#at least now we get blorbo content

[ruairy]

.

[hotchfiles]

15 & 61 with best friend!spencer!!! but reader lowkey wants him 😎

help me get these two specific blorbos out of my head, the prompt list "so you're saying even if we were the last people on earth—?" "nope." + "stop imagining it!" "I'm sorry, but I can't get it out of my head!"

"And I told them it would never happen. Ever." You tilt your head at your best friend and how confident he sounds telling you about how he told his coworkers that you and him would never get together. Ever. He seems proud of it too, standing up for himself, you on the other hand are offended, to say the least, heartbroken.

"So you're saying even if we were the last people on earth—?" Honestly you're just trying to get him to throw you a bone at least, there must be a situation where you're not forced into the position of being only his friend.

"Nope. That's what I told them, now I can drink my coffee without answering questions about you every day." So much for throwing a bone.

Unwillingly, your feet begin tapping the floor of your apartment, it was just a crush, you just wanted to make out with him for a little while, was that so bad? So impossible?

"Sure, yeah, good... So you don't think I'm attractive? At all?"

"That's not really what I s—"

You barely listen to him, going on a ramble which was one of the reason his coworkers thought you two matched so well, "so if you were to imagine me like, I don't know, naked, you wouldn't want me either? Am I i that bad?" You get up from your chair, pacing around the kitchen, his eyes getting wider and wider as you spoke, trying to interject you from time to time to no avail. "I'm a good kisser, I think, is it my breath? My ass? What is it!?"

Spencer gathers that you're not expecting an answer to that, or at least he hopes so when your hands go to your mouth in exasperation and you stop in front of him. "Forget I said that!"

"I really can't. I mean, I literally can't. Eidetic memory."

"Oh my god, you're imagining it! Stop imagining it!" Your hands hide the warmth of your face, embarrassed not only by the extent of your rambling but the content.

"You told me to! I'm sorry, but I can't get it out of my head!" Figuring this is going to be the best time if anything, as you were already embarrassed, you pull him by his cardigan, gluing your lips to his fully expecting to be rejected, but being surprised by his holding your waist to keep you balanced into the kiss. You expected it to be tender, but instead you were met with hungry lips and tongue matching yours.

Just enough to scratch the moment's itch.

"I don't think you'll ever drink your coffee in peace after this," you say after catching your breath.

"The one down the street from the HQ tastes better anyway."

[faceeeeee]

Okay, so I can't stop thinking about your GOBB designs, and currently, your Flumbo is rotating around in my skull in the blorbo tumbler.

I NEED to know more.... please... I'm starving for blue mascot content 🙏😭💙 withering.... dying even (/silly)

(Side note: I'm being dramatic, no pressure to answer this at all /gen)

NONO IT'S OK I LOVE ANSWERING LORE ASKS! ALSO CBNCVBBCXBBVCNHV TYYYY💞💞💞💞💞😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️💞💥💥💥 That man also had a chokehold on me like a week ago and with that I started developing more of his lore.

LORE TIME

OK SO- we know that flumbo is sort of a copy of banban, yes? A replacement if you will, meant to be the new face of the kindergarten. I imagine that his creation was due to Banban/Uthmans whole mess of bealiving that he is not indeed a 3 meter tall red thing (he was much more prone to having his outbursts back then and transform into hellish). So, they decided to make a replacement: a much better fit mascot, one who didn't bealive that he was human, one that looked healthy and strong. And that's when flumbo comes into frame. He is sort of the ideal mascot, one that completely embarces the fact that he is in fact non-human and that his only purpose is to entertain. Wether he likes it or not is irrelevant, the only thing that mattered to the staff was that he could perform well.

Now, why he was later thrown in the void and his mural drawing covered up with that of banban...I do not know. Cause the timeline ain't coherent but ignoring that-

Back to the whole "replacing" thing. The two of them later meet in Uthmans holding cell and one thing led to another and he goes berserk, making flumbo loose part of his horns and deal a lot of damage to him overall (his body kinda healed but the horns did not heheyyy). After that the two never met again and then we get to the current start of the security breach in the facility.

Why is this important? Well it adds up to the piles of reasons why flumbo absolutely loathes and resents uthman. Not because he lost his horns or whateva (well that too) but the fact that the one who should understand him, empathize with him bealives that he is separate fr him, that he's a human and also part of the staff that had tormented him and prodded at him. Uthman insisting that he's...well, uthman, infuriates him making them fight all over again.

One thing to note again is that flumbo fully bealives that he is just a creature, a thing to use. That made him completely seperate himself from humans, seeing them as lesser and as bugs to be crushed under him.

I had this crappy thing basically talking bout how he realised how weak humans actually are and deciding to take matters into his own hands (a.k.a kill em all)

And last but not least

��🎉🎉ANGST🎉🎉🎉🎉

[the-crow-binary]

Trans headcanons: when people ridicule the thing they think they support

So I'm tired. Let's have a talk.

Let's start with the very concept of headcanons, before I get to the infuriating part: A headcanon is, by definition, an idea that has never been confirmed as being actual canon. It's people imagining things about the characters they like, taking advantage of the fact the media they're in never depicted certain things, certain moments of the characters' life, to fill the gaps. A headcanon that make sense, and isn't there to just make the character your OC, takes into account what the actual canon has already shown, such as the character's personnality or goals. (I'm taking characters as example here but headcanon can be about the media's universe as a whole, too)

For example: In Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, and it's mangas, we never saw the life Hector and Isaac lead in the Castle between the moment Hector arrives (Isaac being already there) and the moment he runs away. It's a perfect opportunity to have fun and imagine what happened all those years! So, by taking into account what official products gave us, such as Isaac and Hector's personnalities (before and after the curse took ahold of them), how they interact together, and their common roles and duties under Dracula's reign, we can easily headcanon that they used to be friends and respected each other, before it slowly gets crushed by Isaac's obvious inferiority complex and jealousy in regards of Hector's power and relationship with Dracula.

That's a headcanon. A thing that can differ from one person to another, as interpretation can also vary, just like the plots we like to see. But let me tell you something absolutely crucial this headcanon does that make it a valid one: it doesn't contradict canon material.

That's a thing I feel like tends to be forgotten by many claiming their takes on characters as "headcanon". It stops being a "headcanon" and start being a "i'm twisting this character into my OC" when you start making shit up that not only does not fit the Character, but also contradicts directly what has been shown about said Character, just because you're a certain way or like certain things. That's not a headcanon. That's fanfiction. Not one that will interest those who actually like the canon and doesn't like when people change things about it instead of just adding to it, but if you're having fun, go for it! Just own up to the fact that you're deforming a pre-existent character, lol.

