO YOUR BUTTS.

There’s been some drama going on lately between FighterTutor and SaifahZon shippers. And since this blog is considered one of the top SaifahZon blogs (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN THANK YOU!) I thought I could post something that might help everyone calm down (mainly SaifahZon shippers) and understand each other a little better, at least I hope it can!

First of all, you all know my bias LOL but I am a fan of both couples and love that their relationships are so different while both having amazing chemistry, amazing actors, and so much fucking cuteness I die every week and then am revived by cuteness only to die again. And to FighterTutor fans: I’m SO sorry you guys are getting heat for your adorable ship. You don’t deserve it!!

I wasn’t sure whether to put this behind a read more, so let me know if you guys prefer I do that!

What’s going on:

Unlike many BL dramas where it’s 1 main couple + 1-3 side couples, SaifahZon and FighterTutor are both confirmed to be main couples. This gives the impression they will share equal screentime. Since the early part of the series, people have noticed a difference in the number and length of FighterTutor vs SaifahZon. We would need a supercut of both couples for episodes 1-8 to confirm EXACTLY but after episodes 9-10, FighterTutor currently have had more screentime.

What we know:

•SaifahZon have a sex scene filmed already!! This has been confirmed by both the director and novel writer. I won’t spoil anything else about it but we know it exists! Also angst is apparently coming nooooo

• The series is NOT done filming and they are now unable to film because of the corona virus. Like many places Thailand is in quarientine and gatherings are limited. Their quarientine is only 2 weeks right now, but this could possibly go longer. We need to be patient because their health and safety is the most important thing.

•There are missing scenes for SaifahZon. This has been confirmed by numerous members of production. Plus it’s obvious when they show scenes in promotional that aren’t anywhere in the show like Zon getting the keys to the rooftop. This was shown in the teaser for episode 6, I think, then didn’t exist in the episode itself. We DID see it in the flashback in episode 10!

•Also I was watching some of the special episodes and it looks like a few FighterTutor scenes were cut as well or just haven’t been seen yet??? So it probably isn’t a bias from the production team but a matter of something else we don’t know. 

•Many of these scenes will be in the extended cut on the DVDs and digital re-release that’s up for purchase. I’m sure they will eventually make it online (not because I’m endorsing that but, y'know, this is the internet). One of these scenes is how Zon was the reason for Sai’s morning wood in episode 7 which is such *chef’s kiss*

Things that are very true:

•People are allowed to be upset. SaifahZon shippers are allowed to be upset that their ship has less screentime when it was implied it would be more equal. FighterTutor shippers are allowed to feel upset when they want to be excited about their ship’s progress, but see an endless stream of negativity towards why they’re excited. These are both okay feelings to have! But where it becomes not okay is when we insult each other. I’ve mainly been seeing this from SZ shippers which really bums me out, but there is definitely some on both sides.

•We are the audience and not the creators. Demanding a show be different before it’s even finished isn’t respectful of that. That’s what fanworks are for!

•The vast majority of SaifahZon shippers are being reasonable. But when a show is popular and the audience is huge like Why R U’s, the loud minority is going to be bigger than in other fandoms. We can’t dismiss or simply say they should be ignored because while they don’t represent the true fans, they are still being rude.

•Criticising the show in general and criticising the show AT the people involved are very different things. One is understandable and the other feels like an attack. And, as someone who has had that happen, it really sucks. I’ve seen people leaving tweets towards official accounts, the actors, and other people involved in production that are very much attacking them. Reality and fiction are different which Zon is very much trying to teach us 😂

What can we do?

•Be kind. Don’t tag FighterTutor shippers in posts criticising the ship or simply being negative about it. Don’t reply to excited tweets about FighterTutor with why you’re bummed we haven’t gotten more SaifahZon. FighterTutor fans, try and understand why SaifahZon shippers are sad about what’s going on.

•Call out the shippers who are being toxic. We may ship different couples but we are all part of the Why R U family and the fandom can be lovely if we defend and protect each other against bad apples.

•And most importantly: Show our support for everyone involved in the show. They’ve poured their hearts and tears into bringing us such wonderful series. All the cuteness! All the sexiness! All the willingness to show us what healthy relationships look like in a genre that hasn’t always gotten that right! Keep loving on them. Who knows! The positivity I know we’re capable of could lead to more seasons or special events or many other things. So let’s focus on that!

Okay, long post over. Thanks for reading and I hope it makes sense! It’s hard to focus and write with a baby crawling all over me 😂

[princesscas]

Hi! I have a question. I haven’t been heavily involved in tumblr/social media for a while. I had stopped watching supernatural for a couple of years and just got back into it. I ship destiel, but sometimes things about wincest come up. I keep seeing things about people not wanting to “ship shame�� which you just mentioned as well, and I’m just confused. How is it okay that people ship two brothers? Like they are actual brothers on the show?? I don’t care that they’re not irl. I don’t know who the N girl you’re talking about is but apparently she cares about canon, so how can she like it? And why is it wrong for people to condemn people for shipping two brothers, when that is the thing inherently wrong? Like it’s disgusting... it’s not about them being guys, it’s incest... Again, I just don’t get it and I hope I don’t come off as rude! Thank you!

Nah, you’re not rude at all! Never ever like them. I’m still upset about what happened two days ago so what the hell, tea time!

To start off, I believe that everyone can ship whatever like like as long as they aren’t sending hate to others. Take a look at this (lengthy) post about ship wars. People can ship whatever they want, end of story. Doesn’t really matter anyway because people are gonna do what they wanna do. Do I like those types of ships like you described above? No, but it’s none of my business to tell others what they can and cannot ship. Sometimes I read darkfics. That isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and that’s okay. Is the post/fanfic properly tagged with such elements? Then it’s fine. Start hyjacking posts/leaving nasty comments? That’s 1000% not fine and it never will be. 

Something that doesn’t get brought up enough: There is a vast difference between an ordinary w//cest shipper and a J-two-squared tinhatter who believes the said two actors are secretly gay, their wives are beards, they hate mish, everyone who doesn’t like w//cest are wrong, etc.

Now, it’s on the shipper if they start normalizing such things. (in//st, unhealthy, etc) And the rabid obsessed (N&Co) hate-everything-that-breathes crew is a prime example of this. 

This thing is already long so why not throw out some receipts, huh?  IMO, you cross that ‘ship whatever you want’ line when you do this: 

...I ship an angel and a human my dude. (and two 100 yr old super soldiers, I wonder what they think about stucky lol) also jesus christ the rest of that is a mess. 

/tw: biphobia here./ REAL bisexuals? “oh you aren’t bisexual if you like one angel and a hunter.” And they’re obsessed with calling everyone ‘teenager girls.’ This is not only wrong but also pretty damn transphobic and misogynistic. 1) Most people have aged over the years (wow that’s crazy right?) 2) trans, nonbinary, and gender fluid people exist. 

