#fandom is really a different world sometimes

[tippenfunkaport]

When I first started in fandom, for whatever reason I decided making fankids was like… too cringe for me. Like that was the arbitrary line I drew of what was too deep into fandom for me.

Anyway, think of this when I post my fankid drawings later because they represent me surrendering what is left of my dignity and fully surrendering to the cringe.

[biblically-accurate-dca]

KILL!!!!!!!!!

[wraithsoutlaws]

you know i had a fun little vp idea i wanted to do for the cyberpunk anniversary but i haven't had the energy to even touch it recently so i'll just settle with saying that this game impacted me in ways i never thought it would when i first picked it up 3 years ago. i knew i would enjoy it, i had been looking forward to it for a long time, and despite a ~controversial~ launch, i had a fucking blast from day 1 (on ps4 no less). regardless of bugs and memes and public dunking, the story grabbed me like nothing else could at the time, and it reignited so much of my passion and motivation for art that i had lost in the clutches of mental illness and i'll always be grateful for that. it introduced me to so many wonderful people (some whom i carry very close to my heart), and maybe most personally surprising, it gave me an outlet to understand parts of myself that i had been too afraid to acknowledge for a long time, the courage to accept and embrace myself as non-binary, and allow myself to just BE without trying to convince myself i'm crazy. that's not what i expected from the get-go but it's been a really fun journey to be on ngl

[pyrriax]

ANYWHO goodnight tumblr i'll be back on the art grind tomorrow i think 🙏

[chuchayucca]

Discussions of implied fictional CSA & SA

I recently been wondering if there’s a chance Richard thinks Roy’s aggressive and distant behavior is normal and not a sign of CSA because he acted similarly to Roy when he was younger

Reasonings in the tags

[chromotps]

The thing about Ace/Sabo is that the ship is less about them being brothers but more like them sharing a childhood friendship? That had the potential of becoming something more in the future. Except it didn’t, for obvious reasons. And yeah not everyone’s a fan of that, but people also like the raised by wolves/son of a noble dynamic they had as children. While I agree Sabo does kind of feel like he was stuck to Ace&Luffy as an afterthought, with a piece of chewed-out gum — his existence doesn’t… I don’t know, feel out of place? I also enjoy how kinda tragic his character is, and how he carries that tragedy with him? In the form of Ace’s devil fruit (Sabo also canonically hallucinates and there was an instance where he admitted to hearing Ace’s voice, during his fight with Burgess? so yeah, not everyone’s cup of tea again but I’m a huge fan of hurt/comfort so having a character go through a psychotic depressive episode because of the insane guilt he feels? Just, yeah. Plus there’s something really poetic about him literally eating Ace’s DF and still considering it „Ace’s powers” etc) and the way I see Sabo/Lu is through Ace/Lu (and partially Ace/Sabo) anyway. Because Sabo is trying to fill out the role of an older brother/friend for Luffy that he’s well aware is impossible to fill — because nothing ever will be the same for Luffy. Nothing or no one could even come close to making it up for Ace’s loss to Luffy, and Sabo knows he’s kind of a cheap copy of that (figuratively and literally lmfao, as I know people have been calling him low-budget Ace), but still he tries to? And the fact that Luffy is technically his only remaining family (or at least someone he willingly considers family). And I kind of see it as a parallel to how Ace’s approach to Luffy changed after Sabo’s „death”? Because Sabo was the „kinder” brother, the nicer one, the smarter one, it was usually him who took Luffy’s side whenever Ace was annoyed with him? And the one who explicitly asked Ace to look after Luffy — which then was one of the direct reasons why Ace changed the way he treated Luffy, forced him to be more patient/learn to love and eventually led to Ace willingly becoming the „older brother” figure for Luffy. I’m in no way trying to convince you to like Sabo, don’t get me wrong!! I’m just trying to show an example how Ace/Sabo isn’t necessarily brotherly either (like, I don’t know, Sabo/Luffy seems to be?). And it’s just that while I’m first and foremost a huge Ace/Lu enjoyer I also think Sabo did have a significant impact on their relationship both before and after Ace’s death.

