#all fandoms are annoying

[orionsangel86]

So I've had quite a bit of time now to absorb the above take and consider all perspectives on this and whilst I can understand where OP is coming from on their specific perspective, I think OP is fundamentally wrong on a few points. I get that not everyone on the internet that day was an avid Supernatural fan/Destiel shipper and I get that the state of the world and the political climate (specifically in America) were particularly dire at that point and so I can see why you would want to reduce the importance of SPN/Destiel's role in the hysteria, but the truth is that regardless of everything else, Destiel going canon very much was the fuse that blew everything else up, and nothing else would have had even remotely the same impact.

Let me attempt to explain why.

Under a cut because obviously this isn't a quick and simple thing to explain so only click read more if you genuinely want to understand this whole insane mess.

Now bearing in mind I am not American, even I can admit that on a global scale the US elections this time around were tense - Trump turned your country into a global laughing stock on one hand, and quite a concerning dangerous liability on the other. The rest of the world was very much watching on with baited breath to see how the election would turn out. But I think we should stress that the Election took place several days before November 5th. Yes, the results this time around were taking a while to be revealled, building up the tension and anticipation, but regardless, had Destiel not come along and caused mass hysteria the Election would not have had such a huge impact on pop culture at the time. It would have still been iconic and pivotal of course, but it in no way would have caused the same insanity everywhere on the internet for the following week.

OP states that any inane fandom drama could have had the same effect. That any other fandom ship going canon could have given the same outcome. This is where OP and I fundamentally disagree. OP actually already contradicts themselves when they state "except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis"

Because here is the thing. I have been on tumblr nearly a decade, and I have certainly learnt a lot through dashboard osmosis. I knew about Superwholock, and Hannibal, and Spirk of course, but nothing holds a candle to Supernatural and the Supernatural Fandom for size, consistency, and dedication to shit posting. There is a reason SPN fandom became infamous back in the days for "we have a gif for that". There is a reason why Destiel holds the top spot for most fanfictions on AO3. There is a reason tumblr groans every April 1st as someone inevitably tries to recreate the mishapocalypse.

If it had been Spirk going canon somehow, sure, the internet would have celebrated. They probably would have done it in some reasonably well written respectable way. Old Spirk fans would surely have come out to cheer it on. The internet would have laughed about the timing sure, maybe we all would have trolled that old bastard William Shatner until he finally deleted his Twitter (if only). Spirk would have probably trended (though perhaps not over the election), but the likelihood of anyone outside of Star Trek fans going mad and joining in on the hysterical shit posting hilarity of that night and the following days is probably quite slim. I think the same can be said for most ships. Because lets be honest now, most ships aren't Destiel.

Now I'm not saying this in a smug "my ship is better than your ship" way at all. Because the Destiel impact is absolutely not about that. What you have to understand is the very specific very hostile relationship that Supernatural Fandom has with the Supernatural Creators which is very much unique to Supernatural and was very much responsible for the hysteria that night. (yes we can argue Sherlock creators were also hostile towards the fandom but I promise you with every fibre of my being as someone who experienced both shows and fandoms in real time they were NOT the SAME.)

Supernatural was a 15 year long reign of terror on its fandom. It was 15 years of queerbaiting that somehow became genuine queer coding once the showrunners had changed hands enough times, yet still consisted of an internal struggle among its creators who were half very supportive of the ship and half absolutely adamantly against it due to either a genuine dislike of SPN even remotely stepping away from a brother-centric narrative, or just run of the mill homophobia. It was a ship that was built upon consistently without long hiatus's over a 12 year period (which is an extremely long time in internet time) and its fanbase at its height was most definitely among the biggest on the internet.