Overall, these people are a horrible bunch. They’re obsessed with preaching to people about ‘tagging properly’ when they could take it upon themselves and use a blacklisting extension. Or just block every single blog they don’t like. These people are a very small portion of the fandom but they’re loud, they want you to think they make up all of the fandom but they don’t. Not even close, when other in general posts gets thousands of notes/retweets and theirs get maybe a couple hundred. (and a lot are from reblogs for replies) 

Not gonna lie, I feel the need to defend w//cest shippers because I’ve known/have/had mutuals who do ship it and they’re nice as can be. 

The loud bunch are so loud, it silences the others who partaking in normal fandom things. Or really, if I were them, I wouldn’t want to associate myself with those people. 

Let’s pretend for a second. Imagine if you loved a ship (it could be any ship from any fandom) but the fandom is toxic as hell and the most ‘popular/well known’ blogs/artists/writers are these people. Fandom corners have history on the way they were built upon throughout the course of the fandom’s media. 

You browse the tags, the blogs, the fanfics, and find yourself staring at a hateful group of cult-like bigoted people. But wait. These people? They don’t like fanfiction or fanon. No, they hate anyone who writes anything outside of textbook canon. Any characters outside of SW/DW/JW won’t be present. (if you’re curious or are brave enough, go look at the AO3 tag, it’s sad) 

I try to be empathetic with people. I cannot, for the life of me, imagine what it’s like. To love a show so much with your favorite ship but one part dislikes it and another part are so inherently hateful.   

The OP deleted but this thread on Reddit is exactly what I’m talking about. And they mentioned something else I think not many people bring up: OT3′s. 

I’m gonna quote this but it’s 1000% true. 

“What I can't for the life of me understand though is why people would hate on Misha as an actor because of his role on the show. I've seen a lot of Misha hatred - and I mean A LOT of it. In fact, I recently went through the anti-misha tag on tumblr and blocked over 200 tumblr accounts that either were dedicated to bashing him or castiel, or posted constantly about it.”

“It's really nuts to me that people would choose to put so much time and effort into hating an actor who hasn't done anything to them personally or hasn't even affected their lives, when they could be putting good feelings into praising the actors who have affected their lives in a good way instead if you feel me.”

Constantly is the key word here. I don’t think these people ever stop, not even for one second, to sit down and say, “God this is exhausting, I think I need a break this week.” I really dislike these people but I also feel empathetic for them. What is their mental health like? It isn’t healthy. Go show a therapist this, they’d probably quit on the spot. (okay prob not but that’s my best example atm) 

This has gotten extremely long so I think I’ll stop here. There are some nice people out there who will ship things you don’t like but a toxic side can make it seem much worse than it actually is. Ironically, it’s usually the opposite. (ie: voltron’s’s toxic side scaring off other shippers of that fandom) 

Lemme end this with pre!serum smol Steve and his legendary quote: 

[violethowler]

Whenever a post talking about why fandom should focus more on non-romantic relationships cross my dash, I always feel uncomfortable. Only a few present legitimate arguments instead of trying to win a ship war, and I’m still leery of reblogging those because they act as if the problem they’re talking about can be solved if only people could be less obsessed with shipping. It kind of annoys me because it feels like they’re completely overlooking the fact that fandom is not a monolith in favor of watering the issues down to a simple “shipping bad”. 

I can’t speak for what the people posting these takes have experienced, but most of the people I know in fandom are entirely capable of enjoying fandom through a story’s non-romantic relationships and shipping their favorite romantic pairings at the same time. Shocking, I know. In my experience the reason shipping seems to dominate fandom discussions is primarily been because on sites like Tumblr and Twitter where controversy and arguments generate more user engagement, shipping tends to be the easiest thing to start an argument over. It’s hard to stir the pot over people enjoying Found Family or some other non-romantic character dynamic, but it’s almost guaranteed that there will be assholes who will send you hate mail and harassment if they don’t like the pairing you ship. And a lot of shippers respond to that by waving their shipping flag higher. They start talking about their ships more as a “fuck you” to the bullies who tell them to choke and die for shipping a different pairing. 

And the most alienating thing to me, as a bisexual man in fandom, is when posts complaining about shipping zero in on queer ships and talk about the importance of representing emotionally intimate platonic friendships between men in fiction. Because only three times in as many years have I seen anyone bring up that talking point and actually present legitimate issues. Every other person I’ve seen talk about it has been using that phrase as a weapon against queer fans. And every single one of them is accompanied by comments like: 

“Why does everything have to be gay?”

“They’re not gay”

“Stop making it gay”

“Please don’t make it gay”

And other variations of this sentiment.   

My own fandom experience with conversations about “platonic male friendship” in fiction has been with assholes trying to win a ship war between an M/M pairing and M/F one. And the majority of the shippers of the M/M pairing in my two biggest fandoms that have these kinds of ship wars are queer people who look at the relationship between these two characters and see echoes of our own experiences. Yet rarely have my mutuals in one of those fandoms been able to go more than a couple of weeks without someone trying to bully us for not interpreting the story the CorrectTM way. I know that everyone likes to think that fandom is completely accepting of queer people, but fandom is basically a bunch of smaller communities in a trenchcoat. Not every fandom is the same, and some are aggressively heteronormative at best, or openly homophobic at worst.

In fandoms that draw lots of people from outside of the usual tumblr demographics, it’s taken as a given that a guy and a girl will inevitably get together with little or no buildup written into the story, yet the suggestion that two guys whose relationship receives so much focus in the story that their female love interests feel like cardboard cutouts might be or become a couple is met with laughter and scorn. In some fandoms the creator even mentioning a desire to include queer characters in future stories is met with cries of “Forced Diversity!” and “Pandering to SJWs”, as if no creator ever willingly chooses to write queer characters or relationships. 

Fans who see and want those relationships to be romantic are told again and again that it will never happen. That we’re reaching for something that isn’t there. That any subtext we see only exists because the creator is from a different, non-western culture where physical and emotional intimacy between platonic friends is more common. That the M/F ship is the story’s inevitable endgame and the creator is just a shitty writer who doesn’t understand romance. That even if by random chance the queer subtext was intentional, the corporate executives would never allow it to be made explicit.

Back in March, one asshole spammed the ship tag on Twitter for my current OTP with the same screenshot of the fandom’s most popular M/F ship, and after his account was reported for spam, tweeted that one of the characters in the M/M ship, the deuteragonist of the story, should be killed off because, in this asshole’s words “he’s useless and only queer people like him.” When another fan of the M/F ship called him out, the asshole accused them of “siding with the f**s.” 

The fact that so many people have proven incapable of talking about “platonic male friendship” in fiction without also insisting that the character must be cisgender and heterosexual sends a message to queer fans like me that “platonic friendship between men” is something reserved for straight cis men only. That there is no place for us to see ourselves in the stories we love even if it wasn’t the creator’s intention. That we should be happy with what little crumbs that mainstream entertainment chooses to give us. That any part of a story where we feel seen is never anything more than an accident. That people like me are not welcome in fandoms where the story didn’t include us from the start.

