#No negativity on this post please

[white-cat-of-doom]

Some more makeup practice photos of Swings from the day of rehearsals for the upcoming International Tour.

Aaron Jenkins as Mungojerrie(?).

David McIntosh as Skimbleshanks.

16 September 2024.

[thedreadvampy]

people seriously pretending EEAAO is overrated suddenly bc it swept awards? it swept awards largely because it is very very very good. I cried like someone who's just had a religious revelation BOTH times I watched it bc it touched something raw and real and beautiful but it was also just very, very funny. everyone's performance kills and the concept is creative and interesting and doesn't distract from the emotional core. you guys are just contrarian.

[throesofincreasingwonder]

You know what? I want a whole post for this:

Sex Repulsion is not the same thing as, or an excuse for, Sex Negativity

non-negotiable!

I am a sex-repulsed asexual. This means that I am uncomfortable and repulsed by the idea of engaging in sexual acts. This does not mean that I have an excuse to be repulsed by other people's sexual attraction or the right to police how other people engage in or express sexual acts or attraction.

Young queer people need to learn the difference between sex repulsion and sex negativity, and actively work to unlearn sex-negative attitudes. Asexuality, even sex-repulsed asexuality, is and should be fully compatible with sex positivity.

If you are uncomfortable with the idea of other people feeling sexual attraction or engaging in sexual acts that do not involve you in any way, that is not sex repulsion it is the cultural Christianity and you need to seriously work on that.

[acrowseye]

y'all ever just look around you and see people being soft and kind and human with each other and you can't help but smile because maybe the world isn't completely awful after all

[writingjourney]

why is it "Tobias hates poor fans who can't attend shows and now they're not even getting tiktok edits" and not "people have been SO excessive with their phone usage that it's ruining shows for artists and many fans alike and the only way to combat it at this point is to have no-phone shows, which is not ideal for artist nor fans but could hopefully lead to a change in attitude towards live music in the long term"

[trainsinanime]

I should be sleeping but I just figured out how they could have drastically improved the ending of season 5 with very little effort: What if the fight between Bug Noir and Hawkmoth had not taken place in the kitchen, but in Adrien's room?

Even assuming that the rest of the script stays the same, it would have given so many opportunities. Being in Adrien's space, but without him, would give all sorts of thematic implications and make us feel like his absence was a deliberate narrative choice. Destroying it over the course of their fight would be symbolically destroying his prison, and also showing how Gabriel destroys him, at the same time (bonus points for destroying the prison-bar-like windows).

Plus, you could have done so much with the lighting. The Kitchen fight just doesn't look all that good with its black and white tiles and bright white light. This is especially notable because the episode before, with the theatre production, was the prettiest ML episode ever thanks to all the creative lighting.

In Adrien's room, you have more light and shadow and colors anyway, but you could have really played with bathing the scene in an evening glow, in a thunderstorm, or turning it to night slowly. All the people fighting outside could also have seen the light effects coming from there, making the fight in the house much more connected to the outside.

I'm not saying that would have fixed all the issues I had with the finale, let alone all the issues people have had with the finale, but I think it would have been a much stronger move.

[babycharmander]

I feel like the people who are super into character AIs just… really haven’t read enough fanfic. Like, so much of the output of those things is just generic sludge, like, the most basic, boring response to whatever you typed in. It’s not in-character, it’s just an algorithm coughing up the most obvious response it can think of.

If this is the stuff you’re enjoying, I highly encourage you to read literally anything else.

The most poorly-written OOC fanfic is better than a character AI by virtue of it at least having been written by a human. It’s not the most obvious algorithmically generated sludge—it’s something a real person wanted to write.

Or like, if you want to write stuff yourself while playing off another person… maybe join a roleplay group, or find an RP partner? It’s not like they’re hard to find these days. Of course you need to learn basic RPing etiquette, which might seem intimidating, but once you learn it I promise you it is SO much more satisfying than receiving sludge responses from an AI.

Please engage in fandom in literally any other way—I promise you it will be more fun than what you are currently doing.

[slash-neg]

The struggle of being both a Izzy and Ed enjoyer in a fandom that is rapidly loosing it's ability to see complex characters as y'know, complex

[joonebugg]

Hot take but there shouldn't be shipping in the mouthwashing fandom. Anyway goodnight

[inquisimer]

pspspsps

[the-far-bright-center]

Ultimately, he’s just a pathetic guy who’s had a very sad life.