Now that... that is still pretty harmless. Sure it's annoying to see someone take your Blorbo and make it do things it would never do and call it a "headcanon", but it's just that. Annoying. But then...

Have you ever come across, in your favorite medias, male characters who look are act just a bit feminine? Or female characters who might be a little rough, angry, or muscular? And then you go look for content of them, and are met with "that character is trans" headcanons? Chances are, if you're very active in fandoms, you have. Maybe some of you cringe because there's something wrong going on there and you're not sure what, and you're afraid you're just being transphobic even though you support transfolks and maybe are one yourself... at least it was my case at first lol. But not to worry! There's a very good explanations to your cringiness! And it's that: Lots of those headcanons are straight up awful in their logic and an insult to every genders involved! :)

Let's take the Netflixvania version of Hector as an example. He's the perfect target for those kind of headcanons, because he's a pretty boy! He's (a bit) feminine! So of course, just from that, you'll have people claiming he MUST be a trans woman. An awful take to call "headcanon", because it's very surface-level, gleefully ignores that everyone everywhere have both feminine and masculine sides to them (and the fact Castlevania is originally a JAPANESE product, have you ever seen ACTUAL anime? Pretty boys and boys who look like girls be everywhere in this media), some men being more feminine while some women can be more masculine, and literally goes back to gender-conforming logic. Something the very concept of transgenderism actually fights against. I mean sure, you have trans women trying to be as feminine as they can, and trans men as masculine as they can, for reasons that might differ from one person to another. But there's also those who don't. Those who simply exist, feeling secure enough in their gender that they don't care how masculine or feminine others percieve them to be. And what about the very cis people who don't conform to what others say they should look like, according to their genitalia?

Headcanoning a character as trans because of the way they look only is great !... To perpetuate gender-conforming mindset and clichés, and be uncomfortably close to transphobic logic (the "we can always tell" crowd who'll think a cis woman is a man because her body, that she has never altered in any way and is only the result of her genetics, is a bit too masculine, for example :) ). So what else you can use to headcanon a character as trans without it leaving a sour taste in other people's mouths?

Their personnality? Well, yes... but also no. It all depends on how you turn it. And in case of N!Hector? Oh boy! ^^

Hector is kind and compassionate... mostly with animals lol, and the devils he creates. He is gentle, can be vulnerable. He doesn't want humanity gone, but he wants them to be kept under control, because on one hand, he doesn't like them because Trauma, and on the other, he's not a bad guy at heart. He is naive, dare I say, emotionally, physically and mentally weak, wich causes him to be compared to a child by actual characters in the show, and a dumbass by the fandom. ^^ And ALSO causes him to get tricked, beaten and abused by vampires (wich makes the fandom call him even MORE of a dumbass for, and side with his abusers because "haha hot women vampire go brr"). Overall, even if he's trying to be tough here and there, and opposes some (futile) resistance sometimes (never going as far as it should've because of Peak Writing), he quickly goes back to being, well, soft (wich is NOT a bad thing in itself btw).

Now there's nothing wrong when you look at his personnality alone, and ignore literally everything else such as the way he was treated by the narrative, the characters, and the fandom itself. But look at this... and tell me it feels trans woman-coded.

Headcanoning Hector as a trans woman boils down to say "i think women are soft, naive, stupid, weak, kind and compassionnate, and men cannot be". It's already a very vomit-inducing take insulting both genders, but then you take into accounts what actually happens to Hector: him being tricked, used, abused, beaten, dehumanized by every character he interacts with and never taken seriously, even by the man who hired him as one of his GENERAL. Oh, and treated like a literal pet, too! Called as such by Lenore herself! And it gets worse. Because the narrative itself sees nothing wrong with that (exactly because he's a man :)). Just... why would you see a man being treated like a pet, not human and not even an adult, and think "ah, yes. A woman." ?? I'm sorry but I can't, in good faith, approve of that. What kind of vision does it mean you have of women and trans women?

So not only headcanoning N!Hector as a trans woman is an insult to women and tells more about how YOU view them than anything else (consciously or not), but it also serves to completely rip Hector off of his masculinity and insult men as well. As if a man couldn't suffer the way he did. As if a man could not be kind or naive without being compared to a child. As if a man had to have short hair or beard or drink beer or whatever you think a man is supposed to be like and how a woman is supposed to be like.

Oh, and special shoutout to that one tumblr user I will not name that literally said "how can you not headcanon Hector as a trans girl. She's literally a doggirl ok"! It's is the most awful take I have EVER seen and I want to throw up all over your blog! Literally, how dumb does one have to be to see a gentle, pretty man being treated like a dog for kinky points and go "not only is this a girl, that's also a doggo! Woof woof!" I swear to God.

Sigh... so, yeah. This far, I have yet to see anyone headcanoning Hector as a trans woman and not making me want to throw up in my mouth, considering how the character is. But there's one more thing! The narrative.

The narrative can also be used for headcanons, and often is. "What is this character and their story about?" "How is the [media] portraying them?". "How are we supposedd to feel about the character/story/actions?" In N!Hector's case, despite him having potential... the narrative is just humiliating him through and through. He gets tricked by everyone, mocked for his harmless personnality, his mistreatment happens out of pure sadism and to elevate the Girlbosses, and he gets used for horny points. He is just a victim durîg the whole show, and when you THINK he's FINALLY going to do something... nope! He vaguely help bring back the Big Bad Guy (wich ends up being useless i swear to god N!Hector's life is joke lmao killme) while falling for his abuser! Getting back at her by protecting her, I guess! ^^

So what was his character and story about? A misunderstood man... who exist only to be used and tossed around and never get justice nor is allowed to fight back. You can't even say he's a plot device because the plot itself mocks him and could have worked well, if not better without him. (Isaac going after Carmilla directly instead of going after Hector and choosing last minute to kill Carmilla while he's at it would have made a little more sense, though he still would have went after the wrong people, but that's another story) Definitely the kind of character I love to see having his masculinity revoked and called a woman! Not insulting at all!

See, it is very difficult to headcanon a character as trans... especially when you don't think about it through. Wich people like that one user calling Hector a "doggirl" did (that was a whole other level of victim blaming holy shit. Shows once again how men's and males' trauma and suffering are not taken seriously enough). What is happening to Hector here happens to many other characters in other medias, and to stay in Netflixvania, it is happening with Alucard as well. Because people are cowards and won't headcanon the big grumpy hairy guy as a trans woman, they have to headcanon the gender-nonconforming character and, by doing so, actually gender-conform him ❤️ (i mean it as a half-joke. you do you, but I think this is a clear proof of how the gender norms have a big place in your mind)

I think I would have less problems with lots of these if they weren't called "headcanons". Let's be honest, many will think of a character as trans because THEY'RE trans and it's their blorbo, and MAYBE think of justifying it further afterward. That's not how HCs work, you're just projecting. And you know what? It's fine! It's not a bad thing in itself! Make a pre-existent character trans if it's fun for you! If it makes you feel better! I mean I'm worried of N!Hector is the one you relate to the most. But it doesn't matter if others don't like it, because it's a content made for you, by you! But don't call it a "headcanon" (or claim it as canon directly, wut) and try to justify it when there's nothing in canon even slightly hinting at it being potentially true, or working, or making sense for the character. Don't call it "headcanon" when you're literally genderbending a character. Please. Think things through.

