#how many posts have i written analysing the ship tags...

[drawnaghht]

@trufflemacandcheese

About the ship tags poll... Ah, sorry for not specifying ^^; I did post that the poll was about Yuichi x Rise!Leo specifically.

I actually want to do a separate one for Leosagi, but this one was specifially just for Leoichi/Leochi! (or, me using mostly my own made-up tag, YuiNardo)

TL;DR - Leosagi and Leoichi/Yuinardo are separate ships :D technically we don't have this problem with other fandoms with newer versions of characters, or even with other ships like Donsagi, but since Yuichi Usagi is a separate character from his ancestor, Miyamoto Usagi, it would make sense to have separate ship tags as well. Especially since the tags already exist anyway, so why not use them per ship? It is also more respectful to both older and newer Leosagi fans and fans of both Usagi characters. I am all of these myself, so hah, this is all silly fanstuff, but I'd just prefer the separation bc the ships are too different to share a tag + it's easier to sort and find fanart/fic later if there are separate tags. So Leosagi poll will go up later!

Longer explain: there was discussion around it a year or more ago, + posts here and there on tumblr mostly, about how technically Yuichi Usagi x Leo is a whole new ship bc Yuichi Usagi is a whole new character from the Samurai Rabbit show... and how maybe it's good to use just the one tag for it? So the oldest unique name/tag for them seems to be Leochi/Leoichi. Since Miyamoto Usagi x Leonardo is an older ship that's been around for 19 years since the '03 turtles show and Leosagi has been the tag/ship name that stuck with that, it's a separate ship. So are the tags associated with it, such as Katanashipping and older tags (which I haven't seen people use anymore.) But people saw the similiarities of the two Usagi's (family after all, lol, but I wonder if there's something else simmering under there), and started tagging the newer ship as Leosagi too, almost as an umbrella term, since we'd briefly had 12!Leosagi as a ship, and people just like the dynamic that the 03 show introduced, but people liked the new TMNT cartoon too.

ROTTMNT didn't have any Usagi eps tho, so - some Rise fans had started making their own Rise versions of Miyamoto Usagi as well, well before the Samurai Rabbit show. And this new ship clashed with that a bit, because people were either taking the character of Usagi from the show and just giving him book/2003 Usagi's personality (so continuing what Rise!Leosagi shippers were already doing, but confusing the pool of thoughts there bc it's a new character w a new name). So the fans who use tumblr and draw/write for the ship got upset that this new ship was taking over the tags and clogging the tags with just Yuichi x Leo content. There’s also the distinction that og Leosagi in 2004 is a ship where they’ve interacted in canon - Usagi exists next to the TMNT in the cartoon, and I consider 03 Usagi a whole separate version of him because they seemed to have changed his backstory a bit + made him younger to match the turtles. There’s also history of the characters interacting in the comics, because their creators Peter Laird and Stan Sakai were friends and Leo is Stan Sakai’s favourite character of the TMNT. Yuichi x Leo is a crossover ship however. so the new ship was a surprise.

Perhaps at first, it was kinda fun to see new art or fic, but then I guess people started getting annoyed for how many fans were using multiple tags and including Leosagi in their posts too, even when Miyamoto Usagi is not there.  A lot of people treated the two ships as the same or made the name an umbrella  tag, which I sorta did too at first bc what, it’s not like there’s guidelines pinned to the start of a tag page on tumblr, are there? So imo, it’ll just sort itself out eventually the more people start using the unique tags exclusively vs the old tag. Sliderbunny was the Miyamoto Usagi x Rise!Leo tag for a while, but that's also become mainly used for the newer ship. I’m not sure if tumblr shows the contents of tags from over a year ago anymore, but there are most likely blogs still active which jave those older posts with tagging prior to Samurai Rabbit coming out on Netflix.

I'm more annoyed personally that people also mis-tag the characters and the book/show. They are not interchangeable! So yeah, it's been a whole many-posts-long discussion over this ^^;;

I also made longer posts thinking abt these myself but I'm not gonna link them here cuz these are just general polls of curiosity. But you can find them under "ship tags" tag on my blog if you get curious. RABNerd28 on youtube made a very succinct (imo) video about this topic as well, which summarizes many of the issues the older shippers find when going online to see content for their favourite ship.

I actually have no idea where Leoichi or Leochi came from as ship tags or why there are two spellings of it (almost like "two pronunciations" lol), but so far, it's a pretty popular tag. So there seems to be no need to double-tag it with Leosagi, when it's 2 different ships. I find it also that whatever the fan content for 2003 Leosagi or just Leosagi is in general, it would be nice to just respect fans who made the ship popular at first, when TMNT03 aired their Usagi eps in 2004. I actually shipped this too back in the day and still do, so for me personally, it's nice to have separate tags just so I can find things better on my blog + so if people who don't like one ship, they can always block the tag and not see those posts from me. Or just general consideration ^^ I think we don't have this discussion around the other usagi ship tags bc well, there are a lot less posts about these other ships both on tumblr and elsewhere, maybe the fans don't have the energy to argue about this?