George Lucas on Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (from George Lucas and the Cult of Darth Vader, Rolling Stone, 2 June 2005)

[louisferrignojr]

i need people to understand that cop shows that have storylines that tackle issues within the policing system are still copaganda. the whole point of showcasing the issues and having the cop characters want to "be different" and "make a change" and "be a good cop" is pushing the "not all cops" message it literally is copaganda. how are we having this conversation every 4-6 years. copaganda is a portmanteau of cop and propaganda. what do you think propaganda means, actually, let's start there.

[justmossyall]

i’m starting to think some of yall don’t actually like the series

[necrotic-nephilim]

@profandomhopper i was going to reblog the original post this comment was left on but i felt it divorced itself from the original topic so much, you get your own post for giving me delightful permission to ramble about this. buckle in people this is long.

so, DC is a big fandom that expanses a lot of different types of content, and like anything, is subject to crossovers. the obvious ones like Marvel are for the reason of being a similar and equally popular superhero world, so it's easy to transpose the worlds onto each other and overlap the characters. both of these worlds deal with multiverses and endless, endless heroes. it makes sense and there's no real stretch to think Batman and Spider-Man could co-exist. i mean, there have been canon crossover comics. and even some more random crossovers like White Collar have pretty easy to trace origins, being an actor in WC was a popular Dick fancast back in the day so there was some bleeding over that led to a well-loved niche crossover space.

but Danny Phantom and Miraculous Ladybug are where it gets interesting. because at a surface, MLB sort of makes sense. it's a superhero world, you're following a teen girl superhero and sure the mechanics are pretty contained, but the crossover should make sense. but when you compare it to the crossover numbers of other superhero media like say My Hero Academia, Ladybug takes the *crown* with such a bizarre popularity. and of course, DP feels like it makes even less sense. sure, you *could* lump it into at the very least, superhero-adjacent media, but it's not a true hero world like MLB or DC is.

but, the thing to always understand about DC, *especially* the Batfamily (which is where the crossover content propagates the most) is this: a *very* good chunk of fans don't interact with the comics. i would venture to say even most Batfamily fans don't read the comics and actively talk about it. we've all read a very fandom big Batfam fanfic where the author's note mentions the writer has never touched a comic in their life. typically, these fans are either cobbling together their understanding from fandom content, or by frankensteining unrelated DC adaptations to understand each character. you take Bruce from Batman: TAS, you take Dick from the animated Young Justice, you take Jason from Batman: Under The Red Hood animated movie, you take Damian from the DCAMU Batman vs Robin, and you read some fandom metas to fill in the rest and well, you've got some sort of an understanding of these characters. read enough incorrect quotes, some genfic, a couple of character metas, and boom, you understand the Batfamily fandom enough to start creating your own content. and of course now. now you have Wayne Family Adventures so it's even *easier*. a pretty easy to pick up webtoon that's filling in all the gaps for you. but i've been in this fandom long enough to remember before we had WFA and even then, this was still a common, if not the most popular way, to ween yourself into the DC fandom space. you cherry-picked the canon you liked and then plunged into the depths of fanon.

i'm not here to make in depth commentary on if i think this is a good or bad thing. trust me i have that commentary in my head, but that would need it's own post. i'm very split on it and my feelings are complicated. my feelings on WFA are even *more* complicated. because oftentimes, the attitude expressed by these fans who are frankensteining this version of the Batfamily/DC world they have in their head is they don't *want* to read the comics. the comics don't contain the content they're after. and to an extent, i understand that. if you're looking for light-hearted vibes of the Batfamily all getting along and having the occasional hurt/comfort moments but in the end, they hug and make up, you're right. largely, you won't find that in canon. of course there are so many comics to recommend for Batfamily interactions, but you have to get specific. you'll find them interacting in small groups, Tim and Dick bonding here, Duke and Cass bonding there, but largely, the comics don't care to balance the ridiculously large cast they've given themselves. but fandom does. it's easy to toss them all in a blender and ignore the parts you don't like. the default argument to ignoring the comics or writing something OOC is always "well the comics are OOC and inconsistent too" which, while a flawed argument that massively misunderstand how comics work as a medium, isn't an entirely incorrect one. you could serve on a silver platter to these fans, an easy and accessible way to get into comics and they wouldn't be interested. it's not what they're here for. fandom is always character-driven above all else. it's driven by character relationships and dynamics. if someone wants to consume content where Tim idolized and stalked Jason as 'his Robin' and now is trying to help him rehabilitate and they're super complicated but have this long epic forgiveness arc, why *would* they read the comics? because they're sure as shit not going to find that dynamic in the comics. it's laughably OOC and not canon at all, but that doesn't matter. what matters is the sandbox. most Batfamily fans care *far* more about the sandbox canon gives them than the actual canon itself. feel how you feel about that, this really isn't being negative toward that attitude, but it is a common attitude.