I’m not saying people can’t be critical of trends in fandom, but those who are need to be mindful of the fact that fandom doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Every trend and attitude in fandom is a reaction to something happening to people either in real life or elsewhere in fandom. Not everyone’s experiences are universal, and there are still fandoms where queer people have to deal with heteronormative double standards and homophobic bashing toward our ships. If people want to have a nuanced conversation about ways to make everyone’s fandom experiences more positive and welcoming, the bigger picture needs to be acknowledged instead of acting like shipping itself is the problem.

[oncloud999]

Jikook - an essay apparently

Ok I have a lot of thoughts lately and no where else to express them. 

I’m a fairly new fan and while some of my friend irl know about this, its too embarrassing for someone of my age to still be into shipping or whatever, so no that’s not getting out there... 

anyway. So i only joined the fandom maybe mid last year and initially didn’t ship anyone cos I’m honestly over that. But then I thought V and kook looked cute together so I looked into their stuff a bit. I still didn’t really ship them but did have a preference for the two of them together, more like bros and bffs rather than anything romantic because i just don’t get that vibe from them. I do have a friend in real life (who’s actually korean... ) who was into JiKook being a couple which I thought was odd because a lot of the shipping things come from their skinship and I thought she’d be less affected by it cos she’s korean but.... 

anyway, even when i was more into vkook, i saw a lot of jimin and jungkook together that did make me raise my eyebrows. like their firework vid and the pics and vids of them spending time together after concerts. i also did come across some photos of jimin and jungkook hanging out. i also watched a few jikook analysis videos and scoffed at them because honestly, you can make them out of anybody if you focus on certain things. 

anyway, fastforward to a few days ago, i don’t even remember what i was doing, but somehow i started seeing jimin and jungkook together as something more than just friends or bros. I mean whatever relationship they have, it’s clearly very special. you don’t plan your world trip during your long awaited holiday around your friend’s bdays unless they’re REALLY special. Jimin flew across the world to be with jk for his birthday before the next leg of his trip. i mean, yes, you can argue that he needed to come back to pack or whatever, but there are easier ways to do it than coming back for 1 night and then flying off again. he could’ve flown from paris to hawaii directly. 

so to keep my sanity, i need to somewhere to write out why and why not i think they’re a couple or whatever...

Reasons why I think they’re a couple

- they’re super close. they definitely hang out outside of their group activities and enjoy spending time with each other. as previously stated, jk obviously means a lot to jimin for him to plan his trip around jk’s birthday. they always talk about hanging out late into the night

- their tokyo trip and gcf. i’m not even going to go into it cos people have already talked enough about it, including the two of them. it especially means a lot cos jk obviously doesn’t like travelling all that much

- even before a couple of days ago, i have noticed sometimes namjoon getting in between the two of them when they’re being a little too flirtatious

- their onscreen flirting is something else. like you can see it as fanservice, but the two of them get so into it and what gets me the most is when jimin gets super shy and giggly about it and then sometimes have to walk away from jk. there are also moments that are not specifically on screen that’s very odd. like when they were in that run bts ep in canada and rm suddenly asked them if they were a couple cos they’re wearing matching clothes. and it’s not even like that time jin asked where it was directly in front of the camera. they were literally having a conversation in the background when whoever it was was playing that keeping your eyes open game and they were just taking photos in the back. 

- they are way more into touching each other than any other members. like jimin especially will hug and touch the other members, especially taehyung, but it’s never the hanging off each other, purposely seeking each other out on a huge stage for some contact sort of thing. jin and jk are also really touchy but they’re so bro about it 

- taehyung... if they are a couple, i would peg tae and jhope as the two who definitely know. taehyung during that one vlive where he was like, jimin wants to come, but i think jk won’t let him... at 1 am in the morning. also see below the uncertain section

- during their earlier days, jm clearly seems to have a crush on jk and jk seemed to very purposefully avoid that. they seem comfortable with each other now but defnitely there was a time that it got awkward when jm talks about how much he likes jk or wants to kiss him or go on a date with him. it could all be for fanservice again, but then he was kind of hurt when jk would not play along. 

- jm softens so obviously when it comes to jk. it’s not just the occasional fan accounts or whatever, like when they say that jm is a hard ass until jk comes along and he softens. when he did that v live with rm, the moments when he’s softest is when he was talking about practicing with jk. the only other person he’s soft with is taehyung but even then it’s not that often

- jm sharing friends with jk. when they went out around town in london with jm’s friends. they are clearly jm’s friends and jk just tagged along... apparently, jm doesn’t like sharing his friends? but apparently it’s ok for jk. even if they’re like brothers, i don’t really take my brother around with my friends... and if jk wants to see london as well, i’m sure he could’ve gone with one of the other members or the managers like how they sometimes do when it’s just one of them going to do something. i would personally find it more awkward hanging out with my friend’s friends than people i already hang out with 

Reasons why i don’t think they’re a couple

- it’s all too in your face. if it’s real, i wonder if they wouldn’t try to hide it better. or maybe they think the fans just think it’s fanservice anyway... it’s hard to tell. if it wasn’t so in your face sometimes, i would be less skeptical

- they still seem very bro-y to me a lot of time. like jimin seems to take care of jk a lot and the way he takes care of him is far more motherly/older brother

this list seems short but i think they’re both very important points.

anyway onto points that are maybe... because it’s speculation

- they may both have girlfriend. there’s definitely been rumours about both. and some more reliable than others. the one thing that goes against either having a girlfriend more recently is.... jm going on a trip around the world with his friends. if he did have a girlfriend or partner, you would think he would want to spend whatever time he has off with them, especially cos their holidays are so infrequent. and if you want to make the point that maybe his gf was busy, well, you would still try to spend whatever little time you ahve with them rather than going around the globe (again) with your friends. the only reason you wouldn’t stay in one place to spend a lot of time with them is if... you already spend a lot of time with them when you’re working lol. jk did have that maybe-maybe-not girlfriend during that time. i think if it was something, then it’s probably over now (poor girl, she was bombarded...) and it clearly means jk didn’t have anyone at the time. or she really was just a friend and it was blown out of proportion (again poor girl if she was dragged into this for nothing...). long story short. they’re either a couple together or they don’t have anyone in the recent past at least. we don’t know. but also there’s that clip from 2018 where jm was trying to convince jk to go on a trip with him around the time of jk’s birthday but jk refused. lol 

- the whole jk/jm sharing rooms, hiding in each other’s room sagas... it definitely seems like there’s other people in the room when they do their lives sometimes. especially the ones that people have pointed out like osaka with taehyung and that one time after eat jin last year when everyone crashed the party when jk was throwing a fit. interestingly, that is also one of the most uncomfortable vlives i’ve seen when it was just jk and jm at the beginning. the chastised and shy look on jm when the camera first panned to him, the weird looks, the funny touches. like what, i felt like i had to give them their alone time. and then the doorbell. now going back to why i think tae knows. in both these cases and another one (that i don’t know the time of), tae comes and refuses to leave when jk clearly asks him why he’s there and when he would go. (the one last year especially makes me want to laugh so badly cos jm esp was trying so hard to get everyone to leave). he’s probably trolling them by giving them grief. anyway, there are a lot of analysis videos etc on youtube. i won’t go into it further

- them rings. the rings they apparently bought in tokyo and still wear together or separately to this day. they definitely have them and they definitely wear them. again it could just be “friendship rings” but... yeah. 

