#fandom wank lol

[deripmaver]

just out of curiosity, for reasons apropos of uhhhhhh nothing dont worry about it, i went to peruse the captive prince fic tags on ao3. the top three pairings in the fandom are:

1. laurent/damen (2923 fics) 2. auguste & laurent (194 fics) (as in not lauguste lol) 3. ancel/berenger (155 fics)

when you sort by “most hits” and exclude lamen, the top 10 fics are:

1. honeyed poison (lauguste) 2. the oath (genfic with laurent, damen, and auguste) 3. higher education (berencel) 4. uncle, part ii (laurent/regent) 5. non, je ne regrette rien (damen/laurent/nikandros) 6. on a pedestal (auguste/nikandros) 7. after the okton (damen/laurent/nikandros) 8. sent away (genfic with laurent and damen) 9. twenty-five (lazar/pallas) 10. sweeter than sugar (lauguste)

if you sort by hits and specifically include laurent/auguste, of the top 10 lauguste fic in the fandom, only two of them include absolutely no laurent/damen content. (this is excluding linecrosser’s art masterpost, which has the #1 most hits if you sort laurent/auguste->most hits, though this also includes both lamen and lauguste). those fic are #1 most hits, honeyed poison, and #4 most hits, sweeter than sugar. again, of the top 10 most read lauguste fic in the fandom, eight of them also include laurent/damen.

i think it’s valid to want to avoid content that triggers you for whatever reason, and i dont blame people for disliking lauguste necessarily, that’s their prerogative. but it’s strange that lauguste is this fandom boogeyman that apparently is clogging up the tags and showing up in people’s feed all over and is created by anti-lamen writers when there are <100 lauguste fic on ao3, when of the top 10 non-lamen fic it only accounts for two of them, and of the top 10 lauguste fic eight of them also include lamen. this isnt an academic survey or anything but ya know, here are some numbers

[thevioletcaptain]

y'know, the different factions of spn fandom on tumblr do fundamentally and vehemently disagree with each other about a lot of things, and many of the factions actively hate one another, but i just want to say for the record that i appreciate the fact that this site is not overrun with painfully hetero facebook fans. i just saw someone over there saying with their whole chest that they fully expected the finale to have dean meeting jo harvelle in heaven and them getting afterlife married, and someone else angrily responded that this was obviously never going to happen because clearly dean was still in love with lisa braeden who would therefore be his finale bride (i guess this person expected her to die in the finale somehow?), and then someone ELSE responded that they wouldn't want to see either of those things happen because they like to pretend dean is their boyfriend and it would feel like cheating(!!!!) if he ended up with one of them and they'd never be able to fantasize about him anymore. and all of these comments had over a dozen people agreeing with them.

[qprstobin]

Every time a fic says something about how Steve doesn't clock as queer to people and half the time this leads to people being like wary of him in gay clubs or something I'm just woebejdk please be so serious rn. Look how well dressed that fucker is. He matches his shoes with his outfit and wears little polos. He third wheeled his best friend and his girlfriend for years. None of these make him queer but people acting like there haven't been gay rumors about him from the moment he hit middle school are lying to themselves.

[holyfreaks]

sorry but the "trying to get rid of us" part.... like we were here from literally day one. you came into OUR house and decided the show was about something that it's not. also, even if we weren't here from the beginning, we deserve to be here every bit as you do. why are you trying to gatekeep fandom, when it's always been for the freaks. especially on the incest family horror show

[demonic-shadowlucifer]

A few days ago I started a survey intending to document the experiences others have had while partaking in shipcourse. After going through responses of the first survey, and after reading some critiques and questions yall wanted to know, I think it's time to share the second and final survey of my research!

As usual, please be civil in the reblogs. This is an open discussion. Tagging for visibility: @proship-anti-discussion @proshippers-against-censorship @olderthannetfic

Like with the last survey, this one will remain open for three or four days. Also, you guys are allowed to send in asks detailing your experiences with either side, in case you don't feel like going through the survey.

[the-darkestminds]

PLEASE LMAO Y'ALL ARE WEIRD AND FOR WHAT

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[sticky-bros]

It's always “Wincesties DNI” and never, “Hey, Wincesties! It's been a while. You good? Still writing about those brothers having sex? Nice, nice.”

[athina-blaine]

kb/ms is truly transcendental yaoi, spectacular, amazing, 10/10, no notes ... from the perspective of a mithrun enjoyer

as a kabru enjoyer, however...