It is because of this very particular relationship that SPN has with its fanbase, that has lead to SPN fandom over the past 15 years being pretty fucking hilarious in its self deprecation, humour style, and its own antagonism towards the show. There are genuinely people on tumblr who claim to be part of the "SPN fandom fandom" who don't care about the show but follow the tags and bigger bloggers simply for how fucking hilarious the fandom has become through 15 years of experience in dealing with this absolute dumpster fire show and its ridiculous real life dramas. I cannot express enough how unique SPN fandom is in this regard. The fact is, if you were part of SPN fandom at any point, you would have picked up this particular style of humorous blogging and even if people left the fandom over the years, that particular experience never would have left them. No other fandom could have pulled of the mishapocalypse (to this day still probably the best April Fools joke in internet history) and you betcha that SPN fandom was pivotal in getting Goncharov to have as big an impact as it did. You may consider modern tumblrs sense of humour to be just a tumblr thing, but I guarantee it would not be the way it is without SPN fandom laying the foundations all those years ago. Calling Tumblr "The Destiel Website" is not actually hyperbole. It's fact. Destiel and SPN were unique in building the foundations on what we now consider pretty standard tumblr culture.

So on that note, You have a fandom that has "sleeper agents" all over the world all sporting the same "trauma" about this show and years of experience in excellent shitposting on the internet, you have a show which has basically been playing Schrodingers Ship with its fanbase for at least the past 3 years. Most people who had a tumblr blog during the height of the SuperWhoLock era are aware of Destiel and how insane it was, even if they never really had any interest in it (if only thanks to their posts being hijacked by a SPN gif). Even if it were a regular day - no US elections, no covid19, no horrible real world traumatic events dominating the trending topics on Twitter - Destiel going canon would have still caused absolutely insanity online unlike any other fandom ship could have caused. I guarantee it. Not just because of Destiel being a very long running popular ship, but because of the way it happened. Because no other show would have done it like that. No other show would have had one of the lead characters confess their gay love for the other lead character seemingly out of the blue (it wasn't, but only if you really pay attention to subtext) and then immediately die whilst the other lead character has barely any reaction and doesn't respond (he does have a reaction, but unless you are very clued in on Jackles micro-expressions its not gonna register).

No other show would have made a queer ship go canon in such a ridiculous way that was so perfectly primed for tumblr style shitposting (tumblr style being SPN fandom style originally anyway). So of course, even if there hadn't been historic world events happening, it would have been an absolutely insane night on the internet. The fact that it DID happen in the midsts of several historic world events only added fuel to the fire and created a perfect storm of hilarious memes and chaos and caused Destiel to trend over the US election - leading serious political journalists to scratch their heads and wonder what the fuck was happening.

It wasn't the US election that lead to the insanity of November 5th 2020. It was Destiel. Destiel was the fuse, the US election was just fuel being added to the fire. Everything else - the Sherlock S5 rumours, the Putin stepping down rumours, the revelations in certain Manga and Anime fandoms - none of that would have even been a blip on the wider internets radar were it not for Destiel and SPN fans (both current and former) going nuts with the memes, spreading rumours and world news like wildfire across the internet, all because of their glee over Destiel going canon in typical SPN style - being the most ridiculous and frankly hilarious way possible.

The reason we have the Destiel news meme, and the reason why it continues to be one of the most popular meme formats next to distracted boyfriend, is because Destiel fans were spreading the chaotic news about the election and other weirder news globally on that night and throughout the following week. Because whilst OP calls the Destiel part inane, and irrelevant in the grander scheme of what went down that night, the truth is that no other insane fandom news would have had even a fraction of the impact that Destiel did. Because no other fandom has the same batshit crazy history and build up that Destiel did. No not even Spirk. Spirk may have a longer history, but it doesn't have anywhere near the consistency Destiel had. No other fandom would have been able to carry all of that hysteria and spread it like a virus across the internet the way SPN fans did.

If Destiel hadn't happened, November 5th 2020 would have been nothing more than another night during an intense election in America, and the rest of the world would have simply forgotten shortly after - with the exception being the UK who continue their disturbing tradition of burning an effigy of a traitor who tried to blow up a tyrranical government 400 years ago on a bonfire on this particular night each year and created the very apt poem "remember remember the fifth of November" for it, which is easily co-opted by SPN fandom now. No other fandom news would have had the same impact on internet history. No other fandom could have turned this into an annual Tumblr holiday. No other fandom is quite as insane as SPN fandom nor as devoted to shitposting and irritating the fuck out of anyone not in SPN fandom in order to pull this off.