Another result of earlier discussions and the general tag-clogging, lots of people also dislike the show and the character of Yuichi Usagi. I as a fan of both show and comic, really don't like that, so that's one more reason why using separate tags is better - so at the least: Leosagi and Leoichi separately.

i still prefer my own made-up tag bc it's more unique + sounds fun. also reasons why I made my own unique ship tag: fans make Yuichi really OOC in their art/fic, or they haven't seen the show or the flat-out hate the show.... which is all fine, ordinary stuff even, as far as bigger fandoms and fanworks go. folks make Rise Leo OOC often too, but no one bats an eye. But hey, it's just other fans having fun with concepts and ideas. That's what fanworks are. Transformative fiction. People can change anything they want. But I personally like the show and character, and I like the Usagi Yojimbo books too. So reading/watching and making theories and in-character or just plain meme/funny stuff is how I have fun.

whatever the reasons for the tag names, for this poll I just piled all the reasonable ship tags I could find for it (i.e. used in at least 2 posts) just to see what people use the most. seems that Leoichi is winning so far, which makes sense as it is easier to pronounce.

[babybells123]

Oh. My. God! You’re always whining about people not liking jonsa! Like seriously who cares. Just be happy and ship your jonsa why do you care if others like it or not.

Hi anon.

Tbh, this fandom talks more about how much they hate Jonsa more than I talk about the unjustified hatred myself…. Often the arguments against it are very shallow and inherently vitriolic and it often plays into fandom psychology i.e following the grain, which is again - intriguing to note in comparison to other fan theories.

But in any case, there is something wonderful called the block button, and I really urge you to use it. It’s what I do when I’m made privy to an account / content I don’t like or agree with, I don’t waste my time reading through any of it . The posts which address the antis largely stem from anon messages that I receive (and delete), and other social media forums where I may come across hateful content. I don’t go actively searching for it because as I stated, they’re often extremely weak arguments that can be countered and don’t come from a place of critical thinking or nuance ; simply a matter of “nah that could never happen because I said so.”

And here’s the thing, Jonsa shippers don’t actually venture to pro other ships tumblr. We all have that content filtered/blocked most likely. But there is certainly a strange pattern when it comes to antis who usually ship other pairings loving to invade the Jonsa tag and send hate upon hate, reblog, write numerous essays as well.

There’s a lot more anti content towards Jonsa than there is for people calling out the antis. And it’s not just a matter of people “not liking it,” since that’s really not what it boils down to. It’s really not that tame nor simple. I don’t care if someone dislikes Jonsa, if it isn’t your cup of tea then I have no qualms. I take issue with people who are consistently bothered/offended by it’s mere existence and have participated in online bullying such as creating anti blogs and hate accounts, doxing people, forcing people to delete their art/edits, and sending death and rape threats over a *checks notes* ship. That’s very uncalled for and very unhinged.

Anyway, I find the way that this fandom collectively responds to Jonsa so mind boggling. I can only laugh at the blatant hypocrisy. See, you’re clearly unaware as to how deranged people get because you’re on the other side, so you think it’s just a matter of people disliking a ship. In my many years across multiple fandoms I’ve never seen such a level of vitriol! And that is saying something. But I’m confident in what I’ve analysed/written. I have faith in the metas and theories and at the end of the day, it’s really all just fiction.

And you know what anon, I reckon I’ll increase how much I post about Jonsa hate, just to piss you off ;). You’ll probably lurk on here, and you’re free to - but I really urge you to block if you’re so riled up and go back to your side of the fandom with like-minded people.

Have a blessed day !

[sauron-kraut]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

Thank you so much for tagging me, @nihil-ism 🖤

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

Currently 15.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

9,329 - you see, my works posted so far are either shorter one shots or ficlets/drabbles.

3. What fandoms do you write for?

The Silmarillion and adjacent works by Tolkien. :) And within this fandom it's almost exclusively about rather niche ships with Mairon. Let's see when/if I will write for other fandoms; I'd love to at some point.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Of Gods And Monsters

Sacrificial

Plaything

Sugar

Sacred

All of these are Mairon/Ar-Pharazôn. lmao

5. Do you respond to comments?

I will respond to every single (first) comment someone leaves on a fic of mine. I thorougly enjoy these little interactions and I want to show my appreciation to people who show me theirs.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That must be my double drabble Plaything I guess. At least if we talk about the very moment ending the fic. Throwing up from negative emotions and alcohol alike seems pretty... angsty.

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

That must be Of Being Born and Little Deaths. Everyone (well...) is having a good time and it literally ends with an orgasm.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

So far I haven't and I'm very grateful for that.

9. Do you write smut?

I love writing smut. And I love weaving character analyses/studies and some poetry into it.

