#especially since my main fandoms are not particularly active right now

[forcebookish]

I am Bashar Al-Habil

This is my new account. My old account has been banned

Please help spread my mother-in-law because is very slow 🙏🙏

Hello, 👋

I need your support and help. I have been displaced several times and we suffer from malnutrition and diseases. Our tent was burned.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-my-family-evacuate-from-gazah

Please donate and share for me 🙏💔

hi again, bashar!

HELP BASHAR'S FAMILY SURVIVE THE WAR IN GAZA

be safe!

[vikeera]

I was planning to publish such a post a while ago, but a few events finally pushed me to write it. I'm not particularly active on tumblr, especially in the hellaverse tk community - it's just not my cup of tea anymore. As much as I appreciate all the attention and positive feedback on my art, it no longer brings me the joy it did in the beginning. I'm not interested in being a part of this fandom right now, which is the main reason I've been so infrequent in recent weeks and even months.

(I'm not sure how many people actually take this into account, but I've gotten a few questions about where my drawings and content went)

I'm thinking about deleting most or all of my artwork, the things I used to draw just make me uncomfortable now and I don't really want to remember them as a public thing - you could say I've simply outgrown it. I may occasionally respond to private messages, but don't expect any new posts in the near future, because that's just not going to happen.

As many interactions as I had with wonderful and sweet people here, I have to say that I was probably not the only one who felt a sense of distaste when seeing the statements and comments of some users whose names I won't even mention for several reasons - I truly hope that other people will avoid interacting with you, for a group of adults you are really closed-minded, which isn't even particularly surprising, still disappointing tho. For sure one of the reasons why people harass anyone who is involved in any type of tk content. Your behavior is just plain nasty, it doesn't take much to sum it up.

Anyway, I would like to thank the people who actually made this community fun to be involved in. I enjoyed creating drawings, headcanons or stories based on your ideas <3 Again, thank you for all the kind words about my artwork - I really appreciate it! I'm sorry to say that but, as you can tell, I'm no longer able to create works based on your requests. I'm a bit busy with things outside of the internet, especially since I'm starting college soon - that's why I may think about opening commissions as a more ''private creator''. If anyone is interested, just contact me here or on discord - the same username as here :)

I'm not sure what else I should say, this post is pretty rushed and I don't think I have much to add considering my account has been dead for quite a while. Thank you all for the nice time and take care of yourself!!

[a-caterpillars-world]

So. I finished Homestuck.

Reading Homestuck in 2024, over a decade since it started, was definitely an experience. There was a lot that i was spoiled for, but a lot that took me by surprise, even though "spoilers" are just about everywhere. I'm glad I was able to go in blind, there's a lot that wouldn't have felt nearly as impactful had i known about it beforehand. I'm not great at just directionless rambling, so I'll organize it in the form of an FAQ of a sort, under a read more since I'm expecting this to be a longer post.

Did you enjoy yourself?

Honestly, yes. I know Homestuck has a kind of negative reputation, and now that I've finished I can certainly see where it comes from, but even considering all of that I can't say I had a bad time. I think Homestuck has a lot to love, even if there's also a lot to hate. Personally I think there's several elements and characters of Homestuck that deserve a better rep, there was a lot I read that was very funny or very narratively compelling even through all the obvious flaws. I had a good time, I don't regret picking up Homestuck.

Do you plan to read anything else related to Homestuck (eg Homestuck 2)?

Maybe! I'm not entirely sure how much I'm missing out on, or how much the various side stories impact the main canon. If one of them seems particularly interesting to me, I'll look into it, but right now I'm good. I'm not even entirely sure how deep the Homestuck rabbit hole goes, though I suppose I could look it up and find out for myself.

Do you have any favorites/what do you think about [character]?

This is a hard question to answer, as Homestuck is a series with a loooot of characters to talk about. If you want to know a more in-depth opinion on your favorites, send me an ask! I love conversation and even since I started my liveblog I've been open to asks being sent in even if we've never spoken. Maybe I'll make a tierlist to organize my favorites, that could be fun.

Should I read Homestuck?

It depends. Homestuck can be a very good and interesting story at times, but a lot of what makes it a great story is hidden behind layers of questionable-at-best humor and casual ableism. I think if you can approach it as it is and understand the flaws inherent to it, it's definitely worth at least checking out. And then if it isn't for you, then it isn't for you, but it did end up being for me so take it as you will. Even if you're just looking at it as a part of internet and webcomic history, I think it's not a waste of time to give it a read. Via the downloadable archive though, not the browser version. Homestuck suffered greatly from the death of Flash, so it's best to read on a version that can better support all the unique elements it utilized without much risk of it crapping out on you (like it did to me, in several key points including the finale.) I also recommend reading with a friend, preferably one who's read Homestuck before so you can talk about things as they come up naturally.

Final thoughts

Homestuck is a fascinating piece of internet history. It's a near-perfect capture of the humor and culture of the late 2000s and early 2010s, largely dependent on a web service that is now entirely defunct. Were it not for the actions of archivists and fans, it's entirely likely we could've lost massive chunks of an incredible piece of webcomic and fandom history. It certainly isn't for everyone, its flaws have been talked about with regularity by essayists and internet historians with the whole spectrum of opinions on it. Even with its flaws, though, it still puts together a quite lovely story, with several compelling characters and scenes that grab your attention and hold it tight. Not only do I not regret reading it, but I completely understand how Homestuck created such a storm of a fandom especially when it was being actively updated. I'm glad I read it, in the end. It brought me a lot of joy in the best moments, and even at the times when I was most frustrated with the story I can't say there was ever a point where it was too much for me. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to check on the liveblog, whether you're one of my friends or a stranger checking in from the Homestuck fandom. It has certainly been an interesting ride, and I'm glad that I got to take it, even if I am in fact several years late to the party. Until next time, everyone!

[lunar-serpentinite]

Introductory Post

Hello ~ I'm Cloud and welcome to my blog !

My pronouns are they/them ! I don't really have hard no's for gendered terms used to refer to me .

I'm a '02-liner (meaning i was born in 2002) and from Southeast Asia . I am currently in uni studying Geology and I use my spare time to think about my hyperfixations <3

I'm neurodivergent and I usually vibe on my own but I'm open to chats ! I'm bad at replying though so don't be afraid to bump up messages

I've been on Tumblr since 2012 but this is the first time I have ever tried to be more active instead of keeping in the background .

Fuck JKR !!

Free Palestine, Free Congo, Free Sudan, free everyone who has suffered and are currently suffering under a capitalistic, warmongering white supremacist society . Never stop talking about the genocides and human rights injustices currently happening around the world . Share, save, boycott, educate, donate when and if you can !

Current Fixations / Interests / Fandoms

Harry Potter (specifically the character himself, as well as Drarry)

MXTX Novels

Percy Jackson

ATEEZ

Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail

Disclaimer

(Especially for those who are particularly focused on Harry Potter canon and/or certain dynamics.)

In my headcanons and posts, I will stretch canon pretty thinly. I will rewrite and redo huge chunks of what we know as the Harry Potter canon. This includes huge changes in the history, the timeline, and the ethnicities of a lot of characters (read: majority of the characters we know in my AU are now BIPOC). Everything I am doing is purely for my own enjoyment and I just wanted to share the things I made with anyone who wanted to have a read.

I do not follow any Marauders fandom headcanons nor do I consider myself part of the fandom . This means my Lilys and Jameses will have vastly different friend groups than what you're used to if you're from the Marauders fandom .

If you're particular about dynamics, I am a fixed DMHP account . I don't post NSFW on this blog since I focus on worldbuilding and more SFW character building, but I'm just throwing this out there :3

Have a good day ! (My AUs under the cut)

Current AUs

Nandhini's Legacy - my main AU and the reason why I made this blog in the first place ! This is a Harry Potter AU where the Potter family are South Indian (specifically Tamil [James] and Telugu [Lily]) and the Black family are SWANA . New elements in the story include entirely new fancasts for the entire cast, the introduction of a Magical British Museum (the new primary antagonist besides Lord Voldemort), OC siblings for characters like Harry and Pansy, and several timeline changes .

Related Links : Families Masterlist, Fancast, Main Tag

pls ask me abt this au i have so much to say

Son of Hecate Harry AU - a PJO x HP crossover AU where Harry was born to Lily and James but with the additional blood from Hecate . In this AU he was taken away from the Dursleys by a satyr and raised in Camp Half-Blood . By the time he arrives at Hogwarts, Harry has already undergone one quest and is only at the institution because of another prophecy (not Trelawney's) . He is accompanied by fellow demigods and witches Yurika Haneda (Slytherin, Hermes) and Poppy Caxton (Hufflepuff, Athena)

My Mortal Companion - the AU in which post-War, Harry retains his title as Master of Death and believes his next destiny is to be the sole Unspeakable in the Death Room since he's the "only one who could do it" . Features Harry's relationships and dynamics with various psychopomps and death deities of diverse pantheons

Related Links : Main Tag

Favourite of the Fae Harry AU - an AU where Harry is highly favoured by the Fair Folk of Great Britain, but only in the way a human might highly favour what they deem a particularly cute pet . Includes tidbits of Harry being his mother's son because Lily was their previous favourite, and Harry having difficulties with socialising in the "proper" human way because he was used to the constant transactional socialising of the Fae

[torra-and-the-toons]

Heya! For the ask game, 2,3 and 16? For ed edd n eddy :)

Hi Mystic!!! :DD Some Eds comin' right up!

2. a headcanon you weren't sure about at first but have come to like

Hmmmm... I don't really know if this one counts, but the one that immediately comes to mind is the teen/adult Eds and alcohol/drugs, particularly weed. And it's not that I hate weed or people who partake, I just got so TIRED of always seeing the Eds smoking or drinking something, to the point that it felt like that's all people viewed of their potential older selves. Like, to me there are other rebellious things they could do too, like tattoos, piercings, petty theft etc, it just annoyed me to no end that it was always drugs, if that makes sense? Edd especially used to infuriate me because he's such a goodie two-shoes as a kid, there's no way he'd even think about such activities! But over the years I've seen pretty compelling explanations so I don't really view it like I used to, but it's still not my favorite thing, which is why I'm not really sure if it counts, but I'm writing it here anyways because it's all I thought of lol.

3. a character that fandom has helped you appreciate

Probably the strongest with Kevin. He's conditioned to be unlikable in the show, so it's no wonder I never cared for him growing up. But since being in the fandom I find him to be one of the most fascinating characters outside the main trio next to Jimmy, but Jimmy came to me all on his own, it was the fandom that got be to appreciate and understand Kevin.

16. a tiny detail in canon that you want more people to appreciate

I honestly couldn't think of anything clever but I really enjoy when Eddy is just carried like a sack of rice, make Eddy more portable. Carry him in your mouth like a misbehaving kitten. Wait, no!! I thought of something, but I'm not erasing that text because it made me laugh writing it. It's been a while since I've been really active in the eene fandom so I can't remember if there was a lot of this then, or if there is now, but I wish people would explore Edd and Jimmy's friendship more. Jimmy has always been softer on Double Dee out of the three Eds (well, everyone has let's be honest,) but "Fistful of Ed" really solidified their friendship for me. The fact that it was Jimmy who saw through Double Dee's stroke of bad luck is still one of my favorite parts of this show. I always thought Edd and Jimmy would have a special friendship going on separate from their own respective friend groups. Of course Edd will always have Ed and Eddy as his main pals, and Jimmy has Sarah. but there's something about Edd and Jimmy just hanging out and helping one another with problems they can't otherwise go to their main friends with is so heart warming to me. Love me some platonic Jimmy and Double Dee.

Thanks for stopping by! Always great to see ya :D

[ironstrange-is-the-endgame]

PSA

I think it’s sort of time I make this tbqh, just to come out clean with you all (especially the people following me on AO3 too, but everyone in general).