so, you have Batfamily fans playing in the sandbox and building their own narrative. common fandom headcanons are so common, you could practically write a guide on how the fanon Batfamily works with how consistent people are about it. or you could just read WFA, which is practically the new manifesto of it. even now, with this sudden spike in people talking about canon accuracy and "actually this happening in the comics", they don't actually care about the comics, just what they can cherry-pick for fodder. (even if they rob it of so much context they're just as OOC as they were before. see specifically: the recent phenomena with Tim Drake going from the woobified weakest member of the Batfam who everyone needs to save constantly and he's the smart boy but he's also the one with a sad tragic neglectful past who gets overlooked being the way Batfamily fandom played with Tim for years. but recently, people seem to be pushing this idea of a ridiculously badass Tim, Tim who *totally* has a kill count because of his actions in RR (2009) if you take them completely out of context, Tim who bested Ra's and is even more badass than Jason and he's the 17 yr old CEO of Wayne Industries being cool and flawless it becoming the new fandom zeitgeist. neither of these versions of Tim are canon, and the second fundamentally misunderstands his arc in RR (2009) but the shift has undeniably happened and it's been fascinating to watch. the same thing happened with people suddenly deciding Jason isn't the "angry violent Robin", he was a sunshine sweet boy who was perfect as Robin. neither of these are true, but the second feels more transgressive and new to fandom from cherry-picked panels.) the point is largely, Batfamily fans would rather build their own canon than play with the actual canon.

and then, you have Danny Phantom. i'm not into DP and have no interest to get into it, but what i know about it via fandom osmosis is this: DP fans sort of also don't give a fuck about canon. once again, the canon of DP is a sandbox, not a rulebook. the concepts and the characters are the draw, not the plot itself. i've seen DP posts explaining characters who are essentially OCs, but have become so dominant in the fandom via fandom osmosis. there are concepts and ideas about how Danny's powers work and potential concepts with his ghost nature that either aren't in canon or only happened once in canon and fans decided to expand on that and doesn't care about it's own in-universe logic. i've seen a lot of DP fans also express they haven't seen the show and they don't have plans to see the show. because the show is just some children's cartoon with some inconsistencies and a simple plot, as you'd expect from CN. the show isn't the point. no one cares about it's plot, they care about it's characters. they care about pushing the concept of half ghost boy to a logical extreme and seeing what you can get out of that. can you make it weird and fucked up. how much can you highlight on his trauma and body horror. what identity crisis can you give him and how can you build his interactions with other characters in his world around that and also make those characters fun and unique on their own. sure, the skeleton of canon is there, but the meat lies all in the fanon.

Miraculous Ladybug also exists in this similar vein. the characters, the concepts, those hold intrigue. and not even mentioning the fact the original concept for this show was supposed to be aimed to an older audience, so you can see the bones of something a bit more mature and nuanced under this typical, villain of the week magical girl transformation show. the show itself is a bit shallow and that's not a *bad* thing, it's just the medium it exists within being aimed towards children. but the concepts of a teen girl who's basically a sort of chosen one, a boy who doesn't know his father is the big bad of the show, and their weird identity porn love... square thing. those dynamics are *so* complicated and such a fun sandbox to play in with character-driven fandom.