((!! sorry i took a while to reply! i made that post before work on Friday and then got slammed until just now fdghjgk)

the odd thing is, I mostly agree!! I think I had to vent bc i saw ppl (a few specific sabo fans haha) on twitter acting like luffy would feel nothing toward ace but be obsessed with sabo. and, lol, no. but what YOU said makes total sense. like, yes, Ace + Sabo definitely has a different, more involved feeling to me than Ace & Luffy. I've had some ships in the past that fit the raised by wolves/runaway noble trope... the charm of the noble feeling like "this is the only person I feel like I can really be myself around" and the wild one thinking "i like spending time with this noble—they're tougher/kinder/funnier than i gave them credit for" AND/OR "society has always rejected me, but this 'cultured' person accepting me heals that pain a little bit"—all of those things are really charming.

Maybe if we'd seen more about how ace and sabo became friends, or if there were more emphasis on sabo's acceptance being what helped ace's anger (instead of, just from how i saw things, it being mostly luffy's unconditional warmth toward ace that did it?) then I'd personally be more feral about that dynamic, haha. But it's like you said, I guess it all depends on what we each connect with. I dont find tragedy alone compelling... I'm depressed enough already as it is LMAO!! if I think too hard about how viscerally sad Sabo only remembering Ace after he'd died is, my brain just shuts down. But I've got really good friends who would EAT THAT UP. Like, yeah, it is beautifully poetic... hahaha now i'm laughing thinking about my friends who were really into Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet finding out about Sabo & Ace and being obsessed, ahaha (they're not so into One Piece tho, only jjk... at least, for now!! 😈)

it's hard to put into words, but there's something about Sabo being a revolutionary vs. ace and luffy being pirates, that kind of explains why my brain sees A+L as very very very different than A&S or L&S. But like, that's just my brain and how my heart likes to focus on characters with really codependent relationships/dreams/themes, hahaha...

[m0e-ru]

annual realization where this gas station’s operations and my life owe it all to visualive i’m serious

[ser-zoras]

every time i start thinking about how we as a fandom should deal with gender identity and beauty standards and gender roles i get a headache before i even post

[starsundertheceiling]

Isn't it interesting that sometimes people who enjoy a show a "regular" amount are friends with people who are also fans of the show? But they aren't sure if the other person likes the show as much as them, so they fake liking the show actually a regular amount? But what if the other person is in fact also super into the show and doodles the names of the characters in their notebooks and changes them into drawings when somebody asks to borrow their notes?

We have two friends who are obsessed with the same show, but try to appear "normal" in the other's company because they don't want to come off as weird and potentially ruin their friendship. However, if they were honest, they would gain an irl companion to freak out with.

So, anyways, queer experience much?

[wind-becomes-lightning]

Wrote this a few days ago, put it into drafts, its not finished but i dont think it ever will. its non fanfiction stream of consciousness of my mind.

I wrote this yesterday in my head and somehow, now that I actually have a document in front of my eyes, I can’t remember the beginning. I’m sure it was a snappy beginning, something cool and artsy, that now has slipped my mind. Oh well.

Primarily, I was thinking about a song. A song written by German acapella group Wise Guys and that I first heard on a cold November night in 2016. The song is called “Ein Engel” or “An Angel” and yes I know how this sounds, but bear with me.

The first time I heard that song was in a concert hall in south Germany on a cold day in November in 2016. The band, which had always been a favourite of mine, even in my very long years of “German music is the worst” was doing a final tour together before splitting up in summer 2017. So I was there at their last concert in the area, with my mom, her boyfriend, my brother and his then girlfriend, now wife. 

When the lights went lower and the room’s atmosphere got more intimate and they announced this song I did not know until then, mostly because I had not very thoroughly listened to their newest albums at this point, I couldn’t help but feel ripped out of the scenery and planted back a year earlier.

See, my father died in October 2015. Terrible stuff. Last time we had been at the Wise Guys concert, he’d been there with us, instead of my mom's new boyfriend this time. He’d not sung along as far as I know because he wasn’t the type, but I remember him watching us having fun and having fun at us having fun. He later bought us T-Shirts and a poster and a CD that we listened to the entire car ride home. He did this a lot, enjoying himself when we enjoyed ourselves. When I was 14 he picked me and two school friends up form a boyband concert and when he turned on the CD-player it was my cd of that boy band playing. He had picked it up from my room just to do us that specific favour after the concert.