I'll start off by saying that of course Kabru doesn't want or need a romantic relationship to be fulfilled, especially not with a white man, none of them do, it's all non-canon, Dungeon Meshi isn't about romance or shipping, yes yes yes, but none of us are here for that right now!! We're here to fruitlessly argue why my blorbos kissing makes more sense than your blorbos kissing!! You know it, I know it, none of us are free of cringe!! Clown on clown violence!!

That being said ... 🤡

I just don't see what Kabru gets out of kb/ms. With Mithrun, it makes sense; Kabru has a huge impact on him and ultimately helps him reaffirm his will to live. That's very exquisite drama and excellent character writing. But with Kabru, I just don't feel that Mithrun's character interacts with his personal flaws and would instigate his growth anywhere close to the same degree. I have to imagine most fics involving them focus more on Mithrun's baggage and how Kabru helps him heal from that ... because that's mostly all that happens between them in the main story, lol!

And like, that makes sense, because ultimately chapters 61-62 aren't about Kabru and Mithrun; they're about Kabru working through his conflicted feelings in helping Laios conquer the dungeon. I think it's ironic seeing people complain about kb/ms having Kabru be Mithrun's accessory when, if anything, Mithrun's main narrative purpose, outside of illustrating the danger of the Winged Lion, is to serve as Kabru's obstacle. I'd even argue Mithrun represents Kabru's personal bad ending; Mithrun wants him to kill Laios and surrender the dungeon to the canaries, preventing the short-lived races from ever understanding how dungeons function and returning to the status quo that had gotten Utaya destroyed. It's only when Laios practically forces Kabru, straight up puts his thumbs to the screws, to work past his reticence and be emotionally vulnerable that Kabru finally puts himself on the right path to achieve his goals (it's, uh, still a bit of a bumpy ride, but they get there in the end, lol!). If he'd been this way with Laios from the beginning, he might have understood Laios' intentions from the start and saved himself a lot of pain, but it's only because of Laios' influence that Kabru is able to grow as a character and get his happy ending.

(And even if one were a Mithrun enjoyer, ultimately the main source of Mithrun's life affirmation comes from the canaries. In that final scene, Kabru gets the ball rolling because he's outside of the canary hierarchy, but the scene ends with Mithrun being embraced by the canaries and as far as I'm aware the two don't interact with or reference each other post canon at all. Hell, it's Senshi who really drives the point home. Not that it matters when we're all wearing shipping goggles here, but it felt remiss not to mention it.)

At most, I can see how taking care of Mithrun would force Kabru to reexamine how poorly he takes care of his own body and that could make for some good drama. But even then, that change is ultimately instigated by Laios' influence on him, an extension of how Kabru wants to understand how Laios can see the value in monsters in an attempt to better understand his own trauma. If a person were to get into Dungeon Meshi specifically for Kabru and wanted to ship him with someone in a way that's most interesting for him, I'd be hard-pressed to argue there's a better choice than Laios (although who'd be cringe enough to do something like that haha right guys ... [sweating])

(Side note, though, I really don't vibe with the argument that kb/ms "reduces Kabru to a caretaker role" and that's why it's bad. There's plenty of instances where Kabru shoulders his friends' burdens (helps Kuro learn common tongue, listens to Daya's fiance about his relationship troubles, etc) and, more importantly, is seemingly happy to do so. I think Kabru genuinely enjoys looking after his friends and in the story seems to find plenty of personal satisfaction getting Mithrun to eat. I understand it has the potential to be more troubling considering Kabru is a brown man and Mithrun is a white man, but idk, it just feels on the same level as people trying to discount labru by saying Laios wouldn't take enough of an interest in people to want to start a romantic relationship, when his whole thing is that he does want to connect with people and just feels like he can't. It's not a bone I feel like picking, haha)

I honesty don't mind characters being "mischaracterized" in fandom or fic even to a large degree, I know it bugs a lot of people but I respect that ultimately fandom is little more than picking up the vague outline of a doll and playing with it and mashing their faces together. Besides, if I'm really worked up about it I can just write a fic and set the record straight myself, haha. This post is merely inspired by the supremely annoying subsection of twitter that acts like labru is the ship where it's just two dudes sitting in a room together. I'm just saying, Kabru ends the series whispering into the ear of another man as his day job and it's not Mithrun lmao

[lokiinmediasideblog]

I am glad those TR fans that insisted the only possible interpretation of Frostmaster was the fluffiest ship ever are gone (I don't see many of them nowadays). They were so fucking annoying. Cue the obnoxious, "Slutty twink that slept his way to the top." jokes. The power imbalance went over their heads.