so, at the core, you have three fandoms that care more about the culturally accepted fanon than the canon, with a good chunk of people often not even consuming the original canon content. and well, DC is an *easy* world to transpose just about anything onto. a boy who's half ghost and fighting supernatural threats? that makes sense, DC has ghost heroes like Deadman already. a girl who has this magical item that gives her animal themed superpowers? i mean that's practically the same thing as Vixen's Totem so that one makes sense too. they fit in pretty easy, no needing to change the world to accommodate them. and of course, if you're a fan of *one* fandom where you don't care for the canon content and only like the fandom sandbox, chances are, you'll get drawn in pretty easily to another fandom with similar mechanics. if you can teach yourself the DP fandom rules/concepts, you can teach yourself the Batfamily fandom rules/concepts. and well, since there's so much crossover in fandom members, why not write the fanfiction? crossover fics will always exist, but with such a shared member base, you have a really big boom.

it's why the characters you see DP interact with in DC are *always* characters who are far more driven by fanon than canon. Danny and John Constantine is a *massive* concept. for people who don't read Hellblazer comics. my poor partner, @divine-dominion has lamented to me pretty often about finding DP content in the Hellblazer tag that is essentially turning Constantine into an OC. because whatever version of Constantine is being written about isn't one bit comics accurate, and really, isn't trying to be. and the same thing happens with Shazam. you watch Young Justice and understand him well enough, you get drawn in by the character concept that you just run with it. people put their favorite blorbos in the same place because hey, wouldn't ghost boy be pretty cool in a city like *Gotham*. how would Batman even react to him. and then, the shipping. because ages for the Batfamily can be easily hand-waved and moved around based on where you plop Danny into the timeline, you have your pick of the litter with him, and same with Ladybug. of course there are the most popular ships but largely, the world is your oyster.

i don't think this is the worst thing in the world for either fandom. it's not hard to filter out the crossover tags and scroll past content i don't like. and sure, i see the appeal of making your blorbos from two different places meet. i've got my drafts *full* of DC/MHA crossover ideas because well, i like them both and think that would be cool. i think my only gripe with it is when DP or MLB crossover content seeps it's way into the wrong tags. using the above example, if you're writing about Danny and Constantine but there's zero content of the actual Hellblazer comics, i don't think you need the Hellblazer tag, just the Constantine character tag. tbh i wish this extended onto Ao3 and people utilized fandom tags better. if you're writing Batfamily fanfiction that is very clearly and obviously WFA driven in characterization and concepts, i would far prefer those fics be tagged with the WFA fandom tag rather than the Batman (comics) fandom tag. because well, you're not writing about the Batman comics. and there's nothing wrong with that, but it helps if you don't confuse yourself for content striving to interact with canon more. (this especially extends to Young Justice, by the way. if you're writing for the Young Justice tv show please, please stop using the Young Justice (comics) fandom tag. i'm at my wit's end- /lh)

the whole thing is fascinating. i've got zero interest in entering DP or MLB as fandoms because that's not my speed, but witnessing it as an outsider is my favorite pastime. i see a *lot* of posts going around the DC x DP space that are helping explain to people who's who, what's what, and understanding the canon/fanon of both of these properties so others can better enter the space. which is not something you'd need in a fandom driven only by it's canon content, but it is sweet watching others try to help newbies enter the space. it's a very inviting fandom space, i think, whether you lament it's existence or not. they're just sitting in their corner with their blorbos, and i gotta respect that. the posts explaining the Batfamily to DP fans are always fun for me to read, even if i disagree with some of the characterizations in them because it helps shine a light on what the fans of this crossover regard as "important" enough about each fandom to be worth including those sorts of primers. very fascinating stuff.

[legendoftherisingtide]

i am so sorry for the trans folk living in the uk. no matter if you’re fully transitioned, an adult, a minor, this has affected you and i am so so sorry. i know how scary it is right now and this shit has not made it any better.

trans people all around the world see you and hear you. in fact, even non-trans people, allies, professionals, people out of the community, all see you and know how wrong this is.

The world is not all against you. Please believe that there is hope. Because there is. Please keep yourself safe and please take care of yourself to the best of your abilities. You breathing is proof that you deserve to be here. You deserve to be here. You truly do.

Please. Be as okay as you can be right now.

[kafus]

hey. if you're still doomscrolling about the election. being panicked and angry about whatever the result may be does not change the result, it just makes you miserable with no greater benefit. you probably just need to go to sleep or at least take a break, stretch, eat, do something else.

whatever happens there is so much love and hope in the world and you can still make a difference if you feel so inclined by donating to important causes and engaging in local organizations. do not get me wrong the president matters but the world is not going to instantly explode because of election results. there is so much we can do and so much yet to be done

sending care to everyone