10. Do you write crossovers?

I don't, personally not a fan of crossovers.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

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

I haven't, but sharing headcanons and ideas with others has endlessly inspired many of my fics.

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

Angbang (Melkor/Mairon). I love them, I will never be over them; they've been with me for ten years now, I could ramble on forever about how important this ship is to me and what it means to me. It's rather popular in fandom though and I feel like there's many great writers out there who have graced us with their brilliant work. That makes me feel like I don't necessarily need to... add to that somehow. I'd love to write (more) Angbang at some point but as far as writing goes my favorite ship is Mairon/Ar-Pharazôn (which many of you might have guessed at this point lol). It's rotten, it's biblical, it's a playground for all things terrible to me. And it's a rarepair (why??) and therefore (in my mind) lies like a bare field before me, ready to sow and play in. 🖤

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

No such thing. My WIP are my children and I will not abandon them. It might take many months but they will see the light of day.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Building atmosphere, pretty lines, poetry, in some parts characterization. (Very) short formats are my strength in general.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Not really able to write anything plot-driven, sometimes dialogue (though I might have started to improve a little), prioritizing pretty imagery and rhythm/sound over meaning/sense sometimes, having difficulties writing longer stuff.

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

Not really my thing; could get awkard quickly imo.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Visual Kei bands (Moi dix Mois) when I was 14.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written? 

Easily my little double drabble Reverence. It illustrates nicely what I talked about regarding my writing strengths for question 17 imo.

Tagging @lvsifer, @curufiin, @cilil, @saintstars, @gardensofthemoon, @elevenelvenswords , @crackinthecup , @swanhild , @a-world-of-whimsy-5 and @i-did-not-mean-to (no pressure ofc and sorry if I forgot anyone, in that case: that's just my forgetful brain at work)

[wild-whispering-woods]

Well, I'm back here, after almost seven years. This is going to be a rather intense post, but there is a lot of stuff that I have only very recently been facing, and I need to get it off my chest. Trigger warnings are in the tags, but I'll list them here as well, just to be sure: mental abuse, gaslighting, sexual abuse.

Let's start with a seemingly really random topic.

The series BBC Sherlock has always been a sensitive subject for me, as it was used by someone to mentally and sexually abuse me when I was quite young. In an attempt to mentally disentangle myself from the abuser, I became part of the Johnlock community here on Tumblr. I devoured the meta that was being written by the community, and it made the show make more sense to me. At the same time, it helped me mentally distance myself from my abuser, as this was a reading they completely dismissed. See, both my abuser and myself identified with Sherlock, only they took Sherlock's self-proclamation of being a "high-functioning sociopath" at face value, whereas I saw Sherlock as being terrified of being emotionally vulnerable and doing his best to suppress his feelings to avoid being seen and hurt.

I have shipped Johnlock since I was about 13 years old, and I became part of the TJLC community as it arose from that part of the fandom.

I have hated creating literary analyses for years now and avoided it as much as possible (difficult though that was in school), because it is so subjective, and it always confronts me with the fact that being mentally abused destroyed my trust in my intuition, thought processes, and ability to read people. It makes me feel like my life used to- the rug being pulled out from under you, a constant mental strain, having to be alert to everything at all times. I have been trying to read abusers' behaviour for most of my life. For every action of everyone around me ever, I analyse all possible motivations someone could have that would lead to the behaviour they display, but I could never know for certain what the right conclusion was. After all, you can never truly get into someone else's head- especially not someone who has made you doubt your own perceptions of the world in order to keep you under their control. What was real, what was a lie? I think this is why I have always loved reading meta; for once, someone else was laying the explanations out for me- and not only that, but they made it into a coherent storyline that made sense of everything. And I so wanted everything to just have a clear explanation. So when, in the fourth series of Sherlock, everyone and everything felt so completely wrong- motivations being off, details that must have taken a lot of effort but weren't right, entire scenes that didn't make any sense- I had to distance myself from it all, because no matter how much sense meta writers could make of it, the experience of watching the season brought back every feeling of wrongness and manipulation and self-doubt, and destroyed the trust in my intuition that I had been trying to rebuild. I must add that obviously I don't blame the writers for this, they weren't responsible for any of it- they were making something they wanted to make, someone else used it to completely fuck me up, and it was my choice to keep interacting with it- but unfortunately it had quite a devastating effect on me because this piece of media had been so entangled with the abuse and consequent attempt to break free of that.

