#but i was also going to lose it if they posted one more 'fandom wank of the week' or political post

[crqstalite]

something that clicked for my last summer (that i remembered now bc i just saw a post from them thru a mutual) you dont have to follow someone with All The Right Opinions (and i mean that literally) if them constantly posting about these opinions and political topics is actively making you have a worse time online.

like i was becoming actively hesitant to scroll thru my dashboard because i was constantly thinking 'im going to see [x] and theyre going to post something actively distressing/drama im not part of but dont want to be bothered by all day', before it clicked that. i could just?? not follow them. and then they were gone and went back to trekking about tumblr.

its that simple and makes me a little. batty? (can i still use that word?) that i didnt think of it before.

[olderthannetfic]

https://olderthannetfic.tumblr.com/post/739683077572395008/kids-in-my-anime-adjacent-fandom-discoursing-over

Reminds me of the time I found out that most East Asian BL writers actually have a set bottom/top dynamic and that switching is very very rare. I think the author for MDZS/The Untamed said that the main couple shouldn't be switched, and that the Chinese Danmei fandoms do follow that for the most part. As in, most Danmei fandoms do not switch the dynamics of the top/bottom in general, nor do they do much switching at all? Which makes it absolutely hilarious how the Western fandoms keep insisting certain Danmei boys to be switches or switching their dynamics and claiming it's canon. TGCF/Heaven official's blessing seems to be such a case, from the same author as MDZS. Author says Red dude is the top, and White dude is the bottom. Western fandom starts arguing dynamics because there's no porn in the books. (Apparently Chinese censorship bc one of them is a God.)

And just to be clear, I'm just sharing what I got told, so if you don't like it, that's not my problem. If I'm wrong though, I'd welcome the clearing up.

--

Sighhhhh.

Anon... Yes, this is roughly correct, but it's also just tonally kind of wacky. It's like if someone sent me an ask going "Apparently, some women ship m/m, but don't quote me on that".

If I don't like it, that's not your problem?

Really?

What a whiny bitch-ass thing to say in someone's inbox, dude.

--

Anyway, on the actual topic, yes, 100% strict top/bottom roles have been the norm in many Asian fandoms and, to some extent, foreign fandoms for Asian media.

That doesn't mean nobody ever likes switches there though. There are terms for that. It's just not as common and doesn't sell or get clicks as well.

Yes, you can generally tell from BL/danmei canons exactly who the top and bottom are even if there's no sex. It's like reading a Regency romance novel and figuring out which love interest is "the rake" or whatever. It's more than just who sticks it in: It's a whole constellation of character cliches that go together.

The only reason Western fans can't tell is 1. bad translations that lose the flavor of the original, 2. n00bs not knowing the tropes, 3. willful blindness.

It's like that post from a while back about shizun-fuckers. Yeah, there are tons of ships where the older partner is the top, but this trope is about reversing that, and it's so unbelievably unsubtle.

I've heard that Yami no Matsuei's set of leads is so wacky because the author changed direction on who was the main lead and who was supposed to read as more of a bottom and thus this one dude doesn't read as quite the trope he was probably originally supposed to be.

(Cue reheated zombie wank about who's the bottomiest bottom out of all of the abused woobies in YnM.)

--

Re Chinese censorship, it has varied over time. I'm no expert either, so people are welcome to chime in, but basically, a lot of horny stuff is straight up illegal on the mainland and they've been cracking down in recent years in a way they didn't a while back.

A lot of danmei novels will have the less censored version printed in Taiwan.

It's not just about some character being a god: it's about the entire concept of pornography being illegal.

Some decades, you can push the boundaries a lot; some, you can't.

[drunkkenobi]

Well. This is the weirdest one of these I’ve ever made.

I’m not going to rehash the wank from the Watcher TV announcement. You all know what happened. I am standing by my assertion that this streaming platform is the only way they’re going to stay afloat because YouTube is just not the place for them or anyone else making videos that aren’t just of one person in their house. (nothing against those folks, it’s just a completely different business model)

Anyway.

First up, here’s how Mystery Files season 2 did. It did well, with each ep hitting a million fairly quickly, but it didn’t do as well as season 1. Not significantly worse, just not as high. (two weeks after season 1 ended, the average per episode was 1.854 and for s2 it’s at 1.194million) Of course, the two weeks since season 2 ended have been fucking insane so it’s impossible to say how much of that is a factor.

I will say that views between last week and this week are down overall, but that’s expected. If someone has paid for the streamer and you want to rewatch Ghost Files or whatever, you’re going to watch it ad-free on the app you pay for and not YouTube for the most part. Also it’s very possible people are just not rewatching stuff right now for their own personal reasons, which is fine. I also just don’t think it’s something to worry about.

For better or worse, the Goodbye YouTube video is the best opening weekend Watcher has ever had (and will have?) on YouTube.

Watcher lost around 100k subscribers over The Announcement but, again, if people are paying them directly now then this is kind of a non-factor. For posterity, they’re at 2.84 million subscribers today.

I’m not sure what else to say this time, tbh! It felt like a good time to make one of these with MF season 2 being over but YouTube viewcounts are just…not going to be important anymore for Watcher so there’s not much to say about them. Finding out that a million views only nets between $10-30k has been very eye-opening to me about how piddly the revenue from YouTube is for a production studio like Watcher. The shows they want to make just cost more than they can make off of there. It’s that simple. No one has to like that fact, but that is the heart of all this.

Also, with all of that being said, I think my time as a spreadsheet gremlin is coming to a close. I’m going to keep up with it for a few more weeks and probably do one last round-up for every single video’s views, but with Watcher moving away from YouTube as a business model, there’s little reason to keep up with these. I’ve been making these updates less this year anyway because of a job change and I was losing my steam for it a bit too, so the timing feels right. Like I said, this won’t be my last viewcount post, but maybe second-to-last? And who knows, maybe I’ll check in when Ghost Files premieres but the counts will mean so much less now that the videos will premiere with a month delay from the streamer. We’ll just have to wait and see how the wind blows on this.

Thank you all, as always, for reading, reblogging, replying, liking these posts. Y’all are the reason I’ve kept up with it for four years (and my own nosiness but having encouragement helps!). And don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll have some other spreadsheets to share in the future of Watcher fandom. (I have…so many) So, until next time, thanks again. ❤️

[cleolinda]

Weekend links, April 28, 2024

My posts

I spent the first half of the week struggling through (well-medicated) mania and the second half currently with a sinus infection! I’m not enjoying it! Not either one! 

Reblogs of interest

Pro-Gaza protests at universities in the U.S.: a solidarity Passover seder and an accidental Pulitzer photo

Canada Agrees 200 Islands Belong to the Indigenous Haida Nation

--

The Hot Vintage Lady Polls continue to go for the throat. I felt so bad about Dorothy Dandridge that I started posting and reblogging propaganda for her, but Ava Gardner, my beloved, went through anyway. Backing her felt like a wish on a monkey’s paw ("Not like this!!"). (See all poll results here.) I tremble to think what round 5 will look like. Like, there’s a point when your girl is gonna come up against a Hepburn, you know?

Notably gone this week: Judy Garland, Julie Andrews, Lupe Vélez, Irene Papas (who took out Vivien Leigh in the previous round), Gene Tierney, Barbara Stanwyck, Lena Horne, Jean Seberg, Anita Ekberg, Angela Lansbury, and Cyd Charisse. Like I keep saying, everybody loses. Everybody but one. Round 5 will start May 1st. 

--

Hozier Watch 2024: His first U.S. #1, which he’s now playing at shows! The first U.S. #1 for an Irish artist in 34 years! What?? you cry. Did “Take Me to Church” not do that ten years ago? Well, I went and looked it up: No. That was the “Blank Space” era. Say no more. 

Speaking of Taylor Swift—Paste Magazine went IN on the new album and got threats as a result. Meanwhile, Taylor’s fans are harassing the ex-boyfriend who did nothing wrong (as opposed to the racist one) because her PR is egging them on. I’ll admit: even though I’m not a fan, I found the Paste review to be overlong and not focused enough on the actual songs, proportionally. But that post about the PR saga is everything I miss about Fandom Wank. 

(“My rival dresses to display her legs, and her shoes are of an alluring fashion”)

Meanwhile, the Watcher guys issued the best apology possible, although it was still excruciating to watch. (Background.) They will remain on YouTube while introducing the streaming service. As a Patreon member, I haven’t asked for my free subscription code yet, but I’m going to. Some fans forgave them pretty easily; others have walked away. I’m curious to see if this affects the mood of anything new they film, since a segment of the fandom got really, really ugly about it. Mostly it just felt sad all around. 

Meanwhile, in Alabama: nobody wants to measure the feral hog.

Turns out Death Note had a good reason to concoct “American” names like “Bobson Dugnutt.” Also, I somehow had two posts tagged “death note” this week and I don’t even go here.

The worst brownies ever created and what Tumblr has to say about them

“You roll up to the Wizard Battle and your opponent takes out his spellbook but it’s just one of these”

I know that Loki is not Odin’s son in actual Norse mythology, but the bredlik is amazing.

TIL that Florence and Ravenna are still feuding over Dante’s remains

Maybe haunted dolls cost extra

Chorses

Video

Branch manager

Senior branch manager

“Free serotonin from Honey the Italian greyhound”

Sola learned to show love from her humans

I have seen many of jauncydev’s videos about dog personalities, but I have never seen him commit quite this hard before

I like tie-dye videos anyway, but this one is sick as hell

The sacred videos: you are not prepared for this police sketch, and neither is this news anchor

The sacred texts

Kick his ass, baby. I got yo flower.

Gold Star, You Tried: A compilation

A personal favorite: “mayhaps I TWIMST aroumd”

The origin of “By Talos this can’t be happening”

Personal tags of the week

Seasonally: cherry blossom. Also,��art: an old standby, but it was really good, and also, I’m sick.

[woomycritiques543]

Have you seen the newest tweet about the next Helluva Boss episode? Looks like Striker's coming back, and once again Stolas is gonna be a focus in the episode. I'm assuming it'll be a Stolitz wankfest again with Striker being jealous. Something tells me they'll have blown a lot of budget on getting Norman Reedus again, so they may kill Striker off.

I'm a former supporter of the show (before I knew about all the horrible shit that happened behind the scenes), who slowly began to lose interest during Season 1, before leaving the fandom in Season 2.

I'm worried this episode will be more of the same. Thoughts?

TW: Blood, Gore.

I personally just feel that Striker's entire existence is a Stolitz wank fest. Even from the beginning, they made him have the brain of a rock (he tried to shoot someone with the door unlocked, in a populated house- WHAT THE FUCK?! 😂🤣) just as an excuse to have that angst fest with Blitz to make us feel like it's somehow "wrong" for Blitz to be with Stolas. When Stolas is awful?! He's the literal monarchy that's being a jerk to their species? So whether Striker had alterior motives- killing Stolas would actually help them since he OWNS IMP SLAVES and feeds off of their labor like other species! Is this series seriously trying to suggest that the audience should side with the monarchy who owns slaves in the show just because the writers find them to be hot? What kind of message is that?!

People also keep fetishizing the fact that Stolas is being kidnapped-

-when Striker stabs him?! Why the fuck would you fetishize that?!

LET ALONE SHIP THE CANON RELATIONSHIP WHERE ITS A KIDNAPPER AND HIS VICTIM WHO HE IS TRYING TO ABUSE AND KILL?! Why is Stella abusing Stolas "the last straw" but Striker doing it is seen as "hot and sexy/quirky!" ?! Again, as ive said before, people will use the "ship and let ship!" excuse to have black propaganda ("black" as in the color not the race.) to pretend as if being a creep is on the same level of being gay just because both are looked down upon. They'll pretend as if shipping toxic relationships and shipping gay ships are somehow "in the same catagory of problematic" just because they're both looked down upon in certain places.

