#but I'm new to the fandom and honestly so baffled at how many people love Eddie

[aceofwands]

Yeppppp to all of this!! 👏

"I understand that Eddie is a complex character and that there are reasons for the way he acts." honestly, as someone who came into this show fresh and binged all of it over the last couple months, is he and are there?? because his character consistently makes no damn sense to me!

I was genuinely looking forward to his backstory ep cause I thought finally we'll understand why he's been acting the way he has, we'll see why he fucked off to join the military instead of staying with his wife and child, we'll gain new insight into why his relationship with Shannon was such a mess, we'll understand his motivation and his family background and why he chose to join the military as his way of escaping - and then we got literally none of that!

and thank you for bringing up how damaging it was to move Chris, who he barely knew at that point, away from his family and support network in Texas in order to chase after Shannon (and then not actually let her back into Chris's life for months) - cause I've seen some people say things to the effect of "now his (Eddie's) parents got what they always wanted!!" as if it's a bad thing that they wanted to continue to support their grandchild who they had been raising???? especially when Eddie is a single parent working a dangerous job that requires 24 hour shifts, like there was nothing we saw that suggested they were bad people that Chris needed to be taken away from ffs

and it's been genuinely baffling having the show constantly tell us what a "good dad" he is while consistently showing us otherwise - usually by calling in Buck to do basic stuff like *checks notes* having a conversation with his own son

it's honestly been wild having the show actually acknowledge what a mess Eddie is and have Chris put his foot down, because it's like yeah, finally a genuine reaction to all this batshit behaviour!!

People acting like Eddie has been the best dad you can ask for like...

Eddie has been unstable for a while. Chris has been in an unstable household for seasons.

There is no question that Eddie love Christopher or that Chris loves his dad.

But Eddie is not a good parent.

Eddie left after Shanon felt pregnant when they were both teens to join to army, a job that famously takes you away from your family for years.

Eddie left a young pregnant woman alone and then demanded that she give him space after he returned from the Army and asked him to literally just parent their son.

Eddie made Chris leave his entire environment that he grew up after he was barely building a relationship with him.

Eddie had multiple meltdowns infront of Christopher that he never really to our knowledge even communicated to his son.

Eddie joined an illegal fight club because he saw no other way to deal with his emotions.

Eddie let multiple women get attached to Chris, let Chris start to build a relationship with them, including rebuilding a relationship with his mother, only to dump them when things got to serious for him.

Eddie had a series of panic attacks that as far as I can remember was never openly communicated to his son.

Eddie was injured multiple times on his job and nearly died. He then used Chris as an excuse to leave said job, seemingly never communicating with his child about if that was actually what said child wanted or how he could make his child feel better about the risks that came with the job.

Eddie has made multiple seemingly rash decisions that he never communicated with the people that were involved (putting Buck in his will, moving Marisol in and out.)

I understand that Eddie is a complex character and that there are reasons for the way he acts.

However they are not justifications for what he puts his child through and if you have to argue that Eddie still loves his kid above all you are exactly using the kind of gaslighting that abusive parents use to justify the horrible actions they do to their kids.

Eddie is not a good parent. Eddie has shown he can be. However throughout the show Eddie has never been a good example of parenthood and he has been unstable for years.

His son is allowed to demand more. Chris is allowed to be angry at everything that his father has put him through and continues to put him through because Eddie refuses to seek help or work on himself long enough for change to set in.

Christopher is a child that deserves to voice how he feels. Chris deserves to live with who he feels most comfortable with. Chris deserves to be in a household of his choosing where he thinks he will be the most safe to grow up in.

[putschki1969]

I read all that drama from that person on the blog, I'll just say as a joke "what did this guy smoke to say all that that didn't make sense to me, honestly" I'll ask you a question, do you think they'll invite Kajiura in the end? Do you think the girls will sing the songs from the next Madoka movie?Whatever happens, I will support you and always love you. It hurts to see how quiet you have been. I forgot to say hello to you. I'm sorry, I hope you are well, dear. Take care of yourself.

Hello there, anon! I'm fine, thank you. Still focusing on the good things. I refuse to give in to all the negativity around me. Everyone who dares to throw insults or accusations at the girls will instantly get blocked by me. There's zero tolerance for this sort of behaviour in my little corner of fandom. So far, this is how I've managed to stay sane.

Ah yes, the whole thing with this blog is pretty crazy. It's no wonder the author deleted everything again. Everyone, be sure to read my DETAILED ANALYSIS here. While some things were certainly rooted in fact, most of it was just speculation and gossip.

As for your questions (please be aware that I don't enjoy speculations so my answers won't be very elaborate):

[D]o you think they'll invite Kajiura in the end? It would be appropriate to invite her. She has been there for some of Kalafina's most important lives so I would want her to experience their reunion live as well. I don't know if it's possible though with the current hostilities between Space Craft and Yuki Kajiura. I am definitely not one of the people who think Yuki needs to have a key role in the production of the concert. The truth is, Yuki has rarely played a huge role in Kalafina's live productions, especially when their live shows became bigger. That's why it baffles me that so many fans seem to believe that this concert will be a total mockery/failure without Yuki's involvement. What I'm trying to say is that I personally don't need her as producer/director but I'd definitely want to see her in the audience or backstage.

Do you think the girls will sing the songs from the next Madoka movie? No idea. I know many fans are quite invested in this particular topic but I don't really care all that much. For the time-being I just want this reunion/tribute live to happen with as little drama as possible. Whether they decide to resume their activities as a group or they go back to their solo work, is entirely up to them. I would like it if they did a few Kalafina lives every once in a while, at a variety of venues, with different productions and arrangements. I certainly wouldn't mind if they started to release new music but I'm still not sure if it would be a good idea to go down that path without involving Yuki Kajiura. I'm afraid 90% of fans would not accept that. I am probably one of the few people who will be supporting Kalafina no matter what. I am pretty sure I would like new music from them even if it wasn't written by YK because my love for Kalafina as a group goes far beyond my appreciation for Yuki Kajiura's music. I just love the girls themselves, their vocals and their harmony. However, if they end up releasing new music written by someone else, it is unlikely to be used in the Madoka movie. I mean, YK is doing the soundtrack so having Kalafina sing a theme/insert song would be a little awkward if she wasn't in charge of the composition. It's possible of course but it would lead to a further deterioration of the situation. Maybe if they manage to clear up some of that tension, a collaboration is possible but right now, I don't see how it would work out. Also, there's a possibility that a song has already been recorded for the movie. Many fans are speculating that the studio picture from a few weeks ago featuring Kaori, rito, Yuriko and Keiko might have been a recording for a big project (based on the fact that everyone is super secretive about it). Guess we have no choice but to wait and see...