If it had been anything else, it wouldn't be the same. If it had been anything else, OP certainly wouldn't be writing about it now, because the anniversary celebrations wouldn't have irritated them enough to complain about Destiel in a tumblr post - because no other fandom is quite as annoying as SPN fandom enough to make random people want to revise the history and erase that which annoys them. No other fandom does it like them. I say this from experience.

So whilst anyone not interested in SPN and Destiel are more than welcome to blacklist the tags, block the bloggers, and try as hard as they can to ignore the truth of what happened that night just over 3 years ago, don't you dare try to pretend that it wasn't the very specific trigger of Destiel going canon that caused that hysteria - a global hysteria mind you, not an America-centric hysteria. Because whilst OP tries to make out that November 5th was primarily about the US election, Destiel was a global event, or at least, a Western World event with people joining in the hysteria all across Europe and even as far as Australia and New Zealand (and Destiel has a huuuuge fanbase in South America as well). We don't rewrite history in these parts. we embrace it, even if it is really fucking annoying.

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[5weetmeat]

this is ugly but I just wanted to show my height headcanons

version with cronus under the cut

[idolomantises]

I find Sarcastic Chorus's video on why he's quitting Helluva Boss really interesting but I'm kind of baffled by the number of people straight up not understanding his reasoning for quitting. I think it's interesting how both his video and the online reaction to it is basically the consequences of modern fandoms treating art like its something to mindlessly consume and not worth analyzing and critiqing, or else you're consuming it "wrong".

Like his argument isn't that he hates the show or that he was forcing himself to criticize the show, in fact one of his main problems was that he couldn't be MORE honest in his reviews because of how fans would react to it. The problem was that when your job is to analyze a show, and it has way too many problems to ignore, and you're dealing with a hyper-sensitive fanbase that's hostile to criticism, you end up feeling exhausted or flat out disinterested in reviewing it.

I actually find it really concerning that fans are coping so hard with him quitting that they're framing it like its his problem because he was "looking for problems on purpose" when it was pretty obvious that it genuinely makes him kind of miserable trying to pick apart the show's issues. I remember when he was SO confident that Hazbin Hotel would be amazing and "prove the haters wrong" only for him to acknowledge that it was a complete mess. I'm honestly more confused by the fans who watch a reviewer and then get mad when he... reviews things. It's not even that they disagree with him, but the audacity to even point out very noticeable flaws in the product is enough to set them off and accuse him of being a clout chaser and a hater. Like do you want to see a review or did you just want to watch someone lie to you and blindly praise a series for 30 minutes, because i find it really odd that so many fans are insistent that he should've done the latter.

I also got pretty annoyed by this insistence that he wouldn't have turned on this show if he didnt criticize it and "turned his brain off" instead which is the same stupid excuse people gave for Hazbin's sloppy writing. and I just find that just... baffling? Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss, as extremely flawed as they are, are clearly shows made with the clear intention of being taken seriously. Ffs the crew calls Helluva Boss "queer Bojack Horseman". Helluva Boss tackles topics like abuse, trauma, classism, racism, toxic relationships and redemption and Hazbin Hotel tackles themes like sexual trauma and abuse, redemption and religious oppression. But the problem is that both shows do it so poorly that people genuinely think that it's meant to be slop content that you're just supposed to turn your brain off and listen to.

I'm not going to forget when these fans were treating Helluva Boss's season 1 like peak queer representation and writing and insistent that Angel Dust was this amazingly well written gay male character that people only hated because he was messy and imperfect. Honestly kind of funny that I was chastised for saying that Angel Dust is just a sex joke only for the show, the crew, the merch, and even the damn playbill reduce him to just that. Slapping on trauma (especially knowing that its more of a fetish than a genuine exploration on male sexual abuse) doesn't really negate the fact that Angel Dust is poorly written. Side note: his fans are way too unhinged and aggressive, its getting very weird.