That year in November I was not far from the place I was in November 2015 around a similar time. It was actually just a few streets down. My mother and I drove down to this city to attend a prayer, which is called a “Taize-Prayer.” And no, neither of us are very religious, but let me introduce to you what that is. Taize is a tiny village somewhere in the mountains of France, you can go there and find spirituality or something, I have not been. 

But what is very distinctive about it, is that it has these easy to sing along songs that repeat over and over again, sometimes 10 minutes long for four lines. They are in different languages and they exist in all kinds of languages. Even if you can’t speak the language, after a few times repeating you just fall in with the singing crowd. And that is what it is meant to do, string you along as you let your mind turn off and just sing. You can close your eyes, you can stop singing and listen to the others. It’s what I imagine meditation is like.

Well, sometimes the catholic (maybe also protestant?) churches hold a Taize prayer like that, lots of candles, lots of singing, a few actual prayers in between. We went that day, my mom and I, my brother was there with his girlfriend too, because my dad had died a month ago and we felt like it was right. It was just a day before we were gonna drive out in the rain to the forest where we buried his urn, so it also fit the general vibe of the weekend.

During that evening, in which I sat freezing on a church seat staring at a candle right in front of me, because facing it all seemed too much, we sang a song that has since ingrained it into my brain. It goes like that: “Meine Hoffnung, meine Freude, meine Stärke, mein Licht (My hope, my happiness, my strength, my light)// Christus meine Zuversicht, auf dich vertrau ich und fürcht’ mich nicht, auf dich vertrau ich und fürcht’ mich nicht (Chris my confidence, I trust in you and don’t fear, I trust in you and don’t fear)”. It is religious, you see, but what hit me so hard was this idea of needing a light to shine for you. Maybe that makes no sense to you reading this, but it did to me.

When it is november and cold, and dark and your father has just died a month ago, all you wish for is someone to bring you hope and light and happiness and strength. I wanted someone like Christ to come and help me trust in him, be my confidence. But unfortunately I’m a non-believer, as much as that could have helped with those times. Telling myself my Dad was still there looking over me, that God was holding his hand or whatever, instead of sitting in his empty bedroom with his sweater on and crying my eyes out. Certainly would have been better.

So here I was, a similar place, a year had gone by. The first Christmas without my dad, when I had to listen to my mom say she thinks she killed my father and then in turn having to tell her that no, deciding to turn off life support when someone is no longer able to survive on their own is not killing them, came and went. My first year half an orphan also passed by. And soon I was back here again, low lights, not candles this time, songs that I could fall into and sing along at first and then one I did not know was suddenly announced to me.

The Wise Guys did acapella, often songs with humour in them, songs that made me laugh. They have an entire rap about the story of Hamlet that always gets a chuckle out of me. But my favourites were always the more serious ones, when those older men show off their songwriting abilities from many years of writing. Our family particularly loves “Radio” which is a song that essentially tells the story of a couple driving through the rain in a convertible while the radio is blasting music and not caring about getting wet. When it plays in our family car we all sing along so loud, it’s like we are the radio.

“Ein Engel” is not like “Radio” or not even like the ones tattooed on my heart like “Herbst am See (Autumn at the lake)” or “Das Wasser (The water)”. It is not even the most acapella heavy song, it has nice harmonies and such, as many of them do, but it is not remarkable in that way. It is rather simple I think and yet, I was taken by it so much that I briefly considered leaving the concert hall to go hide in a toilet stall, before I could pull myself together.

The song is about a guardian angel that is always with you, and no, I know what you think, it is not meant religiously. I think it is very explicitly not meant religiously. The symbolism of angels is just too easy to use with what they want to talk about. In religion, at least in catholic christan one of the south german variants that I was exposed to growing up, a guardian angel is sent by god to look over you, make sure you are fine and keep you safe. Because God loves you so much or whatever they say.