Also, remember when I talked about a proper headcanon does not contradict actual canon? Well. The male character you call a trans woman going by "he/him" the whole time kinda contradicts your idea. It's as if you "headcanoned" a character who has been seen only being attracted to the opposite gender and in love with someone of the opposite gender as being gay. Sure, you can say that's a closeted trans character... but then you better have solid reasoning for thinking that, once again. Or, you know, you could assume that you genderbend the character for fun (and i don't mean "turn it into a cis character of the opposite gender", i mean keep them trans, but don't pretend to base your vision mostly on canon). Would be less insulting than saying "this weak pretty man is actually a woman because he's weak and pretty, canon told me". I prefer someone who owns up to the fact they don't care about canon and just want to have fun rather than someone who implies they care about canon by using "headcanon" and then give poor and insulting arguments.

I get that lots of people with these headcanons don't have bad intentions and don't realize how fucked up their reasoning (or the simple fact of calling N!Hector a damn DOGGIRL- sorry i'll never recover from that) is, but still. As much as I respect everyone's right to do whatever they want with characters in their own little corner, caring about nothing but having fun, I've been needing to vent about this issue for a while now. Being an ally or a trans person yourself doesn't prevent you from spreading stereotypes, I'm afraid.

This problem of "i'm using poor and stereotyped arguments that is more insulting than anything to justify my idea" could apply to autism headcanons too, btw. And probably other things as well. Just. Please. Think about what you're writing. Think before you talk.

[nightwonder7]

Do you have any opinion about both Norton Campbells winning the deduction star and nymph award? I'm a twitter user and I'm seeing a lot of opinions on it, but I rarely see those on tumblr..... Is the ecosystem really that different from here and twitter..?

I'm not on Twitter, so I've got no clue how things are over there. You're probably right about the ecosystem being different from site to site.

As for your initial question, I think it's really cool that Fool's Gold won Deduction Star, despite him being fairly new. Normally I'm for older characters to take the win before newer ones, but I had a lot of bias this time around, ngl gfjhsdgfs I'm excited to see what he gets as a skin though! I've seen some people theorizing something based of My Bloody Valentine, and honestly, that would be so metal!

As for Nymph Awards... would it be weird if I said it would feel bitter sweet? And that it's for an extremely petty reason? The prospect (*badum-tsh!*) of Norton getting another S-tier as well as a song/music video is amazing, don't get me wrong! I love getting more Norton content in the game! And it would be kinda amusing that he would technically bring home two popularity awards in one year, cause no one has done that before. He would also be the first male survivor to win Best Performance.

Now for the bitter part. Strap up, this is where the petty comes in. One of the highlights of the Nymph Awards event (albeit small. Also it's my opinion) is the trailers. I don't know, I just love seeing all these characters together, mingling, partying... it's just so nice seeing them all gathered and being all fancy!

But as soon as they win a Nymph Award, all that remains of them is a poster. It's like they died and ascended or something, never to be seen again fgdshjafd

So if Norton were to win, that would mean we'll never see him in these trailers anymore! I can no longer go "Where's my blorbo? THERE HE IS! That's my blorbo!" Okay, yes, we'll see him in a poster, but not in the flesh with everyone else! So yeah, extremely petty and puny reason. I'll survive though fgdshjfd At least I can go "BLORBO!" for FG and some of the other characters I like ;u;

So long story short, awesome if he wins, but I wouldn't mind if he doesn't either. The voting is still ongoing, so there's no guarantee. Things might change for all we know.

[skyrim-forever]

WIP Wednesday

Hello everyone, it is another Wednesday (my dudes)! Thanks to the lovely @umbracirrus and @hircines-hunter for tagging me <3

Tagging: @theoneandonlysemla @dirty-bosmer @lucien-lachance @thequeenofthewinter @firefly-factory @pocket-vvardvark

@captain-of-silvenar @changelingsandothernonsense @lady-iizsil @bougainvillea-and-saltwater

This is going to be a long af post because I ran a poll trying to decide what to post, but I'm just gonna give y'all a bit of each because *gestures vaguely to the world* at least we have blorbos <3 First up is another bit from the family fic, then some smut under the cut from another wip that i will have done soon or i will end up on the news MDNI: PICK YOUR POISON BESTIES

“Happy to be free of the misery and dread of Winterhold?” He earns a playful punch before Ceri joins her boyfriend on a sofa.  

“You sound too much like Ata.”

“You say that now.” He reaches for something in his armour, a folded paper. “I’ve accepted an offer from a man in Skyrim, wants help going through some Nord tomb.” Walking over to his sister, he shows her the letter, distinctly pointing to the bottom. 

“May Talos guide you.” She laughs. “Oh, what would Ata say?”

“What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him, and besides, I do not get paid to care about religion. He could be Tiber Septim reborn for all I care. Might even be good actually, could charge him more.” 

“Well then, may Talos guide you Arthano. To Sovengarde!” He rapidly ruffles the top of her hair. 

“Shut up.” He laughs. 

It is a funny moment between them but Ralos can’t help but feel like he is missing something. He knew the worship of Talos had been a major point of contention between Altmer and Nords; particularly when the Thalmor were in operation. It seems their father would be especially concerned, no, upset, to learn of who his son was working for. But the way neither Arthano nor Ceri seemed to find it anything more than funny puzzled him. It can’t just be his Altmer beliefs…

The kisses are slow for a bit, enjoying the feeling of each other. Eventually, Ondolemar’s lips find their way to her neck. The marks he leaves will no doubt be difficult to cover tomorrow, but that is the furthest thing from her mind as she grinds her hips into his. 

“I’m going to miss you.” She hums. 

“And what will you miss most?” Hands move down to her thighs, creeping their way underneath her nightgown. 

“Unfortunately, you have me in a compromising position, my love. I cannot answer fairly at the moment.” Her own hands remove themselves and glide down his bare chest. 

“Then don’t.” She pulls the nightgown overhead, tossing it across the bedroom. There’s no time for him to react before she is sliding down, knees resting on the hardwood as she looks up at him. Even in the low candlelight, she can see his expression has changed; a deeper hunger written on his face. Head resting on one thigh while her hand makes its way up the other, tracing the outline of his erection through the thin pants. 