It hurts to see how quiet [they] have been. Yes! It's killing me. I really hope that in the upcoming FJS radio broadcast, Yuki will address the matter so people can finally calm down. By now, Yuki must know how much turmoil she has caused with her statement and her follow-up tweets are proof that she's eager to take the heat off. But there needs to be something more substantial and genuine than a couple of half-assed tweets. The way this radio broadcast has been announced out of the blue with only a day for fans to send in questions gives me hope that this is her way of damage control. Ideally, the girls will start posting again as soon as everything has calmed down again. For the concert to be a success, they need to be able to do some proper promo work. We need as many posts and videos as possible! For now, it's just the FC lotteries with the core fan base applying for tickets. Many of us don't need much convincing but there are certainly a lot of other fans who are currently not planning to attend the concert so they need to be won over somehow. Not that I would necessarily want those pseudo-fans to be there but unfortunately, someone needs to fill that 8k capacity venue...

[spot-of-tea]

My take on shipping

So this is something of a rant and may end up quite long so I apologise but I've been seeing a lot of anti-shipping going and some general hate towards other creators for simply enjoying this amazing work we've all come to love in their own way.

That being said this blog in particular is a safe place for people to ship whoever they like because at the end of the day (as much as we don't want it to be) this is a fictional world and these are fictional characters.

I love personally ship of the more popular ships like nalu and gruvia, but that's just me and how I interpret the story. Yes I'm not a huge fan of other ships like gratsu but I don't go out of my way to look for that content and if it comes across my dash my first thought is "huh that's different, not my cup of tea, but different" then I move on.

It baffles me that some people waste their energy on spewing hatred towards others simply because they don't like the same things they do. I've read so many fics where I've been sceptical of the pairings but have actually ended up enjoying because it was a new and refreshing take on these beloved characters. I've also read fics where I ended up not enjoying the pairing or I found it distracting but I simply closed the tab and didn't look back.

Honestly we stunt our own enjoyment of this by only sticking to what we like instead of experimenting with the material we've been given. If we're only ever spewing hatred and arguing then no one is creating anything new and the whole fandom turns into a toxic swamp, which is sad for those of us that actually want to create and share their creations.

[baejax-the-great]

Hi! I just wanted to combat that anon (fuck them btw) and say I ADORE your fics.

I’ve plagued everyone to tears in my life over broken oaths and water in the dawn. Your premises never fail to go hard asf. And your prose? It absolutely baffles me how you write so fast when the quality is just next level, and your characterisation of patrochilles? Ugh it scratches such an itch in my brain, you just Get Them.

I recently logged into my ao3 to read sweet victory and realised most of your fics have availability set to logged in users only. Omg I was like a kid on christmas. I have so much reading to do!!!

Your work is incredible, and brings me so much joy. Have a great day!

Hey, thank you! (but also don't worry about that anon. Pretty sure I know who that is and they have a very weak understanding of appropriate behavior (or how to get under my skin for that matter))

Patrochilles crawled into my brain and sleeps there. Prior to them, I can't say I had much interest in Greek myth. I played Hades, someone suggested I read tsoa, I read the Iliad, became obsessed with Ajax somewhere in the middle of that, and two years later, here we are (366k words on the archive???). I like to joke that the muses still wake up every few years and target a random person with "Okay, it's your turn to make sure his glory is eternal like we promised" and then go back to sleep. And possibly the one I got was confused and hit me with the Ajax beam, too.

I also think when Troy (2004) came out, the muses had to work overtime to fix that egregious error

I'm mostly joking. I tend to think of these Greek heroes as the OG comic book characters. Over the years, so many authors have taken a crack at them with their own biases, preferences, and interpretations. Some shit gets retconned. Some new stuff gets canonized. People debate over it. Except those debates end up on jstor instead of reddit or twitter or whatever.

Obviously, though, as one of the current people writing about these guys, I'm right and my cultural biases have no role in influencing my perfect understanding of their characters (/s).

It was interesting going from Hades game, where Patroclus is so snarky and dry, to the Iliad, where when he finally speaks, it's to literally cry with tears streaming down his face to Achilles. I was thinking to myself, well, I'm fine with Supergiant inventing this part of him and I'll keep it for myself. And then he had the best trash talk of all the Achaeans. I had actually put my book down to text a friend "the trash talk in this book absolutely sucks; humans clearly didn't have that down yet" and then the next line was Patroclus telling everyone to shut the fuck up because he was with me on that one. And then he wrecks Hector's shit verbal-style while blind and dying. Love that guy.

Anyway this is all to say many interpretations are good! Except for Troy (2004) and the one where Achilles considered Patroclus his mommy. It's cool to see how people take small details from a 3k yo book and turn it into full characterizations. Less cool to learn just how badly Ajax's original story got warped. I'm super happy these guys inspired me to write so much in the past couple years and that the fandom has honestly been one of the most interesting and engaged that I've come across.

As for the archive-lock, I tend to keep my active WIPs open to guest readers and then lock them after they've been finished for a little while. It's probably not terribly effective, but my hope is this limits some of the constant scraping being done of the archive.

[spookystarfishzombie]

Just a little 'hello & welcome to my blog' post.

Most people have a pinned introduction post & I thought I should probably get on that. This will also double up as a FAQ post too.

Also, if you wanna buy me tea, you can -> (green tea of course)

First & foremost: FREE PALESTINE! I won't hear any different, go argue with a wall (no it's not performative, as I have been accused of in the past (all because I criticised an actor), I've attended marches, signed petitions, written to my local MPs, attended meetings & help set up fund raising events, so fuck off with your 'performative activism' buzz words, I'm not here for it). As I run a Stranger Things page, it's worth noting that I do not support the zi0nists in the show, most notably No*h Schnapp (tagged as 'he who shall not be named) & Br*tt Gelman (tagged as 'other he who shall not be named'. I honestly think he's down right insane). If you are one of these people that venomously supports them then this page isn't for you. You're not welcome here. And since some children in the fandom can't tell the difference between criticism and hatred, I don't hate these people (well maybe Gelman because he's actively causing my community a terrible reputation), I hope that through education and compassion they see how wrong & hurtful their words have been. Thankfully, I've been educated my whole life about isr*el through the Holocaust legacy we have in our family, my great grandmother having survived it and actively fought against the idea of isr*el, how it's just going end up brainwashing so many youths into thinking they can just turf indigenous people from their literal homes. I've unfortunately been to isr*el when I was a child because my dead beat father seemed to think it was a good idea, even if my beloved great-grandmother pleaded with him not to. Luckily my mom did the right thing and left him and my step-father has been great. He used to blindly support isr*el until he finally educated himself and has felt terrible that this was his mindset for so long. Change can happen, but you need to detangle yourself from isr*el's cluthes and realise that it's more important to protect the real indigenous people of Palestine. Listen to the Rabbi's out in the streets, protesting. Listen to the Jewish Community when we tell you that Zi0nism is a dangerous thing that has weaponised Judaism and played the victim to use as a shield ... okay that got heavy. Moving on!!!!!