I left the fandom because the mindfuck was quite literally bleeding through into my actual life. I have never been able to believe that the way I interpreted the series was not the, or at least a, way the writers meant for it to be interpreted- but I couldn’t keep being confronted with it, because 1. everyone else was saying I was out of my mind, and 2. the series was, for the foreseeable future at least, finished. To me, season 4 couldn’t be an end to the overarching storyline. Many things had gone unresolved, and unfortunately, I applied that feeling to my life; Sherlock and John never got to have an actual open conversation, not even implied. As the commentary said, for this season, who they are as people didn’t matter. They just… continued surviving, all their demons still beneath the roads they would walk. It felt like my story, like I was doomed to keep my feelings and experiences locked inside of me forever. It made me despair. I knew that for me, hoping for an eventual season 5 was a road to madness- Anderson’s mental breakdown style, without resolution. To protect myself, I had to withdraw entirely and find something more immediate to be a crutch for me to deal with my trauma. It was never healthy to put that much of my life into a TV series, although then again, someone else had decided that for me when I was still a child.

Eventually, I broke free of my abusers and I have continued with my life in the hope that I could heal, but instead of unraveling the trauma, I buried this tangled knot somewhere in my brain and I can't undo it myself. Yes, I have sought professional help multiple times over the years, but I have always been told that they could not help me because I have too many problems that are seemingly unconnected- so here I am, going back to the start of it all and pulling a John. Hopefully, writing a blog will help me as well. We'll see! It feels absolutely terrifying to share pretty much anything, anywhere, because I'm not used to doing that and also this: part of the mental abuse was someone else telling me what I was really like, or what I really felt or thought, or that the way I was, is wrong, and they would fix me, and I have never fully recovered from the idea that I don't know myself and my own feelings. Writing things down freaks me out a lot, because every minute that I think about my motivations, I seem to find a different reason for why I did something- and often, I still don't know what the real reason is. It's really scary to be confronted with the fact that I don't feel like a person, but just a jumbled collection of corrupted memories and disjointed actions. I think, though, that the only way in which I'll be able to find myself is to start a dialogue. With myself. Eventually, a pattern must emerge, right?

So, how did I get to this point? This week, I actually rewatched BBC Sherlock for the first time since season 4 aired-  the whole thing, in one sitting- and it made me feel unexpectedly, strangely good. I realised that, even with the emotional distance now, what I saw in the series is still there, and I was right for not believing I was crazy for thinking what I did. It was pretty affirming to be confronted with the idea that my interpretation of things wasn't completely off the rails. I also must say that I was grateful to season 4 for the imagery of Sherlock being on drugs and in a lot of (emotional) pain, because it mirrored how I have been feeling for a long time. Of course, I don't want anyone to suffer, but it's nice sometimes to see yourself on screen.

And finally, I am grateful for these lines: "What is the worst thing you can do to your friends? Tell them your darkest secret. Because... if you tell them, and they decide they'd rather not know, you can't take it back. You can't unsay it. Once you've opened your heart, you can't close it again." I have never shared specifics with anyone, because I can't live with the idea that they won’t believe me. Or that I will look at a loved one and see what I told them behind their eyes. Even if they wouldn't be thinking about it. I would. I would know that they know. And I want it not to be true. But when I've told them, it will be real. And they will remind me of it.

[into-september]

MAIN TAG: mlb meta

SHIP STUFF

Put your money on ladynoir, kids

On the merits of imperfection (why ladrien is my favourite side of the love square)

The innage tragedy of ladrien, and why I love it

So here’s the thing: (from the perspective of character growth, reversing the love square makes no sense)

To phrase this better than I did so late at night that it was technically morning: (lukanette is a masterclass in the crucial difference between showing and telling)

The NYC special might’ve sunk lukanette before it ever had the chance to happen

if we’re using “friendship is more important than a celebrity crush” to argue against the love square…

On shipping dynamics within the love square, mainly marichat vs. ladrien

ADRIEN AGRESTE MY BELOVED

Adrien Agreste and the limelight

Adrien Agreste and the question of unmasking

Some speculation about Gabriel’s possible ways out of being Hawkmoth and how they will affect Adrien

To cross your DNA with something reptile (on sentiadrien, because who needs narrative logic when you can have angst)

Being the topic du jour and all (the show has already shown that getting his amok can’t be a ~beautiful metaphor~ for sentiadrien’s freedom)

If sentiadrien is meant to be a commentary on child abuse then someone has no idea how stories work (spoiler: it’s not, because abuse is funny on this show)

SPOILER: I’M A CHLOÉ STAN I GUESS

Ending Chloé’s story as a villain would be a vaste of screentime and that’s why they shouldn’t

This be the verse (let’s just say I’m less than impressed with how early S4 handled the Bourgeois family drama)

Some more Zoé meta

Let’s talk narratological theory to explain why Chloé is an abused child in the text even if the creator insists she isn’t

WHY LUKA ISN’T MY FAVOURITE CHARACTER

Spoiler: Luka Isn’t A Great Character Yet (written in response to some people’s very low standards after “Truth” aired)

In fact he’s so poorly written that he’s pretty much an unintentional parody

Overthinking things (they don’t mean it like that but I saw some uncomfortable sexist themes to Luka’s akuma powers, both times)