I kind of fallen out of love with Marvel and while I do ship Ironstrange and I don’t see *THAT* changing - damn I shipped them since 2016 where the ship itself wasn’t even a thing to start with - I can’t bring myself to create more contents for them or generally for anything Marvel related because I’m not enjoying their products as much as I used to and I guess the reason of it it’s the crazy amount of stuff they are just vomiting out which is recently bad ™️ but, most importantly, I kind of miss the hype of waiting months for a 30 second long teaser trailer I guess?

Yes, it was painful, but it let space to lots of theories and actual conversations with the fandom which right now is completely lacking when not downright toxic.

And somehow I realized that doing a rewatch of stuff from another fandom I’ve always been in which even if is pretty much dead since the series finale aired has made of waiting for the next book a fandom inherited inner joke and has had people theorizing on it since 2010 or something I think… (whoever guess which fandom is gets a cookie 🍪)

Anyways, what does it mean? Nothing particularly bad in general because I’ll still reblog Ironstrange stuff when they’ll show up in the feed even if I won’t probably actively look for them in the tags daily as I used to do, and considering that I went back to writing but for the other fandom probably you’ll see those fics on my AO3 instead of Marvel related ones.

And that’s it, pretty much! Also if you think you might be interested in the other fandom, you’ll find it in my main blog @myrxellabaratheon

So, see you, eventually

— Juls ❤️

[my-sun-m00n-and-stars]

20 Questions for Fic Writers!

I was tagged by @sinisterexaggerator

I'm not very active on tumblr and I don't think I have anyone else to tag who hasn't done this already, but I thought this would be fun.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I joined AO3 just over a year ago, so right now I only have two works. They're the first two entries in my Cad Bane series. A third one is in development, and I plan to start updating it around the new year.

2. What's your total A03 word count?

188,065

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently I write for Star Wars only, but I have plans in the future to write a series for Skyrim/Elder Scrolls.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

As I currently only have two, they are:

Sex, Drugs, and Blasters

Credits, Lies, and Betrayal

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

I respond to every comment. Any amount of interaction I get is precious to me, especially since this little niche in the fandom is so small.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

Definitely Credits. *Spoilers* OC has an emotional breakup with Jango Fett, succumbs to Bane's seduction, and then gets shot in the chest by said blue bounty hunter.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Sex, Drugs, and Blasters. OC pays off her debt and makes some new bounty hunting friends.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I did get one particularly persistent hater who used multiple accounts to hate on the way I wrote Jango, eventually saying some homophobic stuff I had to delete from the comment section. It was pretty bizarre, but I did decide to take another look at my writing with Jango and made some small changes. It was a weird experience, but I decided to make the best of it.

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

Oh yes. I'm a big supporter of slow burn, but when it finally reaches that point, I go all-out. So far I have a couple scenes with Jango and one with Bane (my favorite one).

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

I don't write crossovers and I'm generally not a fan. However, a couple years ago I read this really fun one that was a Marvel/Clone Wars crossover.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

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

No, and I don't think I would be open to it. I wouldn't mind having a beta, though. Sometimes I really need someone else to proof-read.

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

I think I gotta go with Captain Swan from Once Upon a Time. That show was crazy, but Emma and Hook were just so good together. Not to mention Hook was HOT.

15. What's the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I only have one WIP, and that is my Bane slowburn series. However, I do believe I will finish it given enough time. At first I never thought I would start it, and now I have two novels under my belt.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I'm good at planning plots and making things link together. I'm setting up long-term plotpoints in the series whilst juggling smaller plot threads and subplots. I sketch it all out ahead of time so I always know where I'm going.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Sometimes I struggle with coming up with creative description on the spot. I usually have to open thesauruses. My main goal as a writer is to use more figurative language. Then again, I'm only 19 so I still have plenty of room to grow.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I've written several scenes with Mando'a dialogue, and I usually just write it in English and italicize it. If I want to emphasize certain words, I'll say the direct translation, like "cyar'ika".

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars!

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Sex, Drugs, and Blasters is my firstborn child, but I think I enjoyed writing Credits, Lies, and Betrayal better.

[petewentzisblack1312]

hi i wanted to ask something but also share something personal as well. my q is: do you feel like your relationship w social media has changed? meaning, do you catch / notice when you are on it for too long and you start to notice, and then you say: okay let's take a break. for me, i have been online for a long time ever since i was a kid, and now my relationship to it is i only limit myself an hour to being on my phone. as an adult now i am no longer social media "obsessed". like, when i am in school i am not thinking about online, i am present when im at school. i feel like i am really close to just deleting sm tbh. it does not grant me happiness like it used to. now as an adult i feel this need to live my life freely.

i also wanted to ask what are ur thoughts on content influencers? to me when i see these ppl i think...i could never post about everything about my life, but then again understanding that it is just a highlight reel. no one is posting every sad / frustrating thing that happens in their life as influencer, only the "great" parts.

this is an interesting question! i think ive never really had a relationship to social media where i feel like i need to post constantly or felt pressured to share everything. while im definitely the most online out of my household, compared to a lot of other people im not really very present online. i dont like using twitter, i only really use instagram to look at and post art and occasionally post a picture of my cat or nature or food on my main account, i dont really get up to much and i never use facebook unless i have to. i hate it. even here on tumblr i dont post a lot about my personal life unprompted, and this is the social media site i use the most by far. i do scroll tumblr a lot, i do watch a lot of youtube videos (though almost exclusively video essays on politics and recently also artist vlogs) and i do notice myself scrolling a bit too much, particularly when im overstimulated but instead of doing something less stimulating im anxious and looking for a distraction so i like. scroll harder. but ive never been like doing something else and thought 'man, i wish i was scrolling right now'. i dont really know. i do have trouble putting my phone down, like when i need to sleep, but i have trouble putting ANYTHING down. games, books, art or writing or projects im working on, music im listening to, i dont think tumblr is special, its just another activity for me to be distracted by.

all that being said, i did leave social media for a while. i had a really bad experience in a fandom on tumblr (not the pwams incident. that led me to step away from bandom and move to another fandom) and honestly it made me realise that the problem i had with social media wasnt that i was using it too much, but that i had a toxic relationship with the communities i was interacting with on there. the nature of my relationship to social media was unhealthy, not the fact that i had one that was a large part of my life. i think when i wasnt using any social media i actually wasnt in a great place either, because i was isolated from people id cared about, especially since i had just undergone a very traumatic incident, and because of that became very isolated from my in person friends as well, even before the pandemic pushed me away from even the acquaintances i had made. i was worried about coming back to tumblr, but i think ive grown and learned in such a way that i know how i like to comport myself in cyberspaces, and that its been good for me in a way. which is weird, but. i think id kind of have to go in depth about my life and how the pandemic affected me and the specific nature of coming of age in st lucia and stuff. which i dont want to do haha.

as for influencers. i hate the concept. i understand it, and i dont universally hate influencers as a whole, but like. theres this specific kind of content creator where the thing they are sharing is just their life and there isnt like a specific thing theyre logging, like an artist sharing their creative process and how they manage their life around that, or a chef sharing recipes, and its not like theyre doing it just to do it, they have the goal of growing a following, and theyre not advertising anything but themself, like JUST themself, as a person-brand, and i find that so deeply annoying and repulsive. and like thats strong wording its a dog eat dog world and the girlies of all genders need to secure the bag like i get it. i get it. but its revolting to me. like. the vlogbrothers werent trying to get famous they were using youtube to communicate with each other and as an open video diary and people found them to be interesting personalities to watch. right. do you get it. annoyingly i gotta put myself out there if i want people to find my art and pins and stuff so i have to fuckin. make videos. sell people on me. the idea of making vlogs makes me dry heave bc im not important i dont want to have to sell myself like im important i dont want to put my face on a camera and implicitly say with every quirky performed statement i make 'i matter, pay attention to me, i need to exist so look at me' but unfortunately i might have to. a video essay i could do. thats me saying something. but a vlog? with the goal of people finding my stuff? good god. it sounds like poison.

[britishdisasters]

Please Read!

To all my lovely larries and other 1D(/solo) fans who follow me,

I’m sure you have noticed that I have been backing away from the fandom over the past year or so and particularly in the past few months. I wanted to make a post to help and explain to you my reasoning and make a formal farewell post on the subject. This is going to be pretty long so I am going to put my reasoning below the cut.  

Alright, so there are two main reasons which I will explain here. I am going to put the part that interests you most first.

I am not really a Larrie anymore– I suppose perhaps I would be referred to as a Houie? To be clear I am absolutely not an anti but I am fairly certain they aren’t together anymore.

I have been sort of mulling this over since maybe mid 2020 but I do think a lot of credit should be given to @seasurfacefullofclouds1 who I started talking to about this in march of 2021. (to be clear I certainly don’t agree w/ her on everything, but her insight has been very helpful) It’s been evolving since that point but I think really it's been in the past few months that I've fully decided that I don’t think that they are together anymore. I’ve come to the conclusion that they likely broke up for the final time sometime in late 2018, though I think things were rocky for quite some time before that. It was really the release of Fine Line & Walls at the end of 2019/early 2020 that started my ponderings on this subject– they are both so very obviously breakup albums. H’s first album too was pretty angsty, though I do think they were still together at that point. 

This subject makes me sad so I really don’t follow what's going on in the fandom anymore and I can’t even really read canon fics anymore because it feels dishonest. 

If at some point in the future they do come out, especially if they say they are together, I will likely return to the fandom. But for now I am taking a major step back. I will still be listening to Louis’ solo music, though Harry's newer music really hasn’t appealed to me. 

       2.

This second reason is really the more important one for me but it will likely interest y’all less. Basically, I have come to the conclusion that fame/the entertainment industry is abusive and exploitative. It is exploitative of the celebrities, but also of the fans. 

This is really something which has been an evolving opinion of mine for many years (since 2015?), and I do want to give major credit to the larry fandom for opening my eyes to how fucked up this whole system is. But its really been over the past 2 years or so that I have matured enough to realize just how invasive and fucked up the entire concept of fame is. (This applies to social media celebs as well, but not nearly to the same degree as there isn't an entire powerful industry actively involved in exploiting them.)  

Celebrities are commodified and dehumanized, and their entire privacy and personal life is taken away from them. Industry closeting is just really one aspect of a much wider issue. It has become increasingly clear to me that this sort of fandom is not helping the situation. While we try and combat the closeting, we fall right back into the trap of invading celeb’s personal lives. The type of parasocial relationship which exists between celebrities and their fans is very unhealthy and damaging to the very people which fans claim to love. 

I cannot in good conscience continue to give attention, support, money, and publicity to the entertainment industry. 

An interesting video essay on this subject is https://youtu.be/OPxktlHjKEU which I watched a few days ago. 

I will still be lurking and I may occasionally reblog pictures or posts about the music itself, but I am taking a huge step back. I hope you all can understand.