When people hate people that are gay for prejudice reasons.

-and people hate creeps because they HURT PEOPLE!

One being unjustifed, while the other is entirely justifed since they misrepresent actual traumas and cause people harm! So if a ship is toxic, maybe... I dont know... dont use it as an excuse to publically fetishize trauma? Maybe dont be an asshole to trauma victims and weaponize trauma as an excuse to be said asshole?! Maybe give a shit about the messages you people are sending out there since it's being posted IN PUBLIC?! Maybe dont be an asshole people?!

-and back to the episode: Seeing how they'll probably have millions of scenarios where Striker could kill Stolas easily but then just go the "HE TORTURE STOWAS BECAUSE HE'S A MEANIE!" route to make him have no brain, same for Stella "TORTURING POOR STOWAS!" and having no personality as an excuse to make people go "🥺" at Stolas as much as humanly possible. It sucks, because I really wanted to like Striker. He has a cool design and I really like his voice but DAMN have they fucked up his story to hell and back!

[gffa]

hi this whole supernatural and putin election is all over my dash right now but I have never watched spn, so I have no idea what's going on there. can you pleaseee help me?? I saw you posting about it lol

Hi!  Yeah, I have a post about it here, but basically (AS MUCH AS MY KNOWLEDGE CAN BE, GIVEN THAT I REALLY ONLY READ MESSAGE BOARD THREADS ABOUT THE WANK HAPPENINGS): - We’re all super stressed from Quarantine Brain + Doomscrolling through the election news/lack of news - Supernatural is a long-running show (15 seasons now) that has been around so long, that there are frequent jokes about how it’ll never die, etc. - There are two characters on the show, Dean Winchester (main character) and Castiel (second tier main character) who are shipped together as one of the most popular pairings, their smushname being “Destiel”. - Supernatural is also notorious for being pretty homophobic (from the actors, from the writing of the show, etc.) in a low-key but very “you can feel it way” (and some of the actors have been pretty shitty, from what I’ve heard?), so like literally nobody outside of diehard shippers expected this, despite that the chemistry between them was Something Else. - The show has always been popular, as well as one of the characters/actors on it (Castiel) has an incredibly devoted fan base, but it’s nothing like it was back in 2013, when Misha Collins (the actor who plays the character, generally more supportive of queer stuff, I think?) was IMMENSELY popular, to the point that there was a tumblr “event” scheduled where a bunch of people changed their icons to this one pic of him, then also reblogged the pic a lot, photoshopped the pic onto other gifs to make them Castiel pics, etc., to the point that a lot of people saw NOTHING BUT Misha Collins’ face on their dash all day.  This was called “Mishapocalypse”. - Sidenote:  Within the Destiel fandom, a/b/o tropes are extremely popular, often times with omega!Castiel.  You’ll see that come up in jokes around sometimes, too. - Sidenote x2:  For awhile, it was incredibly popular on tumblr to combine three live action television shows that had a lot of overlap in their audiences:  BBC’s Sherlock, Doctor Who, and Supernatural.  The combination of these three (whether graphics or just talking about crossovers or whatever) became something of a fandom unto itself, called Superwholock.  When I tag all these posts with “Superputinelection”, it’s a reference to how three things were mashed together like the TV shows. - So, okay, this show has been on forever, it’s low-key-to-high-key homophobic, nobody expects anything even from the final season.  Jokes get bandied around like “Destiel will become canon before we get any election results.” - AND THEN DESTIEL BECOMES IMPLIED CANON TONIGHT???  WHILE WE’RE STILL WAITING FOR ELECTION RESULTS???? - Castiel basically confesses his feelings to Dean (the other character in the ship), he directly says, “I love you.” and then immediately is killed and sent to SUPER HELL precisely BECAUSE his love for Dean made him happy, so like it’s (implied) canon gay AND homophobia in the same scene!  Amazing!  (A lot of people also really find Dean’s actor’s face in the scene to be super uncomfortable/showing the actor’s distaste for anything gay, but I don’t have an opinion on that because I’m not into the fandom deep enough to know.  Just that that’s what people are referring to.) - With so many people posting gifs/caps from the confession scene from SPN, it’s basically putting the same image of Castiel’s face all over our dashes and timelines again, which isn’t intentional but BOY DOES IT RESEMBLE THE MISHAPOCALYPSE. - AND THEN, LIKE WITHIN AN HOUR OF THAT, WHILE PEOPLE ARE ALREADY LOSING THEIR GODDAMNED MINDS, THERE’S A NEWS STORY  (well, rumors at the time, but apparently it’s been confirmed? the BBC had a story about it up ETA:  As Mid points out, that BBC article is about something else and I can’t access the NYP one, but I’m not getting google results for it) ABOUT HOW PUTIN IS GOING TO BE RESIGNING. All combined together, it’s been a rollercoaster ride to hell tonight.

[hamliet]

What Does It Mean to Save?

I keep seeing it said that Deku, Ochaco, and Shouto will “save” Shigaraki, Himiko, and Dabi, but that there will be no redemption and/or no survival for them. I’m truly not trying to vague these posts and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but literary criticism is fundamentally responsive so I’m writing this anyways.

I personally think that’s not BNHA’s definition of saving nor of redemption. So here, have a deep dive into literary tropes related to redemption, genre, and character arcs as they pertain to BNHA and the question of: what does it mean to save Shigaraki, Touya, and Himiko?

Before we begin, let me say that while we might be personally uncomfortable with redemption (there’s a redemption arc in BNHA I am personally quite uncomfortable with), that doesn’t inherently mean the narrative won’t go there. The key principle I’m operating on here is BNHA’s message that heroes save people. It’s held up as the highest ideal. 

So let’s talk redemption in BNHA-verse. With this guy, whose redemption arc I dislike in principle but accept as part of the story so don’t come for me stans and/or antis. I’m analyzing because it shows us what redemption means in BNHA-verse, whether or not that is satisfying to you personally as it fits/does not fit with your own morality/philosophy.

If Endeavor can be redeemed and live, and he’s Bakugou’s negative foil, I highly doubt Shigaraki and Deku as well as Touya and Shouto and Ochaco and Himiko will be any different. Why? Because Enji is an adult character. The others--well, Himiko’s age we don’t know, but we do know that Shigaraki and Dabi are technically adults. But does the story consider them adults?

(It doesn’t.)

Child-coded characters are generally more likely to survive a redemption, which I’ll explain more later. First I have to define what I mean by child-coding, because I DO NOT mean this in the way it’s often (mis)used in fandom wank. Child-coding is a real thing, but it is not done to infantilize and it has nothing to do with shipping.

Child coding frames the character as a child for a few narrative purposes to convey a story’s theme or purpose. For example, if it’s a coming of age story coding a character as a child even if they legally are not emphasizes their journey to an understanding of self-actualization, or a true understanding of self with self-awareness and an understanding of self-value. An example of an adult coded as a child is The Kite Runner, wherein Amir is a legal adult for half the story, even married for fifteen years so we’re talking 30s-40s, but he does not truly become an adult until he returns to his homeland and takes responsibility for a childhood sin. In Attack on Titan, the main characters are now nineteen, but are still struggling to take responsibility as adults and have only started doing so now that their mentors/parental figures have started dying.

Along those lines, in any kind of story, you can code a character as a child of someone, regardless of biological relationship, to convey the type of relationship they have (usually a mentor one). For an example of this, see Bungo Stray Dogs’ Dazai and Akutagawa. Despite their two year age difference, Dazai recruited him to the mafia, abandoned him, and Akutagawa desperately seeks his approval. Usually in these stories a character will “overcome” their parental figure. This can be done through overcoming their need for the parental figure’s approval in stories where the parental figure is kindly (such as in Harry Potter, when in the final book Harry, Ron, and Hermione leave the Weasleys to find the Horcruxes despite Mrs. Weasley’s please) or through like, killing/stopping/leaving the parental figure when they are abusive (see fairy tales like Rapunzel and Cinderella). The parental link to self-actualization is because it is childlike (and a part of actual psychology that is reflected in literature) to see yourself as a part of your parent; self-actualized person would see yourself as a distinct person from your parent, but also acknowledge the ways in which they’ve shaped you.

So, how do you code a character as a child? BNHA isn’t subtle about it, because Horikoshi seldom is subtle about anything. The villain trio are all coded as children.

Shigaraki Tomura:

Who cannot achieve self-actualization so long as AFO has access to his body, as he’s literally trying to possess him. He’s trying, but it’s not gonna work because Shigaraki can’t keep AFO and become an adult at the same time. It’s a choice the narrative is setting up: your dream of destroying, or your freedom? (To get the latter, he’ll probably have to destroy AFO).

Todoroki Touya, who is repeatedly emphasized as a small child when compared to his siblings, and yes, I know he’s now tall. Specifically he’s spotlighted as the child of Endeavor:

And he’s the least self-actualized one in a lot of ways, contradicting himself constantly. I’m not Endeavor, DUH! But these are Endeavor’s flames! He’s gonna have to choose one or the other, because the tragic irony is that the more he takes out his rage on those around him, the more like Endeavor he becomes.

And Toga Himiko (who might well literally be a legal child), who is actually the most self-actualized one thus far, because she rejects Curious’s child insistence (Curious holds her in a Pieta pose, based on Michelangelo’s statue wherein Mary holds a deceased Christ):

She’s still got, like, a way to go though:

Because Himiko also wants to be like the people she loves to the point where she loses her own identity in them, which is er, not self-actualization. So she’ll have to choose whether or not she really wants to be like the people she loves or whether she wants to live her own way, which she herself tells us how that would end (death):

Deku said it himself: it’s good to focus on what someone is doing now. And look, I have issues with this statement and how it’s framed. I’ve talked about it at length and it was doomed to fail because Shouto himself told us long ago that it was annoying to hear a righteous speech by a stranger when you hadn’t gone through the same, plus Endeavor kinda failed by choosing being a hero over a dad here. But, the principle is that if the past doesn’t preclude Endeavor from seeking a better self, why would it preclude three characters coded as children, one of whom is literally somewhat the product of Endeavor’s sins? BNHA doesn’t think the past keeps someone from a better future. 

So what about Dabi’s counterpoint, which is indeed valid? Well, redemption doesn’t mean the past forgets, either. It’s complicated and nuanced, and we can debate how well Horikoshi strikes this nuance (it’s got its flaws), and admittedly I don’t know how this will go down in the future. But it is asking Endeavor: how do you redeem yourself to the people you’ve hurt? And we have Endeavor asking this question to Touya’s shrine. I mean, the foreshadowing is obvious. Endeavor has to redeem himself by trying to save Touya. However, it will still probably come down to Shouto to save Touya.

For our three villains, it’s a little harder to predict... well, sort of. For Shigaraki it’s extremely obvious: he has to help take down AFO. Dabi probably has to do something to help his family (siblings probably), but it’s vague. Toga needs help and not condemnation, but presumably she’ll help Ochaco with something.

So, is this redemption? I’d define it as redemption in the eyes of the narrative. To address what makes a redemption is another essay unto itself, but if we bring in the oft-compared Star Wars example: did Darth Vader get a redemption? Did Ben Solo? Everyone says yes to both. However, only Luke witnesses Vader’s redemption, and only Rey Ben Solo’s. So the rest of the galaxy? Doesn’t think so. When I say they’ll be redeemed, I’m defining it as their role in the eyes of the narrative, not whether or not society will accept them or even whether their victims will forgive them (of note, in canonical novels, Leia never forgave Darth Vader despite learning he was her father and obviously knowing Luke’s account of his redemption was true).