- sharing clothes. a popular trope of why people are together. i mean jk and tae actually seem to share the style of clothes more but they tend to have their own (like those modern hanboks, they both have them and don’t seem to be sharing). where as jm and jk apparently actually share clothes... again could be bro behaviour or whatever, but then why doesn’t tae and jk share? they’re definitely more similar in built and style. 

- lately there seems to be a lot of taekook. apparently i just read that there’s been a lot of noises from taekook fans and maybe homophobic fans to bighit to try to get jikook to tone it down. and obviously there’s been a few times that jk’s behaviour has upset taehyung’s fans especially (and tae himself lol) so maybe it’s to make amends for that... they were really going at it at the golden disc and grammys. but even their more touchy stuff on stage like during bwl perfs during the concerts, their touches don’t seem very flirty. 

as to whetehr i think the rest of bts knows... i think they suspect but as i said before i think only tae and jhope knows for sure. jhope cos he’s pretty close to both of them and tae because he constantly seems to be trolling. but jin, rm and suga... maybe they suspect or just think jk is that friend that hates people getting close to their best bud, but who knows. rm maybe knows more recently because he’s definitely coming between them more. 

will we ever know. probably not. not while they’re popular and not while their country (or the world) is still so homophobic and don’t like their 40 year old celebrities to be in a relationship. maybe one day, we’ll hear that even after they’ve stopped promoting as a band, they’re still housemates or whatever. but that’s probably the most “confirmation” we will ever get. but as long as they’re happy, i just really hate seeing them sad. i just wish the world was less toxic towards them. or the world needs to be less toxic in general. 

the relationship i enjoy the most within bts is actually the one between jin and jungkook cos they are actually hilarious and chaotic together, but somehow jikook seems to have more of a romantic edge to their interaction. 

even if they’re not a couple, they definitely have a very strong bond and very close. whatever it is, they’re clearly special to each other beyond being friends or bandmates. maybe it’s better if they’re friends because couples break up but friends rarely do... 

anyway, this turned out much longer than i expected but i’m glad to have put my thought into some kind of coherent-ness... and off i go onto the delulu train. 

[aro-aizawa]

hi, yes, are we all past the “yuri on ice is perfect with no flaws” phase now? because i have a few issues, i feel like literally no one talks about....

to preface: i think yuri on ice is a wonderful anime with canonical lgbt+ rep, well thought out, respective to different cultures, and did not fall into any offensive stereotypes that i’m aware of. but this does not make it free from all flaws, because it kind of has a fair number of them. i still love the show, but these are things that make me highly uncomfortable when i think about them.

[under the cut bc i tend to go on a little bit]

the sexualisation

i’m not going to pretend that i know everything, and that my word is law. there is obviously, going to be a little bit of preference in this post. but one thing that kind of makes me severely uncomfortable is the sexualisation of, well, a fair number of skaters.

now, this could just be a thing in ice skating, i’m not going to pretend i know everything about ice skating because i don’t all i know comes from the show itself and a handful of teen skating movies i’ve seen over the years. but the fact that there’s a recurring theme of sexual desire is kind of a problem, because it implies that every worthwhile skater does a sexual routine in their career.

this is pretty much hammered in for me in the episode where victor gives out the agape and eros routines. the way the show portrays it with camera angles hints that yuri p is gonna skate to eros while yuuri k is gonna skate to agape.

now, you may think “oh but that’s just to surprise the audience bc we’ve all seen that yuuri is shy and not v confident” but uh. you’re kind of forgetting that sixteen year old yuri pliesetsky heard about that routine and thought “okay so that’s the one i’m doing”, and absolutely no one in that room thought that it would be a bad idea for that.

i’m not implying that victor or yuuri k would make yuri p skate to it, or sexualise him, but there’s still something very inherently wrong about the fact that yuri p was considered to skate to it in the first place.

and to leap off from that, the welcome to the madness exhibition skate??? yep, you guessed it, very sexualised. he’s still 16 years old. he actually skates to this one. yes, it’s a bonus thing not actually in the show, but it’s canonical.

this is a recurring thing throughout the whole show. while it make come down to taste that there are characters like chris who canonically have an orgasm on the ice while skating, and just...his whole performance is so over the top sexual dancing. again, that might be accounting for taste, but it’s...not super good.

the fetishisation of mlm couples

this is...kind of more of a fandom issue, but it’s so heavily prevalent it needs to addressed.

i want you to go to the yuri on ice tag on ao3 and tell me what the top 50 fanfictions are in terms of ratings. do you want to know how many of them have at one point actual porn or characters thirsting over others? because i have counted and that number is actually 30, nearly all of those are just pure smut, or long fics with multiple chapters of smut.

while, i absolutely am not saying “all smut is bad!!!” i rankles me so much, just to see this relationship only been seen through a sexual lens. there can be a lot of grey areas where people don’t mean to fetishise mlm couples, or they consume fetishising content and that influences their own works. and i’m not saying that i myself haven’t consumed any of this, because chances are i have without realising it or because i didn’t think about the fic for long enough to recognise it.

there are always going to be fandom trends. tropes and themes that fandoms will latch onto whether they’re hinted at in canon of featured heavily. and because of the sexual nature of parts of canon, this means that the fetishisation of victor/yuuri is unfortunately a fandom trend when cis female authors write smutty ship fics, or just pure porn.

i’m not gonna demand that all author’s present their “i’m not straight” i.d. card just to post their content. but, it’s something to keep in mind. some straight cis female authors do show respect to the mlm couples they write in sexual situations, but not all. please, if you’re going to consume content with sex in, then please keep in mind that some authors aren’t doing it with the best intentions, or their writing can be harmful.

ships

i will stand and yell on this podium for as long as i breathe air, but there is something very very nasty about certain ships that are popular in the fandom. there are always going to be some creepy and wrong ships in every single fandom, but honestly the fact that one ship in particular is so prevalent when it’s very obviously wrong is....well it’s not right and anyone who proclaims it, goes straight on the list of people i avoid just as i do when i find someone who sexualises yuri p.

yep, if you hadn’t guessed it, please don’t ship otabek and yuri p. they have an age difference and yes it’s a creepy difference. and here’s why:

yuri p at the introduction of the show is 15, and at the end he’s 16. we don’t have any information about how old otabek was at the start, but he’s listed as being 18 when he’s officially introduced and speaks to yuri p.

the defense that i see a lot is that they’re both in the age to be in high school. seniors and sophmore date all the time, there’s not THAT big a difference. but the thing you’re missing is that while they knew each other before otabek was 18, they hadn’t even spoken. they’d only heard of each other. in my opinion, this counts for shit all for “excusing” the age difference.

they were not friends beforehand, and they practically met each other in barcelona.

the thing about age difference is that there’s not a hard “five years max” that covers every single age group. there’s different allowances in our culture that apply to different age groups and the consensus seems to be that two years is about the norm for teen relationships, whereas young adult ones range from three to five, and older adult age differences is five or more.

there is however, a hard rule that some people like to skirt the line. that anyone who is 18, must not date someone who is younger than 18. there’s allowances, those that date 17 year olds, or if they’ve known each other since before the older one turned 18.

so keeping that in mind, while disregarding otabek’s and yuri p’s first meeting, a romantic relationship between these two is just plain wrong. maybe i can understand it when the romantic nature doesn’t appear until after yuri p is 18, but shipping them as they are in canon is wrong. even hinting at it. please know this.

it’s also especially sinister when you keep in mind the fandom’s tendency to fetishise every single mlm couple in yuri on ice. because that means you’re fetishising the relationship between an adult and a minor. i won’t go searching to see if there’s any tasteful takes that doesn’t fetishise them, because the ship itself makes me sick, but there probably isn’t any out there.