This song, however, is not about that really. It opens with lines like “Ein Engel, der dir deinen Weg weist" (An Angel who shows you the way) & “Ein Engel, der dich an die Hand nimmt” (an angel that takes your hand.) You think: this is religious stuff, ugh, but then the verse ends with “Du sagst, diesen Engel gibt es nicht, doch dieser Engel ist da (You say, this angel does not exist, but it is there)” only to follow in the chorus with “Dieser Engel ist da, jeden Tag in verschiedenen Gestalten” (this angel is there, everyday with different faces)” // “Doch er ist leicht zu übersehen, denn er kann überall sein” (he is easy to miss, because he can be everywhere).

That’s the thing, you know, it is not about an angel, it's about all of them. It hit me instantly as I sat there listening to it, that the song was right, that it was neatly fitting into a reality I’ve had all my life. Sometimes you are meant to meet people, they are meant to help you move forward and deal with life. You can call that God’s love if you want, but I always believed destiny was a thing, that some meetings are not just stupid happenstance, but that they are meant to be.

Whatever you say, I will not stop believing that meeting two wonderful boys, my bestest friends in the world, right after I broke up with my first boyfriend in summer 2009 and with him lost most of my friend group, was not destiny. And no, my first boyfriend was not a terrible monster, at least not at first, and I just had his friends as my friends and naturally that ended with me no longer loving him. THere was no bad blood - at first at least- I was just very lonely.

That was when I met this guy, my age, a little weirdo nerd like me. We talked about anime and such and he introduced me to this other guy, also our age, also a weirdo like us and we three became a throuple. Inseparable three. They both had a crush on me in some way or another I think, but I could not choose. I used to say that I wished they would just become one person so I could marry them both. In hindsight, now that I am older and know more about polyamory, I’m pretty sure I was just in love with them both. 

Either way, they picked up my lonely ass and built me up, so when I was laying on my back on the last day of 2009 one hand around either of theirs and thought I could never be any happier than in that moment, I thought of how lonely I had been just half a year earlier, how much they had changed me. Eventually of course all of that came to an end, but now, still, I think meeting them was destiny. I needed them, maybe they needed me too, and so we found each other.

That’s it about the angel with the many faces you know? It is always there, but you don’t see it. The song goes on to describe the angel as someone who turns on the heat when it is cold, someone who tells you how it is even if you don’t want to hear it, someone like that. And that exists, you know, like the song says, you meet that angel everyday, just with a different face. You are never alone, he is always with you in some form or another.

I’m sure I met him that hot summer day in 2018 when I almost collapsed from running too much. I had moved to Poland the year prior and my boyfriend and I lived in this tiny apartment with just one room, which was cramped but outside we had a nice park and that summer we went running about 3 times a week. That day it was so hot and I overdid it a little, causing my head to spin and my eyes to darken, so I sat down on a bench.

A lady came by with a stroller which had a baby in it. She looked at me and asked me if I was alright in Polish. My Polish is crappy, so I just nodded violently. She looked still and then reached into her stroller and took out a bottle of water to hand it to me. I of course tried to decline with the aggressive gesturing of a person that doesn’t speak the language of its opposite, but she insisted. I opened the water, drank, and when I wanted to give it back she shook her head strongly and waved with her hand. I said thank you about 10 times and drank the full bottle almost at once. You can’t tell me the angel didn’t visit me then.

[kyouka-supremacy]

chuuaku is the best fr

PLEASE COME OFF ANON I'M IN LOVE WITH YOU

[edge-oftheworld]

one thing I love about following celebrities/artists who are honest and proactive about their mental health struggles etc is I can’t count the number of times someone I know is going through something and I’m like ‘I’ve got a song for u’ and how much of my life involves telling myself ‘if [redacted] can do something/get better/etc then so can i’ (and having actual real evidence of it in front of me) and I can’t understate how much I appreciate these things.

but at the same time it involves a whole lot of watching people I care about suffer and you learn to read the signs and infer between the lines in songs and interviews, and yes we can never fully know what they don’t share with us, but when they do share things it’s not a big stretch to be like ‘this seems like it’s what life is like for you and I have taken encouragement from it but you deserve so much better’. and it’s easy to find ways to get angry at a predatory industry and realise things that could be hurtful if you’re already fragile.