[literateleah]

the paradox of emily prentiss’ audience perception and character design

some of y’all about to be real mad at me, but it must be said:

emily prentiss’ character design makes no sense: my personal opinion + an objective analysis

i think it can be challenging to separate the versions of characters we have in our little brains from actual canon content, but doing so is important for understanding what those characters are truly like, especially within the context of their environment and in contrast to others around them. plus developing a deeper understanding of the media we consume is super fun and interesting! with that being said: emily prentiss should not work for the fbi and here’s why (in three parts regarding who’s responsible: cbs, paget, and fans) (sit down and grab a snack i promise this is over 3k words)

quick disclaimer: i don’t dislike emily at all! that’s my girl, i just looked closer and realized some funky things the writers did and felt the need to analyze her of course: so let’s get into it

part one: what cbs did

cbs set the stage for emily’s introduction on the heels of the departure of lola glaudini as elle greenaway! lola has clarified that she decided to leave the show because filming in los angeles was not the best environment for her personally, and after one successful season on a major network (but not much established long term plot or drama beyond elle’s departure as a character) a consistent ensemble cast was required- particularly because the bau had been criticized for being predominantly male in the first few episodes of the show and not much development was given to penelope or jj yet. enter emily prentiss.

for the duration of seasons 2-3ish, emily was framed as a chip off the block that was elle greenaway, just slightly…richer? in her first few episodes emily was hesitantly polite but ambitious, clean cut, intellectually concise and held her own within the team. she seemed equal parts intimidated and frustrated by her male superiors (gideon, hotch) but certainly proves herself among other profilers. her childhood was explored only within reference to her strained relationship with her mother (which was only ever referenced once more after the fact) and we received a short overview of her educational and career history in her first few episodes. emily fit right into the hole elle had left, and didn’t have many major storylines yet.

seasons 4-6 brought a bit more development and depth to emily’s character! she begins dropping more snarky remarks, one liners, and socially deepening her relationships with the other team members. this seems more within the lines of elle’s design, but emily arguably took more time to grow into her place within the team. during the foyet arc she was vulnerable and supportive, and the doyle arc gave her some independence and agency she didn’t have previously. this era also solidified her appearance and persona as more edgy, which falls in line with general fanon perception of her character (especially when compared to jj or penelope). i can’t address this era or season 7 without mentioning that cbs was actively trying to remove paget from the cast, similar to how they did to aj cook as well. paget has spoken about this instance before, and i believe it slightly affected her portrayal of her character, and “lauren” was somewhat of a goodbye for both paget and emily (thus why she wished for mgg to direct since they were best friends).

season 7: in my opinion, one of the best seasons for emily. she was wisened and deeply wounded by her experiences with doyle, which was understandable of course. she returned to the team she loved and learned to appreciate life in a different way, remaining mature during this time period as well! though her departure was a bit less than graceful and sudden at the end of this season, it made sense compared to some other exits the team had seen.

now *sigh* all the rest.

paget as emily appears in two separate guest appearances (once in s9 and once in s11, and she is referenced offscreen as well) before permanently reprising her role as unit chief of the bau. these appearances were most likely to boost ratings and get the team back together (i.e. 200) or just to pepper in international cases (tribute). emily’s personality remains pretty consistent here, just more mature and comfortable in leadership positions (seeing as she is running an entire branch of an international law enforcement organization). then season 12 hit.

upon the departure of thomas gibson as hotch, cbs reached out to paget to see if she would be interested in fulfilling her role as emily within a longer term unit chief position. i’ll get into why this is wack in a few paragraphs, but the remainder of her time on the show is spent on a mature portrayal that seems very distant from her previous versions. emily is more authoritative, gives orders with ease, and has no qualms about leading a team of agents or even receiving promotion offers as director of the entire bureau.

thus concludes a general summary of the canon content cbs gave us as viewers. now let's talk about what they didn’t give us, regrettably

the primary aspect of emily’s design that comes to mind for many is her queer coding. though not much was to be expected from cbs, a prime time cable tv network, each of her relationships on the show (all with men) seemed oddly forced, and without much chemistry as compared to the SOs of other main characters. rumors of scrapped plotlines have floated around about what may have been, but the ultimate lack of acknowledgement of any queer characters in the main ensemble still leaves a feeling of disappointment to audiences, and leaves more to be desired as for how emily navigates social bonds.

part two (sidebar): what paget did

i think it could be agreed within audiences that paget brewster’s portrayal of emily made the role what it was! her dry witty delivery and emotional prowess combined with sitcom acting experience made her performance a mainstay for years. i think she did the best she could with a confusing and at times flat characterization, and brought the role to life.

paget also heavily contributes to fanon indirectly with her comments outside of the show (press, cameos, twitter etc). her general continued interest and fondness for the role post production affects fan perception, particularly in what she chooses to elevate and comment on. she and aj have both spoken about viewing jemily content, and paget and thomas have both also commented on hotchniss. most cast members feel free to comment on their characters in the appropriate timing, and seem open to discussing fanon ships and theories outside of canon!

part three: what fanon did

as we can tell from this fan space as well as the presence on insta, tik tok and twitter, fans LATCHED onto emily super quickly. she’s remained a favorite over the years, and this fan persistence is what brought her back so many times after leaving (so many times). in my opinion, queer coding and a bolder female trope (in contrast to her female counterparts) are the main pulls because they resonated with so many fans- new and old. with that being said, newer fans of the show in the past year in particular have been heavily influential in fanon, solely because of the large influx of fan content and popularity of it.

fan content began to take coding and bite size moments and snippets from the show as canon, and cemented it into much of the content and discourse they created. these small pieces of emily’s character are significant, but have become magnified by how easily they are to share and edit. for example, a collection of catchy one liners from emily over the seasons makes for a great video edit intro, or gifset! there’s absolutely no problem with this content, it just all combines to create a certain fanon perception no character escapes (this isn’t a phenomenon limited to emily or the cm fandom!)

these droves of content also solidified emily’s personality as much more defined, but at the same time, simplified it in a way that’s slightly harder to explain.

fanon: more emo/goth than canon basis

fanon: more introverted/anti social than canon basis

fanon: more violent/chaotic when canon emily is relatively well mannered and doesn’t start many conflicts (particularly in the workspace)

fanon: much less maternal when canon emily displays desire on multiple occasions (even crossing professional borders) for children, particularly teenage girls (possibly projection)

(again, nothing wrong with this interpretation at all and it still varies! This is just a generalization based on most of the popular content i have seen)

part 4: why it doesn’t work

let me start with this: emily prentiss does not like her job.

we don’t receive much in depth information about emily’s internal feelings and thoughts towards her mother beyond resentment. this stems from wanting to make it on her own, as a professional and as an individual (cough cough college deposits). this makes emily’s insistence on proving herself to authority figures in her earlier seasons is interesting to watch in different circumstances. she cites her experience and denies help from her mother when justifying her placement in the bau to hotch, she is extra vigilant about being helpful on her first case with gideon, etc. nevertheless, emily forges her own path outside of diplomacy and becomes a successful profiler and agent, with the help of her privilege, wealth and name whether she likes it or not. but if we read between the lines and fill in the blanks cbs neglected, these ambitions may subconsciously be oriented towards pleasing her mother.

example one: emily’s authority issues go further than just “rebellion” or “anarchy”, she frequently questions the ethics and sustainability of the work that the bau does. every team member does this, but emily much more so than anybody else.

in “amplification”, emily almost breaks federal protocol to inform civilians of anthrax threats. she butts heads with both hotch and rossi on this front, and ends the episode with having a conversation with rossi about the ethics of lying in their line of work. emily resigns to a solemn “it be like that” and moves along, accepting this reality.

on multiple different occasions emily laments to derek about the darkness she sees on the job, and it’s shown that this gets to her quickly on particularly bad cases. this is another contradiction of the design that she can supposedly “compartmentalize” better than others on the team, when she cannot unless the lives of others are at risk (doyle arc, s7 finale).

emily also responds in this way to many cases involving children, a similarity to jj many don’t notice upon first watching the series. “seven seconds” and “children of the dark” come to mind, during the latter in which emily is prepared to cross multiple professional lines to adopt a teenage girl left orphaned by the case, until hotch stops her and establishes that her emotions can’t rule her judgement on the job. regardless of hotch’s thoughts about her attempted caretaking abilities, these actions and impulses deeply contradict the typical bureaucratic pathways of the work the bau does.

the looming reputation of her mother’s diplomatic history hangs over emily, and after going to law school and working for the cia, she most likely did want to forge her own path as far away from being a socialite: being a spy. her inner nature doesn’t always reflect this profession, and leads me to believe that with her knowledge of psychology, law procedure and care for children: emily prentiss might be more inclined to working in social work, placing suffering children and teenagers in homes they deserve.

and finally, the hill i will die on: emily prentiss was an bad unit chief

this wonderful post touches on my general sentiment, but there were many reasons as to why emily prentiss’ career arc makes little to no sense (plot holes included).

first: her background. emily attended chesapeake bay university as well as yale and achieved a ba in criminal justice. keep in mind that though timelines evidently don’t exist in the cm universe, emily prentiss is ONE YEAR older than aaron hotchner (for context). in her first episode, she professes that she has worked for the bureau for a little under ten years in midwestern offices- something the audience laters knows to not be true. emily worked with the cia and interpol as a part of a profiling team and undercover agent up until roughly TWO YEARS before her canon introduction. plot holes and time gaps aside, this makes me wonder, why didn’t she just say the cia was a backstop without revealing the highly confidential nature of her work with doyle (similar to jj’s state department backstop and cover story)? penelope or hotch could have easily accessed her file and seen that she did not in fact have experience with the bureau in midwestern offices recently, and given the fact that erin strauss set up her bau placement, i’m presuming these formalities or references were overlooked.

second: her experience within the team. emily worked as a part of the bau with the bureau for roughly 6 or 7 years. after this, she is invited to run the entire london branch of interpol, one of the most renowned international law enforcement organizations. i’m surely not the most knowledgeable on requirements or standard timelines for such matters, but with the fact that emily had never led a team in her life (not in the bau or interpol previously) and had roughly 10 years of field experience, i don’t believe she would have ever realistically been considered eligible to run the whole london department.

third: her return to the bureau. fanon depiction of their relationship aside, if you believe aaron hotchner’s last wish before going into witsec was to entrust his team to emily prentiss, you’re dead mistaken. bringing emily back was clearly a pull for ratings after the loss of two main characters (hotch and derek), but logistically a bad decision. let’s suppose emily has had 4 or 5 years of experience in london now, this established authority position would be unlikely to change at the drop of a hat, even for old teammates or friends. also considering how close they were after a decade of working closely in bureaucratic and field contexts, i firmly believe hotch would have referred jj for the job of unit chief but that’s another discussion for another time.

emily’s reign as unit chief is odd, because of the many chaotic storylines crammed into it. but amidst bad writing and viewings plummeting, emily’s character is completely flattened. completely. emily is unrecognizable, both in appearance (that god awful wig) and personality. at times she acts as a complete wise authority, giving orders and delegating local authorities as hotch did. but at other times she makes multiple illegal, emotional, and incorrect judgement calls based on personal circumstances that lead to further chaos (deleting the recording of her and reid’s mexico conversation and reprimanding luke in “luke” for the exact same thing she did in season 6 even though she enabled her to do so come to mind).

i’m not sure if this is due to paget trying to find her footing in the role again, or the writer’s bad decisions towards the end of the show wrecking any previous design for their ensemble. then, there’s the infamous “wheels up” scene in s13e1. notoriously cringey, this seems like a vague caricature of something rossi would say many years in the past (the same goes for her pep talk in “red light” in the hunt for diana reid). these moments are meant to mature emily in the audience’s eye, but instead completely removed her from who we understood her to be, and made her an unreliable leader.

part five: and why it does

in theory, emily was a bolder foil to jj, similar to elle who she arguably replaced at first. she came into her own, and stands as a more uniquely developed character than almost any other in the main ensemble. she isn’t as maternal or domestically inspiring as canon jj, less bright and sunny than penelope, not quite as stoic or intimidating as derek or hotch. And yet at the same time, she’s a fairly blank slate. stripping fanon content away entirely, canon emily has few defining traits (all of which are constantly changing), and that may be the key to why we love her so much.

[itsbap]

EXCLUSIVE: Moon Jong Up Talks About ‘US’, His Journey, B.A.P Reunion & More!