“Well. now I certainly cannot.” He groans as she removes his cock, stroking the flesh itself now. 

“I’m still waiting for an answer, love.”  

“Oh course you are. You want to hear all about how I’m going to miss you like this. How much I enjoy seeing you on your knees for me.” His left hand runs through her hair, smoothing through it as her strokes quicken. “I’ll even miss how you torture me, memories of you like this flashing through my mind at the most inconvenient times. So much has changed except for your ability to distract me from work.” 

[slylock-syl]

Hey Syllll! Long time, no chat! I just wanted to get this off my chest before i go ham trying to figure out what i wanna commission from you soon.

I have been reading Undersource for years now, and i think we've both come a long way since then! God, that feels weird to say, i'm not even old enough to drink yet lmao. But! I am old enough to spend my money responsibly now, which is nuts given that my responsible spending is now aimed at getting art of my blorbos LOL.

You've grown as an artist so much since i first started reading- i think that was around... the pirate arc? Not sure! But i do remember the early days of me having discord, during the EKD server category era. But anyways, i know the way you drew our favorite skeletons was different back then, and it's all gotten so much smoother in that time. You're also (at least seemingly) taking way better care of yourself! You've set boundaries, you've set more time for yourself and not the blog, and you're still happily chugging along, after all these years. Not to mention you're working on this side story now, which i'm fairly certain you've been looking forward to for a while.

How's that sleeping though? Do you still have the sleep cycle of an austalian? Can't say i'm any better, im slowly becoming nocturnal again lol. Some things NEVER change.

Anyways. All this to say: im really proud to have been part of this little community for so long. To see the comic and its artist come so far. Even if im not a diehard fan anymore, im glad i can still take a little time every weekend to realize "OH, U/S shoulda updated!" and run over here. Thanks for giving me a good starting point of community on this god damned hellsite.

(Here's to sleepy 5 am "you're great" asks LMAO)

sjksdhLKSDJFHG THIS IS SUCH A SWEET MESSAGE OMG-

Hi Azzy! :D I'm glad you still like my work even after all this time! Thank you for sticking around! :D

I have been taking better care of myself these days! I'm (only sometimes begrudgingly XD) going on daily walks (Pikmin Bloom is really helping with that, I love Pikmin they're so cute), and made some new friends! When I first started this blog I was convinced I had to constantly/frequently produce content, and I time went on I slowly realized that wasn't really viable, so I slowly trimmed down the workloads for better manageability, I'd say it's helped a lot! Even if it may not look like it sometimes XD

There was a point before I adjusted my work schedule where I figured out that I may have been riding a creative burnout for a long while, as when I looked back it felt like my work had begun to visually stagnate. I think at the time I was cramming working on the comic update across only 3 or 4 days (Wednesday/Thursday to Saturday mornings, sometimes down to the wire), with several hours of just constant work (plus any distractions and 3 daily asks) because I was procrastinating so badly X'D I'm still recovering from the visual stagnation, but I'm definitely trying to experiment where I can! I may not be the best at it but I hope I'm improving at least ksjdghLSDGH My current schedule is MUCH more spaced out and much more manageable, spanning Sunday to Friday and broken down into stages for each day, and Saturdays are my designated day off~

As for the side story, it's one I've had around for quite a while and have been excited to finally show off! There were a few people who were interested in it when it was first teased, though I've no idea if they're still around, if they are I hope they're enjoying the story so far as well! 💜

Oddly enough my sleep schedule is no longer on Cthulhu Standard Time SKSDJGHDLG We had a TON of construction going on in the house the past few months and it was way too awkward to sleep with a bunch of strangers either being in or near my room, as well as making a LOT of noise sjkdhgLKSDJG There was a brief section of time where I'd actually go to bed at a "normal" time and get up at like, 9 or 10 am X'D Though it's slowly sneaking it's way into afternoons to 3 or 4 AM after I feed the kitties, kinda like my old college schedule XD

Thank you again for liking my work and sticking around! I really appreciate it!! :D

I may not be anywhere near whatever my "peak" was a few years ago, but I'm still happy to keep going for those who still come around! 💜

[baejax-the-great]

Archive-locking the fics that YOU WROTE and are thus 100% yours to decide what to do with 'hurting people' is so silly tbh. Skill issue on their part. Wish those people could be normal about the amazing fics that writers like you put out & be understanding or at the very least respectful of the choices that writers make about how and where they make their fics available. Especially in light of recent ai training theft and nonsense & all that.

I hope this doesn't sour the fic writing & sharing experience for you too much. I love your writing & think you're very talented & skilled!

There seem to be dual attitudes I'm coming up against recently (and obviously these are not held by everyone, I don't even know that they are held by a majority, but they are certainly held by a plurality).

The first is that authors should be grateful that readers deign to read what they put out there. I think this stems from the "content creation" mentality and the idea that everyone who posts things wants as massive as an audience as possible (for monetization purposes which... isn't a thing in fanfic). I think this mindset also leads to readers demanding that people write specific tropes/pairings/whatever, or threatening basically to take their business elsewhere. "Nobody will read unless you do [X]." 1. Not true and 2. Okay, you weren't my audience.

(I also think authors circulating those posts about how badly they want comments/kudos feeds this mentality of readers doing authors a favor by even clicking on the fic. "Wow, if people are so desperate for attention, then mine must be worth an awful lot!")

Fanfic ain't a business, and I write for myself. Readers choosing to read my work isn't a privilege or an honor they are bestowing upon me (nor are comments for that matter), just as me posting my writing where they can see it isn't a privilege or an honor for them. We are both engaging in hobbies and a love of some media, and sometimes we will overlap and connect and sometimes we won't. Readers aren't reading out of altruism for attention-starved authors, and authors aren't writing out of altruism for content-hungry readers.

And there are those who will read these paragraphs above and think to themselves "wow, what an ungrateful author," and that's exactly the attitude I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, it's delightful and rewarding to receive comments on fics and chat with people about Blorbo and the Situations. But it should be delightful from both sides of the exchange, or why the hell are we doing this? If I'm meant to be grateful for every commenter who jumps into my inbox, then every commenter in my inbox better be grateful for me, and I can tell you right now there is a population who is not. There is a population who sees me as a service provider for their entertainment, and whatever form I take in their brain, it is not shaped like a full person.

This attitude also leads to people thinking that things like lorefm are no big deal. Don't I want to get my work in front of more eyeballs (or ears)? Don't I want to broaden my audience? And once I put my work out there for readers to see, should I be shocked (or express any negative emotions at all) when someone plagiarizes/scrapes it for AI/demands updates rudely/reads it on a monetized youtube channel/binds it and sells it for profit?