Secondly, Hi, I'm Kay (she/her), I'm a veteran of Tumblr, unfortunately. I love watching films, I love to draw, read and have green fingers, yes I'm a plant mama, I just love plants. My prized plant is my monstera because she started off so small & now she's doubled in size. So happy! I also put the B in LGBTQ, I'm very proud of the bi community & love being part of it (biphobes, especially within the queer community, are truly baffling to me - so take your biphobia elsewhere, or better yet, you know, educate yourself? It's not a hard thing to do). I also have crippling anxiety and I'm irritatingly shy, I wish I wasn't but I've always been shy, so if you want to talk to me, you're going to have to be the one to reach out otherwise I'm radio silent (I'm working on it). I'm a millennial, so if you're a minor, sorry, I won't be forging friendships. But you're awsome, just know that!

I used to have Texts From Last Night (TFLN) blog for Stranger Things a few years back that was basically the same as this blog (except back then I had thousands of followers *sigh*). I deleted it because a) people were annoying about it, b) people didn't seem to understand that this wasn't to be taken seriously and c) I got chased off the site because apparently labelling Mike as bi was a death sentence. I said fuck it, and deleted. I started it around when season 2 came out & deleted just before season 4. But I'm hoping the fandom is a little more mature now & I can start up with a fresh, new Stranger Things TFLN blog again, mainly because I miss making edits. Making edits helps take my focus off my anxiety. Yay anxiety.

I take texts from the site Texts From Last Night (it's no longer being maintained, unfortunately), then I take screencaps from my own laptop or from a site called screencapped, then throw it altogether (if you want to look at the site for yourself, just a trigger warning, some of the texts are either gross or bigoted - so just a heads up, I obviously filter out those ones from my blog, I don't want that on here).

I do sometimes edit the original TFLN to fit the screencap, so if the original TFLN mentions a name, I'll change the name to say, for example, Lucas or Nancy. I'll change it if it includes ages & place names too, just to fit with Stranger Things. I also sometimes add my own Text to make it flow smoother, for example this one with Steve & Eddie (the post), the original TFLN only had the 'Eddie' part but I didn't think it flowed well, so I made up a 'Steve' text with a made up area code, so it made more sense that 'Eddie' was responding to 'Steve' rather than just having it as a stand alone text (I really over-complicate my descriptions, huh?).

The numbers on the posts are area codes, and the texts aren't colour coded, I just use what ever colour stands out against the background. I also don't do it by ships; I'll find a text that I think is funny and find a screencap that roughly matches up, so please don't request ship/character posts. I'll maybe do submissions at a later date, where you can send in your funny texts but right now, I'm just making my way through the TFLN site.

Not a particularly interesting introduction post but there you go. I ain't got much to say, I guess. But I will say thanks for your support so far on here, you guys seem to be enjoying the posts and that's all that really matters. Much love!

Kay

x

[benevolenterrancy]

Fic author interview!

Thanks for tagging me @morporkian-cryptid I'm taking a leaf out of your book and being a bit late responding, oops ;;; (also, like my last one, posting this on my art/writing blog despite getting tagged on my other blog :P)

@meso-mijali @rose-of-pollux @yarrayora @sorrel-scribbles @auxiliarydetective @pazithigallifreya

1 How many works do you have on AO3?

76!

2. What��s your total AO3 word count?

667,467 apparently, which feels like way more than I expected. Then again, I also didn't expect to have seventy six fics on there either...

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Lost In Translation (7,256 kudos) An Overwatch fic. I was baffled when it did as well as it did while I was actively posting it and frankly I'm not sure how to deal with the fact that it's still head and shoulders above every other fic I've written. I think it must be from people sorting by kudos and creating a weird positive feedback loop.

How To Torment Cats (And Witchers) (2,124 kudoes) A very light-hearted Witcher one-shot with Ciri and Dandelion

Standard-Issue (1,143 kudos) Another Overwatch fic, this one about McCree's recruitment into Overwatch

Sunlight and Sea Foam (1,102 kudos) A Witcher mermaid!au. This one I'm still pretty pleased with, it was a lot of fun to write.

Mark My Place (952 kudos) A post-canon MDZS fic in which I get to lavish love on Wei Wuxian! A pretty impressive kudo count given that it's only a few months old

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Generally I try to! I really appreciate getting comments and I want to let people know that <3 Fandom is the most fun when it's a community and the only way to get that is to actually connect with people. Also I personally appreciate it when an author responds to comments when a new chapter drops because it helps me keep track of fic updates, so I often do that too for on-going stories :3

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

I don't really go in for anything without a happy ending ^^;; Maybe In My Hands I Held The World purely because I didn't finish it and stopped writing in the middle of the all the hurt and never made it to the comfort? Or Promises Misconstrued just by virtue of it.... well, being what it is.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

We only believe in happy endings here!! I really couldn't narrow it down, I like a happy ending... The Celestial Shell Game was a pretty recent one MDZS fic that was just pure post-canon fix-it and reconciliation and lightly bullying the juniors

7. Do you write crossovers?

I do from time to time, but most aren't ever cleaned up or completed to the point of posting -- they're just Fun For Me fics.

My only completed crossover is a Torchwood/MASH fic called An Officer's Guide to Surgery, Shelling & Pterosaurs. It was honestly just a wild ride to write. Very proud of how that one turned out

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

A bit, but not for years. The only one I specifically remember was someone who was very unhappy that I wasn't including individual chapter content warnings, I guess because they've never read a novel?

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Not often, I am Very Ace, but it does happen occasionally. Bound and Held was my most recent one, which was really just 20k of pure kink exploration because Geralt and Dandelion just have the vibe

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so...

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

One! An old Les Mis fic got translated into Chinese years back :3 that was very flattering that someone would want to go to that amount of effort

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Me and @meso-mijali will co-write stuff from time to time, but nothing that's ever made it to completion. I do use her relentlessly to help me solve plot dilemmas (or make new plot dilemmas, depending on how things are going)

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Could not tell you, 100% depends on sort of mood I'm in sorry xD I bounce all over the place. At the moment I am deeply into wangxian, to the surprise of no one following me on tumblr at the moment

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Well, any of my three current fics I'd love to make some progress on >:/ but I'm still hopeful about getting them finished, albeit slowly and painfully. I have a Hogan's Heroes dating sim that me and @meso-mijali have been working on but the longer it goes undone the more I suspect it never will be *sigh* it took so much planning but it's hard to pick up again in the middle. I also had a Lupin soulmate au called Mosiac that I feel bad about dropping. I still quite like the concept but I'm stuck on where to go next with it...