So, redemption in a narrative doesn’t mean all of society has to forgive and accept them. Dabi has still like, murdered 30 people--many of whom were thugs, but he himself acknowledges they didn’t deserve to die. Additionally, he himself also acknowledges that the families left behind--their feelings matter:

But why does that mean they have to die? Why even does it mean they have to languish in prison forever? (If there’s even a safe prison at the end of BNHA which I kinda have doubts about.) Heroes have also killed: see Hawks as Exhibit A. In fact, some people want revenge on the heroes precisely because they arrested or killed their loved ones (jail isn’t held up as a rehabilitative place in BNHA’s world. In most countries it isn’t in real life, either, but again that’s for another essay). So why don’t the League’s feelings on Twice’s death matter just as much as the feelings of unnamed and unseen (and thereby less important narratively) characters?

Additionally, regarding death... the villains routinely get called on their death wishes. Himiko’s determination to decide how/when she dies is called out because this is right  before Twice overcomes his trauma to save her, and the next arc they appear in is when Twice dies trying to save her again. Dabi’s suicide wish keeps him from getting close to others, and it keeps getting thwarted. Shigaraki’s obsession with destruction and death is clearly not a good thing, and his rejection of his family’s desire for them to join him in death this past arc is growth.

In other words: what Dabi said and what Snatch said about families and how they feel matter for the villains too. The villains are their own weird found family (Dabi as the deadbeat prodigal brother of both his families). Their deaths--Magne’s and Twice’s thus far, and I’m not ruling out further deaths in the future--affect the others. People’s feelings on losing loved ones matter. The villains are people, as Himiko said herself this arc:

Their feelings about each other matter:

How would Touya dying affect the Todorokis? At least they saved him spiritually, I guess, but that’s absolutely lame narratively, and if you have Enji eventually do a sacrifice to save Dabi (pretty likely, even if I personally think Enji will survive said sacrifice) then what’s the point of Dabi dying? How would Himiko dying affect society? As a martyr like Curious wanted her to be, even a redeemed one? A tragic warning story? What even is the point of Ochaco saving her if that’s the case? If Shigaraki dies, well, who would mourn besides Deku? How would Shigaraki dying affect the surviving members of the league? He just couldn’t be saved physically? 

It’s not impossible some of this happens, but it doesn’t seem like great writing, especially with panels like, oh, these that show us BNHA’s perspective on death:

Sacrificing something is a type of death that occurs in stories; this should happen in a redemption arc, which is why I’ve been saying Enji needs to sacrifice his hero reputation to help save Touya and even then it’ll still be Shouto imo who does the saving. But physical death?

If you want further analysis of the latter two panels and how they relate to the ending, see here.

We already have another villain who will definitely die redemptively (Kurogiri--an adult coded character--because he’s already, like, dead), and Spinner and Mr. Compress aren’t coded as kids so I hold them with anxiety towards the end. But again, this isn’t me being ageist or saying this is the way things ought to be in fiction or real life: it’s me looking at writing tropes and saying that child-coded characters tend to survive their redemptions. See: Zuko. Why? Because the death of children or child-coded characters is a tragedy. When a child-coded character dies redemptively it doesn’t feel like a happy ending and if framed as such, it’s often criticized for bad writing (see: Ben Solo). Curious even called this out in her fight with Himiko. I would hope Horikoshi doesn’t end the story being like yeah Curious was right that’s the best use of Himiko’s/Dabi’s/Shigaraki’s arcs:

Additionally, as for the believability of a character getting a new chance after so much destruction and murder... well, it’s kinda a thing in shonen and even in seinen? For better or for worse, it’s a thing. We have Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z and Kaneki Ken in Tokyo Ghoul (Kaneki, by the way, is absolutely an inspiration for Shigaraki). We can debate how well-written these redemptions are (I personally have been quite critical of Kaneki’s despite wanting it to happen narratively), but it can be done. BNHA’s Japan especially isn’t as harsh a world as Tokyo Ghoul’s Japan, so it would make even more sense for something like Kaneki’s ending.

The reality is that the cycle of revenge via hurting people and then leaving hurting families and loved ones has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be the bigger person and step up and be like “naw.” That’s heroic. That’s brave. That’s sacrificial itself. Justice itself doesn’t really exist in its purest form without mercy.

There’s another genre-reason I don’t see death or jail as likely (I could see, like, maybe a mental health ward like Rei’s? But it’s too soon to speculate).

If saving is considered a good thing for the story, if it’s truly the highest ideal, then saving someone should be rewarded by the narrative. The characters who save should have a positive result to show us this a good thing.

This is why it doesn’t work for the heroes’ end journey to be accepting that some people cannot be saved. The notion of just accepting that you cannot do something, you cannot save everyone, you cannot, cannot, cannot, is called out as a flaw of society. Determination, on the other hand, is rewarded.

We see it with Deku as well as with Mirio.

So, what if they save them and the redeemed characters then go on to sacrifice themselves in their redemption and die (come to the same end)? If saving changes absolutely nothing for the saved person, if it’s too late for the saved from themselves to change and/or do anything that matters besides die, then the narrative theme of saving as important is left unemphasized at best and undermined at worst. Simple intrinsic knowledge that the kids “did the right thing” doesn’t cut it for a story with so much focus on physical saving when the kids are already doing the right thing; moral struggles about whether to choose to be good aren’t really Deku, Ochaco, or Shouto’s arcs. It works for Aizawa’s arc with Kurogiri, but not for the kiddos. If BNHA was more of a philosophical/spiritual text, that would indeed make sense, but it is not. Genre-wise, BNHA is a fantastical superhero optimistic story, not a gritty real-world set drama.

[wnnbdarklord]

I didn’t want to derail the original post and this isn’t really aimed at the person who made the comment that inspired this anyway and is more of a general thing that devolved into spilling all my feelings everywhere, but like...

I too, watch people talk about the Loki show and wonder if we watched the same show. I watch people praise it and love it and write meta about it and all the while I am screaming and crying inside which show did you watch? Did you get the secret good show? How is your interpretation of events a literal 180 degrees from mine? It’s especially baffling to me when some of those people are the same ones that hated ragnarok! How did they not find the show even worse?

Some people whose meta I generally respect and takes I generally agree with seem to adore the show and I’m just sitting over here feeling gutted because I literally cannot wrap my mind around it. Because I could see liking the show because it’s fun and being a downer isn’t (boy oh boy how I wish I’d liked the show), but still seeing all its flaws and OOCness. I literally cannot compute people watching it and agreeing with the show’s perspective. I cannot compute the differences in interpretation.

Like, I can see the shape of the story the narrative is trying to shove down my throat, but I cannot accept those premises enough to engage with them. They make me fly into a frothing rage*. And no matter how softly or how kindly I try to state my opinions, the state of the fandom is such that it’s never soft or kind enough. No, instead I should just sit down and shut up and lick the disney boot and it’s so fucking lonely and alienating. Almost every fandom space I go to is just constant shitting on people who didn’t like the show.

And if I can’t enjoy the fandom anymore, I wish I could just not care enough to leave. It feels like that’s what the wider fandom wants me to do anyway, but I can’t. Because I still love this character and I want him back. But I haven’t actually seen him since 2013 and it looks like I’m never going to again. And it hurts and I’m so bitter. They took him away in IW and then gave me hope I’d see him again and then even that hope was shattered.

I want to feel happy for people who find joy in the show, but mostly I just feel abandoned and left behind. Like intellectually, yes, at least someone is enjoying it. Emotionally? Pathetic neediness and abandonment is me. 

(which isn’t to say that people need to conform to my expectations and needs, I’m just word vomiting in the hopes that getting it all out will make me feel better. but it also really does feel like I trashed half my fandom circle of friends/acquaintances cause apparently speaking out against this show (and never actually attacking people with different opinions, or at least certainly never intending to) makes you toxic and domineering or something)

(to the people who hate the show just as much as i do, ilu, you’re keeping me sane and like I’m not going crazy because the interpretations are so different)

*Reading meta where people liked the show is an exercise in self flagellation because after I finish internally crying/screaming about it not being true, it’s interesting! It has depth. I just completely and fundamentally disagree that any of that depth was intended or even there in the text. You have to do so much work to tease out a palatable interpretation and meanwhile I’m like “or they just didn’t give a shit and it’s bad writing.gif” Reading those endless articles from the people involved in the show is a whole other level of hell because if they’re not outright lying, they’re disagreeing about the show on a very basic level, and none of what they’re saying they put in did they actually manage to convey (imo, of course, which should be self evident, but as we all know, the wank rides eternal shiny and chrome)

anyway, I’m losing the plot of this so the end of this post is going to be very anticlimactic and just this sentence cause I don’t know how to finish it.

[sweetescapeartist]

THE HYPOCRISY OF SAIYAN SCHOLAR 👓

First of all, this ain't some "hit piece." Internet beef is boring & a waste of my time.

I'm just pointing out his hypocrisy & the character bias that Saiyan Scholar often pretends he doesn't have. Basically what I'm gonna say is...

"If you don't like Krillin then stop pretending just to get views. It's clear you're one of those ppl who doesn't understand the characters as well as you claim. If you did, then you wouldn't sneak in the picture of 18 with Vegeta while you "talk good about Krillin." Just be honest. You don't like Krillin & you're a Vegeta fanboy who wants 18 to be in an abusive relationship with the man who tried to murder her and didnt see her as a person."

Now that the main point is out of the way, allow me to elaborate.

In Saiyan Scholar's videos about Krillin that are meant to be positive for Krillin, Scholar inserts this sexualized pic of 18 vs Vegeta while saying...

Saiyan Scholar: "...then, that's fine. I mean, Krillin's not exactly complaining, is he?"

*shows image of 18 with Vegeta instead of Krillin for no reason, defeating the purpose of Krillin positivity*

He's done so at least twice to my knowledge.

(If I remember correctly, the other video was taken down due to the copyright stuff from Toei. So, he decided to include this image in a video about Krillin again.)

And here's my response to his "Android 18 Sucked Krillin Dry Of Relevance" video mentioned above.

I make a fair point.

I haven't seen him insert sexualized pics of Bulma with Goku, Yamcha or someone else when he makes a positive video about Vegeta. Nor have I seen him do such in Goku, Tien or videos about anyone else. It seems Krillin is the only one that he does this to. 🤔

I don't find Saiyan Scholar's videos very interesting to have watched everything he does & I watch him less often now. Meaning, idk if he has "slyly" displayed his dislike for Krillin in such a manner more than twice. I do know he favors Tien more than Krillin, which is fine. Most DB fans don't understand Krillin nor Tien, so they go with the "cooler looking" character.

Imo, his vids are entertaining at first, but I lose interest quickly. His accent is cool (or would it be dialect since we both speak English?) but, his content is mostly the same boring info about Vegeta or Saiyans that almost every DB-tuber repeats. Or he somehow attempts to power-wank Vegeta when it's unnecessary. (Something he denied even when I had evidence to prove his points wrong.)

Link to my post about his Vegeta video.

Link to what was said on Twitter about my post. (His tweets are deleted tho. We mostly disagreed, but agreed on some stuff.)

Honestly... I don't watch most DB-tubers 'cause most of their content is so similar and their content is Saiyan reliant. It's the same 'ol thing.

Repeated info about Saiyans & Vegeta that we already know.