[honeymoonjinmain]

BTS Reaction: you become their favorite artist

JIN

⎝ Tbh i wrote this one last because I really don’t know how jin would react at all

⎝ He’s such a crackhead and never seems to get too fanatic about other celebrities

⎝ I reckon he’d discover you first when you were performing at a variety show, and even though he had never heard the song before, he’d be bopping out like an absolute idiot and making namjoon so terribly embarrassed to be seen with him

⎝ Because you were becoming kind of a big deal, especially in asia, he saw you at a lot of award shows and similar events, and every time you played, no matter what song, he found himself grooving along, whipping out the most random dance moves

⎝ I think jin would just appreciate good honest entertainment and not really care about learning too much about you yourself

⎝ Jin doesn’t really have a favorite artist, just different songs that get him jamming

⎝ Sorry ladies and gents, he’s going to have five of your songs on his party playlist but that’s about it

YOONGI

⎝ You came up on his Spotify while he was playing a radio channel for another one of his favorite artists and he stopped what he was doing so he could listen to it again and then check out your other songs

⎝ He’s really shocked when he likes quite a few of your songs, not just the one, and he finds himself playing his favorite track of yours when he gets stuck in a creative rut in the studio

⎝ Yoongi knows what he’s about and you know the second he gets obsessed with your style, he’s going to start writing a possible collab song

⎝ I feel like he would want to have a song demo before he approached you so that he could convince you faster

⎝ Mayhaps he neglects his BTS and Agust D music while he’s working with you but that’s just because he’s so gosh darn  e x c I t e d about it

⎝ He would be more likely to write a seesaw style piece rather than a rap-focused one so that the two of you could have a more energetic stage when you performed it

⎝ From that point on, even if you don’t make music together, he’ll be messaging you at strange hours to ask for advice on beats and hooks

HOSEOK

⎝ Hobi seems like the person to always be actively searching for more music to listen to, so he probably comes across your music when he’s 3 hours deep into youtube’s recommended music videos

⎝ He likes your attitude and the vibe of your music, and while he moves on without listening to more of your stuff at first, the chorus gets stuck in his head, and he has to go digging through his history to find it again

⎝ For a long time, he just loves that one song, and plays it on repeat until he’s sick of it, but slowly he branches out into your other singles

⎝ Hoseok is a giver so he’s definitely nagging the other boys to listen to some of your stuff, shoving an earphone in Tae’s ear on the plane or singing out loud backstage before a concert

⎝ Mentions on a v-live that he’s been listening to a lot of your songs recently, and keeps humming the same parts over and over when he’s reading comments

⎝ Army tracks you down and tells you on twitter that he’s a fan, but you don’t really do anything about it until you run into bangtan during an award show and he completely fanboys out

⎝ He talks about how cool you are to his bandmates for the rest of the night

NAMJOON

⎝ My intellectual son loves watching lyric videos almost more than music videos because he loves being able to actually understand the lyrics and the meaning behind them

⎝ He comes across a mash-up of one of your songs with a track from mono and is curious as to why that particular song was chosen

⎝ He googles a lyric video and reads it over and over so that he’s sure he understands the English, then downloads it on his phone

⎝ One particularly powerful lyric gets stuck in his head and he tweets it out one day, and later on, translates it into Korean for Korean army on v-live so that he can gush about why he loves the lyric so much

⎝ He is pretty dedicated to exploring all your other songs to see if any others make him feel like that, and soon enough his Spotify feed and YouTube homepage are filled with your music

⎝ He doesn’t really share your music with the members at all, because he sort of likes keeping you as his secret, and will always plug in his headphones to play your albums from start to finish (so that he could appreciate them in their proper order) on long flights

⎝ It does frustrate him sometimes when he does choose to share a song or a lyric with another member and doesn’t feel like he’s doing the translation justice

⎝ He would love to collab with you but wants to keep his priority as BTS so he remains content with listening to the mash-up that one army made

JIMIN

⎝ Jimin hears your song play during an intermission at an award show, and it gets stuck in his head, but since the lyrics are in English, he can’t remember what they were to google the lyrics and find out the song

⎝ The general melody is all he has for a few years, then one day he’s in a café and that same song plays

⎝ He feels nostalgic and he’s in awe that the song has come back to him after all this time, so he asks namjoon if he can understand the lyrics

⎝ Namjoon types out some of the lyrics as he hears them and finds the most popular result on google is your first big hit

⎝ Jimin is excited when he’s finally back at home and can pull out his headphones and fully immerse himself in the song

⎝ He spends the next few hours going down a rabbit hole of all the music you’ve put out since then, and just about dies from joy when he sees you are releasing a new single in a few days

⎝ Turns out the single is one that you’re featuring on with a k-pop girl group, and so some of your lyrics are in Korean

⎝ As he’s been struggling to learn the words to your other songs, when the new single comes out, he tries to learn your part straight away, and it becomes his new favorite

⎝ He starts to watch all of your interviews that had Korean subtitles, and falls in love with your personality as well as your music

⎝ When he hears you’ll be performing live at a show he’s also doing, he is so excited he gets all hyper and jumpy, and whoops and cheers the loudest during your performance

⎝ He never really gets close with you because of the language barrier, but namjoon does help translate a short interaction between you two, so jimin can rest happy that at least you knew how much of a fan he was

TAEHYUNG

⎝ This soulful angel loves ballads, and he is always willing to memorize the English lyrics so he can sing along

⎝ You aren’t a massive star like he is, but you’ve gained enough of a following that many army stan you, and regularly comment on tae-s v-lives and tweets that he should cover your most recent single

⎝ He gets curious and listens to it, and immediately falls in love with how powerful it is

⎝ He spends a few nights going over and over the lyrics, then lowers it a few octaves to fit his register, and goes around singing to himself at every chance he gets

⎝ Tae almost always sings backstage before a concert, and while it’s usually BTS songs, the other members notice he’s been singing unfamiliar songs recently

⎝ They ask, and he’s only too happy to sing your song for them from finish to end, and once Hobi tells him he thinks it sounds beautiful, tae won’t shut up