15. What are your writing strengths?

Uhh... I dunno, there must be something because people seem to enjoy my work well enough but I'll be damned if I know what it is. I think I write high intensity, sensory-based scenes pretty well? At least I like doing them a lot. And I get complimented on my character voices sometimes, so hopefully that!

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

Pacing >:/ I will ramble and ramble and ramble and then need to go back and cull things until I have a fic that's even halfway readable. It's so hard to get good pacing down.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Big fan, I'm always here for a bilingual bonus. Either I understand it and get a little thrill out of it or else I just google translate it real quick. As for me writing it I generally don't because I don't want to fuck it up beyond reason... sometimes I might dabble with French if it's character appropriate.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Les Mis! I'm too terrified to reread anything from my Les Mis era because god only knows what my writing was like back then, but it was such a warm and welcoming fandom it's what finally gave me the nerve to starting engaging in fandom space as more than observer

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

...I'm not sure I have one, if I want to write about something I generally do, even if I don't get it to be "publishing" worthy... Maybe Hogan/Kinch? I really like that ship, but I've never written much Hogan's Heroes fic to begin with, I think I only have one published work, and I find it a hard one to write shippy things for

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Huh... I'm not sure. There a number of fics I've written that I still really really like and will reread (the author's amazing! she knows exactly what I like!) I'm really proud of my Torchwood/MASH crossover, it's my longest fic and took the highest level of technical skill to write. I also tend to reread A Poet Under Pressure fairly often because I do love tormenting Dandelion u.u

[super-hero-confessions]

little bizarre but also intriguing and disturbing to me.

but since there's (honestly way too much) discourse on becca butcher getting raped by homelander because of how people want to perceive/woobify homie as a character (despite all the horrible things he's confirmed to do on screen. lika y'all... raping becca is seriously not even close to the worst thing he's done like can we not ignore/forget about flight 37 and all the other shit for a hot minute?? why is *this* of all the shit where so many people draw the line???????)

anywho, it's interesting that the same people who woobify and love homie or make this same discourse about his character or try to say 'he's not written as a rapist' (seriously what the fuck, in the show yes he is, he's written as worse than just a rapist actually, by far) are also the same people who won't take a look at/dismiss the comics homie as lesser somehow??

i mean i get it sorta, he's not antony starr. but he's also not so far off character wise (starr does a great job bringing some core character elements to life *from the comics*) and honestly not as bad or sadistic as the show's version (at least not naturally/inherently...? that kinda only makes any real sense if ya actually read the comics... oh well). and wouldn't ya know it

comics homie *doesn't* rape becky.

he's just framed for it. like, and get this, he's *framed* for almost everything else too.

weird to me that there's so much discourse and woobifying or rape apologism or dismissal for show homie contrasted by genuine fear for even looking at comics homie, despite comics homie legit being more woobie than show homie and *actually* legit not having raped becky

leik why? why?? why even discuss or deny something confirmed in the show when you could just... read the fuckin' comic?? and go from there?

blows mah mind.

comics homie is a complex can a worms for sure, won't deny that. like the boy literally cries, curled up in fetal position because he can't understand why he's having so much trouble being the monster he's been made to believe that he is (doing bad things causes him literal mental breakdown because he's not used to it but believes he should be, contrast with show homie's breakdowns on the OPPOSITE spectrum of *wanting* to do bad things and being furious he *can't* even tho he'd have zero qualms about it)

but i guess i just don't understand why y'all bother even fixating on show homie having committed becca's rape when comics homie literally *not* having committed becky's rape is like... right there.

bitch... bitch, it's *RIGHT THERE*.

have seen maybe one or two fics actually explore this, tons and tons of rape apologist discourse trying to absolve homie or victim blame becca, and i'm utterly baffled by how full of shit it makes fandom look on a much bigger scale than it needs to be.

that's a fic idea right there i'm pretty sure has gotten a confession before. comics homie didn't rape becky and butcher was completely wrong about him from the beginning. what if instead of believing he was a monster and turning into one because butcher kept pushing, him and butcher actually worked to find out who really committed the crimes?

instead it's just more complaints on how show homie isn't written woobie enough for how some people want him?? what the dick???

y'all are basically complaining about him not being like comics homie while comics homie is. right. fuckin'. there. but y'all turn your noses up to him.

bitch.

and i gotta throw in a news flash cause like. show homie's gonna rampage. it's going to happen. that shit was predetermined, destiny and all that shit, and nothin's gonna stop it. and he will absolutely all the way destroy your little woobifyin' hearts. but i mean... it'll be glorious and i'll enjoy it. because i haven't ignored his writing or tried to draw a line in the sand for what he is or can be just to justify liking or sympathizing with him.

boi's a beloved monster. let's maybe not pretend.

but just like... how?

fandom... can y'all be a bit better? please? or just like. idk, maybe read the comic?

couple friends and i finally bit the bullet and did. unbridled rage, hella thoughts, so many feels, and needed breaks.

but no regerts.

[skypiea]

(I'm with you with regards to the "quite easily I like it" OP post btw! Just wanna make that clear ^^;;) I almost wonder if the gripes are like, in part people who see how the women are drawn and base All Their Opinions of the series on that. That or they got mad at the clown thing Tumblr did and just decided to hate the series for it. Or they're just a little hater, honestly anything can apply. I'm not a fan of OP, haven't seen a second of it to make a decision, but like. 5 or 6 (including you- im not just a random, im just really shy LOL) of my friends are, and the one thing keeping me off from watching it is the fact that it's one of the longest animes still going- And I almost wonder if that also has a part to play in the "lol how can u watch one piece" thing people have going on. Also, have you seen the bananawanis yet?? I don't go here but I love them.

Thanks for the message! I hope you don't mind a bit of rambling (all that I'm capable of, always).

The thing is, I think there are plenty of things to criticize about one piece. I’ve seen and had many thoughtful discussions about elements of the work that can easily be considered harmful stereotypes, as well as some well-intentioned ideas that I think were executed in a subpar and clumsy manner. Some of these are directly a result of the author being only 1 guy with 1 lived experience, some are the result of broader issues in the shonen genre.

And these discussions are great! Everyone is better off for having thought about these potentially damaging aspects deeper, and it’s incredibly important to be able to recognize that an author you respect and follow isn’t perfect and doesn’t need defending over every single thing. And at the same time, I fully respect anyone who has no interest in getting into the work because they don’t want to put up with any of the parts that are far from perfect.