Similar what-if stories about Vegeta & Saiyans.

Innacurate depictions of beloved characters like Vegeta, Gohan, Krillin, Goku, Yamcha, Tien, ect. (most DB-tubers don't understand the characters either, & ironically, they're viewed as knowledgeable sources by the fandom)

But, Saiyan centric vids do get the most views, so I understand why many make those. It's extremely easy to profit off of Saiyan fans & Vegeta fans.

I bet you're wondering why I'm subscribed to Saiyan Scholar. No? Eh, I'll tell ya anyway.

It's 'cause I feel like it. Also, is 1 less subscriber supposed to stick it to him or something? Nope. Views, watch time, and interactions help with the algorithm. I already said I don't watch most of his vids anymore because of the sub-par content similar to many other DB-tubers. I don't give him thumbs up or down 'cause that's algorithm too. And this is my only comment on his videos.

I'd rather see him & others do better videos. I could name all of them but I won't. But Geekdom is one I'd like to see improve. He's been making a lot of Vegeta videos as of recent. But, at times, it seems that he's doing leaps in logic to apease Vegeta fans. It's a smart financial move to capitalize on Vegeta fans who desperately eat up anything about Vegeta. If you didn't know this about most Vegeta fans, now you know.

(Sometimes Vegeta fans/stans even threaten to get videos taken down if they disagree with a video that's speaking truth & doesn't promote the lies they like to hear. I know... crazy.)

Lying, stretching the truth, or omitting crucial info in order to boister up a character just proves that the character isn't as great as many make them out to be. It also takes away from the actual character development of someone like Vegeta.

There are of tons of ppl fooled by the slick talk from "influencers" but, there are many more ppl who choose to be blind to fit their biases. No point trying to reach ppl who already dismiss truth & accept what they want to hear. Their minds are already made up. I just wanna inform the select few who may read this. Don't be manipulated & search for truth.

That's all. Thanks for reading. ✌

[belovedstill]

hi!! i have a question... i saw your reblog about freewriting and i wanted to try it myself cause i have a hard time with writing because of my anxiety but i'm not sure i understood 100%. what do you actually write while you freewrite? is it related to what you're working on at the moment, like do you freewrite a scene (kind of like sprinting in a way) or just random words/thoughts in your head?

hi <3 i understand you 100% because sometimes (most of the time) when i sit down with the intention to write, my brain subconsciously goes "okay, the pressure's ON, everything i write must be useful for the fic" (and then i go "wait, @ brain, what fic? i don't even know what fic i would write, i just want to write" and brain says "it must be useful for the fic" (which btw doesn't help, thanks @ brain but no thanks))

i will start by honestly saying that while I've been doing this for many years, I've never had a word for it. If my memory's right, then I've never heard the term "freewriting" before. I'd either call it stream of consciousness or messaging a friend or word vomit or scribbling

(i'm going to share some photos & screenshots as examples because i personally appreciate examples for things i don't know how to even start doing; i'll include content warnings above the photos wherever applicable. These things were not meant to be seen by other people, obviously, so not all of them are neat, not all of them are in English or spelled correctly, and not all of them make sense, some might not even be Socially Acceptable (i'm very anxious as well, you see, so I ask people to be kind if you do take a look at the examples and decipher what's written), but that's the whole point of these: you let your mind go without worrying about where it's going)

I'm sure every person who does freewriting does it differently but here are several ways i do it (under the cut because it got very long as i pretty much (ayyyy) freewrote it):

test a pen/pencil! you know when you get a new pen and write down the most random thing on a piece of paper to see what the ink looks like and how it feels to write using that pen? for me it's usually a single word or a phrase from a song (my go-tos are hello, wait, Beloved (my MC's name, shhh) and other fictional characters' names or Why you gotta be so mean? from Taylor Swift's song "Mean", don't ask me why because i have no answer)

writing down the lyrics to a song that's currently stuck in your mind and living there rent-free, and if you forget the next line or if something else pops into your head - let it take you over

write on random pieces of paper! the less it reminds you of a notebook/blank page, the better! sometimes that means what's left of printer paper or post-it notes. actually, most of the photos of paper pages in this post are from my poor quality notebooks - the paper is too thin or not smooth or the pages are yellowish, so i don't feel bad """wasting""" the notebook for doodles, random scribbles, etc.

a diary entry? a diary entry, except there doesn't have to be depth to it, no journaling type of reflection on your feelings, on your experiences, on the Daily Journaling Prompt necessary--unless you want to. in my case it's mostly complaining about the pen i decided to use or the quality of the paper but!!! because i let myself write anything and everything on one page, at one point it feels natural to write some random story sentences on the other page

CW: implied past physical abuse

brainstorming! here's where, for me, the "messaging a friend" name came from. i have a very vague idea for what i want to write or a very small detail i want to write about, but nothing else. i set up a timer and write everything down (the screenshot is taken from my very own personal discord server, it's just me and a writing bot. at one point i realised that whenever i was brainstorming or writing cheer up ficlets in my friends' discord DMs, writing went super easy because my brain didn't register it as writing, but as chatting. At first, I formatted a new google doc so it looked exactly like discord's dark theme, but ultimately decided that just creating a new server just for my writing process/practice/etc and stuff is easier)

CW: harmful & discouraging stuff asexual people face

"I don't know what to write, I don't even think I want to write an actual story, it's not going to stop me" kind of writing. Anything goes and I mean anything. The sentences aren't connected. There's no actual idea or story behind the sentences. You're just writing a word after a word after a word. Sometimes a question appears in your mind, so you write it down. The question leads to more questions, or maybe an answer, or maybe you realise you like the feel/sound of one word so you write it again and again. After you wrote the word three times, tiny ideas form in your mind, things you relate to that word. Then you lose track of the thought so you write "I lost track", then a piece of dialogue floats in your mind that's probably inspired or part of a song lyric you wrote earlier

CW: unconventional/controversial lovers

if your writing anxiety is caused by fandom wank regarding some topics, tropes, themes, or even genres, know that if you freestyle about the thing you're worried somebody would judge you for, nobody else will read it. you can delete the doc afterwards. you can password protect it. you can tear the page out of your notebook and shred it to pieces. i won't include a photo example of this one (anxious, remember? also, it's nsfw) but i did this with smut-specific words and phrases. i got a blank piece of paper and wrote--first, just words (nouns for genitalia, verbs for action, etc. let me tell you - i was alone in the room and even trying to write the first word was difficult, in my head i kept thinking back to people's conversations on how "problematic these words are" etc etc etc and that fed my anxiety even further because "oh god what if they knew i was about to write this, what would they think of me"), then the words combined into phrases, then common smexy phrases that characters in smut say, and so on and so on. no punctuation because it's not a story. you know what happened after i put that first word on the page? nothing. i felt silly, sure, but i repeated the word several more times and still no People From the Internet barged into my room to ridicule & judge me. during that session, freestyling for that genre got easier and easier with every word.

Two posts that helped me realise that warming up for writing (and anything creative) is a good idea:

Writers need warm up sketches too (my way of warm up is usually either freewriting or using a typing speed website)

The anatomy of a pen/pencil etc

...and I think that's all from me 💕 apologies for how long this is but I hope it helps you in some way *hugs*

[gascon-en-exil]

But What If You Want to Come Out on Vers Bottom?: A “Coming Out on Top” Review (Part 2)

Part 1

The main substance of Coming Out on Top - and around 80% of its wank material - lies in its main story love interests, so each of them deserves a dedicated section for review and...erotic evaluation, if you will. It would be much too cluttered to try to cover all six in one post however, so this one will only include the first three with Part 3 to follow with the remainder. Note that I’ll be doing these in alphabetical order, except for the sixth who was added in an update and whose route comes with some mechanical differences that warrant leaving him for last. I wouldn’t want to seem biased, would I? But I’ll be ranking them from most to least favorite at the end anyway.

Also, if anyone is wondering why most of my screenshots are from dialogue scenes rather than CGs, it’s because there are remarkably few CGs in this game that are both interesting enough to include in a review and tame enough for Tumblr’s censorship standards.

Alex: Mark Makes the Grade (With His Ass)

And how fitting it is that I get to start with Alex, fresh off over a year of involvement in the fandom of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and all its exaggerated pearl-clutching over that game’s teacher/student relationships. That’s exactly what Alex’s romance with Mark is, begun under more innocuous circumstances wherein Alex judges Mark’s alcohol preferences (the uncultured barbarian favors whiskey, and has nothing to say if you have Mark order a glass of presumably passable cabernet) but then progressing rapidly to hot for teacher territory once Mark discovers that Alex is his anatomy professor. As expected a handful of jokes - and one sex scene, kind of - hinge upon Alex’s field of expertise, but compared to the other routes of CooT this one is remarkably tame. It’s the only one in which it’s impossible to have sex with the love interest during the game and still get his ending, and the story requires the player to thread a fine line between expressing attraction to the man and respecting his professional boundaries. Alex is nothing if not ethical, almost to a fault, and the game also doesn’t allow you to lose sight of how strange his connection with Mark is...allegedly, anyway. I personally don’t see much issue with it, when Mark is of age (this isn’t even the largest age gap of the main love interests) and about to graduate. Eh, I’ll chalk it up to a cultural difference and move on.

The plot of the route also pivots around the potential scandal to be found in some hot one-on-one anatomy lessons, as Mark finds himself embroiled in the cutthroat world of tenured professorships and overworked postgraduate toadies moonlighting as paparazzi. I guess I lucked out in my much more reasonable graduate advisors, but I think I would have taken well to snooping around in men’s locker rooms looking for hot gay action/blackmail material. With all that going on it’s little wonder that there’s no real sex to be had on the full route, and that the one potential steamy encounter Mark can have with Alex in the professor’s office swiftly ends the romance then and there. I suppose it’s worth noting that Alex is also the only primary love interest who will never bottom for Mark in any encounter the player gets to see, so props if you’re looking for a total top. He’ll give head though, so that’s nice.

That said however, I can’t help but feel as though CooT wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to the teacher/student fucking. Amidst everyone being reasonable and ethical about the situation Mark can have a dream in which Alex fingers him and gives him a prostate orgasm as a live demonstration during a lecture - unquestionably hitting some of those teacher crush buttons even as it comes with the easy out of being a dream sequence. I’ve also seen reactions to this route labeling it as an example of the type of lover/beloved relationship found in ancient Greek pederasty, in that Alex is lowkey masc4masc and that he and Mark bond over the ancient and manly sport of, er, racquetball (I don’t know, just go with it). You also have to keep Mark’s grades up to get Alex’s full ending, which is both entirely logical - Mark is trying to date his professor after all, even if he doesn’t fully get there until the semester is over and he’s ready to walk the stage - and an extension of the idealized pederastic relationship as an educational one for the beloved younger man. If you’re into that kind of thing, Alex’s route is among the better options in this game to find it.

There’s also this obscure random line, which triggers an unusual extra CG added in an update that might be pet play? It’s honestly hard to tell - and I say that as someone who likes pet play. Something you may notice in my review is that, while the five romances included in the game on initial release are all fairly mundane, the writers clearly felt more free to get weird in the later additions. 