Moon Jong Up mononymously known as Jongup, gained popularity as the main dancer and lead vocalist of the now-disbanded KPOP group B.A.P under TS Entertainment. At present, Jongup is signed with Big Ocean ENM as a soloist. He released his solo debut single album, ‘Headache’ featuring Yunhway on May 7, 2020, and garnered much support from his fans worldwide. He also recently featured in Mr Queen’s OST, ‘Venus.’

Besides his amazing vocal skills and dance, Jongup can also rap and is also an actor. He performed in the play ‘The Lost Village’ and has also been cast for the upcoming movie, ‘Idol Recipe’.  Jongup is truly a power packed artist. Ahead of his comeback, he pre-released an MV on 1st July 2021, for the song ‘Find‘, which features Moon Sujin. The song has a slow R&B beat with a soothing melody that reveals a deeper, more emotional side to his music.

Jongup is now back with his first mini-album titled ‘US‘ which released earlier today. The album has five tracks starting with the title song ‘US’, ‘Photo’ featuring Bang Yonguk, pre-release single – ‘Find’ featuring Moon Su-jin, ‘GOUP’ featuring EK from ‘Show Me the Money 8’, and his debut single, ‘HEADACHE’ featuring Yunhway.

Along with the featuring of such talented list of artists, Moon Jong-up also continues to explore his musical capabilities in this album, by participating in writing and composing lyrics for ‘Photo’, ‘Find’, and ‘GOUP’. He further shows why he was the lead vocalist in his former group with ‘US’.

With strong vocals and dance as well as the vintage theme aesthetic music video, ‘US’ has quickly jumped into our playlist and we cannot stop singing to it.

Ahead of his comeback, Jongup spoke with us about his latest album, his growth, B.A.P, Indian fans & more. As 2nd Generation fans, this was a wonderful opportunity to be able to speak with an artist who gained so much fame and made waves, even before internet took over the way it has right now.

From his debut in 2012 as part of B.A.P to now, Jongup believes that among all things, his thoughts have changed the most. He shares that the more he learn and know, the more he need to know and thus, he has a mindset, to live by learning for the rest of his life. He believes that the biggest difference of promoting as a group and as a soloist is that,  “Now I have to bear the burden which I shared with the members when I was in a group but at times, it’s also good to have that much love alone.”

The shift from group to solo, along with years of working as an idol has brought about a process of change and growth and opened new perspectives and views for the talented soloist, “Through many experiences, I have learned and felt that a person cannot live alone in the world. So, I want to say ‘thank you’ to the people who work for me and work with me.”

His former group B.A.P brought about a bad-boy image which was loved by fans across the world and their debut ep ‘Warrior’ landed at Billboard’s World Albums Chart at #10. The group then continuously made waves with their music and topped charts across the world hence showing their global status. Although the members parted ways with their previous company, the boys remain good friends as they continue on their own individual paths while cheering for each other for their solo activities. The boys are also often seen hanging out together hence making their fandom, ‘Baby’ very happy.

While talking about how former B.A.P leader Bang Yong-Guk has participated in his song “PHOTO” as a featuring, Jongup gives hope to the fandom as he assures,

“If the timing is right, I think a reunion of B.A.P is possible at any time.”

– Jongup

The day may not be far off, as along with Yongguk’s featuring, other B.A.P members Zelo and Youngjae also participated in his Listeners; Listen “US” and in the video, one could see how they truly enjoyed being with each other.  The members shared their honest thought on his comeback as they gave their opinions about how they loved the comeback, Jongup’s growth as an artist and that, the fans had lot to expect hence making the fandom anticipate more. This was also the first video in a very long time where the members had appeared together so for B.A.P fans, this was a blessing. The members were definitely right though as with ‘US’ we see a mature side of Jongup in terms of music, vocals or even style.

Jong-up was also recently cast in “Idol Recipe” and  he gave a sneak peak of his character, “My cast is ‘Jang Jun’, a member of a mixed group. He gets caught while dating at work and gets scolded”, thus building more anticipation for his upcoming appearance.

He shares that in terms of his style of music, over the years, the thing that has changed the most is that, he now listens to all genres and he particularly likes R&B dance hip-hop the most. When it comes to incorporating it to his music, he admits that there are so many genres he want to challenge himself with, but the one that comes to his mind right now is EDM.

For Jongup, the process of creating music/songwriting is mostly done with his friend, Min – “We usually start with the track. Sometimes when a track comes out first, we write melodies and lyrics together.” He further says that he has a lot of influence when it comes to his music but ever since his younger days, he admires Chris Brown and he still loves his music. This however doesn’t come as a surprise to his fans, after all, Jongup’s dancing and vocal skills have always been on point.

With ‘US’, the title track of this album, Jongup shares that, he liked it as soon as he heard the guide.

“I wanted each track to be different from genre to mood. I had a lot of meetings to go in the direction that I wanted. There were some disappointing parts in the process, but all the processes can’t always go perfectly in the direction I want, so those parts were difficult but overall, this was a great experience. ” – Jongup on the process of making ‘US’

Jongup agrees that he has gotten used to the life of an idol, after all, its been nearly 10 years since he debuted as an idol and if he had a chance to do any special activities with his fans, he would want to go camping with them. He further adds that if he could go back and give an advice to his former self, he would tell himself, “Be nice to Baby”.

‘Baby’ is the fandom name for B.A.P but now, Jongup also has another fandom name created by the fans themselves, ‘MOONW4LK.’  He shared his thoughts on his fandom name and also sent a messages for his fans across the world especially in India.

“‘MOONW4LK’ is such a cute name. I love you always. You know that, all this is done thinking only of ‘MOONW4LK’, right? As soon as Covid-19 calms down, I will fly to you.”

namastehallyu

[queenaryastark]

I saw your post regarding Aegon/Young Griff and I agree. I also have to say, I like him, and I’m disappointed by how he treated by a large part of fandom. The way people refer to him as a ‘fake’ as an insult really grates on my nerves. Really. How does it matter if he is a Trag or Blackfyre? HE believes himself to be Targ, he was raised to be a Targ. Regardless of his heritage, he’s as much a Targ as Jon is a Stark and I don’t see people scoffing at Jon for being ‘fake’. And I saw the same people that say Aegon /Young Griff “doesn’t have any right’ to the Iron Throne, writing about how cool it would be for a Stark/Baratheon/Tyrell/Lannister to become the King/Queen of 7kingdoms. And I’m like - ???

A lot of people also write his off as Targaryen Joffrey. And I’ll be really disappointed if he does turn out similarly. Like, ofc, obviously Dany is more important that Aegon/Young Griff, but I really think there’s potential in him. And I hope he won’t be just written off. And written off as pathetic antagonist at that.

For me, calling Aegon fake or using the name fAegon isn't annoying. But sometimes it confuses me since him being "fake" is treated as more detrimental to the character than it might be. Whether he is the son of Rhaegar and Elia or the latest Blackfyre pretender, it doesn't matter. He's still the blood of the dragon, his name in all likelihood is Aegon, and he still has a possibility of taking the Iron Throne. Blackfyres use Targaryen names because they are also Targaryens. They're just descended from a bastard branch of the family, similar to Baratheons which is also a branch of the family.

I think some focus on him being "fake" because they believe that that would neutralize the character and they REALLY want him neutralized. And why wouldn't they? Even though Aegon was introduced in the fifth out of a planned seven book series, he is doing what many want Dany and Jon to do. He's raised the Targaryen banner in Westeros and is in the process of conquering the realm, even taking Storm's End, which has never been taken. I can understand how many might not think his current storyline is earned because we never got to see him grow through struggle and how it could be argued that he's fulfilling narrative promises that were made for other characters.

That said, I do agree that many are too hard on him. Is Aegon perfect? No. He's a character created by GRRM. That means he's just as flawed as the rest of them. We see that he wants to be an active participant in the battles and that he succeeds, while also seeing him freeze up in his first skirmish. We see him demanding that Tyrion's life be saved while also losing his temper and being a dick when he realizes he's been tricked. Even though we don't get his POV, it's possible to see how layered he is as a character. So I agree that reducing him to a "Targaryen Joffrey" doesn't make sense, especially since we already have a ton of those in the form of Viserys, Aemond, Aerion, Aerys, etc.

I would also say that writing him off as already dead or defeated is a set up for disappointment. There's a very real possibility that he could play a significant role in the climax and endgame. It seems that the only reason he's dismissed so easily is, again, because people put so much value in him being "fake." Even if he is "fake" and he's a Blackfyre, that wouldn't mean that he couldn't ride a dragon, marry Dany, have an alliance with Dany, and/or sit the Iron Throne. Considering the fact that the main series starts with the Baratheon branch of the Targaryen family holding the throne, that should suggest to people that a Blackfyre descendant could do the same. I think some of this confusion comes from many not knowing actual history. Just look at the royal families in Europe, particularly the UK/England. While the name of the royal family changes from time to time, the belief is that they are all descended from the same royal family.

There are many parallels that can be made between ASOIAF and the Wars of the Roses. Well those wars ended with the ascension of Henry VII Tudor, a man whose claim to the throne came through his mother, who was herself descended from a branch of the royal family that was considered illegitimate and even outright barred from the throne by parliament. Yet, he took the throne, passed it on to his son, who then passed it on to his children, and now the current queen is (supposedly) descended from his oldest daughter. So there's absolutely no reason to discount Aegon regardless of his ancestry. A union between him and Dany would actually neatly align with the end of the Wars of the Roses, though I would prefer him being her consort, as he mentions himself.

[king-paimon]

HnK Post Chapter 95 Thoughts: 3 Months later...

Hi guys…. I’m so sorry for being away for so long and delaying this post. I can’t believe March is already almost over. This year is going by way too quickly, but honestly, is that really a surprise? I was working on this post back in January and was planning on posting it then, but life has been more busy than usual for me. I still feel really bad for promising to post this and not being able to keep it. But here it is now! I don’t know how many people will see it since the Houseki no Kuni tags have been pretty quiet, but you know what? I’m kind of glad I didn’t post this post right away because I wanted to properly talk about my feeling about the chapter, the series, and Ms. Haruko Ichikawa herself, and doing that when I was still emotionally charged wouldn’t have done this post justice. And though I don’t think my thoughts overall has changed too much, I’d still like to share my thoughts, if you are interested in hearing them. 

This will be another really, really long post, so be prepared! I’m definitely going to be doing a lot of edits on this one so please bare with me if anything doesn’t make sense. Please let me know if anything I said is too confusing.

Anywhoo~ here it goes:

My view of the story at this point

I had to go over my last post to see if any of my original opinions had changed and, well, for the most part, not too much. Most of the gripes I have with the story is still about the same, particularly the remaining gems becoming lunarian and the many implications that comes with it, though I would say some of my anger has subsided. I’m still bothered by it, though. I understand why the story would go in this direction and why the characters, especially Euclase, would choose to make this drastic decision to change themselves, since that was they ultimately wanted: to no longer live in fear of being destroyed and live peacefully, even if it means changing what they all were. It’s still bothers me a lot, mainly because I can relate this to similar real life events of people erasing their cultural and even racial identity as a means of survival in a different and so-called “better” society. I remember in one of my very first posts in the fandom, I stated how uncomfortable it made me that the first moon gems were totally fine assimilating into Moon society and were wanting to completely change themselves to fit in this society, even if it meant removing what made them who they were. For characters who didn’t like their original identity like Cairngorm (or Welegato but I’m not calling them that), or felt stunted in their original society like Dia, and found solace in Moon society, I can see how this transition as a liberating thing…but only to an extent. The thought of literally going to the extremes of changing yourself inside and out, erasing all traces of what made you “you”, while also destroying all old meaningful relationships in the process, to live in a place you were conditioned to be believe is the better option for you…It hits a little too close to home.