Personally, what I can’t stand is the tone of condescension people are very quick to take… I do not fault anyone for not digging the show's visual style, it's not for everyone. But I don't really appreciate the implication that I'm like, stupid or misogynist or cumbrained just because I enjoy the work overall. Or even because I do enjoy Oda's art; I think he is a really talented artist, but elements of his stylization are not always my favorite, including both his general figures for both women and men. This is not even starting to mention the incredible talents of many of the individual animators who work on the one piece anime, who all put a lot of their own amazing flair into adapting the work.

On the topic of the latter thing, I've truly never understood the length being a barrier to the ability to enjoy the work. It's always really baffled me...? I don't know if it's like, people who are only interested in getting into OP specifically to interact with the fandom, but in my opinion there's no actual factor that makes you need to catch up to current as fast as possible. In my mind, having so much of a new thing is wonderful for me; I'll have a lot of great story to enjoy, I can take it at my own pace, enjoy watching a bit at a time for a long time. I guess everyone just wants to be done with something as fast as possible these days... Pretty sad... Make it last and enjoy it lots :-)

I've gone on for long enough, but basically, I couldn't care less if anyone doesn't enjoy the same thing that I enjoy a lot--that's life! I simply can't stand being treated like some sort of idiot for liking it, and I'm done basically agreeing with those kinds of people by giving them any ground. None of this is a super serious problem of course, just a pet peeve... but what is a blog for if not talking at length about my silly little pet peeves ;-)

Of course I adore the Bananawani, as well as all the other fun and silly animals of the one piece world. I hope we'll see them again one day, it's been so long... Here's one of my favorite one piece species for you, the Lapin. Love these guys.

To finish off, I'm just going to include one of my favorite recent pieces of one piece's animation. Hope everyone's havin a lovely day ^_^

[alarrytale]

Honestly I think L was just lighthearted joking because that’s how he always was before and this was like previous chats. It’s just his humor. The problem was the last chat went downhill quick. The Harries clearly found that chat last time because there was some truly vile things said before he went off the rails. The tone changed. I even get one thing negative and my guard is up, I can’t imagine being bombarded like that previous chat was. The vibe was also very different last time. Here he just seemed more relaxed and was on for a lot longer, even said goodbye. It’s hard to distinguish with written words than speaking though. Missing that valuable tone and facial expressions. I think there is a reason why everyone that meets L in person automatically love him. Some times humor doesn’t translate when it’s written and we all know the in person L is sweet but likes to joke around. Without seeing his smile immediately afterwards we think it’s deeper or ruder than it is. Last chat I agree it was rude but not this chat. It was like night and day. Today he’s wearing bucket hats, signing his 1D doll and marriage licenses and wearing friendship bracelets. He was definitely in more of a playful mood and excited to come back. Also I forgot how many people are new and don’t know about the “chicken in chile” video with Zayn and the “pew pew pew”. I thought that was 1D lore haha.

Hi, anon!

I agree that he's got a very sarcastic and sassy humour and he likes to joke around with fans, but it's usually done in a lighthearted way. He needs to gauge the mood of the fandom though. And he doesn’t. Since the last chat went to hell, he should have been a bit more careful and kind in his replies. Yes, tone and intention are hard to get across through written words. But when you have to actually tweet the word "sarcasm" as a reply you should know your fans doesn’t get you. I'm used to Louis' brand of humour and i usually find it funny, but on the line of being cruel. Last chat "Louis" was downright rude, cruel and unneccessary harsh. This time around it was better, but i still sense some antagonism in his tone as if he's on the defensive. Maybe it's because he doesn’t understand fandom humour or how hurtful he was in his last chat.

Anyway, plenty of people would love to be roasted by Louis on twitter, so i don't think the majority cares. A notice is a notice. I'm just baffled he's daring to be sarcastic with his fandom when we're mad at him after his last chat where he called larry a conspiracy and after him and his team's fuck ups in asia and jakarta. I don't think it's that funny. There is a time and a place. Do better.

[inchidentally]

some of my trickier asks or things I want to keep out of the tags

[link was a twitter post saying they wanted to get rid of Oscar to have car|ando back together at McLaren]

AFASFGHLASHFL babe even as a car|ando person I have to let you vent that out because that is possibly the most cringe thing I have seen since maybe 2016. I am fully expecting DTS to do another segment on car|ando and frame it so that McLaren and Lando want Oscar to leave because he doesn't touch Lando enough on camera or use nonstop gay innuendo. forget teammates valuing respect for each other and piling up McLaren's hardware cabinet, why oh why won't Oscar tackle Lando to the ground or talk about dicks and balls with him for fancams 😭

sorry anon I'm just cutting off that last part bc I don't want to attract any discourse about it to my blog <3 but yeah I honestly find it baffling that car|ando ended up being the larry ship for F1 fandom when Carlos of his own volition chose to leave after one season?? if they were real life a couple and wanting sex all the time surely staying on the same team would make sense and that he wouldn't go to Ferrari and immediately start acting more like a besotted, handsy husband with Charles than he ever did with Lando yet no one thinks they're secretly married. why didn't he do like Daniel and stick it out with McLaren even during bad times to stay with Lando if real life couple

and straight up they're not only disregarding everything that Oscar has brought to McLaren and promises for the future ! they're deciding that Pato is disposable too. I say this as a semi fake fan but even I wouldn't base my predictions about contract negotiations on rpf.

<3 thankfully it isn't all of us car|ando people who go too far but it feels like the other side are getting louder and louder

honestly I can boil my two main issues with the car|andoisreal brigade to three points:

misogyny and publicly targeted hate toward their real life girlfriends who they actually do have sex with/have romantic feelings for and who they openly choose to be around at the exclusion of their sports bromance friend

this particular brand of car|ando revolving entirely around Lando being conveniently stripped of a personality apart from giggling so he can be handy insert for women desperate to have Carlos for themselves

bringing 1D shipping into yet another new fandom and basically rinse and repeat with Carlos and Lando's names inserted in the [namexname] box

I know that a lot of us car|ando folks are nothing to do w this garbage and the good thing is that usually these people take themselves out either by pissing off the men involved in the ship or getting bored waiting for their fake ship to "become canon" finding a new rpf ship to latch onto.

oh and I do know that the person who made the office meme about Lando saying the podium thing intended it solely as a joke but it found the Other Side real fast and they genuinely put it in their dossiers of car|ando vs |andoscar. which I don't get for many reasons but also if they think Carlos and Lando are in a secret gay relationship and Lando doesn't even like Oscar then why the need to keep going seeee seeeeee he loves Carlos not Oscarrrrr aslfhsalfhslahf jesus christ why am I even trying to rationalize this

thing is I don't want any more of this on my blog or in our part of fandom so I'm going to limit how much of any asks I'll answer about it. I don't at all mind if people need to vent but jsyk I might not always post it publicly.

I'd recommend blocking and not engaging with it to everyone else too. I might curb how much car|ando is on my blog for a while just because it's so embarrassing to be associated with the grown ass women stalking Rebecca/Carlos content and flooding it with car|ando comments.