⎝ He sings it for army on his next v-live, and as you’re an army, you are watching the v-live as he’s livestreaming it

⎝ You send him a comment, and the fans catch it, commenting wildly at tae until he takes notice, and then you and him exchange a little back and forth

⎝ He’s a little bashful that he was just singing your song in front of you, but you insist that it was beautiful

⎝ You start messaging him on kakao talk after that, and he decides to pull a leaf out of jungkook’s book and duet your song with you at a concert sometime

⎝ You, of course, return the favor by performing a slightly higher pitched version of singularity, and he just about melts in front of you as you’re singing

⎝ He is probably one of the only members that would keep close enough contact that a relationship would be possible (yoongi would keep in touch but value you more as a peer than a romantic partner) and having already seen your on-stage chemistry, most army are shipping you from the get-go

JUNGKOOK

⎝ Recently you featured on a Charlie puth track, and jungkook, being the fanboy he is, has already streamed the song just about a thousand times

⎝ At first, he doesn’t pay attention to your part at all, he’s all about the puth, but he finds himself singing your verse more than charlie’s part

⎝ After a while he checks out some of your other songs, not expecting much, but is pleasantly surprised at how catchy and well performed your songs are

⎝ It’s not long before he’s sending his bandmates your music videos so that he can gush about your dance moves, or screenshotting your selfies on twitter and making them his phone background. This bitch is a TOTAL fanboy I’ve said it once I’ll say it again

⎝ He’s not above messaging Charlie puth and asking about you and how you were to work with

⎝ He desperately wants your attention, even if just for a moment, because it feels so good having someone you’re a fan of acknowledge you exist, so he records himself rocking out to one of your songs and posts it on the official twitter account

⎝ A couple days later fans are tweeting him like crazy, and he’s tagged thousands of times in a video

⎝ It’s you at their most recent concert, rocking out to euphoria, even copying some of the moves he used in his video, so clearly, you’ve seen it

⎝ You see him along with the rest of bangtan in your audience during a concert, and you get a security guard to invite them backstage

⎝ You get to talking and hang out long enough for Jungkook to start treating you like an equal human being rather than some amazing celebrity, and from then on the two of you are always publicly supporting each other’s work and going to each other’s concerts

[bethgreeneishopeunseen]

Robert Hurst commented on the video of Car0l and Daryl that Norman reposted from a fan account on Instagram and he said "She's kinda like a mom to yo---oh no!!!" I'm so nervous that this means C@ryl is going to happen :( I don't know exactly what he meant by it so you have any thoughts?

Hey anon, I’m sorry for the late response. For context, Robert Hurst plays Beta, one of the higher-ranking Whisperer antagonists, and he goes by the username randomdonkeykong on his social media. Last month Norman Reedus posted a C@ryl-centric picture on May 6th and then a video on May 8th, both to commemorate the start of season-10 filming. While I don’t trust the writers anymore, I don’t think Hurst’s comment, or even the posts themselves, mean that C@ryl is going to happen.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxIE5PunwS3/

https://www.instagram.com/p/BxNnq2vnOkK/

For one thing, Hurst could have been joking. We don’t know the full context of his comment, and I don’t know much about him, so this might be on par with his personality/style of humor. More importantly though, TPTB have used C@ryl in the marketing before, and nothing came of it (x) (x). AMC knows that C@ryl is a popular ship, so any social media posts will draw attention. Again, the writers could completely ignore the characterizations they’ve developed over the years, but I’m a fandom elder. I’ve seen this panic come up many times. Anytime Daryl is near a non-attached female character inevitably talk will arise of a romance. It’s why I’m not worried about the C0nnie ship – I remember people panicking over D@rsita leading into season 8 (x).

In regards to the characters themselves, a romantic relationship goes against their established histories, their actors’ interpretation, and the current storyline. Daryl loves Beth, and he will only ever love her (x); C@rol is and always has been a sororal-maternal figure to him. Because this subject has been beaten beyond death, I will direct you to my Bethyl-canonicity tag: x. Below I have also included quotes about Daryl’s lupine-like monogamy and about his relationship with C@rol. NR first described Daryl as being only to love romantically once, for life, back in 2013 and he’s said that up through 2016. (I don’t keep up with interviews so if he said something different after 2016, please let me know, but I won’t trust it unless someone can give me a direct source.) Daryl’s monogamy fits into the lupine and aquiline imagery he’s been connected to as both animals mate for life (x) (x).

Norman Reedus on Daryl’s monogamy:

“I like playing these awkward moments in between that build relationships. I don’t ever want to play that character that grabs the girl and has my way with her. That’s just not who that character is. If Daryl falls in love with you, he’s going to love you for the rest of his life.” October 10th, 2013; Daily Dead (x)

“I think if he’s going to zero in on one, it’s going to happen by accident, and he’s not going to be the one zeroing in first. Then he’ll just stay with her. I think he’s like an eagle — once they start flying together, they’ll always fly together.” February 10th, 2015; Entertainment Weekly’s Sirius radio show (x) (x)

“I like all the awkward things in between that make a person and make it honest. I think that that character, once he shacks up with somebody, he’s going to be with them for life. I don’t want to blow my wad, so to speak, right off the bat, you know what I mean?” April 22nd, 2015; Inquisitr (x)

“If [Daryl] falls in love, he’s always going to be love.” May 7th 2016; Montclair Film Festival Q & A (x) (x, skip to 00:40)

C@ryl as a platonic bond:

Daryl saved Carol during the zombie attack on the farm in true superhero style, sweeping her away on his chopper. Will love finally bloom?

Not if Norman Reedus can help it! The fan fave who plays Daryl hopes things stay platonic, though he adores working with Melissa McBride. “I’ve fought against having C@rol and Daryl hook up because there’s already too many of us doing it on this show,” says Reedus. “It’s more interesting to see these two damaged people gravitating to each other, needing each other’s friendship. But I gotta admit it would be hysterical watching Daryl put on a bunch of deodorant before he goes in for his first kiss.”

Norman Reedus; March 23rd, 2012; TV Insider (x)

IGN: Meanwhile, another interesting relationship is the one between Daryl and C@rol – two very different characters, but they’ve had this interesting bond. How would you describe their relationship? Would you like to see it go into a romantic place, or is it better to not?

Reedus: I’d actually not like to see it go in that direction. I just think it’s more interesting to have these two damaged people see something kindred in each other and gravitate towards each other in that way. I don’t think Daryl’s ever the type of guy that has game - that throws you against a tree and makes out with you as the moonlight glistens off his back. I don’t want to be that guy ever. I’m not that guy in real life, and I don’t want to be that guy in the character. I don’t think Daryl is that suave. I think that if anyone made moves on anyone, C@rol would make moves on Daryl, and Daryl would probably just prematurely ejaculate in his pants and go hide in the bushes. I’m kind of trying to keep it interesting as it is. It would just be too obvious if we made out and we were a couple. It’s been done, and I want to do stuff different on this show than what’s expected, keep it fresh and interesting. I think there’s probably a couple of neighborhood girls Daryl’s been with, and once anything emotional developed in any way I think he just bolted. I want to play him like that forever.