I’m talking about cultural assimilation and cultural destruction, where racial and cultural minorities sometimes go through drastic measures in order to assimilate into the “better” society, even if it means completely erasing their original identities physically and mentally. I’m not saying all forms of assimilation is inherently bad and I’m not saying that you must stick with your cultural upbringing for it’s a part of your identity; that is a toxic view and it’s especially bad if you experienced terrible things because of that upbringing.  I’m trying to talk about the extreme cases of assimilation when these individuals are essentially convinced to go through extreme measures to fit in to the “better” society because their old identity was “bad”, and by completely changing themselves, from their appearance to even their name, then they can finally be happy in the so-called “better” society. I’ve heard of people going through such lengths and it’s heartbreaking. It’s very cultish and that’s how I viewed the transition of the gems becoming Lunarians, with everyone accepting the change with seemingly no issue and especially after Aechmea literally gave Cairngorm that new name. It would have been one thing if Cairn picked that name themselves, but it was all Aechmea.  The lustrous don’t exist anymore and everyone is ok with it. The gem society that we knew, at this point of time, is gone now. It was far from perfect but the fact that it’s gone is sad and disturbing to me.

My view of the key characters of the chapter

Now that I stated how I feel about the gems essentially being erased, the next question is how do I feel about these characters themselves?

Conflicted. Very, very conflicted, and even a bit disappointed and upset, especially with certain characters more than others. But surprisingly, even after seeing how the turn of events turned out for all of them while Phos is stuck on Earth alone… I don’t hate them. Yeah. After everything that has happened, I currently don’t hate the gems… For now, anyways. It all depends on what happens next.

But the one character that I feel the most conflicted with is Adamant, especially after his interaction with Aechmea. Part of me is confused by Adamant’s and Aechmea’s seemingly friendly interaction because of Adamant’s past actions and words, for they don’t seem to belong to someone who would be on friendly terms with someone who they were actively resisting against before. I’m talking about all of the times that Adamant would fight off the Lunarians but also that moment in Chapter 85:

(Chapter 85, Pages 10-11)

After seeing things like this, I just find it odd how Adamant’s interactions with Aechmea are so friendly now. And with the horrifying implication that everything that had happened was planned between them, which also doesn’t make sense, I’m not sure what to think. Maybe Adamant’s changed attitude relates to him being free of his burdens and physical body? This could explain the change in attitude, but it still feels… off. Maybe I’m looking too much into this. I don’t want to hold hope that when he and the other gems were transformed that Aechmea somehow manipulated their memories to make them more compliant, even though it was made clear that memories were going to be lost in the process. Maybe this will be explained more in the next chapter, but I won’t hold my breath for that either. To me, this just made me feel weird about Adamant because remember, I was both sad and relieved when he disintegrated in the previous chapter because I really liked his character. Now though, I’m not so sure. I still don’t hate him or any of the other gems, but I’m definitely on the fence with him more so than the others. I certainly don’t hate Euclase like many other fans; I didn’t agree with their past actions (or rather lack of actions), but like with Phos and other characters, they did what they felt was right given what they knew. Still not excusing it, but I understand why. As for Antarcticite... I’m not sure, honestly. Though I’m glad at least they brought up Phos, I can’t help but feel that their main priority is still Adamant. Out of recently changed characters, Antarcticite is the main character I have the most positive opinion on, but again, that can easily change within the next chapter. 

So yeah, I still have mixed feeling about all that has happened that led to this point in the story, and I do have a more negative view of some of them. But regardless of that, I can’t bring myself to downright hate any of the characters. Disappointed with their decisions is one thing, but to hate them with every fiber of my being? No. I don’t think I can. At least for now. The same goes to the Lunarians, too. Hell, even though I’ve said before that I hated Aechmea for how he manipulated Phos and the other gems for personal gain, once again, I don’t think I downright hate him either (though I still want something bad to happen to him.) Aechmea is such an intriguing antagonist that I love to despise.

My view of Haruko Ichikawa at this point

Since the release of chapter 95, I’ve seen a lot of fans post their criticisms of Haruko Ichikawa herself regarding how she’s writing the story and her treatment of the characters. Someone even commented on my chapter post about how they don’t view her story as ‘amazing’ anymore because of her cruel treatment of Phos and the depressing turns in the story. Even popular commentors like @rinboz posted their criticism about what Ms. Ichikawa is doing with her story. As for me, I can agree with some of the comments made to an extent. Some of the choices Ms. Ichikawa made in the story has had me question her a few times; like the mentioned interaction between Aechmea and Adamant as well as the extremely predatorial relationship between Achmea and Cairngorm. I still think that chapter 95 was extremely rushed, especially going through the previous events that were stretched out into nearly 10 chapters. There are many other smaller issues that I personally have when it comes to how Ms. Ichikawa writes her story and characters, but I think the biggest criticism I’ve seen that I agree with is the concern about the current direction of the story. And at this point, the story can only go in so many directions and most of them are leading to anything but a genuinely happy ending for Phos. And it’s pretty depressing that Ms. Ichikawa has some of us pleading for Phos to die so they don’t suffer anymore. I can’t think of any other story that has me wanting the main character to die, not because I hate, but because I don’t want them to be mistreated anymore. This story is nothing but hopelessness.

But you know what’s crazy? I kind of like that.

Maybe Ms. Ichikawa has made me a glutton for tragic stories, or because I’ve been starving for a unique story, but I kind of like that this story hasn’t gone in the predictable, happy route for everything Phos has gone through. If this story were written by someone else, I can picture Phos somehow regaining their appearance and memories, be surrounded by the people who truly cared about them and their enemies dead, and pretty much having the picture-perfect happy ending with no form of problems whatsoever as an award for everything that Phos previously sacrificed. Yeah, this is the ending I’m sure fans want in some shape or form and to a degree, I do too. But to be honest, I’m kind of glad that’s not the story that we’re getting, at least right now.  In a weird way, it’s sort of refreshing to have a main character who doesn’t always win in the end, especially after all of the things the character sacrificed.

And I also how the story and it’s characters can be so simple and complexed at the same time, like in her anthology series. To me, this makes Ms. Ichikawa stand out from the many mangaka I’ve followed throughout the years. And because of that, part of me hopes she knows what she’s doing and has something extreme planned for the story’s future.

Now, I don’t want to shoot myself in the foot for still thinking highly of Ms. Ichikawa’s writing; there are still things that I think could have been handled differently, like the mentioned pacing and story details. But for now, those gripes are not too irritating for me and I’m not quite ready to downright say that her story is bad...YET. I want to reserve my final opinion of Ms. Ichikawa as a writer until the end of the series, whenever that will be, because despite how the story has progressed for last several chapters, I’m still enjoying writing. I just hope that when the series does come to an end that Ms. Ichikawa gives us a satisfying end. When it comes to ending a series, how an author does so can really affect how fans view the series and the author, and I think this will be the case for this story, though I’m sure there will be criticism regardless of what kind of end Ms. Ichikawa creates. For me, while I do care about whether Phos and the other characters get the endings they deserve, I just hope it will be told well. I’ve seen too many times really good series ending terribly because the creator didn’t know how to end a series properly. I sincerely hope that won’t be the case with Ms. Ichikawa.

From this point forward

I remember seeing a lot of readers who are upset with how the story has progressed thus far, with some even saying that they were going to drop the series because of how depressing it is. I think everyone who felt this way has every right to feel that way; it’s completely understandable. Houseki no Kuni is definitely not a story for everyone, and it can take an emotional toll on you.  I know it certainly affected me that way, and I can’t think of many other series that has done that. It’s been a long since I’ve been so invested in a series and despite the many emotional rollercoasters I’ve felt during parts of the story, I don’t think I will ever say that I regret picking this series up. And despite my mixed feeling about the latest chapter, I want to continue to stick with it. Even if the story continues to spiral in a never-ending pit of despair, I still want to stick with it until it ends. And you know, I think even if this series does have a somber, heartbreaking ending, I think I’d still view the story as overall amazing and I’d still be glad I got into it when I did...Unless Ms. Ichikawa gives us an abrupt, unsatisfying ending. Then that opinion goes out the window.

Until the next chapter comes out... 

Other than being busy, I admit that I’m glad to be taking a break from Houseki no Kuni. Despite my many praises, it still takes a lot out of me and I definitely needed that break. And though I personally don’t mind waiting a bit longer, I can’t wait for it to back. I sincerely hope that Ms. Ichikawa doing alright, especially after all of the chaos happening for the past year, and that she enjoys her time away from the series. I hope she’s staying healthy in body and mind, and I’ll wait with bated breath for the next chapter of this story.

Besides this post, I actually had a few post ideas that I want to work on, but because of my schedule, those will have to wait a while. I wanted to make another story prediction post because even though they are sometimes wrong, they are fun to do. I think I’ll wait until the next chapter to come out to make that one. The other post I’ve been somewhat working on is a bit different from my usual post; it’s somewhat of a character analysis/reflection and it’s on a controversial character that while many justifiably hate, I personally can’t. (Can you guess who that is? I’m sure you can!) Because of how many people hate this character, I was not sure if I wanted to write it. But you know what, I’m going to do it anyways. When that post will be done? I have no clue, but this will be an interesting writing exercise for me and I can’t wait share why I don’t hate this character the way many other fans do.

 The end!

Well, that’s the end of this post. I hope you enjoyed it. I will likely go over this again at some point but it’s getting really late and I need to get some sleep. I hope everyone is doing well and keeping themselves busy during this series hiatus. Maybe unwind by reading/watching a new series. There are some interesting ones that came out last year and this year. I personally stated watching Wonder Egg Priority. It’s really good but deals with a lot of heavy subject matters, so be warned. I’vve also watched lighter stuff like Lupin the Third (I love this franchise so much) and some of the new shows on Netflix. I would like to see some more stuff but I don’t know what to look for. If you have any recommendations, please feel free to leave a comment.

Until next time, I hope everyone has a pleasant week 😊

[bnhasalt]

Long post time

Okay unpopular opinion I guess but I. Really don’t like the takes I’m seeing in the anti B*ku tag right now. Particularly about M*tsuki.And I know she’s a character I haven’t talked about extensively on this blog, because it’s true that depending on what way you choose to dissect mha as a piece of media,[either by judging it on the basis of the content in-universe (ex: character a’s actions were affected by character b’s) or by judging it based on the real life aspect of it (ex: the author did this because x)], M*tsuki really can be pretty divisive.  On one end you have people saying that M*tsuki being abusive is what caused B*kugo to turn out... like that.. And use that as a justification of his behavior.  Then on the other end you have people saying ‘hey- no! Her hitting him was clearly just a joke- it was slapstick! the author clearly didn’t intend her to be interpreted as abusive so you shouldn’t blame her character at all! B*kugo is the ONLY one at fault’ And see, I don’t find either of these opinions fully correct. But since my main criticisms of the series have to do with B*kugo , and a lot of people in the anti side of the fandom subscribe to the second idea, I DID turn a blind eye to it for a rather long time. However when I see people actively DEFENDING HER, and saying her actions aren’t abuse at all? That’s when I have to put my foot down.  So. Ahem. Let’s clear a couple things up.

𝙄 𝘿𝙊 𝙉𝙊𝙏 𝘾𝘼𝙍𝙀 𝙃𝙊𝙒 𝙔𝙊𝙐'𝙍𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝙊𝙊𝙎𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝙏𝙊 𝘼𝙉𝘼𝙇𝙔𝙕𝙀 𝙔𝙊𝙐𝙍 𝙈𝙀𝘿𝙄𝘼, 𝙃𝙄𝙏𝙏𝙄𝙉𝙂 𝘼 𝘾𝙃𝙄𝙇𝘿 𝙄𝙎 𝘼𝙇𝙒𝘼𝙔𝙎 𝘼𝘽𝙐𝙎𝙀, 𝙒𝙀𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙍 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘼𝙐𝙏𝙃𝙊𝙍 𝙄𝙉𝙏𝙀𝙉𝘿𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙏 𝙊𝙍 𝙉𝙊𝙏. ’corporal punishment’ or whatever you want to call it is nothing but a shitty little scapegoat. Every single expert on the subject of child psychology (and psychology in general as well) - they’ve been screaming for ages how it’s a terrible way to raise a child, that only leads to trauma , the child becoming reclusive and -unlike what any abuser likes to claim- loosing respect for the perpetrator, either becoming hateful towards them or living in fear of them. (some sources: l. II. III.)