[applesandbannas747]

For the fic writer ask, 10, 34 and 38?

ahh!! thank you for playing more silly ask games with meee <33

10. How do you decide what to write?

whatever makes my brain go brrrr. lmfao I have a million ideas that collect in my brain (and then get jotted down in notes lest I forget them all), and then from them I'll kinda pick what to write based on a couple of things: interest level at the moment of choosing, ship, length, and genre.

Biggest thing that indicates something will be written immediately is when I start composing scenes in my head while falling asleep or zoning out--that usually means it's Time to work on that project, but that's not always how things get picked.

I do try (and I used to be better at it) to stagger my fics in a way that keeps my readers happy/interested. So I try to even out the Nichoji v Eugesse ratio I write, meaning if I just finished a long Eugesse fic, I'd look to choose from a Nichoji idea. And generally when I'm working on longer projects, little ones will pop up to keep the crops diversified in my brain and all that--and those ones always kinda happen on whims/accident and then get stored away for months/years until I have a posting gap they can fill. And genre lmfaooo it was my intention to give people realistic fiction between my fantasy bullshit but that particular criterion has been given up on and I've just accepted it at this point

34. What aspects of your writing are inspired by/taken from your real life?

ooo I've said it before but my love for my family and relationship with my siblings really influences the way I write the Labaos--none of the Labao children are based on me or any of my siblings and none of the relationships were copy pasted onto them, but the strong basis of love and bullshittery everything is built on is from my life. and of course the mental illness do be sneaking into all the Fence boys lmfao oops

38. Did any of your fics get surprisingly popular (whatever that means to you)? Which ones? Why do you think they were so successful?

honestly fucking baffled in the best way when my things get popular lmfao i still can't believe people like some of my stories so much! There's probably four that I think completely surprised me

Fairy Bound gained a lot of fans I was not expecting, especially given the size of the fandom (it's not super big and I thought it had died out a lot more than it has because it's older) and the controversy of the ship (human/fairy with large age gap, you know the drill). I think one of the reasons it got so popular is because of it being a T-rated and longer fic for the ship when most of the longer fics for them were M or E and so it filled a niche? Also it was canon compliant (at least until the sequel series came out...but i don't really see those as canon anyway so my thing still fits into the OG canon yknow?)

More was my very first Fence fic that I wrote because I could not find ANY Nichoji kissing fics and wanted those fuckers to kiss. Which, I think, is why other people liked it, but I was so surprised (in a good way) with how many people commented on it and wanted to read more. It remains my most-kudo'd fence fic, which has honestly got to be from its time accumulating those kudos XD but it makes me smile whenever I get a new kudos on it because it's nice to know that people still like it since it was what jumpstarted my time in the fence fandom

Can't Get Over You is one that baffled me for ages because I had a great time writing it, but I don't think it's my strongest fic by far...and then I realized that maybe other people are as terrible as I am and enjoy the trope of Nick fucking up really bad being mean to Seiji and making him cry, then having to spend ages getting him to believe he loves him. Sometimes makes me wonder if I should post more with that trope or if it would be too upsetti spegetti XD

And then Promised Things I seriously didn't expect to get much traction, and yet, it surpassed Truths, my until-then legacy fic...Turns out business romance is a whole genre that people do be enjoying but I just thought I was being boring because how does 'businessman au' sound appealing to anyone at all except the dumb asshole who wrote it??? also i made so many lingerie jokes in that one and am still delighted that y'all just let me get away with it

[ad-hawkeye]

Hello! I'm a pretty new tot player (joined mid-june this year) (also new to tumblr and this blog) and I've been loving artem's characterization in his personal and main stories. But I don't really follow cn leaks (bc spoilers) and pulled for artems 2nd anniversary card without much thought. And hated it. I wish I'd found this blog sooner. Your thoughts on his characterization in the newer cards are very articulate and I think you've done a great job of highlighting the important aspects of his character and his dynamics with mc and how the newer cards are missing it.

On that note, can I ask which of his cards post-2nd anniv feature the old Artem and (especially) the og artemrosa dynamics because my mind tends to stick firmly to canon and I'm having a hard time trying to pretend 2nd anniversary never happened. It's fine if the plot isn't too exciting as long as the artemrosa interactions are good and Artem isn't suddenly a suave sex god (or has a randomized hobby as his selling point).

I don't have many of his old cards since I joined late and wanted to know if I should pull for new cards or just wait for the old card reruns.

That's all!

OMG HI!!! welcome to tot land and also tumblr!!!! i hope the fandom's been welcoming here! : D

ah gosh, i think people like you are why i was so anxious about second anniversary dropping on global. i am genuinely SO sorry. it comes out of no where. like it's a very notable drop in quality and shift in characterization, so anyone just pulling for second anniversary thinking it'd be fine just. woof. it's honestly EXTREMELY bizarre.

i really appreciate your kind words though!!! i started tot back during 2021 with the lost gold event, so all i had was the original artem for well over a year and got used to him, so it STUNG when second anni dropped. i totally and completely understand where you're coming from here, we're in this together!!!!!

oh gosh i haven't read ALL of the new cards yet, but i know enough that should be able to help for now. i do plan on watching them once i gather the Nerves to do so and writing a list of the must pulls and the must misses HAHAHA BUT. FOR NOW!!

MR cards can be missed unless if you really like the card art. the audio has always been pretty pointless and skippable. can't think of any SRs coming up for artem. go figure. his au SSRs (bakerlon, etc) are all good and in the clear. worth pulling for, imo, esp if you like the art.

skip any SSRs where it seems like artem is just doing a random new hobby. this includes his billiards, racing, and surfing cards. skip any top up SSRs. aside from saving you money, all of the new top up SSRs are just pure fanservice.

fluffy fuzzy time is in the clear. in all honesty it's baffling that a card where artem is flustered about mc playing with his hair comes after the sex god daddy dom card but whatfuckingever who needs consistency

his upcoming personal story card isn't like, life changing, but it's in the clear from what i remember of watching it. the art is very cute too.

third birthday card isn't amazing, but plot and character wise, it's also in the clear and has very cute art.

the other SSRs i know nothing about, so i can't speak for them yet. my apologies!!!! i'd personally recommend focusing on artem's older cards (i genuinely love all of them except for like. por una cabeza which is just kinda mid), as they are still stronger character wise than the newer ones, but the ones i listed ARE still fine. the game itself likes to only pretend second anni happened every once in a blue moon so it's very very easy to ignore . THANKFULLY.

thank you again for the ask anon!!!! i hope i could help! keep an eye out for when i get to watching all of them, i DO want to make that list HAHA

[erinthesails]

Some of the justifications for this this weird Izzy stuff seem to stem from, obviously racism, but also a fundamental misunderstanding of useful forms of transformative fandom and basic media analysis. like yes, obviously, you can do whatever you want forever, and there's nothing inherently wrong with reinterpreting a character to explore different possible dynamics, but that doesn't change the fact that, in order to say anything compelling about a story, you have to think about it on its own terms.