[bobbinalong]

concerning fitzmartin's line of tim saying bernard showed him there is more to him than he was settling for and brings out the real me, is that an attack on his past romance and saying he was settling for them or more talking about being queer and discovering that

I mean, I certainly read it as a sort of attack (though I think "attack" might be a bit too strong a word) because Fitzmartin hasn't shown respect for the, out-of-universe, near 30 year long relationship Tim had with a woman or, in fact, the woman in question. Tim breaks up with Stephanie off-panel, we never get her feelings on the matter anywhere and when Fitzmartin does write her, it's as a prop for Timber. I mean just look at this:

Tim Drake Pride Special

and tell me the author cares for or respects Stephanie Brown as a character.

I also resent the implication that Tim couldn't have been his best queer self with Steph because she'd absolutely fully accept him. And he's not gay, he's bisexual, he's still attracted to women.

So why is being with a woman "settling" when he was previously talking about her like this:

Young Justice (2019) #5

Young Justice (2019) #8

Detective Comics (2016) #940

Detective Comics (2016) #963

Tim loved Stephanie. He was in love with Stephanie. She was his last thought before dying and he was committed to a future with her. There wasn't even a hint of a crack in their relationship prior to Urban Legends, in fact, I'd argue they were at the happiest and healthiest they'd maybe ever been.

So yeah, to me, Tim talking about "settling" and not being able to be himself before Bernard is 1) bullshit and 2) an attempt by the author to downplay his previous relationship. I don't really care to give her the benefit of the doubt.

[qprstobin]

I'm gonna be frank, Eddie just does not give me the impression that he was bullied all that much in high school to me. Especially as he got older, like he was the school drug dealer, he was not getting beat up by the same jocks who were going to be buying from him later that week. It just doesn't make sense to me!

I'm not saying he was never bullied at all (personally I think he was probably bullied by the people in his grade in like middle school, but leant more into the satanic image by the time he got to high school (which is when the satanic panic wouldve been starting) and people became more afraid to mess with him or it stopped when BS started dealing) or that people can't headcanon and project onto pm. It's fandom, do what you want lol. I've just gotten to the point where fics lose me whenever they claim Tommy/Steve/Jason was going around beating the shit out of him or shoving him in the halls every week or the like. Eddie just does not give the impression that he is scared of the jocks normally. He looks down on them and thinks he's better than them! He taunts them openly in front of everyone and pontificates on table tops.

I think if you take it in that context too, it makes the town turning on him more sinister? Like obviously, satanic panic was only growing at that point, and it was within the last year or two they started pointing at metal and D&D as recruiting centers for satanic cults. (Eddie also like an asshole is walking around with a satanic symbol on his jacket - peak edgy teen in the middle of a moral outcry.) But while people might've been afraid of him, and most definitely talked about him behind his back, that's worlds away from mob violence. The change was startling, even if Eddie might be able to see it on the horizon.

Idk to me that's more of what the hunt the freak line was about. The knowledge that they could turn on you and would if you gave them a reason (or if you want to go with the Eddie is closeted interpretation - if he got outed). I think he probably has been called the freak for a while but honestly I think he's proud of it at this point.

Obviously all of this is up to interpretation, I guess I've just gotten to the point where a lot of the popular fanon interpretation doesn't feel like Eddie to me anymore

[piosplayhouse]

Just came across someone in the mdzscql/tgcf fandoms with an "anti fic recs" list where they just linked a bunch of completely unproblematic ao3 fics from established writers in the fandom without permission and extensive and unnecessary criticism (most of it just disagreeing with characterization) just to make fun of them, had "regretful recs" where they wrote maybe a paragraph about how they liked the fic and then listed the author's "problems" which were just whether or not they had written noncon/somno/etc kink work in ANY other completely unrelated fics or even just used words like "queer", and didn't even read some of their "anti recs" on the list but just wanted to make fun of them on the descriptions and I'm absolutely fucking livid.

Even if you don't like certain types of content that shouldn't lead you to compiling authors you don't like on a "shame list" in public stocks to humiliate them all for the grand sin of making a character a bit ooc. Genuinely ghoulishly evil behavior. It's so difficult for me to even fathom what the point of making any recs at all are since doing something like that 100% just discourages ALL writers, even the ones who make "good content", by telling them that the art they made of their own free will and time just out of a love for a piece of media is going to be mercilessly scrutinized and if deemed unacceptable your name will be blasted through the halls like some sort of mean girls burn book. Just some abhorrently poor etiquette that stifles the creativity of an entire community.

I really wish the poster had linked their ao3 somewhere so I could warn ficwriters to block them immediately so they can't access anyone else's writing since they apparently hate it so much, but unfortunately they don't have it up. I don't want anyone to harass them because bad behavior shouldn't be fought with bad behavior, but if you want to know the account to block so you don't interact in the future and promise you won't contact them you can dm me.