And if you’re still on the authorial intent intent train wondering just WHY I’m saying it shouldn’t be justified that way, let me phrase it like this:   H*rikoshi also intended for 𝙈*𝙣𝙚𝙩𝙖 to be just a comic relief character and nothing more, yet we still all seem to be in collective agreement that he’s actually a disgusting pervert and a danger to all the girls in ua.  Again: Authorial intent does NOT matter when the content itself is harmful. I’m hot telling you to crucify H*rikoshi over this, what I’m saying is that critical thought needs to be applied here.  If you think that the sexualization of the students,  M*neta’s entire existence, and scenes like the one where B*kugo throws the sharp bit at M-doriya and makes him bleed are bad/harmful even though they weren’t intended as such, there is no reason whatsoever to excuse M*tsuki from being judged the same way. If anything, it reads like this abusive behavior is being excused so the ‘’B*kugo is just a terrible person by himself, don’t bring anything/anyone else into it’’ narrative can be furthered. And because the abuse portrayed is ‘not bad/severe enough’ that’s apparently an acceptable take to make.  But not all abuse looks like the T-doroki family. Not all abusers are End*avors or Ov*rhauls. And just because the victim isn’t a Sh-to or an E-ri (see: a good person with the typical signs of trauma) , it doesn’t change the fact that they were abused. To imply otherwise is to undermine both the range of effects abuse has on real people, and those people’s experiences as a whole. So to sum up the first part of this post, say it with me kids: 

Good? good. So at this point you may be thinking ‘’so what then? If you do think that B*kugo was abused, does that mean you find his behavior justifiable?’’ And the answer to that is:

Haha, NO.

See, being abused doesn’t grant anyone saint status. Just how you can be abused and turn out an amazing person, you can also be abused an turn out an absolute sack of shit. At that point the abuse may explain the behavior, but it does not under any circumstances justify it.  (And no, young age doesn’t justify it either. Yes teenagers - young adults do get a bit more room for error generally speaking, but when they commit horrendous acts that doesn’t change jack shit about the magnitude of the act or how it affects others.) From a certain point on people are fully responsible for their own actions and you can’t pin their every error on something from their past (especially if they’re not even TRYING to correct said errors, or if the error itself is unforgivable). To conclude- The point of this post isn’t to show that either of these characters is morally ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than the other , but to point out that BOTH of them can be bad at the same time for different reasons, without using one’s behavior to justify the other’s, or ignoring one’s to attack the other. With the added secondary suggestion to analyze media from various angles for the most objective results in any critique. . . . Ps: i forgot to say anything about the couple of people i saw saying that B*ku deserves the beatings from his mom, so let me add it here. :) ahem. I do not CARE that the bastard is my most hated character of all time, I WILL manifest inside your house and drink your bone marrow like a fucking soup, FUCKING LISTEN TO WHAT YOU’RE SAYING FOR ONE DAMN SECOND P L E A S E-

[imaginedmelody]

Thanksgiving “Community” Fic Rec Post!

It’s been a hot second since I posted fic recs on this blog! When I went to put this list together, the “Community” fics vastly outnumbered everything else I was planning to include. So I’m dividing this into 2 posts: you’ll get the “Community” ones now, so I can take time to track down some of my faves from other fandoms.

Not to sound saccharine, but Thanksgiving is about gratitude, and the Community fandom is the one I’m most grateful for this year. Both the show and the people I’ve met because of it made 2020 go from a hell year to...well, a slightly more bearable hell year, if we’re honest. And the fandom produces some damn good fics. So here they are, in no particular order, for your quarantine reading pleasure! And be sure to let me know your favorites that I might have missed!

1. “Advanced Companion Reconciliation” by adorations; Troy/Abed, not rated, complete (but part of a series marked in-progress)

This is one of the first fics that really stood out to me when I started getting into Community fic in the late spring/early summer of this year. The fandom is filled with post-series reunion fics where Troy goes to find Abed in LA, and this one is particularly exquisite. The whole story is wonderful, but I’ll go ahead and publicly state that Chapter 4 of this fic is one of the best single pieces of writing I read on AO3 this year. The level of intimacy and understanding and protectiveness between the characters, even in a non-romantic context, is mind-blowing. Their relationship just builds and builds beautifully.

2. “Lessons in Adjustment” and “Remedial Recovery” by biggod ( @nadir-barnes ); Troy/Abed, mature (LiA) / explicit (RR), complete (but part of a series marked in-progress)

A tender, angsty, but absolutely beautiful pair of fics- the first about chronic illness, the second about mental health. It can be a real gamble to take characters from a piece of comedic media and write about them undergoing scary and sad things, but Cherie does it perfectly here. This series will break your heart and make it soar at the same time, because even as Abed struggles to face a painful (and painfully realistic) diagnosis, the love between the characters and their humanity just shines right through. By the end of “Remedial Recovery,” I could feel that moment of learning to wake up to life again just like the characters were. Can’t recommend it highly enough.

3. “Studies in Evolution of Affection” by onemechanicalalligator ( @1mechanicalalligator ); Jeff/Abed, explicit, complete

There are some writers where the main barrier to including them in rec posts like this is that you want to rec everything they’ve written. Maya is absolutely one of those writers. Her fics may not have been the first I read when I joined the fandom, but they were one of the first where I began to make friends, to have conversations and feel like an active participant in the fandom. Like Cherie (above), Maya has also written fics about the characters going through dark situations, especially Abed dealing with mental illness and Jeff recovering from alcoholism (both of which, while dealt with more seriously in her fics than in the show, are canon-compliant aspects of the characters). And there is a special place in my heart for those, but if I had to choose one fic to recommend out of all of her dozens of works, it would be this one. Jeff/Abed is a rarer, more niche pairing, but one with incredible potential, since both Jeff and Abed are damaged in their own ways (and often understand each other better than the others, especially in the later seasons- even when they’re at odds). Each of the chapters is a little glimpse into a different scenario as Jeff and Abed’s relationship develops. Some of them are connected, and some are more stand-alone, but they’re all filled with lovely fluff and hurt/comfort.

4. “Seminar on the Legality of RomCom Tropes” by ama ( @greenandhazy ); Troy/Abed, teen, complete

No joke, this fic may actually have made me cry a little from all the emotions it gave me. It definitely made me gasp and burrow into the pillows smiling and say “awww” out loud. It starts with a pretty solid romantic comedy fake-dating premise: instead of Pierce requiring Troy to sail around the world to earn his $14 million inheritance, the conditions in this fic are that he must get married in one month and remain married for at least a year. After trying and failing to find a partner, Abed agrees to marry him to fulfill the terms of the agreement. And this begins an epic slow-burn for the ages, that rivals any romance movie I’ve watched in recent memory. The way they have to act like a happily married couple while, at the same time, not acknowledging their growing feelings for each other- it’s so beautiful and the longing is exquisite. By the time it ended, the joy I felt was incredible. This is the only single-chapter non-series fic on this list, so if you’re looking to read just one standalone, this is a perfect heartwarming choice.

5. “Basic Heartbreak Repair” by lgbtrobed ( @lgbtrobed ); Troy/Abed, explicit, complete as of TODAY!

While we’re on the topic of slow-burn... This fic is another perfect example of that. It sets up a scenario where the study group reunites in Colorado at Troy’s house, which they are using for Jeff and Britta’s wedding, years after the finale. They’ve kept in touch, but Troy and Abed have only seen each other once since Troy got back from his time at sea- and they’ve never discussed their feelings. The romantic buildup between them is just amazing; they’ve had all this distance, so things feel new, but at the same time it’s palpable how well they know each other. So every little step they take towards one another is absolutely note-perfect.

I can easily think of a dozen amazing fics that I didn’t even have room to include on this list. This fandom is full of some of the most ridiculously talented writers you can imagine. And now that the show is on Netflix streaming and enjoying a revival of popularity, there’s more fandom activity than it’s seen in years. I can’t wait to see what amazing works are waiting for us in 2021!

[rpbetter]

Sorry if this isn't the place to ask but I'm in need of advice. I have a canon character I truly adore, but I haven't gotten muse or any opportunity to write them at all. My blog is collecting dust and the fandom is kinda dead at this point. Not to mention, it's hard to find compatible writing partners, especially with how picky I can be. I'm honestly considering deactivating the blog (for the nth time), but I don't want to lose the writing I have. I know I could archive, but I hate having blogs just sitting around.

In short, I really want to write the muse/keep the blog but I'm not getting any incentive to do that.

Hello, Anon, it’s totally the place to ask!

I will say, though, that since finding and keeping muse can be flavored rather personally, I can’t promise that what works for me is going to work for you. I’ll even confess that in over two decades, I’ve never personally lost muse. I don’t know if it is due to underlying, neurodiverse style, fixating, or if it is due to keeping myself continually invested in both my muse and writing regardless of what else is going on. (Probably a combination of both, though, and the things I do to keep myself highly in touch with my muse I’ll be recommending.) I’m definitely happy to try to help, however.

That really is a very frustrating spot to be in, wanting to write the muse and keep your blog active, but logging in every day to be reminded of what little reason you have to do so. Since we’re drawn to the characters we are for reasons of personal appeal and writing in itself is a pretty personal form of art, it can also feel depressing on top of the frustration.

However, that’s also the good news, in my opinion, because your incentive here is, or can be, yourself.

You were drawn to this character because you connected with them. They mean something to you, you can relate to them, maybe they have qualities (good or bad) that you wish you could experience. Whatever it is, there’s a reason why you had this draw. Writing is like that as well, there’s a reason why this is a hobby that drew you, that you get enjoyment out of. Again, though all art (it doesn’t matter if it is a hobby) has personal bits of the artist in it, writing is uniquely personal. When you write, you’re exploring thoughts and feelings, giving them life in a character that matters to you. I know, all of that sounds really convoluted and hokey, but it’s true.

And it’s good! That means you always have a reason to write and that you have the tools necessary to find and keep muse without any outside push necessary.

I’d say, firstly, work on getting muse back.

Get back in touch with your muse the next time you feel a particularly strong urge to write. Instead of spending time trying to find people in a silent fandom or forcing yourself to write something you don’t want to, just do some exercises that will help you get back into your muse.

I don’t know what media type your character comes from, but especially if it is something like movie or show that you can have on in the background of what you’re doing, do that. If it’s a comic or a book, think about your favorite scene and read it over first. If you’ve ever made some playlists for writing/your muse, you can always do that instead or as well. The point is to do something passively inspiring while you actively create. Now, that creating...

You want to do something that requires you to think about your muse so you can get in touch with them, not something that is going to make you feel overwhelmed and shut down. So, maybe don’t pick writing prompts for this - you can work up to that. Try out headcanon and character development memes and other question lists instead for right now. Things you can scroll down a list of, find questions that jump out as interesting (or even simply answerable to you at this point, you’re jump-starting a dead battery, it’s alright) and answer them. You can also do something as simple as write down what you like best about the character or their story, or put down the basics of filling in missing information that has always bugged you.

The beauty of this is that it is all on your own terms, your only objective here is to answer what you want, as much as you want. You can stop any time, but you can also answer a single question for three hours, making it eight pages long if the inspiration strikes you. It’s only about recharging your inspiration and establishing a connection with your character again. (This is also going to help you with getting back into writing, or approaching it for the first time, with a more internalized focus of interest.)