I think people think of transformative fandom as meaning "apply whatever meaning you want onto anything and everything in order to make a collage of character interactions that please you personally." Okay sure fine. Do that if you want. But if you're going to be out here claiming that an interpretation that goes obviously against the intentions of the text is just as valid as other interpretations, what's the point if that interpretation doesn't actually speak to any of the goals of the text itself.

I'll use an example of another popular interpretation that I love but don't necessarily think is the canon intent of the story: Ed as transfemme. I'm not recapping all the many thoughtful posts on the topic here (tho go read up on posts by weirdgirlcore and eluciferate if you're interested), but essentially, the idea comes from a few moments and symbolic juxtapositions in the text that open up the possibility of that reading. Do I think that the writers necessarily intended for "be careful what you ask your god for, she might just answer" to be an oblique reference to Ed using sher/her pronouns? Probably not, honestly. But in a story about finding yourself and learning to be who you are outside of constructions of normalcy, AND in a story that canonically contains trans and gay characters, the reading is a compelling one that offers new insights about the forces that Ed is working against. It's a reading you don't have to agree with, but it's one that speaks to the larger themes of the text, and opens up alternate ways of situating these characters within and against narrative conflicts, giving us more capacious ways of thinking about the show

Compare that to a reading of Izzy that places him as earnestly supportive of Ed, and as valid in his desire to maintain the status quo as Ed is in wanting to break out of it. This is a story ultimately about masking and the ways we're made to play certain roles by systems larger than we are: be it heteronormativity, colonialism, neurotypicality, capitalism, even family. It's about the ways we're denied the possibility of questioning those roles, and then choosing a path that allows us to be something Else. So what does it add to the story if, despite the evidence to the contrary presented in episode 4, Izzy IS a long suffering, devoutly loyal first mate and possibly lover to an oblivious, mentally ill mess of a captain? Well. Nothing. Besides the excitement of exploring a dynamic that you personally like. And sure fine that can be fun, but it's a reading that's implicitly supportive of maintaining the status quo!! The thing that the entire show is trying to break!!!

How does it expand our understanding of the show if, of the two main white guys, one is trying to shed the norms that give him power and one is trying to retain his power through threats of violence against a man of color and the romantic lead, and we're supposed to understand these as equally valid and valuable points of view? They're just not!! You want to imagine Izzy as being as sympathetic as the other characters, that's fine, but call it what it is: an AU, and one that's more interested in fun and imagination than with exploring any kind of real characteristics that Izzy displays in the narrative. It just baffles me, the lack of basic media literacy in these readings. You can like Izzy!! It's fine to like Izzy, he's a fun character! But WHAT is the point of taking these characters and saying "well. What if they were entirely different in ways that I like better." Just make him an OC, damn!

[naylor]

you know what annoys me of the taylor swift album release cycle? the incessant, unnecessary comments the general public and even some people in the fandom make about how taylor "always victimises herself for no reason", or how she "loves to play the victim when she's just a rich popstar without real problems", and more recently that she "shouldn't use words like intrusive thoughts, trauma, and emotional abuse to talk about what's happened to her or her experiences with anxiety because she doesn't know what that's like". it fucking infuriates me.

taylor swift acts and writes like a victim because, quite simply, she's been made one, point black, end of the sentence. she should be allowed to write about her experiences with abuse, any type of abuse from any source, without people deciding for her if it was actually abusive or traumatic, or policing her choice of coping mechanism.

people's unwillingness to accept and acknowledge much of what taylor has gone through during her career as abuse and trauma is baffling to me because i honestly can't think of a term that describes it better.

she has been made fun of and ridiculised by the media since she was a child for doing things children and teenagers do (be naive about love, write about boys, go on dates, dress age appropriate), she's been slut shamed by everyone on the internet for dating a less than average amount, she's gone through public humiliation on a mass scale twice now (the first one when she was just nineteen) by a much older, well respected, established male artist, she has been abused by men both professionally and emotionally, she was made an example of what girls ought not to do or be lest you end up just like her, she's been isolated since childhood because she never felt she fit in with the rest.

she's gone through all of those things while at the same time being gaslighted (and i'm using this word in its original clinical meaning and not the internet meme one) into thinking none of that was as bad as she's making it out to be and she ended up okay so it can't have caused her real trauma because nothing happened, it was all fine and a joke. these are things we recognise as hurtful, abusive, and traumatic in other people but as soon as they're experienced by someone who copes with it through writing music she then sells for a profit then suddenly it's not and she's exaggerating it for attention.

she talks about herself in the same hyper-aware, hyper-vigilant, anxious way victims of abuse and survivors of high stress situations do and that's why her music resonates with so many of us who have been abused in the past as well, because she's putting into words things we experience on the daily and i genuinely don't think it's because she wants to. no one wants to go through those things and then go through a new cycle of humiliation every time you talk about your experiences just to make a few dollars.

it's maddening that the attitude most people take when discussing her trauma is to minimise it or straight up deny it because she was able to transform some of that pain into a #1 single

i don't ask people to sympathise or feel bad about her but to accept that we have agreed that online bullying and dog piling on a mass scale is abusive and traumatic, that women being taken advantage of by the male superiors is traumatic, that women being slut shamed for enjoying their sexuality is abusive and traumatic, that being in relationships where your partner is volatile is traumatic, that being coerced and manipulated into relationships with older men is abusive, that being retaliated against in public after revealing you were sexually assaulted is traumatic; so why should none of that apply to her? why is she not allowed to be vocal about being in all those situations without someone telling her she's not gone through actual trauma? why does everyone gets to decide for her whether or not she's actually been abused and if she can or cannot claim victimhood?

accepting taylor's abuse and her victimhood does nothing to take away from yours or that of others. accepting that she's allowed and entitled to discuss her experiences doesn't silence you. you don't have to like her but to dismiss her is disrespectful because when you do that you're not only dismissing her own experiences with abuse and trauma, but that of people in similar situations who empathise and identify with her.

TL;DR: taylor doesn't write about being a victim nearly as much as the people trying to discredit her work say she does, but if she did she would be entirely justified in it because she has been in a lot of situations where she's been victimised and abused by people who knew what they were doing to her and you don't get to decide if she was sufficiently traumatised by them or not. recognising taylor's experience with abuse does nothing to minimise or invalidate yours, two people can be abused in two different ways and doesn't mean one is less entitled to compassion. it's not a competition.