Norman Reedus; October 23rd, 2012; IGN (x)

Now what about your - I guess C@rol, to this point, is now your love interest, so to speak–

No.

She wants to be that way, it seems. But you said no, so–How come her hair doesn’t grow?

Who’s cutting the grass at the prison?I think we should grow weed at the prison. 

Oh yeah! [Laughter]

The thing about C@rol, is like… If we ever hooked up, I’d wanna not know what to do. I’d wanna premature ejaculate in my pants and go cry in a corner, you know? Like with C@rol and Daryl, they’re two damaged people, and that’s their sort of connection as they gravitate towards each other for that. I never want to be that character that takes his shirt off and bangs the girl against a tree in the moonlight. Like I don’t want to do that, not with this guy. So I hope that the important parts stay. I mean, everyone’s trying to get laid, zombie apocalypse, but I’m ready - if Daryl’s ready, I mean.

Norman Reedus; November, 2012; Geek Time on Howard 101 (x)

ETonline: Fans obviously love Daryl and C@rol – will we see any developments in their relationship this week? Does she try to soften his facade?

Reedus: Is she like an emotional roofie? [laughs] It’s there, but I think their bond is so much deeper than “stick your tongue in my mouth.” I like playing that and am glad the writers agree because it’s so awkward when boys meet girls, girls meet boys or boys meet boys, and they want to hook up. But this is a whole different set of uncomfortable rules. They love each other on a different level – it’s not about wanting to get together, it’s more like a sibling relationship. “If you hurt my sister, there’s nowhere you’ll be able to hide.” It’s an impenetrable bond. I know people want them together, but if that happens, I think it’ll be more epic than, “They did it!”

Norman Reedus; March 29th, 2013; ETonline (x)

“It’s also why Reedus is reluctant to let Daryl have a love interest on the show. He came close with the battered wife C@rol. played by Melissa McBride- “damaged people gravitate toward damaged people,“ Reedus says-but he has resisted the occasional plotting of the producers to toss him in the sack with a co-star. “Sometimes they suggest this or that, but if Daryl’s going to get busy with another character it has to be just right,” he says. Reedus gives them credit for letting him make the calls sometimes: “The producers are smart, man. Smart enough to know that Daryl can’t have the kind of love interest that you might think. I feel pretty strongly about it.’”

Norman Reedus; February/March 2014; Nylon Guys (x)

Carol has continued to be a force of her own within Alexandria. Could you see a romantic future for Daryl and C@rol? 

I’ve had lots of talks with Scott about it. I like our relationship how it is. We don’t have to make out to be who we are. We’re kindred spirits; there’s a brother-sister bond there that’s almost stronger than a lovey-dovey bond. I’m not totally against it, but I’m not totally for it. It’s tricky. Once you do that, it’s there forever. To be honest, I’m not begging for it, and I’m not opposed to it.

Norman Reedus; March 29th, 2015; The Hollywood Reporter (x)

“I mean, I get it with the fans who want the C@rol and Daryl thing, but I am just telling you in real life you would not set those two people up with each other!” Jason explained. “You would not do it!” […] We have to admit, Jason make a pretty valid point. But, that doesn’t explain the endless chemistry between C@rol and Daryl, does it? Even Jason knows that, adding: “They care about each other, they are deeply connected on a certain level and I would argue that — why do they need to hook up in order to validate the deep friendship they have? Think about it! They are already connected! That is how I feel about it!”

Jason Douglas (Tobin, C@rol’s love interest from season 6); February 16th, 2017; Hollywood Life (x)

“I turned into a little kid, it was like talking to your Mom…”

Norman Reedus; February 19th, 2017; Talking Dead for 7x10 on Daryl asking C@rol why she left (x).

“Because I feel like [C@ryl is] more of like a brother/sister… mother/son relationship.”

Josh Mc Dermitt; March 1st, 2017; WHOSAY (x) (x, skip to 16:27)

“There is a part of me that sees them both when they are with another as sort of a wounded child,” McBride said. “It’s like sometimes I see them when they joke together, or they’re happy together, or they’re sharing smokes together, or arguing together, being nit-picky together. I just see like Daryl could have reverted to that wounded child on the porch at the reunion, and I sometimes I see C@rol the same way, like a little girl almost, younger. […] “I think it is they’re wounded children, really get one another,” McBride said. “I don’t see her becoming a mother to him at all. I see her becoming that wounded friend.”

Melissa McBride; September 5th, 2017; comic book.com (x) (x)

(x)

In addition, at the beginning of season 7 Melissa McBride explained that C@rol needed time to heal from all the killing before she could entertain a relationship (x). That’s a reason why C@rzekiel didn’t really happen until season 8. I don’t think it would be in character for her to enter a relationship so soon with anyone after her son was murdered and she ended her marriage. Daryl wouldn’t likely have romance on the brain as he is looking after Lydia. If he were pursue romance, it would be someone he’s already in love with, and that’s Beth.

Greg Nicotero’s thoughts on Alone at SDCC 2014:

When they pitched Season 4, they were talking about when the prison goes down and having Daryl and Beth be bunkered together. And it’s interesting because I get to see all the cuts and I see all the edits from the director’s cuts onward. And I loved the scene in the kitchen when they’re talking, and I got the sense that Daryl was starting to kind of fall in love with Beth a little.”

Emily’s thoughts on Bethyl for Insider October 2014:

“Last year, I definitely felt like there was a really special connection between Daryl and Beth that happened. My take on it was that there was a very deep growing connection that could become something more romantic or could become just … you know that was my personal understanding of it. I do feel like Beth has opened up to Daryl in a way that she hasn’t with other people and I do feel like Beth has never been really in love even though you’ve seen her with the two different boyfriends. I don’t think she’s ever been like, ‘grownup in love’ in the way that you feel like someone actually understands you and in sort of that special intimate way. And I do feel like she’s been closer to that with Daryl then with anyone else.”

Emily wrote a song from Beth’s POV called Last Chance, and it’s a love song with sexual overtones.While filming Still, Norman listened to Very Nervous and Love by J. Mascis for Daryl’s character and even pitched for the episode’s closing song.