and we can advocate for some things and help ourselves and the people around us feel better but it’s hard to meaningfully reach your faves as an individual. and there are things we can’t say on the internet in too much detail, speculation becomes the harmful kind of gossip, and so sometimes it’s a whole lot of internally saying ‘you’re doing incredibly well to have gotten to where you are but I wish for your sake things would get better faster’

[qoldenskies]

I know you said you are a Donnie enjoyer yeah he’s awesome I love him. I love all the guys actually it’s just the sunset duo are my favs. What’s your opinion on the sunset duo I mean Raph and Mikey as individuals or as a duo

I AM VERY MUCH A SUNSET DUO ENJOYER THEYRE GREAT!!!!! i have a sep!au fully plotted out that centers them as one of the Big Dynamics (ive been waiting for an excuse to ramble about it so maybe later. wears button that says Please Ask Me About My Work),,, i dont have a ton to say but i feel bad for people who favor them because this is a very disaster twins centered fanbase from what i've observed LMAO. raph and mikey enjoyers you deserve more food i am so sorry......

(more in the tags because that accidentally happened and im not transferring it over to here LMAO)

[playingonedchess]

lucky this blog only goes back to when id already finished school or id have to go and delete everything

[maganne-bonete]

Every generation of shows and media will always have their own version of superwholock. And as much as how the internet cringes at superwholock it's always gonna be an expected phenomenon because people will always find different media that they enjoy and they will always want to see them together. And there's nothing really that bad about it because it's made with pure fun.

So yeah, enjoy your superwholocks. Enjoy your Rise of the Brave Tangled Dragon. And enjoy your pinescones and morditwi. What matters is that your having fun with what you're doing. And if people are bothered by it then that's their problem.

[darlingofdots]

the vast majority of fanworks are bad, and that's fine, actually. they are bad for the same reason that the average number of legs for a human person to have is less than two: statistics. like with all endeavours and especially creative ones, most people who write fanfiction or draw art of their favourite characters are bad at it. if you line up all the crochet projects in the world, most of them will be, well, bad. some are bad because they're the first thing a person ever made, or the second or third or tenth, and this kind of thing takes practice. others are bad because the person who made them is just not very good at it. maybe they just learned how to make granny squares and they're perfectly happy to never expand or improve on that. most people who dance or bake or garden or braid hair are not amazing at it! and you'd never go to your kid's dance recital or eat your friend's homemade carrot cake and expect the same experience as you'd have at a professional ballet performance or award-winning bakery. And that's if we assume there is an objective measure of Good Art, which there isn't! Some art is just "bad" because you don't like it!

I think though that specifically with fanfiction, we sometimes forget that when we read a book or watch a movie, dozens of people have looked at it and given feedback and made changes and done quality control before the final product reaches our shelves or screens, and that's not counting the original writer's learning process and past experience. A published book is not anyone's first crochet project, even if it is their debut novel. But with fanfiction, the barrier to entry is so low (on purpose! this is a good thing!) that we do get to see a lot of wonky granny squares, and on sites like AO3 they're sitting on the same shelf as the hand-made silk lace wedding dress and you can't always tell just by looking at it which is which. The consequence of this is that we encounter fic that we think is unpolished, has bad punctuation, is out of character, and we are tempted to think "well, this is awful! how dare this person put this wonky granny square on the same shelf as the lace wedding dress!" But that's not how fandom is supposed to work! That wonky granny square is somebody who is really excited about this TV show they just watched and they are reaching out into the void to share their excitement with you. To scoff at them for not making a lace wedding dress is really, really rude. Even if they did make a lace wedding dress, maybe it's just really not your style, or you think they should have used a different pattern, and it's still their wedding dress. You don't have to wear the dress and you don't have to read the fic.

We all know that there is some fanfic out there that is incredible. I think it's important to talk about that! But the vast majority of people who post their writing online are just sharing their little hobby projects that they make for fun and I also think it's important to remember that.