Can we please stop blaming Marinette for Luka being a simp

MIXED BAG

Paper faces on parade (comparing and contrasting Marinette Dupain-Cheng and Gabriel Agreste)

On the feminist merits of MLB

The Scarf Came Back (on “Mr. Pigeon 72″ and the meaning of its many callbacks to early S1)

Related: S4 and “Gorizilla”

Jagged Stone is… (a spoiled manchild who’d be an awful parent if he’d stuck around and they were better off without him)

“Gang of Secrets” was underwhelming and that’s a problem

I finally realised where my entire problem with “Gang of Secrets” lies

Right now my main hope for S4 is that I’ll come out of it shipping alyanette like it’s going out of style (this show should’ve put more effort into Alya like three seasons ago)

MLB and the bad rich people

Some observations and a poor attempt at analysing the depiction of wealth in Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir

No, Marinette isn’t a Mary Sue (because I refuse to acknowledge linguistic drift and “Mary Sue” does not mean what you think it means)

Etymology ragepost, MLB edition

This show just can't up the stakes in battle

NOT REALLY META BUT STILL

Chloé should discover Cat Noir’s identity it’d be great

I also really want Felix to become a gentleman thief

What if all the heroes knew everyone’s identities except Cat Noir’s, wouldn’t that be super fun and not at all heartbreaking

My ideas for the Secret Sibling were way better than who it turned out to be tbh

Did you know that I have a tag devoted to Kagami being a fujoshi

Outline of the Hikaru no Go AU someone else should totally write

“Puppeteer 2″ was a microcosm of the Cat Noir-Ladybug-Nino-Alya mess of S4

Marinette is canonically bi in the Norwegian dub

GOING OFF ON OTHER PEOPLES’ POSTS

The Umbrella Scene Redux in the NYC special wasn’t about Adrien falling for Marinette but a foreshadowing of the importance of friendship going onward

Adrien’s pain lies not in unrequited love, but projecting his abandonement issues onto Ladybug

A small but heartfelt declaration to adrigami

When you have to make your characters repeatedly insist that someone is so totally in love, it’s not coming across as totally convincing to your audience

tl;dr I suspect that the reason marichat is so popular and ladrien is correspondingly disliked is about gender roles, actually

On marichat and ladrien and romance tropes

No really, ladrien is stupid and that’s why I love it

The Reveal is supremely unlikely to happen before the deciding battle against Gabriel and if it does, they won’t get together before it anyway

MLB’s got a bit of a genre problem and that’s why the plot cannot ever move

Chloé is the Loki of the MLB fandom and given how much attention the show proper gave her compared to the rest of the secondary cast, Thomas Astruc has no right to be surprised about it

Chloé can’t be Queen Bee again before she realises that she doesn’t need to be Queen Bee to do good things

More Chloé analysisin’: An irredeemable character wouldn’t need a three-episode storyline to explain her reluctant fall for the villain

Some people finding the sentiadrien narrative a healing parable about emotional abuse does not stop it from functionally annulling the actual emotional abuse the show depicted

[sflow-er]

Heads-up for long-ass post.

Copying the tags by @crownedwille:

#it's really interesting how any characters beside simon and wilhelm are treated in the fandom#i feel like yr is one of the only fandoms where almost all people truly care the most about the main characters and main pairing#and are the most loved and appreciated while any other characters get minimal attention and are barely cared about#in other fandoms it's often the other way around and the main character might be even the least popular#and there is mostly a bigger community of fans of other main/side characters and ships and that's completely normal#not with young royals#just an observation i have made#while i love wilmon with all my heart and yes wille and simon are my favorites i care about others too#and find the treatment of other characters kinda sad#i wish it was more open and focused on others bc not just wille and simon are well done characters and important#the show is not just about them there are so many other beautiful and important aspects that often get buried#and that is truly a part i'm not such a fan of#i always wanna appreciate everything and everyone equally and that is a little hard to do in the fandom#there's nothing wrong with having a preference or favorites#but dismissing any other characters and arcs like they have no importance whatsoever is really eh :/#do you even like the show or do you just like wilmon?#i didn’t wanna get involved or see any drama but i just wanted to say this#i'm not even gonna get into the disrespect about the yr creator and head writer#the show is brilliantly done and brilliantly written which is widely recognized and has great critics all over#it's successful and you've got her (among others) to thank for that#anyway i appreciate everyone here who posts and talks about other characters as well thank you#and honestly you should all do it more in spite of those ppl who say they don't matter lol

and by @andyouloveme:

#the fandom has felt very entitled recently#people going on about how netflix haven't done enough promo and acting like its Netflix's job to keep fandom going#when in the old days it was fairly rare to get promo and any behind the scenes came after the show was released#and people acting like their views represent the whole fandom have also been annoying me recently#like i saw someone say sterika was only added to force wlw rep and why didn't lisa add salice like the fandom wants#i don't care what people ship but don't act like everyone ships the same. for me salice would feel more forced than stedrika#people used to say twitter was toxic but there feels like theres and increase in toxic people on here#there's been some not nice anons in the yr confessions page and also people doing a lot of bad faith readings and reacting aggressively#to anons they disagree with

I share these and the OP and anon's frustrations. I feel like they are at least partly related to a change in the makeup of the fandom.