Brad: Frat Boys Gone Wild Parts 2, 5, and 7

Do you like beefy jocks, and huge dicks, and harsh but realistic indictments of the unequal attention lavished upon athletics departments at most American universities? One of these things is not like the others, but thankfully the route knows where to place most of its priorities. This is the story that puts Mark to work in his job as a writing tutor, tasking him with saving a hunky frat boy from failing his composition class and losing his scholarship in the process. Much unlike my own time as an undergraduate writing tutor however Mark is required to make house calls, setting him on a collision course for Brad’s burgeoning homosexuality and almost getting his ass kicked by the other equally hunky - but tragically straight - members of the frat. Brad is indeed the only one of Mark’s love interests who struggles to any degree with his sexuality, but it’s a muted part of this storyline and only really comes up in one scene involving Brad’s overbearing older brother. Despite some heavier moments here and there CooT is still a lighthearted dating sim at its core, so don’t expect too much in the way of angst even for a character who under more realistic circumstances would likely have to keep his inclinations on the DL.

Where there is plenty of intensity though is in those tutoring sessions, because, well -

- Mark ends up with a serious case of blue balls from all the UST and frequent teasing of Brad’s behemoth cock. Disclaimer: despite years of professional phallus measurements, this reviewer is unable to determine if Brad’s endowment is measurably more impressive than those of the other love interests based on his CGs alone; all pronouncements to this effect may thus be taken as the hyperbole of a horny size queen.

An even bigger source of tension in this route is the cheating angle: during their first meeting Brad will attempt to pressure Mark into writing his paper for him, remarking that American football players at universities get this kind of preferential treatment all the time and that their grades are basically irrelevant. Mark can actually take him up on this offer, and end up quite a bit richer for it via a little bribery (a nice perk if you’re angling for Ian’s friendship ending). Doing so will make it impossible to obtain Brad’s good ending but will instead lead to an alternate storyline with its own set of CGs, culminating in some saucily unethical fellatio as Mark proves to Brad that he can provide just as many perks as the rival female tutor who’s been capturing the jock’s attention with blowjobs and amateur porn. Incidentally, while it very quickly ends the route I like that Mark has a dialogue option to offer those exact services to Brad in front of the other tutor. It’s almost as funny as the earlier option about rimjobs that also ends the route but results in a dream CG of the straight frat guys having their way with Mark. That’s like wish fulfillment Inception, or something.

But no, to finish this route properly you have to keep both Mark and Brad honest, and convince Brad to write his own essay with Mark’s help...and provide genuinely good help, so I hope you know the basics of how to structure an academic essay just kidding you can save scum through that stuff. Many heartwarming life lessons are learned through all-nighters, ruminations on long-term career prospects, and mutual masturbation, until at last the two of them succeed and celebrate their victory with full penetration. How exactly you prefer the penetration to go down isn’t the most intuitive set of dialogue options in the world, but bear in mind that on initial release the only possibility was Brad splitting Mark open with that ginger club swinging between his legs. As I brought up in Alex’s section, the later additions usually get rather freakier. In this case that means an extended dream sequence with football role play (which is a thing that exists, I guess?) followed by some actual sex, with Brad bottoming in both scenes and much loving detail lavished upon his meaty ass. It’s...clever, I suppose, but I think I prefer the original version. Maybe that’s just because I always thought American football uniforms looked ridiculous; where’s the sex appeal to be found with those ridiculous shoulder pads?

Ian: Oh My God They Were Roommates

Even years later I still don’t know for certain whether including Ian so casually with the other love interests counts as a minor spoiler. He’s introduced alongside Penny as Mark’s longtime roommate, and in that first scene it’s also established that he has an on-again, off-again girlfriend. I’m going to err on the side of it not being a spoiler however, because well before his route proper begins the game drops hints that there might be more to Ian than a goofy slacker best friend with appalling personal hygiene. His route progresses as might reasonably be expected from Mark’s coming out, with Ian as the fantasy gay-friendly straight guy who turns out to be not quite as straight as initially advertised. 

There’s just one very large problem with that and it’s not the size of his dick. Because Ian is first and foremost Mark’s roommate he has the privilege of appearing as a supporting character in routes other than his own, and in fact there are CGs featuring him in some of those routes. This results in Ian receiving the most overall development of any of the love interests, ranging from the oddball humor that he injects into situations all over the story to his raging and, er, adventurous libido leading to all manner of masturbatory mishaps for Mark to, most jarringly, poorly-disguised jealousy over the other love interests should Mark choose to pursue them. One would expect this to result in a fantastically fleshed-out character and an excellent foundation for a route of his own that builds off Ian’s simple charm and manic energy to craft an excellent best friend romance.

Yet...it kind of doesn’t? It took me until my most recent playthrough to appreciate this properly, but more than any of the others Ian’s route is written as the most conventionally romantic. It incorporates a host of romcom staples - UST, misunderstandings, miscommunication, more than one romantic false lead, a wedding at the end, mood lighting for its softcore bondage scene - and while most of the other routes include one or two of those elements as well this is undoubtedly the only one that ever comes close to feeling cheesy or maudlin. Unfortunately however that kind of writing just doesn’t play well with Ian’s over-the-top comic relief antics, and so for most of the latter part of his own route he comes off as oddly bland. The writing mines some jokes out of his growing jealousy of the other men Mark expresses interest in dating, and it offers Mark a devastating early sex scene bad ending opportunity in the form of Ian coming onto Mark while drunk and forcing the player to choose between a rimjob now or double oral and/or flip-fucking later. Sure, that setup and some of what comes before it plays right into who Ian is as a character - a well-meaning idiot with a lot of insecurity surrounding his relationship to Mark - but after that point whether you take the rimjob or not Ian practically fades into the role of generic romantic lead as Mark must work to repair their friendship and then guide it into uncharted territory.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make, contrast these two CGs. The first is from Ian’s friendship ending (something only he and Penny get, based on spending time with them on weekends among other factors); the second is from his romantic ending.

Which of these images tells you more about Ian’s characterization, or about his dynamic with Mark?

I’m not going to deny that Ian has sex appeal, or that he doesn’t have a slew of genuinely funny lines all over the game’s script, or that there’s nothing satisfying in watching Mark and his best friend fall in love with each other - but it’s the lack of integration between Ian the comic relief roommate and Ian the love interest that doesn’t sit well with me. When I was reviewing Chess of Blades I name-dropped Ian in comparison to that game’s own best friend love interest Arden. I’ll do the reverse here: Ian may be sweet and a ton of fun, and there may be far more options for which pegs go into which slots in this storyline, but Arden’s character and story stick in my mind more because they’re never at odds with one another. Ian in the earlygame and outside his own route is so goofy that it’s very hard to take him seriously as someone who could be a romantic partner for Mark, and unfortunately that comes across all too well when the occasion finally arises.

[isocrime]

Where do you fall on the MCU CW wank? What did you think of the showdown in Siberia?

i’m not particularly familiar with this wank! i didn’t watch ca:cw until it was well out of theaters, and i wasn’t really in steve/tony fandom at the time so i wasn’t keeping close tabs on the drama

also i’ve only watched the siberia showdown once so i might not have all my facts straight

here’s my understanding: tony, exhausted, already beat half to shit (and he’s a human in his 50s under that armor so he’s not healed), watches video of his parents being murdered by the guy next to him and loses his fucking mind. bucky, being a smart cookie, decides to get the hell out of dodge, and steve does his best to cover his retreat. things go downhill fast, and they have a slug-out in the bottom of a missile silo that ends with bucky getting his metal arm turned to slag and tony having his metaphorical heart shattered.

okay i re-watched a quick cut of the siberia scene

now i think there’s something interesting about the fight tactics. tony and bucky are long-range, lethal fighters. iron man is built for airborne dogfights, not punching -- the movie even says it when friday tells tony he can’t beat steve hand-to-hand. Meanwhile bucky is first and foremost a sniper and an ambusher. if tony and bucky really want to kill each other, they should hang back and try to murder from a distance. but if they’d actually rather not do murder, they have to get in close and wrestle, which isn’t their strong suit. 

and they end up choosing to wrestle! which means that tony isn’t actually up for murdering bucky in coldblooded revenge, and bucky’s being as non-lethal as bucky gets while he tries to get away. (ignore the fact that the real reason it was choreographed like a bar fight is that a brawl is more fun to watch -- i’m enjoying my meta)

steve, on the other hand, is all melee anyway, so it’s hard to say what his lethality intentions are. his goal at the start is to protect bucky, even if it meant using deadly force. but by the end of the fight...i think steve just wants to take tony down.

right before the end, bucky goes for tony’s arc reactor. he knows if he destroys it, the suit will power down, making tony unable to fight but not dead. (tony hasn’t needed the arc reactor to live since before bucky’s character was introduced, i think bucky would have known tony’d be fine)

then tony blasts bucky’s metal arm off, stands still for a dramatic moment, then hits bucky with a non-deadly repulsor blast, then stands still for another dramatic moment, all this time not killing bucky yet.

which is when steve comes at tony, hard, and, uh, beats the tar out of him. tony gets the upper hand, then stops and tells steve to stay down. but steve comes at tony again and really really beats the tar out of him, and tony thinks he’s about to get killed for real.

non-lethal, non-lethal.....coulda been lethal. steve’s the worst behaved of the bunch, imo. 

it makes sense for steve to be a wreck! his judgement is all fucked up. he’s an overprotective mess over bucky -- who died on steve’s watch once anyway, landing him with some spectacular survivor’s guilt -- which means he’s thinking in emotinoal absolutes. steve KNOWS that tony is going to kill bucky which means steve has to do ANYTHING he can to stop it, no price too high. plus steve gets caught up in the need to win fights, even ones where he doesn’t need to keep fighting, because he’s stubborn and has a chip on his shoulder and has a bit of a temper.

(i also think this fight is an example of why mcu steve is a terrible captain america as written: he's not cut out for the shield. this fight wasn’t about protecting the world, it was about protecting the person he loved. in terms of superhero symbolism this scene was like if both bucky and a school bus full of kids were falling and steve picked bucky to save. not superhero-like! you could argue that putting bucky first doesn’t make steve a bad person, but it definitely makes him a bad cap.)

tony is also a wreck! bucky is a guilt-ridden half-brainwashed disaster who definitely has moments where he’s pretty sure tony’s justified in trying to kill him! nobody is behaving well!!! but steve’s goals and reasons still seem to be the most questionable to me. he seems the most like he’s acting out personal beef and escalating instead of de-escalating. so that’s my stance. i am not sure if this is actually what the wank is about but that’s what i think!

SIDE NOTE: this fight scene is terribly written. the character goals are all over the map! you never know what the characters immediate goals are, or really their long-term goals.  there’s all these moments where a character is slammed into the wall and then they just kind of grapple there uselessly for a minute before breaking apart. nobody has any concrete, stated goals at the end beyond “do cool punches together” and “exchange brief, emotionally loaded lines”

in a good fight scene you know what everyone wants at all times -- you just don’t know how they’re going to get it or what they’re willing to sacrifice for it. both in the long term (ie, i wanted to hide in here and instead there is an angry blacksmith swinging a sword at my nose) and in the short term (ie, i’m handcuffed and need to be not handcuffed so i can be better at not getting stabbed). mcu movies are TERRIBLE at this a lot of the time. spiderverse is great at this -- think about the fight with peter, miles and doc ock in the lab where they’re trying to get the data to make the goober. the whole time their ultimate goal is to escape with the computer. along the way they encounter a bunch of immediate problems -> solutions such as “can’t find the files -> take entire computer” and  “miles can’t swing -> give him a webshooter and push him off the roof.” every time the viewer gets two KEY pieces of information: 1) what is the immediate problem and 2) what tools do the characters have to solve it.