The other idea I've been coming up against is almost the opposite of this--that because some readers form attachments to fic, deleting that fic (or even archive-locking it!) is actively harming those readers. Sure, they can't be bothered to hit the download button or get an AO3 account, but that's no reason not to think of these strangers first before doing what I want with my creative output.

Yall, life is ephemeral. There are things we will see and enjoy and never find again for one reason or another, and it's not harm being done to us, it's just the nature of existence. Having an emotional reaction to something does not give you any sort of ownership over that thing. Artists are allowed to change their minds about whether they want that art in the wild, particularly given that it's free. Maybe it's because I utilize the library a lot, but reading a book and then losing access to that book is not a crime against you, it's just a normal thing that happens. If you read something and it means that much to you, there are ways to avoid losing it (download it).

Seeing this particular attitude extend out to "not making your fic available for as many people to read as possible is harming them" is beyond bizarre. If I woke up tomorrow and deleted everything I have ever written, there would still be thousands upon thousands upon thousands of beautiful, emotional, meaningful fics out there for people to read. They would lack for nothing. Would some people be upset? Probably. Would I be hurting them? No, not really.

Sometimes people have negative emotions because of our actions, but that doesn't mean we did anything to them. This is one of those times.

Lastly, this AI and everything else bullshit really has taken a toll on my enthusiasm for posting my work. It's one thing for companies to try to pillage every thought, every word, every stroke of a pen or paintbrush to enrich themselves while actively making the planet an unbearable and inhospitable place to live, it's another when fellow fans are telling you that "Whelp that's just life, what did you expect, give us your content anyway or you're a bad person and if you complain, then I'll be taking my business elsewhere, you sensitive, entitled creative, lol."

[dandelion-wings]

For the ask meme, Jean and Venti? :>

Thank you for the ask! :>

JEAN

How I feel about this character

This should be no surprise to anyone, but I adore her. #1 absolute favorite Genshin character, bar none. She's already an archetype I love (honorable lady knight torn between duty/family and her own desires, bonus points for blondness; see also, FE3H Ingrid), enough so that the friend who got me into Genshin lured me in with her ("read the manga at least until you get to Jean, and if you like her, you have to start playing"), and a lot of her individual characteristics are also deeply endearing to me. I am not rational about Jean. She is my beloved precious blorbo who can do no wrong and I will write out her flaws and make her perfect if I want to, and I will write her outmatching and one-upping the male characters who are supposed to be just as or more cool, and I will write her whump and fluff and hurt/comfort where everyone goes "oh we have been unfair to Jean, let us rush to care about her," and I feel no shame on any of these points. I am holding her up and showing her to everyone like a beloved pet.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Okay, so, the thing about me is that I usually make my favorite character a fandom bicycle because I just like seeing how I think they'd interact with other characters I like? I have at least idle shipping thoughts about Jean and... so much of the rest of Genshin. But my primary ships for her are most of the other Knights of Favonius, particularly any combo, OTP or OT3 or OT4, of Lisa, Kaeya, and Eula, with some particularly energetic mental dabbling (less likely to make it on the page) in Jean/Ningguang, Jean/Rosaria, Jean/Diluc, and Jean/Sara. Those are probably the ones outside the OT4 and its permutations that I'm most likely to actively play with without some outside trigger or inspiration!

My non-romantic OTP for this character

See above, just without the kissing. That said, I think everyone knows it's Jean and Kaeya. XD And beyond that the platonic relationships within the OT4!

My unpopular opinion about this character

I... am not sure I have one? The people I choose to follow have Good Opinions, and I do not follow people with Bad Opinions so I don't know how popular they are (also I don't go into her main tag because main character tags get SO spammed with 'this character appeared once briefly in the background of this comic' sorts of tags. I follow individual artists and the rarepair tags). I like to think she could take Diluc, I guess? Who often gets presented in fanon and a little bit in canon as the Ultimate Mondstadt badass.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

More cool action scenes! And also FIXING HER RELATIONSHIP WITH BARBARA.

---

VENTI

How I feel about this character

I like him! I have somehow ended up following and being followed by many Venti fans who love him much more intensely, and he's one of those characters I already like enough that I can be enjoyably swept up in that love, such that for the duration of the post I'm reading or the discussion we're having, I love him just as much. Then it goes back to 'sure, he's cool and I enjoy seeing him'. :> Which I definitely do.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Venti isn't a fandom bicycle for me just because he's not in my top faves, but he definitely would have the potential if he was. >> That said, Dvalin, Zhongli, and Xiao are the only people I regularly seek out pairing content with him for; I enjoy incidentally seeing him with pretty much any of the world's other immortal/long-lived-non-human characters and all the now-dead past character's he's been with, and he's fun with a lot of the Mondstadt characters as well. Honorable mention to Jean/Venti for occupying the same mental space as Venti himself: a pairing I'm not personally invested in but, while I'm talking to @esmeraldablazingsky and/or reading their stuff, am temporarily 110% high-enthusiasm about.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

Broadly speaking, his various friends over the centuries and, currently, especially Dvalin, but I will admit that my Thing for Jean means that I am most fascinated with his relationship with her (the only person in canon who knows him in both his forms and is still respectful! XD) and, by extension, Gunnhildrs of the past.

My unpopular opinion about this character

I again don't know enough about general fandom opinion to have one. XD;; Most of my opinions about Venti are accumulated from the people I follow who love him, and I haven't seen any general popular ones among them that I disagree strongly with!

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I put "Venti takes the Traveler to Celestia, or at least gives them a very strong hint and boost" in a lot of my speculative endgame scenarios because I feel like there are hints in canon that it COULD be what happens, and I really really hope that it WILL be. It feels like how the narrative around him should pay off, to me.

[alpaca-clouds]

Okay, let me explain!

Okay, you know what? Given that at least one person (hey there, @vengencefilledwriter) say after my shitpost yesterday, that they wanted to read about this... let me talk about how I very randomly started shipping Astarion with Themberchaud.

Because, yes. It is a crack ship in many ways. However, I will maintain that it actually totally makes sense.

And yes, Themberchaud is the chubby dragon from Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. I kinda talked about him a bit before (but tumblr search cannot be assed to show that to me), so...

See, me shipping the two arose from Wishing Well, the Astarion-centric longfic I am writing right now (which is also the sequel to Voice of the Voiceless). The story takes place about a year after the end of BG3 and centers around Astarion and Tav finally visiting the other vampire spawn, who in this have simply settled the Grymforge, after it was abandoned by the duergar.

Given the story takes place completely in the Underdark and features a conflict centered around the duergar, I thought it would be a fun little thing to have Themberchaud show up at some point as a cameo.