When you feel like you’ve done that, you can branch out on these exercises more. Answer the memes more in-depth, answer more of them/the ones you don’t have immediate answers for. You can also try writing out scenes from the character’s canon from their perspective, if it wasn’t already so, adding in their thoughts and feelings, or changing the scene in some ways that would be interesting to write out. This is the point where it’s a good idea to try a writing prompt or two, as well! Take the prompt as a sort of starter sentence from a mutual, you’ve got the situation, fill in with your muse.

Write when you feel like writing. The RPC is great at saying this when it comes to muns not wanting to write, but kind of ignores the other side of the equation. The side where you want to write, have the inspiration and muse to do so, but it might not be the best time. As in, you’re not home/wherever you usually write, with whatever device you tend to write on accessible. No, you’re not going to be able to get as much done, but you can write without the usual situation and device regardless. You can write a scene or ideas down using your phone or tablet, or go old school and use a notebook. If you’re at work and your job isn’t applicable to being able to get down a single sentence, that still doesn’t mean you have to wait 8+ hours to get home; while you’re taking your break, write a little bit. It is a break, and writing is your hobby, it isn’t work. It’s good to do things you enjoy on breaks, and far more fulfilling to have also accomplished something you happen to enjoy.

Not writing when you have the drive to do, putting it off and holding it in until “the perfect moment,” is a great way to lose your inspiration and never actually have that moment. If you feel like doing it, that means it is the perfect moment. Life is restricting, don’t impose even more restrictions on yourself by having to be at home, in a specific spot, with a specific device, at a specific time, on a specific day. Was that annoying repetition? You’re right, it was. And that’s how your creative mind processes all the crap piled onto it that doesn’t allow for creativity.

Now, the other problem, the fandom situation.

There isn’t anything you can do about that, to be absolutely honest. I’m not going to blow smoke and tell you to be positive, wait it out, maybe the fandom will spring to life again. You know, maybe it will...but you could be waiting literal decades for that to happen. Not cool. Please, take my word for that, it’s personal experience that it blows even more than you imagine it will.

What you can do is take the matter into your own hands in other ways; putting yourself out there with more availability in multiple ways.

Are you a single-fandom blog, or are you crossover friendly? If you’re not crossover friendly, try to think of a single, relatively popular fandom that you enjoy. Don’t look at it like a hassle, but rather, just another creative exercise. A serious pitfall of creating alternate universe versions of muses is to take the simplest route, merely picking something you want from that other universe and applying it to your muse with no relevant changes that would naturally occur from it. It isn’t just reductive as hell, it’s not remotely creative, it’s like sticking a sticker on your muse’s forehead and saying that’s a whole different muse. It’s neither attractive to potential partners nor going to sustain your own interest for long. You want this to be a passionate investment on your own end, for yourself.

What not to do:

Let’s say the fandom you picked to do crossovers with is based around magic, the main characters are witches, and they are divided into factions based on how their magical talents display and develop. Not only do you decide to make your muse a witch, you pick the most badass faction. It’s the one full of assassins and action and (metaphorically or literally) sex appeal. Well, that’s also going to be the most popular faction in the fandom. That means there will not only be plenty of big name canons there but also that there’s going to be a plethora of OCs designed just for this universe...and other crossovers from other currently active fandoms.

While that might sound like it’s great for maximizing interaction chances, it’s really not when you’re just starting somewhere new with a character from another fandom that might not be known or liked. It can also take a minute in another fandom’s RPC to identify where the good partners are. Every now and then, it is the most popular and over-populous era/faction/etc., but most of the time, it isn’t. People who write with considerable dedication and talent fairly rarely are in the popular kids club even in their fandom choices. By inserting yourself into that area, you might be bypassing (and being bypassed) by better partners on the assumption that their characters are simply going to bore you to death since they’re not within the scope of your focal point.

It’s not a situation of not being allowed to be picky, you not only have that right regardless of your situation, you also should be. This is not a “beggars can’t be choosers” situation, you’re not beholden to anyone on the basis of being new and bored. However, some of my best, and longest lasting, writing partners over all 23 years I’ve been RPing didn’t/don’t fit with all the exact surface details that automatically draw my interest. It is as true within my own fandom as it is in dealing with crossovers. Opposites (with enough similarities) really do attract and work out well together!

Don’t judge and write people off for anything that isn’t an issue of compatibility with your muse, your writing, or yourself. Decline someone because they do one line only and you are novella, they write topics that are upsetting to you, you can see no way your muse and theirs can interact without instant murder, or because you cannot stand writing with someone who is pulling 90% aesthetics and purple prose. Not because their muse is a witch who uses life-based magic, loves nature, is a healer, and into their health...while your muse in this AU is all about the death, only appreciates an urban environment and is grossed out by animals, kills as an occupation, lives on cheeseburgers and caffeine. You see what I’m saying? Don’t limit yourself unnecessarily!

What to do:

Did you consider if, in that hypothetical idea of a fandom, your muse based on their purely canon self would even fit into that faction? Or is it just something you wanted to see? If you didn’t consider this, or it was the latter, fix that. That’s bad.

If you’re not absolutely dead set on that and only that, think about what really does fit the muse better. Maybe, they would be better as a healer, someone who messes with the very fabric of reality, or someone who manipulates natural elements at will. Then again, they might not even be a witch. They could be more mundane in terms of power, but more accurate and interesting as a normal, human (or whatever). They could even be greatly opposed to the use of magic and witches. Use your muse’s original canon as a base to decide these things.

If you are absolutely dead set on it, though, you have a lot of work to do making the character into what amounts to a markedly different one while still retaining some recognizable aspects of themselves. Consider what events, in this new universe of fandom, might have happened to alter the character thus. Keep in mind that even small changes can have great consequences in a character’s development, and you might need to think about the myriad ways in which that can display, how it changes still more things for this character.

While that job becomes so much more intense when you haven’t planned out a path that matches your muse’s canon characterization at all, it is still an important part of constructing an AU, of any kind, in general. Ask yourself what experiences led to the character you know as you already know them (including your own headcanons, yes). Then, find similar possible experiences within your new fandom verse that can have the same effect. Again, though, it’s important to understand that you are never going to have an identical set of experiences, so you need to explore relevant changes still.

When you do this, you’re allowing your muse to more seamlessly fit into this other universe in a fleshed out, interesting way. Interesting both new partners and yourself.

Okay, next obnoxious question from me! Do you have multiple verses, or are you single-verse?

Whether you are already exploring new fandoms or not, by creating a variety of verses for others to interact with, you’re increasing your chances for interest and activity. When you have a verse from a different fandom you can then, additionally, advertise your presence in both that fandom’s tags when you do a promo or applicable open starter and on active RPer lists for that fandom.

Every popular fandom has such lists. You can get on them by messaging/sending an ask to the blog or by reblogging their post to be added, following the directions. I haven’t seen one yet that doesn’t allow for crossovers. You simply have to tag it as stated in the post, such as “your canon’s name here - original fandom name - crossover.” By tagging your open starter or promo as “-insert fandom here- rp” and “-fandom here- open starter” you allow people in that fandom to find you to interact. Either way is excellent for getting started in totally new places with a character others might be unfamiliar with.

Please remember that if you tag a promo as “promo,” it’ll not show up in searches off of your blog. You know, where it actually needs to be searched. Thanks, tumblr, for being janky! Being more specific as to the fandom and character will help others actually find you. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by tagging it as “promo.”

Make your verses accessible on your blog itself, in the nature of those verses, and how you set up your page or post that lists them.

Don’t put any page behind an impossible or complicated aesthetic. You really shouldn’t anyway, but when you’re needing interactions, it’s actively hurting your chances. Many people don’t want to have to play a game with your theme, it’s a turn off. Try a pinned post that lists all of your links to important pages like rules, verses, and bio instead. It means that, even from the dash, that information can quickly be found while other muns are first interested, and also that anyone who might be using the app can access it more expediently. (I’m genuinely not a fan or big supporter of doing google docs for rules, verses, bios, etc., as it forces people off site, so I can’t personally say, in good conscious and honesty, that I’d recommend it, but you do you!) You want to keep things quickly accessible is the idea here; when people are interested, you want to catch them right then and there before they have a chance to forget and lose your blog.

As to the nature of the verses themselves, give people real options. Don’t have 20 verses that all read same way. Same themes, plot possibilities, and backstories, or incredibly similar names. Have a diverse list of verses that can act as foundations for a variety of different muns. As many fandoms as you can reasonably have a good portrayal of, and different types of fandoms; not all the same genre (all fantasy, all horror, all scifi). Verses where your muse has substantially different goals, occupations, and other life situations that will involve another muse; don’t make your muse A Warrior™ in every verse, you can keep plenty of those aspects without being that literal. People love “modern” verses set in our own universe and, usually, in our own era. That doesn’t mean you have to go stereotypical or otherwise bore yourself by doing the standard “high school/college verse,” for instance. You don’t even have to designate that sort of thing, let alone make it the focus; simply create the verse by considering what your character really would be like if they existed within your reality.

As a final note on verses as pertains to this point, when you’re doing crossover verses, it’s alright to do some verses where your muse from their own canon existence somehow ends up teleported or whatever to another fandom’s reality, or even our own. Just don’t make every verse like this, it puts the onus of a great deal of creativity and effort onto the other mun by default; your muse has cluelessly dropped into the universe, and while it is high drama time for you, the other mun has to babysit, educate, deal with fallout, etc.

On making the list of your verses accessible, you want to focus on ease of browsing and not being overwhelming. People tend to look through a verse page and not read every verse listed, rather, they look at the titles and breakdowns to see if it is of interest, then read it. Don’t try to make everyone read them all, it isn’t going to happen, and shouldn’t change your effort any as the right people are going to find the verses that interest them...if you make it clear and easy enough.

Have a basic format you stick to, firstly. I do it this way: small verse banner, title of verse (linked to its overall tag so that muns can look through the tag at headcanons, aesthetics, pictures of the FC, and threads), muse age/age range, small blurb, possible triggers found uniquely or just heavily within this verse. In that order, one following the other in a simple, but pleasing way. Below that, is a more in depth breakdown of the “verse canon.” Sometimes, that is giving a brief rehashing of canon itself and anywhere my muse differs, be it in this verse only or overall, ending with where my muse is in this verse. Not literally where. I mean their present occupation, emotional and general state in life. At the very end, I provide any other relevant links and/or an expansion on the triggers mentioned at the top of the verse description if they’re that serious/recurrent so that muns can decide this isn’t the verse for them. I happen to have a potentially triggering muse, triggering verses, and writing triggering topics, though. That’s not something everyone needs to do.

Secondly, group your verses in a sensible way. I do my short list of default verses first. (And, I do mean short, you don’t want this be any more than four or five, it is overwhelming right out of the gate.) For me, that is two default verses of canon at different points on the timeline, one default AU that is a bit of a reversal of canon, and one default “modern” verse. Then, I list the verses that are in line with the altered canon one, just different possibilities, changes, points in history. After that, the different “modern” verse options. Then, verses for other fandoms, the crossover verses. And so on. This way, a potential partner can find the type of verse that might appeal to them and have an easier time picking from those possibilities and getting ideas.