[the-prophet-lemonade]

do you have any advice on getting a story to be seen? i made an ao3 account not too long ago so no one has seen my fic at the moment but i was wondering if you had any tips on that, or would i just have to wait?

hello! i can’t claim to know what makes a fic popular as it’s 99% luck, but i can speak for the remaining 1% that has worked ~reasonably~ well for me in the past. 

i think there are three key elements to getting a fic “seen”: marketing, branding, and presentation, and they’re all very important. this post got very long, so please find everything under the cut! i hope it helps :-) 

i. marketing

fic marketing may seem a bit narcissistic if you haven’t done it before, but trust me on this: it’s the best way to attract readers and you deserve to promoted your story as something you worked hard upon!

drumming up hype for a fic is great. you can do this by posting on social media, providing sneak peaks on your twitter, involving yourself in the fandom community and discussing your wips with other fans, and just generally being excited about what you’re creating. engaging with other people’s writing is also a great method to help boost your own stats … get involved with reading other work and leaving comments for other people, because they will be more likely to return the favour! when someone comments on my fics, i often go and check out their profile and see what they’ve written, as it’s highly likely we enjoy the same things! 

making promos is one of my favourite ways to engage with people about fics. once i post a fic/new chapter to ao3, i also crosspost promo posts with links and graphics to my twitter and tumblr. you will need a good hook to get people interested, but also an eye-catching image that summarises the story pictorially can be a great asset (you don’t even need photoshop, just a nice moodboard will do!). when using images however, it’s always important to think how the image size will appear in tumblr’s dimensions and on your own blog … make sure it’s not stretched or the resolution too low, and create something with a good visual flow i.e. the title appears first, then the necessary information, then any teasers or extracts. you need to make your fic post stand out on someone else’s timeline, which may already be filled with a bunch of other fic posts, jostling for attention. make it neat, clean, informative, and professional.

make sure to use the tagging systems efficiently for your chosen social media platforms: only the first five tags count on a tumblr post, so choose them wisely (i.e. use the key fandom tags first and save your personal blog tags for after), and only two hashtags count on twitter before it’s marked as spam, so go for the ship tag!

creating your own fic tag on twitter can also be fun, and i’ve seen a lot more people doing it lately too. you can encourage people to tweet along with a specialised hashtag and then you can find their reaction and engage with them later, which once again expands your fandom circle and will increase engagement on tweets associated with your fic.  

another trick i’ve learned is utilising time zones and understanding the demographics of the audience you’re trying to reach. i am very careful to post my fics at certain times of day in order to reach key people e.g. i will try to hit either europeans or americans during the evening, as this is when most people are home from work and wanting to read fic. as a european myself, especially involved in fandoms with high levels of european fans, i usually post during the early evening for CET time zones i.e. 7 or 8 pm and i tend to find this works for me. 

with tumblr, i often delay my promo posts so that i post when it’s likely to get maximum interaction (you can see when your blog is most active using your tumblr analytics) … use your queue if need be! 

i also take care in reblogging/retweeting my promo posts at certain times of day too. i will usually bump the post just before i go to bed, so as to grab americans in their early evening, and then i will bump it again in the morning when i wake up, to catch australians and west coast americans still awake. i then usually keep bumping my promos once a day for two or three days on my social media to cast a wide enough net to catch as many people who might be interested, as not everyone checks their timeline every day and social media swallows up posts so quickly, especially tumblr which is not built for original content creators to do well (lol). i will usually bump a promo post 5 - 7 times before retiring it and this is a model that’s worked well for me in the past, especially for droplets, which would get 500+ notes per chapter!  if you’re anxious about this, know that most people will only see your post once or twice because tumblr moves fast and swallows posts up very quickly, and sometimes people need reminders to read if they decide to save things for later when they have more time

ii. branding

the benefits of branding mainly come from experience, so it’s a tricky thing to utilise if you haven’t published fic before … but there are still tricks worth trying! 

certain fic writers will attract readers to new fics just because their name is attached to it, and people know the sort of story they’re getting, they know how it’ll be written, the sort of tropes that will appear, that sort of thing. obviously, building up this sort of brand requires publishing a lot of work, and so it must be said that practice makes perfect: the more you write and publish, the more your fics will be seen and your audience will grow. people will regularly see your username in the tags on ao3 and be more inclined to click on you as someone who reliably produces good content. it’s important to remember that everyone starts from the same place and works hard to improve their craft; success doesn’t just come overnight (unless you’re in the right place at the right time) and any creator will tell you that compliments to their talent aren’t what matters, but instead, it’s compliments to their dedication and hard graft. 

another key thing about branding is how you present yourself online. the most important thing in my opinion is cohesion across your social media platforms e.g. having the same username on ao3 as you do on tumblr/twitter/wherever you promote your fic. having an easily navigatable blog with working hyperlinks and archiving of your fic work is also great. basically, building a clean interface for people to engage with your work is vital! having the same icon and username across all your social media makes it so much easier for readers to navigate between your fics and your promo posts … basically, the easier you can spell something out, the better

branding is mostly to do with how you advertise yourself, rather than the particular fic, although much of it overlaps. get your name out there by engaging with other writers and making friends and appreciating their work! this is often the best way to get inspired, plus you get to meet some amazing people. i recommend trying out for zines and big bangs and writing challenges, as these are good ways to show your work to already-established audiences. also, make yourself available by interacting with commentors or by opening up your inbox on tumblr to anons. try linking your social media and your inbox as hyperlinks in the authors note of your fic

iii. presentation

this is really fundamental and is often the main reason people will close out of your fic and not read to the end. people want to read fics that are easy to digest and have had care put into them. this includes a lot of things:

correct tagging i.e. are the tags coherent and not just rambling? are there appropriate trigger warnings in place? have you unnecessarily tagged every side pairing under the sun, rather than just the main relationship?

grammar and spelling. goes without saying … people are more likely to read things that look professional and have had care poured into their preparation. make sure you know how to use speech punctuation. revise how to use commas. avoid epithets (especially racially-aggravated ones). get yourself a beta if you’re worried, because betas are godsends!

paragraphing. so many people will close out of a fic if it isn’t correctly spaced. double spaced paragraphs look best on ao3 and i often won’t read a fic if the paragraphs are too long because it hurts my eyes to read. make sure you’re starting new speakers in new paragraphs. new ideas deserve new paragraphs. basically, every time the “camera” changes, you should be starting a new paragraph. not just a new line. 

summaries. i see so many fics on ao3 with summaries that are either apologising for being bad at summaries or apologising for a fic being bad/being a first fic, and like … stop this! own what you have written, no-one else will have written it the way you have and you should be proud of it. if you’re saying in your summary that it’s a bad fic, i’m not going to click on it as a reader. instead, utilise your summary to get people hooked … good hooks can be written a load of different ways, but the best ones i see often involved a snippet from the fic as a taster, and then a couple lines of blurb. get people excited! 

titles: i’m personally more likely to click on a fic where the title is either (a) correctly capitalised or (b) is clearly chosen for its aesthetic or meaning (i love long lower case titles with parentheses lol). choosing a memorable title is really helpful, especially one that can be shortened or abbreviated for social media (e.g. for hashtags)!

all this being said, traffic on ao3 is a crytpid at best and obeys little in the way of rhyme or reason. you can put blood, sweat and tears into marketing your fic, but sometimes, just being in the right place at the right time (writing for the right niche) is what does it, so being a fic writer requires a lot of patience. first and foremost, write for yourself. write what you want to read and enjoy doing it, because if you get sucked into obsessively checking stats, it’s only going to disappoint when you don’t achieve what you want to achieve. 

just keep persevering and keep writing and appreciating each and every person who takes time in interact with your fic and its promos … because ultimately, all it takes it that one reader to fall head over heels in love with your fic for everything to change. for now, just be proud of your work and keep writing!