MCU CONSISTENTLY FAILS TO DO THIS!

take the bit in the siberia fight where steve lassos tony around the neck and uses him as a flaily parachute. we start with bucky trying to climb out the roof and steve helping. tony is fighting them. steve tells bucky to go on ahead and we briefly see steve pulling a gizmo out of his pocket -- what does it do? we don’t know. steve has a Plan. what does he need it for? we don’t know! we won’t know until tony flies upwards (ah steve had predicted that the problem would be “stop tony from flying,” rather than...any of the other things tony could have done) and steve flings his lasso around tony’s neck and drags him down (oh he had a handy lasso gadget i guess). how unsatisfying! we didn’t get any chance to predict what would happen, it just did, and in retrospect you can figure out the motivations. it has zero story content.

the action does NOTHING to help tell the story. it just looks cool. that’s it. there’s nothing for the viewer to engage with or chances to use your brain. the only thing the fucking movie asks from you is that you wait and see.

fucking disgraceful.

OKAY I HAD SOME FEELINGS PROBABLY THIS SHOULD BE TWO POSTS BUT WHATEVER BYE

[autumnstwilight]

An anonymous discussion on monetizing fanfic which makes a lot of good points and I’m holding onto for the next time it comes up.

(I’ve got nothing against people who do monetize their fic, but I dislike the pressure/guilt-tripping/social-justice framing many of the discussions in favor of paid fanwork have).

>>>Do you think the lack of monetization in fanfic is preventing newer writers and different stories from being told?

When has monetization and commercialization ever led to a more diverse, innovative creative output? People who are writing with an eye to monetization or pull-to-publish aren't going to be the people writing weird experimental fic, or obscure rarepairs, or wildly improbable AUs that somehow work, they are going to write the same popular derivative fic of megafandom juggernauts as everyone else, because that's where the money and the audience is. And, like, that's fine if people want to do that! There's nothing wrong morally suspect about writing fun romance fic for a big audience if that's what you enjoy doing in fandom. But let's not pretend that monetizing that is some heroic effort to democratize fandom. One of the best things about fandom is that there is pretty much no barrier to entry. You can write the weirdest, most niche fic on the entire planet, you can write it about a canon only two people in the world have ever seen, you can write it entirely in emoticons, and you can put it online right now. It may not be popular, you may not get a million comments/kudos/twitter followers out of it, only a few people may read it, but there is no gatekeeper telling you not to write it or not to put it on AO3 if you really want to. Monetization would not make that better. 

>>>This is pretty much why I don't want fic monetization to be the norm. So much already ugly wank and discourse is prompted by fic and fic related jealousy. Imagine if money was brought into the mix. 

>>>I can see the basic logic that this would invite in those who are forced to monetize their every waking hour. The people who espouse this view imagine that being paid to write fanfic will allow people to immediately swap out extra retail/food service shifts, delivery, driving, or Mechanical Turk-type work for writing time instead. They then assume that there will be more diverse and innovative output because these people who previously didn't have time to write as an unpaid hobby will have time to write as a paid job. This ignores the fact that when it's a paid job, these people will not be writing the innovative works of their heart. They'll be writing what a more financially secure class of people want to read - if they're competitive enough in the right market out the gate to start making money immediately. It also ignores the more crucial thing here: that the way to encourage diversity and innovation in creative hobbies isn't to turn them into jobs, it's to ensure that everyone has both enough money to live on and enough leisure time in a week to pursue creative endeavours for free. Anything else is just a new thing to pay for.

>>>Frankly, I think encouraging people to ask for money for their fic is doing them a disservice, because the vast, vast majority of people will not make anywhere near even minimum wage for the amount of time they put in. They will be wasting time they could have spent doing something that would have made more money *or* writing a story that they would have fun with.

>>>If anything, money would make writers shy away from anything that could be seen as unappealing or controversial and cater to the perceived lowest common denominator. Of course lots of authors chase kudos even now, but it'd still be different if they were losing actual money by writing that unpopular ship or kink. It would make people ditch unpopular fandoms altogether.

>>>Somehow "creative professionals have a right to ask for fair compensation for their labor and not work on spec/accept starvation wages for the love of the medium" has morphed into "all creative expression requires monetary compensation." Like, I enjoy carving little wooden squirrel figures and it takes hours of labor. I have a right to charge whatever price I want for them, but if no one wants to buy them at that price, the "system" isn't screwing me over.

>>>I personally want the people reading my stories to be fellow fans and potential friends, not customers who see me as a service provider (and who, having paid for my services, have a say in shaping the form those services will take), so I have zero interest in trying to monetize my fic. If other people want to sell their writing, more power to them, but doing so necessarily changes the dynamic with readers in a way I suspect they're not all prepared for. For example, once you've monetized, you don't get to pout about readers not commenting on your stuff anymore -- they've already paid for access, that's a comment in of itself! Negative reviews are also fair game once you're offering your content for a fee (not that they can't also be left on fic, but in the fic world at least they're often seen as rude).

>>>I agree with all nonnies in this thread but I'd also add that it would likely actively stifle marginalized fans. I can sort of see OP's logic - privileged people with leisure and a steady income have more time to write fic, but if fic was paid, everyone would have an equal chance, etc. And for the first few months, this might work out. People desperate for money would write a lot of fic. People struggling to get by would give up their current side hustle and focus on fic. A few new working class BNFs would emerge. But inevitably, the same thing would happen as in the world of pro blogging and cheap genre fiction. Competition would grow. People with more money for marketing would start earning more. Brand development, market analysis, BNF status retainment would become the only certain way to make a living. Impoverished fans would have to make do with ghostwriting, or they'd have to try to develop a virally pitiable persona. Comfortable fans with a steady income and lots of leisure would still get most of the attention. They'd even sincerely believe they deserve all of it. And fandom wanks would become a thousand times more vicious because there's financial incentive. And like always, marginalized creators would be the most vulnerable (except for the lucky few, mostly the rich ones, who successfully built their personal brand on their identity).

[camryndaytona]

Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is one of the most popular and successful young adult authors of today, however, a huge percentage of her fans have no idea of her past where she was know more for her bullying than her writing. I started this as a post on my “You Should Know” instagram, but eventually it got way too big and I had to create a post for it as well.

Terms to Know

Big Name Fan

Or “BNF” is an old term mostly used during the early 2000s, before ff.net or AO3.

They were the biggest names in fandom, producing the most popular art or fanfics.

Getting on the wrong side of a BNF could lock you out from the entire fandom, as you would be blocked from any forum they (or they friends) moderated.

The Inner Circle

In the early 2000s the Harry Potter fandom was essentially ruled by the Inner Circle. 

Although most of the Inner Circle changed constantly due to fandom drama and scandals, one member stayed for almost it’s entire duration: Cassie Claire

ff.net

Fanfiction.net

One of the early and most popular sites for hosting fanfiction.

The Draco Trilogy

Draco Dormiens

Author’s Summary: When an accident in Potions class turns Harry into Draco and Draco into Harry, each is trapped playing the part of the other. Romance, mistaken identities, Really Cunning Plans, evil bake sales, a love triangle, and snogs galore.

Draco Sinister

Author’s Summary: When Hermione is kidnapped, Harry and Draco must team up to rescue her from a thousand-year-old evil that threatens the entire wizarding world. Cursed demon swords, love potions, time travel, dementors, flying dragons, Draco wears leather, and everybody dies at least once. Except when they don’t.

It is notable for being the source of the Draco in Leather Pants trope as well as the catalyst for the Cassandra Claire plagiarism wank.

Draco Veritas

Author’s Summary: The sequel to Draco Sinister, featuring winter at Hogwarts, snogging, Quidditch, mysterious things and Rhysenn Malfoy.

Why was the Trilogy so popular?

As most people in fandom probably know, there’s usually two subsets of shippers: gay and straight (please note that, back in the early 2000s, there was still a lot of homophobia, and the heterosexual ships were undeniably more popular for that reason).

Since The Draco Trilogy had both Draco/Hermione and a lot of Harry/Draco subtext, fans of both ships flocked to the fic.

The Plagiarism 

Although she’d done it all along, it wasn’t until the second fanfic, Draco Sinister, that fans began to catch on. What was “it?”

Cassie including a lot of quotations from other work. And I mean a LOT. She lifted entire conversations and paragraphs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Black Adder, Red Dwarf, and Terry Pratchett. At first she didn’t even mention this “inspiration,” so everyone assumed that this wit was all hers.

Once she was called out, she put a standard disclaimer at the top of her work, which was worded to imply that she might have borrowed a few, small quotes here and there, not that she was taking paragraphs and scenes. When she was called out for her continued plagiarism she switched to claiming that she “forgot” what her sources were.

Finally a former fan called Avocado got tired of it and reported her to ff.net. Within a day her works were taken down.

Predictably the fandom melted down over this and accusations began to fly. Cassie used her status as a BNF to ban anyone mildly critical of her from any message board or mailing list. A friend of Cassie’s claimed to be a real life lawyer and harrassed young fans with seemingly legal threats. There are even threats of people calling the police in an early form of “swatting.” Cassie tried to get a “hater” kicked out of university for “hacking” her and a REAL lawyer had to be involved before Cassie admitting to making it all up.

After all that began to die down, as she was working on the third installment of the trilogy, Cassie began accusing her friend and fellow BNF, Aja, of plagiarizing her. When that failed to incite the anger she wanted against Aja, Cassie began to claim that Aja was posting leaked spoilers for the Draco Trilogy. This infighting between the two lead to the collapse of The Inner Circle.

Laptop Gate

Although the third part of the Trilogy wasn’t as popular as the first two, due to the plagiarism scandal, it still racked up a ton of views when she began posting it. So when there was a potential threat to the continuation of the saga, readers were horrified.

This potential threat was a break in and the loss of Cassie’s computer.

Almost immediately after the robbery was announced Cassie’s lawyer friend (who was also her roommate) popped up again. This time, they were raising money to replace the laptops of Cassie and her roommates that had been stolen in the break in. Any extra money from the fundraiser would go to some vaguely mentioned charity.

Divisive comments poured in.

Some people expressed frustration that more “meaningful” fundraisers (like someone who had lost everything in a fire) didn’t get anywhere near as much attention and support.

Fans were even less happy when no proof was provided of either the break in or the charitable donation of excess funds (which was reported to be over $10,000).

When called out they changed the subject and posted links to another fan that was also fundraising (although they never posted any charity before or after, even when asked to do so the lawyer friend claimed to be “too busy” to share a link).

Published Works

After enjoying her celebrity as the Queen of Fanfiction, it’s no surprise that Cassie decided to venture into actual, original published works.

Except they weren’t that original, because it’s Cassie and she really, really seems to like “borrowing” from herself and others.

Let’s start with some name changes

Cassie

Cassandra Claire (with an i) is her fanfiction name

Cassandra Clare (without an i) is her published name

You may be surprised by how well this name change suited her. For a long time, before exposes began to be posted, you could google her published name without finding out about her history in fandom. Additionally, some of her victims from her fanfic days read her published books without realizing who the author actually was (until they started to recognize the quotes and paragraphs that she’d lifted straight from her fanfiction)

Her Writing

“Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s Ginny/Ron incest romance fanfiction.

“The Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s published work, about two fake siblings who fall in love with each other.

Similarities to Harry Potter

Now I haven’t read Mortal Instruments or The Mortal Instruments so I’ll let someone who has read them both do some explaining:

When I opened the book, I knew that Clary was Ginny. Alec was Harry. Isabelle was Clare’s version of Blaise (who back then was not officially male or female, and could therefore be interpreted by fandom either way). Valentine was a strange mixture of Lucius and Voldemort. And Jace, of course, was undeniably Draco.