Lastly, don’t be so succinct that you give too little information and underwhelm, but also don’t be so excessive that it takes all of the mystery of interaction away and overwhelms someone. It can be a difficult balance to strike, and some verses require more information than others, just experiment a bit. Additionally, it’s fine to link to pertinent information for the other mun to view aside from this, but don’t just link people to a fandom wiki as your “description/bio.” That isn’t giving information on how you write this muse, approach this fandom, or what another mun can otherwise expect. Keeping your descriptions interesting is important, you’re not giving a boring lecture, you’re trying to inform someone while making them hyped for their choices. It’s more interesting, and informative, to read if you do them with an ear to the “tone” of your muse in that verse. Is it a sad one? Sound that way. These can, indeed, function as snippets of your writing, so be sure you are writing them with the same care you should be giving your replies; spellcheck, good word flow and use, mind the grammar, and read over what you’ve written for common, easy mistakes.

Again, by giving a genuine variety of verses to choose from, you’re allowing for a greater reach in potential partners. Everyone from those still in your original fandom to those in new ones, all the way to fandomless muses will be able to interact with you this way.

Finally, in regards to what you can change or do when you’re in a dead fandom and seeking interactions; make sure you are increasing your reach by using proper tags, being honest about what and how you write, and don’t wait for others to stumble across you.

When you use tags properly, you’re increasing your chances of being seen at all. Every time you post something at all applicable on your blog, tag it with relevant things. Tag as described above with whatever fandom it is and “RP,” your character’s name, “open RP,” character name and RP, indie RP, open starter, and so on. Be sure you are optimizing your tags by placing the most relevant to finding you in the first four, those are what show up in site-wide searches only. Anything after that isn’t going to appear in a search across all tumblr.

By tagging your character’s name, as a canon, you should know that you are likely to get personal blog interaction. I’m pretty against being nasty to personal blogs for no reason, as I don’t appreciate personal and fandom blogs being shitty to me for the sole reason that I am an RPer. Please, use clear, short, attention getting directions for them. If you want no interactions with them, put right in the description of your blog “RP blog, does not interact with personal blogs.” When you say things like, “personals dni,” or “personals blocked,” you’re not doing anyone any favors. Personal blogs often don’t even know what the hell a personal blog even is! They do not denote themselves this way, to a personal blog, they’re just a blog. By designating first that you are an RP blog, you’re making it clearer that they’re the personal; they’re obviously not an RP blog, so that must make them a personal. Follow this up in a pinned post, right on top. Give a note to personal blogs that describes them as “any blog that isn’t an RP blog” first, then either tell them in brief what they can and can’t do or that you don’t interact and will block.

I don’t recommend taking your blog off of being findable, however. That’s alright once you have the RP activity you are looking for, but until then, it’s working against you. Other RP blogs cannot easily find you either, they will only find you if you’re on a list or appear in their recommended blogs, if you interact with a mutual, or are recommended by a mutual. You’re not just lessening your chances of personal blogs finding you, so if you have that turned off, turn it back on.

Don’t entirely rely on others finding you regardless, though. You can’t be 100% passive when you have no interactions, and by relying solely on serendipity you’re far less likely to get them. I know that everyone here is terminally shy, but seriously, you have to do more than put your silent will into the universe that someone perfect find you. You have to make this happen. Once you get a few people, you can afford to be more passive. Not only do you have some people to write with, you will be more visible to their mutuals, and more established as a presence. I’m not saying this is easy, or that it will become easy, not awkward or stressful, if you have a legitimate issue behind the shyness. Just that it is the only way to really proceed, and I believe you can do it!

So, go looking for interesting blogs. Be crossover and OC friendly (again, this doesn’t mean “accept everyone,” there are valid reasons for not accepting people you won’t work out with that have nothing to do with their fandom or being an OC), and search those fandom’s RPCs, following any blogs you think you might work out with upon reading their rules and other pages. Search for fandomless OCs and do the same thing. Fandomless OCs aren’t just floating around in the ether, they just weren’t created expressly for a particular fandom and within its confines. What is excellent about that is their ability to have a wide variety of verses and many possibilities to fit into any fandom or verse. So, don’t count them out solely on the basis of being an OC and fandomless. It doesn’t mean what people seem to think it does!

Do not stop at having followed 50 blogs. I mean, other than that you probably should stop following people for a bit. That you should do, as you need to be building writing relationships here, not following so many people that you cannot get to them. Don’t just stop at the follow, though. Since you’ve read their rules and information like a good RP partner, you should have some idea of what their interests are and where they align with yours, as well as how they prefer to be approached, if they accept memes right away to start, need plotting, have a rules password. When they’ve followed you back, proceed with interaction!

Ask if they’d like to plot when they have time, you’re really looking forward to writing with them. But...have some idea of a plot, please. It is a serious turn off to have someone message you wanting to plot, only to reply and get “lol I don’t have any ideas, anything works for me/whatever you want to do.” That isn’t plotting, it’s one party coming up with ideas and constructing a plot while they’re being told “I’m fine with anything.” That may be true, but it’s disheartening and a red flag for many people. If you genuinely can’t come up with anything, pick verses that match up well and suggest doing something within them.

“When you have the time, would you be interested in discussing writing? I was looking at your verses, and I think your verse -name- and mine, -verse name-, would mesh well.” Is a good way to start. Once you have a discussion flowing about the verses meshing and the muses, it’s typically easy to organically develop some plot ideas to go off of.

If both you and the other mun are alright with plot-free interaction and memes, you can send a meme any time. If you can’t find any memes on their blog, look for a wishlist or navigation page that shows you the tags for memes/wishlist. Still can’t find it? Ask them if they’ve got a wishlist or meme tag you can look through.

Additionally, if open starters are a thing you both do and are alright with, find some of theirs and respond. Post your own, tag it appropriately to be found in general and on your blog, and reblog it once or twice. Don’t excessively reblog it, and don’t get upset on the dash if no one interacts with it or any memes you reblog. Both are demanding to outright guilting, and not a good way to get partners. Just provide them with the ability to easily interact by making the posts available in the first place and by making them findable on your blog search and navigation.

Provide something for potential partners to see. Since you said you already do have writing, that’s great! That’s content on your blog that your partners can view. However, since you’re also having the issues you’ve stated, it’s likely that you haven’t many new posts. Show that you are active, interested in being here, and how you write your muse (and in general) by posting some newer content. For original content, do a headcanon or some meta, or post about new verses you are adding, the changes on your blog, a promo. For reblogs, things pertaining to your muse like canon imagery, fanart, quotes from canon or that generally express your muse, and aesthetics relevant to your muse are all excellent things to queue.

Use that queue. Not only do very few people appreciate having dash spam of similar content for the comparatively short time you might be around, but also, running these things on a queue means you spread that out for maximum view. While there are hours of heavier activity, you’ll have mutuals who are on at unusual hours due to their life and preferences or their timezone. This way, you’re not appearing inactive, if not outright invisible, to those mutuals. It’s not a bad idea to use a queue tag so that people know if they interact with a post that’s been queued, you might be here to quickly respond.

Ultimately, to fix your fandom and lacking partners problem, you just need to up your availability and reach beyond that fandom alone. Be proactive in following and approaching, decline blogs based on not working out only, utilize tags and fandom RPer lists, have everything on your blog easy to follow and not overwhelming, and have your verses meet as wide of a range of people as possible while also not being overwhelming.

Try updating your promo, as well, by the way. They’re not dead, they just really tanked when people kept making them based solely on aesthetic principle instead of being at all informative about the muse. They do seem to be coming back, so it’s a thing to consider.

Yes, make it visually appealing, it will draw people to reading it. No, do not just use a song lyric or quote with words highlighted linking your rules, verses, bio. Tell people basic info like the age of your muse and yourself, if you are multiverse and multiship, your muse’s canon verse and a couple of big interest verses of other major fandoms or themes that tend to be of interest to people, and what kind of RP you write - one line/para/multipara/novella. Absolutely give links to rules, verses, bio, and either memes, wishlist, or open starters, but give them just like that; make it very clear what this link is to. Put a very short statement of interest on there denoting that you’re expanding to new fandoms and looking for writing partners.

Do not sound desperate, demanding, or devaluing of yourself. Don’t say shit like “because my fandom is dead,” “trying this before I give up and delete my blog,” or “I suck at interaction/writing/ooc interaction/being a person but welp giving it a try, so follow and hit that heart.” (Conversely, calling yourself derogatory things and implying that your partners are too, such as the “we’re all just losers here” shit.) All of the above are not attractive, and they’re not even surprising enough to stand out anymore. It’s another reason to scroll right by that promo because nothing at all was different or of interest.

And as a wrap-up/rehash of the first topic, getting muse back: try starting over at the beginning by approaching the media involving your muse that has really stuck with you emotionally over the years, and exploring and developing your muse again.

Don’t tell yourself you can only write, for example, at home, on the laptop, after 7pm, and with a pop toy staring at you. The best thing about writing, as opposed to so many other hobbies, is that you can do it anywhere! So, do that. Do it any time you both feel the inspiration to do so and aren’t going to get fired or expelled for it. This isn’t work, it’s something enjoyable that does take effort (like literally all creative activities and skills do), but approaching it as though you need to follow novel writing advice from someone who has never published anything of note and isn’t you on the internet, with strict rules for success makes it feel that way. So does being frustrated with a dead fandom, no interaction. It’s disheartening, feels as annoying and fruitless as work often does. You probably need to break out of that mindset, and you can only do it by beginning to allow yourself to be creative on your own terms, entirely for yourself.

Do write simple things at first that you are inspired to do (you can’t get a scene out of your head, or a bit of dialogue), and/or headcanon/character development memes and question lists. Build from there as you get back in touch with your muse, writing things primarily or entirely for yourself still. Expanding on headcanons, doing some meta, or maybe writing out a missing piece of canon or what you’d be interested in seeing happen in canon if some event was altered.

Doing this sort of thing, you are getting in touch with your muse again and back into the real spirit of writing creatively, simultaneously.

Whatever you find most inspiring, do it. If it’s watching the movie or show again, do that, have it on while you write or simply think on the character’s actions, thoughts, and emotions during those scenes. If it’s reading the material again, do that, and read snippets of personal importance before you write. Maybe it’s some past playlists you can have on while writing, or even while you’re cleaning, walking the dog, driving or riding somewhere. It could even be your own previous writing! Go ahead and re-read that, it sounds like you still appreciate it, and that’s truly promising. If you find that you’re horrified by some of the things you’ve written in the more distant past, hey...that’s not just valid as hell, it’s natural. You know what else it is? An inspiration. You can clearly see that you could do better, that means you now know how to do better and are ready to do so. Validate yourself, prove it to yourself by rewriting or fixing something.

Don’t delete the blog or archive it. It is unpleasant to have a dead blog around, but don’t keep it dead. Use the same blog and simply transition it into wider things that will net you more partners and the interactions you deserve.

Look, even if you weren’t the most popular blog in your fandom before it went quiet, you really appreciated the blog, muse, and writing you were doing. You’ve defined that it wasn’t something you did to cause this situation, you just had the shit luck we all run into eventually of being in a fandom that ran out of material or interest. People are really fickle, so by taking a wider approach and fixing on the writing and muse instead of fandom now, you’re stopping this from repeating. Seriously, on a long enough timeline, every fandom dies or goes into hibernation. If you make a whole new blog with a different muse, it is going to happen again eventually.

So, don’t feel like you’re ridiculously clinging to the past and need to move on, you’re just sticking to something and can continue to stick to it through the next five fandom deaths. Just because it is the most popular thing to do to drop muses, constantly add new ones, and have this attitude that you can “blog refresh” your way out of recurrent, and inherent, problem doesn’t mean it is actually the right thing to do. It’s not even the most sensible, and certainly not the best thing to do with anything you’ve spent time and effort on.

That’s your incentive; yourself, the time and care you’ve put in, and your continued interest in writing and the muse. You’ll find good people, and bluntly, everyone else can fuck right off when you’re incentivized by yourself. It becomes a self-fulfilling activity at that point, I swear, and it feels really nice.

Just get back in touch with your muse and writing itself so that you can begin to expand and start interacting again!