[runicmagitek]

2022 Writerly Year Review

tagged by @frozen-fountain (many thanks!!) not gonna tag anyone, but if you're a writer and are reading this and feel like giving this a go? Consider yourself tagged! 💖

Total number of completed works. Posted to AO3? 62 🙃 I guess it's technically 61, as What Leads You Here is still in progress, being a longfic and all.

Total number of WIPs worked on this year. Oh lord, hold please as I count all the drafts and partially done stuff in Scrivener.... 7 total. 8 if you include What Leads You Here, which fully drafted, but in the editing phase.

WIPs neglected this year. I honestly don't know djsaklfdjslkfjkldas I continue to neglect my one Celes/Terra fic I abandoned when 13 Sentinels hijacked my brain, so there's that 🙃 I promise I'll return to it one day.

Fandoms I've written in. 13 Sentinels, Critical Role, Final Fantasy (VI, VII, IX, and X), Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury, My Dress-Up Darling, and Pyre

Total word count. Uh, posted to AO3? 287,882. Written? A little over 500k

Looking back, did you write more than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you expected? MORE. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY MORE.

Did you take any writing risks this year? There were a handful of fics that I banged out in a single day, quickly edited them, and slapped them onto AO3. Are they amazing works of literature? Hell no. Were they super fun to write? Hell yeah. I need to just… relax with editing more and let myself do this more often. I swear some of my better-received fics are when I go "you know what? fuck it" and release it into the world.

Do you have any goals for the new year? Not write as much lolsob. Also finish What Leads You Here along with a handful of WIPs. Maybe even revisit that Celes/Terra WIP if I have time/energy!

Biggest disappointment? Not so much in my own writing, but just lack of engagement with some of my fics. Then again, that's par for the course when you write A) not-so-popular characters, B) gen fic, and C) stories involving death and angsty bits. Also seeing my fluffy G fics doing better than my smutty fics in the 13 Sentinels fandom just… continues to baffle me to this day. It's LITERALLY the only fandom I've ever been in where smut does worse numbers-wise and I don't get it.

Biggest surprise? I wrote something for Critical Role!! I've been a longtime watcher and enjoy the show, but I've done my best to staaaaay away from the fandom 😰 plus I tend to wait until I finish something before I ever consider writing a fic for it, just so I can have the whole picture, so to speak. But one particular episode just set me off and I had to write something to hold me over until the next episode 😭

Most popular story of the year? Most hits/bookmarks? For the Ones That Feel It the Most

Most kudos/subscriptions? Sweet Dreams (why are people subscribing to a oneshot lolsob)

Most comments? What Leads You Here

Ahhh the power of posting fics near the release of a popular thing. And also longfics lol.

What's your own favorite story of the year? I feel like this changes on a daily basis lol I love all of them for different reasons. Lucid has a close place to my heart bc I was Very Upset to find close to no m!Byleth/Gatekeeper fics in an incredibly popular/active fandom. Also really love how Like You, Only Sweeter turned out, which was an incredibly self-indulgent story for me (I just wanted them to smooch)

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion. Nearly all of my 13 Sentinels fics bc the fandom is small and niche lolsob. But also Marinate, which granted, I posted the last week of 2022, but still.

Most fun story to write. What the Water Gave Me, which very quickly snowballed out of control into its own thing. I had a blast writing this mermaid AU and thinking of lore for this world!

Most unintentionally telling story. I'm not sure if this means like… a story that utilized more telling as opposed to showing or just… telling about me as an individual. Either way, I'm genuinely not sure? A lot of aspects of myself are sprinkled across my stories, but isn't any work of art?

My favorite part of fandom this year. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO PICK ONE?????? Meeting so many cool and incredibly talented people. Starting a Discord server with good friends. Applying (and getting accepted!) to a bunch of amazing zine projects. Participating in all the secret santa events and fic exchanges. Being late to a fandom and getting to experience things for the first time. Watching my friend react throughout their 13 Sentinels playthroughs. Collaborating with a lovely art friend to make our own damn zine. Getting to share my longfic with the small, yet vastly passionate community. And just… so so many more moments that made me smile and be forever grateful. If we've interacted at all, even for a brief moment, thank you for making 2022 a little brighter.

[shinydixon]

can i share a quick vent? the fandom has a lot of young boys and girls. a lot of young people who created this version of joe based on all of his shown us. and that's fine, that happens. but these people need to either grow up or get out of the fandom. joe is a grown ass man. he's almost thirty. i'm almost thrity. it was a new year's party. do people honestly think he just stood around talking and drinking? shit probably went wild. he probably hooked up with someone, made friends. this parasocial thing with him is going too far. these fans have created a narrative like he said they would and idolized him as someone who's shy and delicate just because when he first started doing interviews he was nervous. just take a look at the pictures of him partying as a teen/young adult. some people here need to understand that this man, this grown ass man, fucks. he hooks up with people. a lot of these people have seen his dick. it's a reality and it shouldn't be a big deal because this is what adults do. we go to parties, we go a little crazy, we make some memories. i'm not taking a dig at the adults who don't. obviously when i say this is what adults do i'm generalizing. but it honestly baffles me how some people never noticed how incredibly naughty this man is. even when he makes it very clear he is very naughty some fans go 'teee heee hee he's so cute, gosh, ket's protect this baby boy from everything' and let's not pretend that's not the real issue. a lot of people see him in these situations where there's a lot going and take offense because if joe is dating/fucking/messing around with someone then the illusion that he's a shy, delicate, single man shatters. i just really want some people to realize he's completely unhinged in the best way possible. jamie himself has said he can never share his adventures with joe because it's too wild. joe himself has admitted to going on a run in the morning and then having a nice wank. for the love of all that is holy, this drama every time a new picture drops and he's not alone or with jamie or wes or any other man needs to fucking stop. none of this changes how amazing he is. how kind and considerate and lovable. but yeah, the problem in this fandom, in my opinion, is this fucking parasocial relationship so many people are in with him. this is getting to a point where it's harmful to themselves. and can we please stop with the 'let's never post a picture of him taken without him knowing' thing because this is going to happen a lot. it happens to us. think about the places you go and how many people may have taken a group photo with you in the background and posted it? the only difference is that we're not famous. this jealousy every time he's near a woman has got to fucking stop. it's getting unbearable.

First of all, Joe never said he wank (is it correct?) in the morning, it's something that some hellcheers started to say after he answered a question at the November stranger con.

Secondly, how can you tell by the picture taken while he was partying, that he hooks up💀

And I don't really care if he's a celebrity, people taking pictures of him without consent are disprectful and I'll always call them out, no matter what.

And even if he hooks up at party, it doesn't mean he's not a kind and shy because he literally is, and you could see in some interaction he had.

I don't know, I don't agree with what you said