Jace is so Draco, in fact, that it’s impossible to see him as his own character. The way Clare characterizes Jace is the exact same way she characterized her Draco. They share lines (the ones she didn’t steal from Buffy, of course), they share nervous tics, they share appearances, and they even share memories. The second I read the scene in which Jace tells Clary the story about the boy and the falcon, I felt an unpleasant jolt of recognition: that story is one Draco tells in one of the Draco Trilogy installments. I couldn’t remember which one. I couldn’t even remember who Draco told it to (Harry? Ginny? Hermione?). But I knew it was if not word for word taken from her fanfiction, it was very, very close.

Yikes. That’s a lot of similarities.

The same person I quoted about went on to say that the fanfiction was still much better than her published work, and that she’d rather re-read the fanfic than the non-fanfic.

Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dark Hunters

Almost immediately after The Mortal Instruments (the non-fanfic one) became popular, Sherrilyn Kenyon slapped it with a lawsuit for copying her urban fantasy series, Dark Hunters.

Kenyon fans attacked Claire fans, Cassie’s history was brought to light, and Cassie got to pull out her favorite argument “you hate me because I’m Jewish.” Which is interesting, because I’ve been working on this for two weeks, and I only just learned that she’s Jewish when I read about her accusing others of anti-Semitism.

Now as Cassie apologists will tell you, Kenyon did ultimately lose that suit, but it’s really, really starting to get repetitive over here.

I’ll borrow a quote from Ryan Givens, “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” Or in this case, maybe you’re the plagiarist.

Common Questions

Has Cassie apologized for this?

She did occasionally

Has Cassie changed?

My opinion is no. She’s not.

Let’s see, as the “Queen of YA Literature” she has:

used Copy Right strikes to prevent people from calling out problematic passages in her books

sent her fans after critics

posted a hilariously ironic blog about cyber bullying

attacked her OWN FANS because they didn’t like the ending of a book

currently complains about people posting her real name (which is Judith Rumelt, in case you wanted to know) despite her own history of publishing people’s actual phone numbers online

Calls critics anti-Semetic while having this quote in her book

Claims that she was threatened when someone called her friend an “ignorant duck” 

Loves Token Minorities

Wrote a questionable almost rape

My Thoughts

I don’t like Cassie.

I really don’t.

And look, I’m not saying that Cassie is a narcissist, but here’s a fun little saying called The Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did… You deserved it.

Does any of that sound familiar, because it should. It’s basically Cassie’s text book responce of “avoid admitting fault until there’s too much proof, say I didn’t do it on purpose, blame someone else, claim to be the victim, find another person to accuse of drama.”

Now I’m going to again quote from ProblematicYA because I absolutely love their writing. In this quote, they’re talking about how all of Cassie’s books, even those set in different times or cities, follow the same pattern. Non-Shadowhunter meets Shadowhunter (who is basically Draco).

So what’s really my problem? My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is a marginally talented writer who has one story and one cast of characters up her sleeve, and yet somehow she’s sold millions and millions of books based on this. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series was partially copied from her fanfiction trilogy, which copied a plethora of other authors, not even including J.K. Rowling, who provided her with the characters, premise, and setting for her beloved trilogy. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is in the authorly equivalent of a time loop, and has come full circle. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is, in essence, writing fanfiction of her own work, and it is getting published and she is getting paid bank for it, when other far more original and talented authors are getting absolutely nothing for their hard work. I may despise Stephenie Meyer and the world she’s created, but at least Twilight and its accompanying works are her own original product; at least she deserves to reap the benefits of the crazy fandom she’s inspired.

Look. I don’t believe in dredging up ancient history just to hurt people. Shit we did when we were teens shouldn’t be held against us as adults. People grow and change a lot from what they were as teens.

But bitch, you actually have to GROW AND CHANGE. And Cassie hasn’t.

Also, try actually apologizing for what you’ve done instead of silencing critics.

Sources and More Information

As always, I love, love, love fanlore and I linked to many of their articles throughout this post.

A user on the HobbyDrama subreddit made a great write up called The Cassandra Cla(i)re Saga.

ProblematicYA wrote several amazing articles on the subject:

Why I Have A Problem With Cassandra Clare and Why You Should Too

anti-bullying ya queen cassandra clare is a massive bully. water also wet.

They also have an entire tag dedicated to Cassie

Alli6 wrote Things you should Know

Cassandra Clare, Rape Culture, and the Oft-Forgotten Metaphor by The Book Lantern.

SnarkTheater also has pages of things tagged as Cassie Claire, including chapter by chapter break downs of the books.

source http://camryndaytona.com/2020/06/cassandra-clare?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cassandra-clare

[jlf23tumble]

Agree so much with your post about the teams and fan engagement ! And love the way you articulated all of that. Although now I definitely am interested in knowing what your notes about the specificity of each team/artist cause I feel like they'd be fascinating to read. Hope you'll post them some day, and thank you for sharing your thoughts with us ! 😊

Awwww, that’s very kind! It’s definitely head canon city, I litcherally have ZERO clue what goes on behind the scenes (and I can’t stress this enough, none of us do), so this’ll look hilariously dated when we find out that blah woof was true all along, lmao (me @ myself, thinking of some random Grimshaw interviews from last fall, oh, bless). Let’s dig in!!

For those of you who just stumbled upon this post, it’s related to the one I made last night about how I think the management teams of all these men (mid-20s means = you’re a man, not a boy) are not, in fact, sabotaging them. They negotiate a lot of tricky interconnected arrangements that none of us are privy, to, plus they’re at least trying to achieve the goals their clients are going for. And they’re doing it—the trick is these goals are highly individual and not 100% sensical (at least given our own view from the afternoon, Arctic Monkeys ref, holllllllah!!!).

In addition, these goals constantly shift, as does the music industry itself—I drive my own self loony when I lurk on blogs that are seemingly broadcasting from 2012, confused by why xx’s team is so “terrible” because they aren’t throwing good money after bad to get on a radio playlist, or why they haven’t announced yy “properly,” as if they’re being paid to worry about this level of shit (which fires me up on about five levels, deep breaths in, deep breaths out). I’m much nosier about the signals we’re getting when we hear them talk in their beautifully media-trained way about their musical interests, when we get some of that sweet, sweet fan service with a Gallagher or a Capaldi, when we get that heads up about who’s attending what concert, stuff like that. These signals don’t necessarily indicate future collaborations, but they DO indicate what kind of image these guys want to have, the kind of music they want the public to associate them with.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself…their personalities and goals at the moment are all so vastly different, and I truly do love seeing how their teams are workin’ it accordingly. Again, please @ god, don’t @ me…opinions, massively unpopular opinions, dead ahead!

* Zayn. My read on Zayn is that he enjoys the creative process, loves writing and singing, digs collabing with people, but he doesn’t seem to give two shits about the biz side (and why should he? that’s called living the dream at this particular point in his career). His website recently added “tour,” which EYEBALL EYEBALL, but he doesn’t seem to be all that interested in putting himself back out on stage or into radio/print/etc. anytime soon, and again, why should he? His numbers are HUGE without pushing himself through the anxiety-provoking churn he endured for four years, so there’s no real drive for him to do any promo if he doesn’t want to (see: the netflix-like binge dump of Icarus Falls, which could be “sabotage,” or it could just be, “fineeeeeeee, here’s some stuff for you, enjoy”). What other artist gifts his fans with gorgeous covers of such a wide variety of songs that indicate he’s more interested in sharing them than selling them. Accordingly, his fan interactions seem fairly pure and not all that promo-y: he has a keen interest in fanart, he’s done some fan pop-ups/listening parties that are pretty low-key and *seemingly* fan-focused, and recently (with zero anything to really promote), he’s been posing for cute pics and chatting with randos on the streets of NYC. I recently read that his mgmt team is no longer with him, but that sort of folds into my feeling that he’s not pursuing anything biz-wise, hence no need to jump through those particular hoops (I think he’s also struggled with a lot of demons, so yeah, why add one more). Could he be adrift? Maybe, but the next guy is the posterman for lack of focus….

* Liam. Honestly, I worry about Liam most of all. His post-1D career seems very much adrift, and I like to joke that he’s giving me that tell-all about the D one sentence at a time, but goddamn, are people listening? The struggles with alcohol, the lack of focus on every level, the reliance on his dad’s career advice (which more clearly reflects his dad’s financial class, background, and history than it does Liam’s), and the overall confusion about look, sound, and direction also flow back directly into his team. I get the feeling that they aren’t sure what to do because LIAM isn’t sure what to do or what he wants, so they follow in his wake. He’s agreeable to a fault, so seeing him at a meet-and-greet at an HMV in Birmingham last week felt like a step back into 2010 for no real reason, just like hearing that he was more or less coerced into full nude photoshoots for an underwear ad (the decisions to say yes to both of those—who’s steering this ship? If it’s Liam, he needs to tell the team his overall goal, so they can plot a course he and his fans can follow; if it’s the team, ditto). Like Niall, Liam’s actually pretty good at the SM game: lots of selfies, snapchat filters, outfits, gym service, twitter interactions. But generally speaking, his promo is confusing, and that’s probably because there isn’t much *to* promote at this point, other than a mix of collabs, clothing endorsements, spon con, horse farms, and an album that’s always on the horizon. This might be tied to the general post-1D jolt they all went through, like a plane coming off autopilot and into the hands of someone who’s just learning how to fly it. Zayn debuted at number one, so his bump wasn’t as harsh, but the others are slowly, steadily finding their footing after taking some time to find themselves and their sound, releasing songs/albums, performing (or in Louis’s case, going through unspeakable tragedy). Liam’s still adrift…and somewhat admittedly, which is kind of telling in its own way. Just know that my nervousness on his behalf ratchets up every time he feels the urge to assure us all that he’s happy.

* Niall. Truly the one following the original 1D template, right down to working with most of the same people but with more of the overall control in his hands instead of a faceless management squad. Of any of them, he seems the most ambitious, the most scientific about the sound he’s after and how he’s gonna get there. His promo is a mix of new and traditional—radio shows, talk shows, podcasts, special events, twitter interactions with fans, twitter interactions with entertaining celebrities—and it’s all hustle hustle hustle, build build build, as if he were a new ingenue instead of coming up hard on solo album number two. He’s explicit in his goals, which is refreshing, but it means he walks a weird line with fans: on one hand, he’s done with their bullshit, get ready to get rekt if you start commenting on his boring food seasoning or home décor. But on the other hand, he fully recognizes how much he needs them, which is why we get so many peeks into his “normal” life (yet zero percent of his actual personal life). It’s also probably why the blatant tweets of the last two days seem so jarring to me (I might be alone on this one, but I’m not a fan of directives in general, and asking me to call radio stations on behalf of a rich white man to become even richer just rubs me the wrong way, same with asking me to stream stuff to get you to number one…you’ve been there, buddy, how about you calm down and build some character at number 51). And speaking of calming down, it does fascinate me that both Niall and Louis namecheck Taylor Swift as someone who gets the whole fandom push/pull thing right, so watching them try to reverse-engineer her secrets is fun. Louis nails it (that hotspot treasure hunt: chef’s kiss), but Niall’s heavy-handed easter egg dump in NTMY, she would never!! I think Niall’s team needs to watch “Calm Down” about five more times before they try that again.