Like, in the beginning, there were a lot more of us and we were all just so excited for more of everything. Wilmon, all the other characters, the world of the show in general, people's analyses, different headcanons, all forms of fannish creation. Some side ships were born from people's hopes for canon (e.g. Salice, but also Stedrika), others from fanfic (e.g. Walty). We didn't all agree on what we wanted to see in canon, but we tried to respect and be civil to the fans whose hopes and expectations didn't match ours. Especially here on YR tumblr where we didn't want any of the drama, one-upping and entitlement that was already a thing on the Twitter side.

But since then, many of the OG fans have understandably moved on to other shows or gone into hibernation between seasons, and there haven't been quite as many new voices to take their place. And, well.. A while ago when I did a poll of how people discovered the show, a lot of people mentioned having discovered it through other fandoms, GIFs on tumblr, Netflix rec after watching Heartstopper etc. Those trains brought many wonderful new hearts and minds into the fandom who have kept it going to this day (💜), but I feel like the same trains also brought an influx of people who were only ever in it for Wilmon and also refused to invest in anything else. Which is a totally valid way to enjoy the show! But it has still contributed to the decline of discussion on the other characters and creation centred on them and fed into this idea that "no one" cares about them and "everyone" would be just as happy if the show was 100% Wilmon from start to finish.

And in the same time frame, there's also been an increase in people jumping ship from what is now Xitter. I feel like a lot of the bad faith readings and hostility towards fans who enjoy the show differently stem from the culture of discourse that has become pervasive over there. A confrontational culture where the point of a discussion is not to exchange views or understand where the other person is coming from, but to stand firmly behind one's own views and one-up the other person, often in very rude and dismissive ways. (I've never had a Xitter account, but it gets cited a lot in public and political discourse which I follow quite closely, and everything I've heard about fandom discourse makes all the sense against that backdrop.)

I think the entitlement has largely bled over from there as well, as the ease of interacting with the cast and crew on Xitter fuels parasocial relationships and the algorithm gives people an inflated idea of how universal their own opinion is. As a result, people feel like it's okay to demand and expect stuff from the makers of the show and be rude to them when those demands and expectations aren't met exactly the way they wanted. So not only does "everyone" want the show to be 100% Wilmon, it also needs to follow their favoured arc, "or else."

Lately, it really has felt like we're allowing that kind of culture to take root here on tumblr too. Many of us who have Unpopular Opinions (e.g. interest in minor or controversial characters, or just headcanons that go against the mainstream) are really tired of being read in bad faith or lectured on the Correct Way To Enjoy The Show, and the anons in particular are getting ruder by the day.

And if that's going to be the tone in the fandom after S3 meets some fans' expectations and inevitably lets others down...if people are just going to shit on Lisa and the show in general because they didn't like the ending or some other aspect of the final season, and on other fans for daring to enjoy what they didn't...then I don't think Wilmon alone will be enough to sustain the fandom for very long. Fandom is a community, and that community thrives on the freedom to create our own interpretations and expansions of the canon. A hateful and restrictive environment is the quickest way to kill it off.

No, but I can't with this fandom lol. Being so very mad that secondary characters dare to exist and fulfil their roles (the show couldn't really function without them) and that the actors may be included in the last season's promo for a bit. The shock, the horror, those bastards! And claiming agressively that noone cares about anyone else except the big five is not only very disrespectful to the people who all worked on the show and brought in their contributions, but just childish. Like I care. I care about what everyone's to say and I'm excited about it all but I feel like I maybe might be in the minority here.

I'm personally pretty annoyed with the negativity in the fandom.

I don't want it to seem like I'm against any kind of criticism or that I don't think people are allowed to talk about things they don't like because that's not the case. What bothers me is the way people choose to do it and it mainly boils down to two things; one: people speak of their opinions in a very negative and sometimes both agressive and insulting way instead of being constructive and civil and two: people talk about their opinions as if they are facts that everyone in the fandom agrees on and as if it'd some universal truth.

It's completely fine to discuss what you dislike but using terms such as "Lisa is gonna ruin the show" "Lisa is gonna mess it up" "Lisa cannot write to save her life" or whatever else I've seen is not discussing but hating. No need to be rude, mean and condescending. You don't like the storyline fine, be a grown up about it, have a nice attitude.

It's completely fine to dislike certain aspects of the show or the storyline as a whole but stop acting as if your opinion is the truth and everyone's opinon is the same as yours.

I understand why you make think you are alone in your opinons anon but trust me you are not. It's just that negativity is more visible and stands out more and some people speak loudly and frequently about their dislikes which makes it seem like it's everyone when in reality it's not.