Yeah, I thought wrongly.

Because then I started the research on Themberchaud, and oh boy, let me tell you guys, this dragon is actually such a poor little blorbo who in truth just needs a big ol' hug!

Yes, yes, I see you there, muttering: "But red dragons are chaotic evil." To which I just say: "Sssssssh! Listen!"

Themberchaud...

Okay, even if you play DnD there is a very high chance that you never really encountered Themberchaud, because he is kinda locked into one place: Gracklstugh. The duergar city in the north of the underdark. And while the movie kinda plays his fatness as cute and funny, actually it is in his case super tragic!

See, Themberchaud is a slave. Because the duergar's masterful weapons can only be created in dragonfire, which is why for so many hundreds of years they have held themselves a dragon slave. The current one is Themberchaud.

Of course, given that dragons by nature have a rather big ego, they know well enough to not let him know that he is a slave. He has all the servants he wants, gets gold for his hoards and unlucky adventurers to feast on, and all they ask of him in return is that he keeps their forges running.

Well, and just to make extra sure that he plays along, they use some of the psychic powers they have gotten from their millennium of illithid enslavement to keep him content.

The fact that he got fed so much without having to hunt for it, is what made him so fat. And in fact that came as a bonus for the duergar, because the fact is, that Themberchaud has become so fat that he could no longer leave his hoard and hence very unabel to flee or fight back.

But dragons get stronger as they age and as such it becomes harder and harder to keep him controlled. Which is why he was supposed to suffer the same fate as all the other dragon slaves before: Get killed.

Something went wrong however. We just do not know what. Only that for some reason by the time the movie takes place, Themberchaud has somehow managed to escape Gracklstugh. But something is very clearly wrong with him. Because for one, he does not seem to have any capacity for reason in the movie - and also... his dragonfire somehow does not work. And remember: The duergar kept him for his fire.

Now, maybe his mind got just melted away by the psychic magic. Who knows. But yeah, that is the backstory there.

Okay, did I successfully get you invested in the story of the poor dragon? Yeah?

Hopefully. Let me just talk about why I ended up shipping him with the sad vamprie boy. Which kinda brings me back to why Themberchaud did not just remain a cameo in Wishing Well. Because I was planning the story and hence researching, I realized something: Astarion and Themberchaud are weirdly similar.

They both were slaves for around two hundred years and barely know anything but slavery.

Their respective masters used mindcontrol of them, which would logically lead to them both having trouble to even know who they are. Were they begin and the mind control end.

Both of them were abused by their masters through food. While Astarion was starved, Themberchaud was overfed. But both is still abuse through food!

Their enslavement ended through some circumstance (which for Themberchaud is still unknown) the plan of their respective masters to kill them failed.

Throughout their enslavement they were kept from the sun. (Note: While it is not explicitly said for Themberchaud that he wants to escape the underdark to see the sun, there is some implication for that.)

Like, those are actually fairly strong parallels. Something that undoubtedly was not intended by anyone, because I kinda doubt anyone at Larian even had Themberchaud in mind, when they were creating Astarion.

Never the less: Those are parallels.

And those parallels made me decide against the Themberchaud cameo......... in so far that instead of being a cameo, he literally becomes the sixth ranger in Wishing Well. Because he and Astarion pretty much talk to each other for like 1 hour and instantly are like: *scream* "BESTIES!!!" With Astarion afterwards being very unwilling to abandon the big dragon once more.

I will spare you the shenanigans that happen afterwards, but let me just put it like this: When they get granted a wish, Themberchaud gets turned into the more handy form of a dragonborn, which allows him to travel to the surface world. Because, you know, see the sun for himself.

Yes, yes, I hear you once again: "But that is just what happens in your fic!" Which, yes, sure. You are right. But you know what?

I still totally think that the two of them would totally at least platonically hit it off if they were ever going to meet. Because they just are so darn similar in their dramatic backstories as runaway slaves whose masters were trying to kill them.

Like, just look at all the bonding potential there!

What I love about it too, is that it has Astarion in the role of a caretaker for someone. Like, people (well, mostly Tav) took care of him, when he needed it and now he is capable to support someone else who has lived through similar shit.

You understand me? ALL THE HURT/COMFORT POTENTIAL!!! JUST LOOK AT ALL THE POTENTIAL?

And yes, in case you are wondering: No, Astarion does not break it off with my Tav in that stuff. Because polyshipping is a thing xD And that polycule is already just a bit bigger.

And, just... Look people. I JUST WANT MY BLORBOS TO BE HAPPY TOGETHER, ALRIGHT?! *feral*

[gffa]

for the character ask game! dick grayson: 5, 16, 25

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them? Lmao please don't ask me this question, because I have zero musical taste--and I don't mean I have bad musical taste, I mean I have no taste whatsoever, I barely listen to music, and I have no funny suggestions! (Mostly because I don't care for most of the ~jokes~ about his physical body.) 16. What's your least favorite ship for this character? Fandom has made it extremely hard to like a lot of other Dick ships because literally half the fandom can't stop tearing down Dick/Babs to build up their ship, which means there's nothing there for me to like, all it does is make me think there's not much there, if the only content to come up with is ranting about another ship. Nobody's obligated to like Dick/Babs, nobody's even obligated to not rant about it, I know where my scroll button is, but also all it does is push me further away from the ship that was supposedly being sold in that post, because it seems like an unfun place to be. But my actual least favorite ship for Dick is probably Bruce/Dick because it's so close to what I want out of that relationship, except also a thousand miles away from it! Honestly, one of my oldest friends is a Bruce/Dick shipper and the overlap we have of views on the characters is probably like 85%, we just diverge on how that plays out and we both feel extremely strongly about how we dislike the other path, but that we respect the other person being on it. We both are really into the fucked up entanglement of the characters, the mirroring aspect they have of each other, the belief that the other is the pure version of who they're meant to be, the frustration of how much they love the other while also being mad at them for the distance between them, the co-dependent disaster relationship, etc. All of that is the same for both of us, we just diverge on the context for it. Which is fine in our friendship, we meet in the middle, but there have been times when I feel like the ship would be so delicious for me, because it would tunnel vision in on those aspects I like, but the thought of them so much as even smooching makes me look like I bit into a lemon. How dare fandom almost give me what I want and then take it away from me!!!! Like, I don't actually care that it exists as a ship, fiction is not in a 1:1 relationship with reality and I think a lot of us get blinded by how modern comics go hard on the father & son aspect, which I am into and think is fair to evolve them into, but that wasn't always true and it's not like Bruce/Dick came out of nowhere. It just denies me personally what I want and therefore it it is The Worst For Me Personally And Thus Jail For DC Fandom For One Thousand Years!!!! 25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now? Dick Grayson is my longest running Blorbo, like that guy invented Blorboism for me, before I ever had such a name for the concept. Dick Grayson has been my One True Character for 20+ years, nobody has ever unseated him, not Anakin, not Obi-Wan, not Thor, not Usagi, not Duo, not Tezuka, NONE OF THEM that I've lost my mind about. Dick Grayson came on the scene for me when I first watched B:TAS and hit my tiny little baby brain with his daddy issues on display and excellent Nightwing design in later episodes and the push-and-pull relationship with Babs and my fannish life has never been the same since. "That it. That's him. That's the one. That's the character I'm going to obsess over for the rest of my life." I must have said when I first saw him and I HAVE NOT BEEN PROVEN WRONG YET.