* Louis. I think Louis honestly has an AMAZING team in place, and they’re all clearly on his side, which makes for a refreshing change. Like Niall, he has publicly praised Taylor Swift for how she engages with her fans, but I think he’s missing a key point: she doesn’t let her fans dictate strategy, and I HOPE that’s the case for Louis, too. His old team *was* shit, so yeah, encouraging people to do fan projects to get the word out was a good idea, but turning that spigot off to let a good (paid) team step in and take over has been, uh, challenging. He’s dealt with more than his fair share of personal tragedy, but every time he gets some momentum going, it feels like something bts pushes him back off track, and he tends to keep it private, which only makes his hardest-core fans scream “sabotage.” Rightly so, he’s focusing on his personal life, and rightly so, his team is giving him the space to do that, even when it costs cash money and throws a lot of shit seriously for a loop. It makes my heart soar to see the potential of what his team can do/is doing, how much space he’s being allowed to process what he needs to process. Weirdly, that’s an unpopular opinion, and a lot of people want to indulge in an angst wank fest where Louis’s the victim of a terrible team that won’t DO anything (nevermind the fact that he’s probably ASKED them not to do anything), so they undertake a tremendous amount of performative unpaid labor that ends up being counterproductive on just about every front. Even worse, most of them can’t seem to process the fact that losing your mum is a blow, losing your SISTER is a blow, juggling other siblings or close friends handling some serious demons of their own in the aftermath of all of *that* is a blow, let alone handling your own personal coping mechanisms, nope, they want Louis to release release release, perform perform perform, c’mon, what’s holding him back, he *said* he wanted to release an album this year, there’s “no reason” for a delay, gotta be his shitty team, free him. It drives me ‘round the bend because it’s the same talk from late last year, you know, when we later found out that at least one family member was losing a fight with drug addiction. Louis’s fan engagement/promo is therefore hella fraught: he has to balance LouisTM on twitter (Mr. Donny, he’s hard, mate), his werk IG posts, and his constant edging because nobody can remember or trust that he’s got this, that multiple things are in play. But he also knows his fanbase, knows that it’s resistant to any kind of change, so I hope he pushes through and stays true to what he wants to do. I was really encouraged with his last promo round because he seems to have narrowed in on a something solid, he’s got a plan, and it’s not, “hey mr dj, put my record on,” it’s getting his fans to trust that he and his team know what the fuck they’re doing, and spoiler alert, it ain’t radio, but go ahead and keep pissing off djs by sending angry tweets their way. (Related: why is it so bad to avoid the radio when all of us admit that radio music is garbage? Is it because it’s more about you than him? Much to think about.)

* Harry. My very favorite head canon is that Harry is Jeff’s nightmare client: what was perfection at first because the Azoffs are old-school promo all the way (no SM, baby, gimme that sweet, sweet paper), and that dovetailed nicely with post-1D Harry, but it quickly veered into mulish teeth pulling. Low profile can quickly spin into no profile, and that really doesn’t work too well when you’re trying to sell sell sell, even if your brand is Harry StylesTM. HS1 and Dunkirk in their own separate ways worked VERY hard to push past the still-persistent way the general public views Harry as boybander Harry Styles, or more accurately, former boybander Harry Styles who dated Taylor Swift (if you venture out and ask someone who’s not a fan), but what I love about Harry is that much like Zayn, he doesn’t seem to be too bothered by all that. Sure, he’s ambitious, he wants to challenge himself and do things, but he’s no Niall Horan. He’s put in his time! If he gets a number one, then cool, but he’s not gonna chase it. And this is where Harry’s team really reflects his goals and energy: sure, they want him to do some promo (that “Do” tweet, the entire bit about the fan in Australia and Harry Lambert’s follow, goddddd, I loved it, petty Harry, resigned Jeff), but they clearly aren’t forcing him. He drops a song that makes a HUGE splash, and the follow-up is…liking some tweets and going to a John Mayer concert (not a John Mayer fan, so that wouldn’t be my first choice, but I respond to the zero fucks given about the whole thing). The music industry has changed a LOT in just two years, so it’s kind of cool to see team Harry pivoting a bit, seeing more SM interaction, the kindness generator, etc., but that said, the team takes their cues from him, and he clearly doesn’t want to do a whole promo circuit beyond persons a, b, and c, and magazine R, F, and A. Does it make sense to have Rob Sheffield write a profile about Stevie Nicks-blessed shroom-eater Harry Styles when his new song sounds like the Zarry combo of my dreams? NOPE, but that’s okay, Harry wanted to talk to Rob, so that’s what happened. The new song is more streaming friendly, and thank CHRIST, a lot less crusty white dude stuck in the ‘70s, so I can only hope that the rest of the album is thus, but we shall see! We’ll also see if Harry’s fan engagement shifts any further into the active zone…so far, it’s been “I’m gonna follow some larries, like these fun generator posts, check out a few dads” and staged photo ops with the same familiar faces, but I think he’s dealing with his own major bts issues as well (album delayed at least twice; that entire stalking situation). I still contend the album’s coming in the next few weeks, so it’ll be interesting to see if/how any additional promo rolls out in this new world order post-gryles landscape, how many interviews he’ll do, but I like that there’s a strategy that seems less stodgy…kudos to the new SM team, at least!!

Oh man, that got really long! Hope you enjoyed, and YES, opinions opinions opinions, and they’ll be stupid in about three weeks’ time, thanks for coming to my already dated buzzfeed article

[iamanartichoke]

This is neither eloquent nor organized. I’m very frustrated and I just need to get things off my chest. 

Please do not reblog this post. 

Cut for anti-Ragnarok discourse, pro-Ragnarok discourse, the Ragnarok discourse war, mention of Thorki, and general venting. 

I’m not using tags bc I don’t want this post to show up in them. Very sorry and if any of these things is one of your blacklists, please keep scrolling.

Yesterday, I read a fic.

I was wandering through some of the Thorki content on twitter, and followed a link to one of the big bang fics, bc it was a human AU and das my jam.

I didn’t recognize the author’s name. The fic was extremely well-written, though: lots of feels, beautiful narration, a sweet ending balanced with a lot of sadness. It was one of those fics that gave me a lump in my throat.

I was only going to leave kudos, but then I figured I’d take the extra five seconds and leave a comment, bc we all know how much authors like comments. I mean, I’d rather someone leave a comment than kudos, especially if the fic really affected them.I get it and I gotchu, fam. 

Anyway, so I left a comment and proceeded to click on the author’s profile to see what else they’ve written. As you do.

I recognized their AO3 icon, even though I didn’t recognize the name. I’d seen them around on some Ragnarok wank on tumblr. I went to double-check, and it was the same user, and also they’d blocked me.

I do not know this person. I have never spoken to this person. Yet they’ve gone out of their way to block me, most likely bc I associate with the anti-Ragnarok crowd. This happens to me a lot. I’ve even had a couple of former mutuals unfollow and block me (without saying anything to me) and those felt like punches to the gut.

I understand not wanting to see content that you don’t like or that upsets you. Everyone has the right to block whomever they wish. But I can’t deny that getting blocked like that – by someone I don’t know, let alone interact with – fucking hurts. I know it’s not that deep but I can admit it. It’s a shitty feeling and it’s hard not to take it personally.

It’s not really about this particular person at all, although it’s a shame bc they’re a good writer I probably would have followed otherwise. But this entire anti/pro Ragnarok war has gone so far and it’s exhausting. I stayed pretty neutral for as long as I could. 

And here’s the thing. My observations, both from being neutral and also being someone who, despite often being quietly blocked, tends to fly under the radar are this:

The majority of the negativity comes from the pro side.

Look, I side with and agree with the anti side on this one. I can admit, however, that sometimes it gets tiresome to see posts get turned into Ragnarok criticism or tiresome to see more posts on my dash about this that or another thing that sucks about Ragnarok and why. It, like anything, can be tiring.

But I also see that the anti side largely does its best to keep to itself. The pro side complained about the Ragnarok tags, so the anti side made an anti tag, and the pros still come into it to complain. The anti side will post their discussions and criticisms and they largely just circulate within the same group of people. The discussions are almost always criticisms on the source material (ie, the film) and not about anyone who enjoys it.

Now, maybe I don’t see everything. Though I don’t think I’m biased just bc I agree with the anti side – in fact, it was these attributes that made me take a closer look at what they were saying bc maybe they had a point after all. I don’t follow every anti Ragnarok user, but I do follow a lot. I can’t say personal attacks and whatever never happen - but, I hardly ever see them.

That’s not the case with the pro side. I don’t think I follow many from that side, but I see so much negativity from them. It’s like this kind of underhanded negativity that I’m not quite sure how to explain. It’s tonal negativity. 

I mean, sometimes it’s blatant. Name-calling (Loki stans, lackeys, pathetic, delusional, and racist come to mind) is an example. But more than that, there’s this collective tone among the pro side that smacks of condescension and I can’t stand it.

They make fun of the “dissertations” that have been written.

They always include an “lol” or laugh emoji or something to express that they’re not the ones taking this seriously.

They fall back on saying they don’t care about a two-year-old movie.

They’re laughing and making fun and at the same time acting like they’re so above it all.

They want us to just shut up already.

What it comes down to is this: it’s not just a matter of being able to agree to disagree because the pro side actively acts offended that the antis are even having these critical discussions, even if the antis have gone out of their way to not involve the rest of the fandom at all.

(Again, this is not every pro person, but the majority. Tone does matter online, and the overall tone of the pro side is not positive. I say this from a mostly neutral place.)

And here’s a thing about “oh my god, it came out two years ago, get over it!” Yeah, it came out two years ago. So fucking what? You guys are still engaging with it, via fics and headcanons and art. How old the movie is doesn’t matter when you’re having fun with it, but when someone wants to engage with it in a (valid) critical way that you don’t like? No. That’s unacceptable. That’s pathetic. That’s being a lackey. Get over it.

Even writing this, I know that things are much worse for others than they are for me. I get stealth blocked; others are called out by name in public posts, receive anon hate, and are actively targeted.

It’s just, this shit is so fucking toxic to this fandom and it honestly needs to stop. Both sides need to not only stop engaging one another, but also stop acknowledging one another. We get it: you either like the movie or you don’t.

Let people do their own thing. Don’t be fucking obnoxious. If you disagree and genuinely want to talk about it, then try to remember there’s a person on the other side of the screen and be civil. If you disagree and don’t want to talk about it, then just fucking don’t.

If you see a post you disagree with, scroll past. And, yes, block the person if you need to (and sometimes it might be me that needs blocking and I recognize my hurt feelings are my own personal problem, not whoever else’s).

There are a lot of movies in the MCU that are not perfect. (Btw, it baffles me a little to get hated on for my stance on Ragnarok, when I am so much more vocal [and emotionally invested] in hating the Russos and IW/Endgame – but, whatever.) There are a lot of interpretations of characters that are different. There are a lot of people who project their own identity or issues or whatever onto any particular character that resonates (and that’s okay!) and there are a lot of people who don’t project but still identify with a particular character (and that’s okay, too).

Stop judging whether someone is a “real” fan of a character/franchise or not. Just because someone isn’t engaging with the source material in the way you are, and just because they don’t see it in the same way that you do, does not make them wrong. (Yes, this applies to the pro side, too. None of them are wrong or less valid for enjoying and even stanning the movie.) It doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else here. 

Acting otherwise is honestly going to kill this fandom. Because it bleeds over. Fics will have less readers, bc they don’t want to interact with something posted by someone they dislike (or who blocked them). There’s less sharing of things like art and headcanons and content. People unfollow and block each other, people are having to watch what they say, people are losing friends (and potential friends) bc they may be a great person but they don’t agree with you about fucking Ragnarok.

I came to tumblr bc it was the only place where not only could I find other people who loved Loki as much as I did, but it was the only place where I could express that. Express it in fic, in headcanons, in meta. Being creative and starting dialogues and just interacting. I wish we could get that vibe back.

I wish none of this bothered me so much.