[indelicateink]

been thinking a lot lately about IWTV's shifting POVs and "memory is a monster" as a foundation of the show, now and going forward.

bc storytelling-wise/audience-wise it's an interesting exercise in trust--and i'm curious to see how this exercise plays out: if can i remain emotionally invested if the property refuses to commit to the veracity of anyone's version of events?

if something devastating happens in the plot and I take that to heart for two years, and then they go back on it and i have to sit with that fallout, do I eventually become numbed to the ups and downs of the story? is it the-boy-who-cried-wolf heartbreak?

--genuine questions, I don't know the answer. I love the show. and people having conflicting POV about events is just life.

but as a storytelling conceit, it's interesting? Rashōmon was a movie of an hour and thirty minutes. IWTV is years (knock wood) of television. I adore the idea of uncertainty, but I am curious if I can sustain emotional investment if emotional beats, important facts, will all be ambiguous; if the default is to be on edge for the "gotcha" wet finger in my ear lol. i'm still game to find out.

[thefrogdalorian]

I think on this fine Saturday afternoon it's a good opportunity to take a breather and remember that there are really no ethical paparazzi pictures. Every single one is inherently exploitative.

Just because photos were taken on a movie set, when someone is 'working,' does not make the practice any less invasive and creepy. Imagine just going about your day, doing your job and having some weirdo snapping pictures of you to sell without your consent for others to endlessly repost online.

There are thousands of pictures of your favourite actor online already. Plenty taken with his knowledge and consent. I'd really like to see more of them on my dash, rather than the creeper shots.

And don't get me started how disseminating these pictures directly leads to people going to said sets. What starts off as admiring how good someone looks has real world implications.

No, hanging around a movie set and disrupting people doing their jobs is not harmless fun or a way to show your appreciation.

If you hang around a movie set, you are a stalker.

Don't tell me that it's okay to take your online admiration for someone offline. You may admire him but he does not, and will never, personally know you. He will never be your friend/boyfriend/daddy. He is a stranger.

The only way meeting your favourite actor is going to happen is at a convention or maaaaaybe a movie premiere if you're incredibly fortunate. You know, places they appear specifically to meet fans (or not in the case of premieres, where the purpose is to promote a movie. Which is also completely understandable if actors don't stop. You are not owed an interaction).

Of course, you cannot help it if you randomly run into someone you admire in the wild. Even then, consider that they probably won't be all too thrilled to be approached in public by a complete stranger. It's up to you to gauge the situation, but remember there is a person at the heart of all of this.

Boundaries and respect are a kindness which deserves to be extended to each and every human being regardless of their looks/talent/fame/wealth.

Fandoms blur those lines a little too often for my liking and I think just scrutinising what you're interacting with, or what behaviour you could be possibly falling down that slippery slope towards is nice to do every once in a while.

I mean no malice with this post and it is not directed at anyone in particular. It's something I cannot help but feel strongly about because I've seen this destructive cycle time and again in fandoms over the years. It's not healthy and it makes us all a little bit more disconnected from our humanity for it...

[dickheadcanons]

Obviously people can write what they want, but nothing takes me out of a story faster than seeing Jason adopted without Bruce meeting Dick.

I know I have my biases, but I feel it shows a complete…lack of interest in Bruce, as a character. Bruce is a highly traumatized man, one who hasn’t had a family since he was 8 years old (hired butlers really don’t count, for all that they might get more family-like later). What could possibly convince him that he was the best person to care for a young boy? It’s delusion at best or even insane narcissism. What could he possibly offer besides money, which he already gives in large amounts to actual child-helping organizations in Gotham??

Unless, of course, he witnesses something so shocking, so deeply affecting, that it’s become one of the best attended events in the DC universe because everyone wants a piece of that emotional arc. Something that vividly takes him back to the alley way, back to another boy kneeling between two bodies. Makes him realize that there might be other people in that lonely, dark world of his.

Dick in general is so massively influential on Bruce, but this moment is what pries its fingernails under the doorframe. It’s what makes everything that comes later possible. And it’s not just that he’s an orphan boy; it’s the shock, the spectacle, the intensely public display of grief after violence from a boy who looks like Bruce, who is the same age as Bruce was,and, I think this is critical, was so happy just moments before like Bruce remembers being.

Maybe Bruce still finds Jason and Tim and Cass without taking in Dick. Maybe he still can be a good father, be a good Batman, without Dick’s influence directly in his life. But the character is fundamentally different without being there that night. It’s the first and longest lasting moment of character growth that we see on page for Bruce, one that gets retold over and over.

He needs his night at the circus.