[ouroboros-hideout]

WIP WHENEVER, WHEREVER

(we are meant to be together shakira shakira)

@olath124 tagged me for this, thanks friend!

Still rather low on content or WIPs I can show but it's something

ART

Don't know if I would call it art actually but I am currently making myself some Discord emojis of Aon aka Knife Queen aka Blorbo Girl.

That's the first one I got done. Because smirking is very important 👆 will do 3 or 4 more I guess. Laughing, something sad, angery and what ever inspiration brings along the way.

VP

The Dogtown Noir pics where fun to do but I noticed real quick that I need a lot of focus to get some good shots. And I don't have that most of the time. I heard there is actually a city outside of Dogtown KEK maybe I will go there next and do some photos 💫

WRITING

Putting this last so no one is forced to read the wall of txt. I still have a lot of unfinished ramblings but nothing that would make sense to show. I started to write some small bits for my own amusement and positive vibes based upon a soft OTP promt list (or what ever it was called). It's only stupid conversations and I think it's nothing for AO3, so probably just throw it here whenever I finished one.

Write about your ship getting dressed up in fancy outfits together:

"Oh my god I hate this so much..."

Aon pulled on his black bolero jacket and looked at herself in the mirror next to the large closet in Kurt's apartment on the top floor of the Sapphire with an unimpressed expression.

"You don't like what I've chosen for you?" Kurt asked, still beeing busy in the bathroom.

"No... yes. I mean. No, I don't like all of this." She grimaced a little more and turned around to look at the elegant suit trousers and expensive shoes she would be wearing tonight.

"Fancy clothes, putting up with brainless snobs at glamorous parties. Pretending to care about what they do and who they are. I really don't know why you like that so much."

"You'll have fun, I'm sure of it." Kurt came back to the main room and took his leather harness, which was still lying on the bed, and put it around his shoulders. He chose a more elegant garment than usual for tonight aswell, as Alyona had demanded, but he wasn't going to abandon all of his military habits.

"I'll have fun at the bar. I know that for sure."

She was still tugging at the jacket, as if she was trying to minimize the revealing neckline of the top.

"And you had to pick something so provocative, didn't you? Well, at least it's not a glittery cocktail dress. You could have worn that yourself."

Kurt laughed heartily at the last comment, took a few steps over to her and fastened the last buttons on the collar of his black shirt.

"You look fantastic."

That didn't really convince her.

"Oh, shut the fuck up. I feel like I'm playing dress-up."

Kurt was now standing behind her, looking in the mirror with her, still smiling.

"Well, in a way, we do, don't we? If you want to get close to your prey, you have to wrap yourself in it´s fur."

Aon let out an amused snort. "You're such a poet Kurt, it's almost unbelievable," she replied sarcastically.

"Still, I'm glad you decided to come along. I don't think it will do you any harm to see something other than the workshop." He put his hands on her hips and leaned forward a little. At least he liked the sight of the two of them in the mirror.

"Hmmm, what I wouldn't give to spend all night fixing that Chimera-Junk gathering dust in your warehouse...", she replied with a playfully dreamy tone.

"You enjoyed the evening at the Totentanz. You can't deny that."

"You're seriously comparing your fancy-pants party to the thing at the Totentanz?"

"It was a party, you didn't want to go and you ended up enjoying it."

"Maybe because even the smallest circute in Maelstrom is a more interesting conversation partner than everyone you've invited today."

Kurt leaned a little closer to her.

"If you decide to stay here after all, I want you to come to every party. Not because I like to see you suffer, but because then I would finally have something to look forward to in the evening. Pleasant company and someone I can rely on."

"Don't get too excited. I might already have a plan to ruin everything."

"That doesn't matter. It would definitely still be a night to remember because you were with me."

Her face twisted into a grimace.

"Damn, you're such a suck-up. No wonder you've got all these snobs eating out of your hand."

"But the difference is that I mean my compliments to you seriously."

Kurt couldn't help but laugh again when he noticed Aon blushing and quickly turning away from the mirror so he wouldn't notice.

"Okay, let's get going. The sooner we get there, the sooner I can say I've tried long enough."

She hastily disengaged from his embrace and walked straight towards the door.

He followerd her right away.

"You stay until the end. I'll tell the bartender to keep you 'entertained'."

Think most of the ppl I would tag have already shown their awesome stuff lately so I will skip this time. See you next time!

[bidonica]

Oooh man I have quite the backlog to go through here not only because I finished the playthrough nearly a week ago at this point, but also because we're entering boss fight, epic cutscene, emotional confession, shameless blorbo thirsting at this point, and we're starting from this totally non ominous landmark at the edge of the map

(Previous adventures in pizza delivery: a Death Stranding playthrough blog)

This is the activation key for the chiral network? Surely nothing dark behind the fact it's a literal BB pod... like they would never put a real baby in here, haha so silly to even think of it

Probably my favorite Norman face in the whole game? At least top 3

Now what was the point of putting up this breathy, slutty intonation for this prelude to the boss fight. Who made that decision and what am I supposed to do with it? Be normal?

Most genuinely grotesque BT you meet

Real talk tho, a thing about Higgs is that he seems the only character who is aware he's in a videogame (save maybe for Amelie and her "Mario and Princess Beach") so he will make this sort of inside joke a lot. Since I'm actually a pretty mediocre player, he asked me "should we lower the difficulty?" embarassingly often... But it also made me think of his Fleabag wink at the camera in the DS2 trailer. We stan a genre aware loser

Speaking of DS2... I said it before and I'll say it again, the mere thought of the Sam and Lou relationship being ruined makes me SPIRAL I mean look at her!!! She's ready to throw hands for her momdad! Nobody loves Sam Porter Bridges as much as BB Lou

Feminism leaving my body,

Sam: *literally almost died, is so exhausted he can barely stand*

Die-Hardman in his airpods: come on Sam aren't you excited to go to the BEACH? Chop chop! The early bird gets the worm!

Well I made Sam take a nap in the private room because I am not a monster.