I also think people have a tendency to exaggerate alot when they talk about the things they don't like. I do too, but I mainly talk in private about those things so I don't spread unnecessary negativity around.

But claiming that wilmon is sidelined for minor characters or that Lisa can't write comes as quite childish to me.

[demadogs]

There’s this one blog on here that kinda weirds me out because they are so hyper deadest on shipping Foah together. Like whenever they write normal Byler posts, it’s so beautiful! But then, everything else idk. And I know a lot of us joke about Noah wanting to kiss Finn or vice versa but this blog gives off weird vibes because they seem to genuinely want Finn and Noah to date in real life. They also seem to make a lot of assumptions about their feelings for each other just because of their chemistry. And I don’t know how serious this blog is about it but it gives me Larry shipper vibes. Or like the Fack conspiracy all over again, which hurt Finn and Jack’s friendship at the time

oh my god im glad you brought this up i know exactly who youre talking about. every time i make a post telling people not to ship real people it was bc of that blog in particular. i have them blocked so im not afraid to talk about them. we’ve made jokes and memes about noah being the biggest byler shipper and wanting to kiss finn for byler and theyre mostly pretty harmless but this blog is just something else.

youre right, they make so many assumptions. it pisses me off and it does completely give me larry vibes. they talk as if they know finn and noah personally and theyre friends with them and have seen them interact. or like theyre an out couple like natalia and charlie. they usually respond to anons who call them out on it with something like “i dont ship foah, i just observe their interactions and anyone can see that they are crushing on each other”. that bothers me so much. like observe what the 5 minute press interviews?? you dont fucking know them. save your analyses for things that have been intentionally written and mapped out for FICTIONAL media, not two kid actors just being themselves. and then they’ll try to call the anons homophobic by being like “whys it such a big deal for noah to have a little crush on him??”, still fully talking as if its public knowledge and we’re the bad guy like oh my god how are you not understanding the issue here.

ive also noticed that they ignore anybody who tells them that finn has a gf. they just wont answer the anon (i know bc i have sent one) or ignore any replies about it. they live in this weird bubble where they choose to believe these real people are dating. and like ok i cant stop you from thinking theyd be cute together, theres nothing wrong with that, what makes it problematic is trying to read into their interactions and expressions and publicly suspect their relationship and sexualities on the internet. and again, they always try to be like “theres no harm in it im not directly @ ing finn or noah” but this is the internet. anybody can screenshot anything and put it anywhere. there is always a chance that either of them could see their posts and it could be so bad if they did. i dont think theyve ever once considered what it could be like to be finn or noah and see this.

like yes, there is a chance they’d just laugh about how ridiculous it is and move on but what if one of them actually was questioning their sexuality and then they saw some random person on the internet reading into it like this??? that would be so fucking hard. jack came out as bi after people were shipping him and finn so much. i cant imagine how anxiety provoking it would be to see what people were saying about him and finn while being in the closet. it gives ME anxiety on their behalf!! i hope so bad theyre blissfully unaware of this.

one anon told them that theyre using foah as a coping mechanism after byler didnt work out how they wanted in s4 and theyre so right. before vol 2 came out i saw maybe two posts from them in the byler tag about it that kinda weirded me out but after volume two they just turned into a foah blog instead of byler. they literally had byler in their url before and then they changed it to foah for fucks sake. and they still have the nerve to claim they dont ship them and what theyre doing is completely fine and just “observation”.

also i was looking at their blog once and they mentioned that they were 31 years old…. look it is not weird to ship byler at any age. i have personally as a 22 year old been told that its weird for me to ship byler and analyze these fictional characters and i completely disagree with that. theres nothing weird about shipping characters at any age even if the characters are kids (as long as youre not nasty about it) but real people??? god i would have been SO relieved if this person was like 15. i would not have gone as hard on them as i am right now if they were a kid because i would assume they would grow and eventually realize that its weird and invasive. i mean i remember reading stupid fanfics about youtubers when i was 14 but i grew and matured and realized how insane that is and no longer had any interest in reading into real peoples love lives. but i cannot excuse any adult shipping them like this.

god this ended up being so long i just had a lot to say. moral of the story: if actors have great chemistry on screen together it just means theyre good at their job, it doesnt mean theyre dating or crushing on each other in real life.

[gallavichprompts]

Gallavich ‘Meta’ March

A Gallavich-themed trope challenge for March (or whenever you’d like to take part!) If you are new to writing or a writer who’s trying to get back into the swing of things - why not try writing some meta? (And you don’t have to be a writer, this is really a challenge that’s open to everyone!)

So, what does “meta” mean?

Fanlore: 

In fandom, meta (also meta essay) is used to describe a fan-authored piece of non-fiction writing discussing any aspect of fandom, fanworks, or the source text. This can include discussing characters and their motivations, fanfiction tropes and trends, fan activity, particular plot elements, choices by canon creators, alternate possibilities for canon and much more.