So its funny to me that now that Helluva Boss season 2 completely nose dived and Hazbin Hotel is a sloppy mess that feels more geared for children than adults, that now people are being told they're not allowed to analyze these shows or even pay attention to their problems, and are treated like idiots for doing so.

I think the problem is that I kind of think fans also notice the lowered quality of writing in both shows. because why aren't people actually defending the writing and character progression? instead of "Sarcastic Chorus is wrong because his criticism is incorrect and misses these points" its "Sarcastic Chorus is wrong because he should have shut his brain off and treated these shows like its cocomelon for adults"

[crabsnpersimmons]

day two of clawing my way out of artblock

tried something a little more ambitious today: i've been thinking of how i can bring my digital art style into my traditional art. so i tried experimenting by drawing chef Moon from my Have You Eaten? AU with markers and colour pencils (because honestly, it's the lineless details in their design that make them harder to draw traditionally, which is why i lined them all with a fineliner in their original drawing, which is fine, but it's a different feel from lineless version of my digital art, so i wanted to see if i can accomplish it)

i was tempted to just leave today's practice at that, but then i decided to note down my thoughts:

(definitely recommend marking up your drawings/studies, or write your notes elsewhere.)

overall i felt kinda dissatisfied with the experiment and marking it up with my thoughts helped pinpoint the problem areas and what i should try for the next time. so i took all that and tried again:

(i also decided last minute to try something with the lineart, adding darker areas by adding a few dots of a darker blue and blending it out. dunno if i'll do that all the time, but it's pretty)

but i'm glad i kept going after the initial experiment. i'm pretty happy with the final one (maybe i'll try Sun and Eclipse in the coming days. you have been thoroughly warned.)

[holyblanchett]

Its just so funny to me that the Deadpool and Thanos stans think lady death is going to end up with them. Like she legit said her black heart beats for Agatha I'm sorry but your fave has a zero percent chance with her.

[starrylayle]

To all those shippers that depict Sirius as a self-absorbed, short, fem twink with a flare for dramatics -- and Remus as a tall, angry, buff, dom werewolf daddy -- go ahead, it's a fully rounded dynamic! You're actually shipping Gilderoy Lockhart x Fenrir Greyback though! Remember to tag correctly folks! Hope this helps 🥰 🥰 

[naturecalls111]

[snowygray]

THIS was peak romance

[generichoneydew]

nuclear winters over guys. I'm only accepting nuclear spring. Bite me.

34/52

[sleepyicon]

hi, crosstagging shippers! why add the tag to ur post if ur purely saying negative stuff about the ship? do you not realize the ship tag is for ppl that enjoy the ship and that the anti tag is for ppl who don’t? do you not realize your post is still likely to get traction without crosstagging?

just stay out of the tag if you don’t like the ship it’s literally so easy.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

encore!

[berryliciousjam]

"He's mine. Mine alone."

Morph just won the biggest and legendary prize in the arcade! The giant plushie may or may not be possessed by the actual Logan Howlett.

Hi gang so I took a break from drawing after that Morph's pride month challenge, and I was able to return to drawing(but slower because I'm preparing for college ugh!!!). Gonna return to my WIPs and complete them before my second year starts, so dtay tuned! 😌💖

[heartorbit]

something something sewing event

[atlalasassy]

Do you think Aaron would give apples to the Foxes when they annoyed him because an apple a day keeps the doctor away and he wants them to stay the fuck away from him

[ch1ck3nnugg3t]

Y'all I think we may have over done it too much with the yes or no because I went back a reread the books and there are so many times when they have casually touches without asking and I've been reading Nora's extra content and it's said several times that they only really ask anymore when one was having a *bad* day and at one point it said this "Or maybe it’s the moment Andrew looks at Neil and says It’s just yes so Neil can stop asking him if what they have is okay." (Which is really cute btw) but I feel like all I ever read anymore in the fics is before every single touch even when they're strangers and don't know each other