Coming soon: another Higgs boss fight!, Damn bitch you live like this??, DAD?????, My Sister Has A Lot To Say, a devastatingly emotional scene that makes me cry without fail, bonus content with Metal Gear elements that creates a few continuity problems!

[antimony-medusa]

This is just me rambling about fandom trends cause I wanted to inflict it on my timeline instead of people's DMS.

Okay so I kinda stopped reading SBI for a while, except for my especial subscriptions (got burned out on tommy-centric), and then I got invited into a friend server with a bunch of new young writers and dipped my toe back into what's going on in the genre. Staring around the room like "what's happened while I was buried in a spreadsheet? Oh my."

And it has been FASCINATING.

First of all like, there's just like, a lot of Dark SBI, to the point that it seems like more than when I last checked? Which I don't have a problem with, but it's always very interesting to me because that seems very much like a reaction to fandom trends, more than canon? Like people get tired of a certain dynamic (foster aus! good dad phil! exploration of canon!) and decide they want something else. And what they want is kidnapping, which like. That's an honourable tradition in fiction, o7. Seems like a lot of kidnapping to me, but you do you.

Also, on the other side of the coin, there's also a lot of tooth-rotting-fluff, similarly focused in on like— okay like a lot of that was crimeboys, which is a canon dynamic, but once you add in the pet names and like, platonic kissing, that's not streamer dynamic either, that's a new third thing which is made up by the fandom. Neither of those boys are that open about their emotions, you made that one up. This isn't canon-compliant OR RPF, it's a secret third thing.

Like I can't stress enough that this characterization, in the trends taken as a whole, is neither drawn from canon nor from non-lore streamer, this is something else entirely. Tommy is very sad and baby and cries a lot, and Techno looms and doesn't make jokes and calls people "runt" a lot, and Wilbur is very clingy (and emotionally intelligent in the fluff and sometimes for evil reasons in the dark)— phil doesn't tend to get much characterization except sometimes murder, which honestly I cheer on whole-heartedly.

It just seems to me that this is very much fandom reaction to fandom? Like it's fic in conversation with other fic and other characterizations and filling in the gaps with other fic. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of these writers don't follow the streamers and don't watch their ongoing content, and don't go back to the lore streams either. It's just all recursive fic. And I'm not saying that as a bad thing, just as a thing that makes me go Oooo, huh. Look at that.

Which is interesting to me as we look at not getting more DSMP content in the future, to see if we end up with a self-sustaining little fandom engine cause for me (techno-centric), I'm not getting any more lore content, but for some of this fandom (subscribed to a bunch of writers who post once a week) they're getting new content about their blorbos all the time. Their blorbos that again, I have to stress, were made up by the fandom and have minimal relationship to the streamers or the lore.

Okay and that is all stuff that makes sense to me— it's fic of fic, it's responding to fic trends, characterization has drifed from the source text and settled into a fanon canon. Now we get into the thing that makes me go ???????

Which is that everyone seems to be doing father-son relationships now? And not really Dadza, which at least I'm like, okay, sometimes phil is dad-like specifically to tommy, but Dadbur and Dadnoblade? Which makes me go?????? Tommy gets aged down to like 9-14 or something, so he's sad baby, and then techno or wilbur is a nebulous Adult, and then they have either a dark or a joyous found family moment with cuddles in.

And okay I've been hanging out over in emduo-centric and broad-dsmp-cast with dips into hermitcraft, I full on record-scratched when I hit technodad for the first time.

APPERANTLY, I hear from other people, dadbur stories just spiked through the roof after the utah ending, which made me go???? I guess the idea is that you could walk away from a brotherly relationship but not from a parental relationship? Which uh, as someone who's seen what happens in the bad dad phil tag I hate to break it to you, but, anyways, you do you.

And if there's dadbur, they have to get techno in with that. Guys there is so much technodad now. It's bedrock bros but they're not bros any more. Tommy is baby and Techno takes care of him. Serious dad technoblade.

And the best theory I have for what's happening is that this is twitter-driven, because you want that close relationship with affection, but you're realllllllly scared of anyone saying Shippping, so by making it a parental relationship you're even more platonic? It's either platonic-driven or just a need to make tommy soooooo baby and a dad will take care of him more than a brother will? But again, a dad can do that and still be platonic, where if it's just a brother that will be too much?

I can cling frantically to logic and follow a thread through to where I'm like okay, I guess that makes sense, but oh man as someone who barely even thought it made sense when people dad-coded Phil, I see Technodad and I go HEH???

Anyways, that has been my last few weeks of avoiding my deadlines by reading what the fandom babies in discord recommend. Discovering new levels of fanon characterizations and so much dad-coding. My WIPs are going well.

[aita-irl]

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[wajjs]

Do you have any tips or advice for how to find friends or a community in DC fandom when your blorbos are less well-known characters? I’d love to start writing and interacting, but everyone else seems to already have their friend groups with lots of private in-jokes, and any discords I can find seem exclusively Batfam-focused. I’d love to start participating, but I’m never the person who anyone in fandom reaches out to or wants to have around, and I’m worried DC fandom is just going end up being lonely and miserable for me. So far I’ve tried posting a couple of writing snippets, but no one cared, which I don’t think bodes all that well. But is there anything I can do to make sure it goes better and that I actually find people to connect with?

This is kind of an unpopular opinion, but if you ask me, writing is perhaps THE LEAST successful way to get people to talk to you. Writers aren't usually popular to begin with, unless you hit the fandom jackpot and become a BNF (big name fan) via having a super super popular fic. It's simply not something that happens often.

Leaving that aside, don't be discouraged. Tumblr in general is extremely Bat - centric to the point that unrelated DC character tags are regularly spammed with annoying Batman content; I know this is disappointing and disheartening, but it's not all there is to DC comics fandom.

When I started making the transition and slowly getting more into DC, my go to step was to... openly and honestly interact with the people that seemed to be equally as open, and friendly. I would leave lots of comments on ao3, follow them on tumblr, send asks off anon, interact in the notes, tag people in tag games. Everything that I could use to make friends, I used.

We all start as newbies and "breaking in" when you notice all these groups and cliques is hard. It is really hard. It took me a long time to form the friend group I have now (my polycule 💚) and that I wouldn't give up for anything.

My best advice is that, you gotta make yourself known to others by engaging with others. Starting things out by asking people to engage with you first is only going to make things feel harder and lonelier.

There ARE smaller groups of fans that are adamant about NOT being Bat exclusive. You gotta find your niche and go at it with love and respect, of course.

(There is the issue that DC comics fandom as a whole has a bit of a problem with puritanical/anti shipping fans, and these fans are more vocal in these smaller groups. Be on the lookout for that if that's not something you like.)