Meta [is] a blanket term to include things like headcanon, ship manifestos, theories, and character analysis.

Fandom talking about itself or its interests in a thoughtful way is the best description we can come up with. When it comes to intention, pretty much anything that isn't fictional or conversation would count. Meta can be very long (even a series!) or it could be just a few paragraphs. 

Meta is thoughtful, respectful discourse and analysis about characters and storylines. It is a thought, or a series of arguments with examples of the character’s actions that helped you draw a specific conclusion OR an analysis of the situation that you’ve focused on. Anything with detail, evidence, and explanation is a meta discussion.

What’s the challenge?

With 11 seasons and over 14000 fics on ao3, there’s a lot to discuss when it comes to Ian and Mickey and their relationship. So, whether it’s a topic or idea that’s been discussed many times before or something that hasn’t been analysed quite as much - try writing some meta!

It’s a casual challenge meant to encourage people to get writing more or try writing a different format. There’s no set time to submit fics, or a limit to how short (a paragraph) or long (an essay) the work can be. You can share your work anytime in or after March - tag it with #gallavichmetamarch and @gallavichprompts.

And don’t forget meta can be very casually written. There’s a lot of amazing meta that people put in the tags of posts that they may not realise is meta or may not feel confident sharing, but just know that you can and people would love to read it. You could even just share questions or ideas you think other people might like to explore.

There’s a list of Gallavich meta prompts under the cut, rounded up from previous prompt posts, as well as some new prompts!

Three lovely people who have written some excellent meta have very kindly shared some quotes:

@gallavictorious - “Sometimes you sit down with a finished observation or theory and you put that into words because you want to share it with others. But sometimes you only have this vague notion – something that tugs at you, an inconsistency or contradiction or hole in the text – and then the very act of writing becomes the act of exploration: as you put the words down, new ideas suddenly occur to you, new patterns become visible. By hashing it out on the page, you hash it out in your mind. Then you release it into the wild, and in the best of worlds someone pick up your tentative thoughts and take them further.

This process of shared discovery and discussion is what I love most about meta; I think that some people see excessive meta-ing as a compulsive need to explain away any and all inconsistencies in the text, but for me it’s not a pursuit born of frustration, but of curiosity and joy and a lust to engage with the text. For me, meta is an (often) intellectual game but it’s also, and more importantly, play: let’s pretend that all this is real. Let’s do it because it’s more fun if we do.” (meta)

@dreamylyfe-x - “When I finished binging Shameless and picked up the show live I was SO hungry to talk about it. I had this deep, insatiable thirst that fic couldn’t touch and the only thing that satisfied was reading meta. I just wanted to know what people THOUGHT. Really great meta reveals something you didn’t notice or think of. It brings a different perspective to the whole thing. It points out patterns, observes new details, or breaks down fandom ideas that maybe don’t have the deep roots you think they do. I love to write meta about Mickey and Ian because I love these characters down to their atoms. I am interested in the most granular details. So much of this story is in the subtext and meta is where you find people discussing that. One of my favourite things about this fandom is how deep people here go.” (meta)

@whaticameherefor - “I love reading and writing meta because there is so much to explore within these characters and storylines that simply wasn't addressed or presented as best as it could have been in the show. Especially with characters like Ian and Mickey who either hold things so close to the chest or need to present a false front -- it's really fun to get into their heads, figure out why they may have done something or what their thoughts were during a certain moment. Meta can help bring a better understanding of two people often misunderstood. I also really love the sharing of opinions and ideas. The sort of validation you feel when you see someone think the same way as you, or the lightbulb moment when reading someone else's meta like, "Wow, I've never thought about that before!" It's just another level of loving and appreciating these characters and their love story. I love meta!” (meta)

Resources: 

@you-are-so-much-better-than-that​ - Shameless Timeline

Ian Gallagher - Shameless Wiki

Mickey Milkovich - Shameless Wiki

Fanlore - Fandom Wiki for everything fandom related e.g. tropes, genres

Gallavich Meta Prompts - Part 1 // Part 2

What underrated tropes/genres would you like to see more of in Gallavich fanfic?

Do you have any headcanons about Mickey’s mother? What impact do you think she had on his life?

Are there any moments/scenes that you feel aren’t discussed or explored much when it comes to Ian and Mickey and/or their relationship?

What kind of relationship do you think Mickey has with his siblings post-finale?

When do you think Ian and Mickey realised they were in love with each other?

Do you think Ian stays working security with Mickey post-finale or do you think he decides to try a different job?

What kind of conversations do you think they had in early seasons that we didn’t see in canon?

Do you think they see themselves as best friends?

What things do you think they have learned from each other over the course of their relationship?

What songs or music do think worked well for their scenes? Or what songs or music do you think would have worked better?

How you think Ian and Mickey express themselves through their clothing/style?

Which serious issues do you think the show failed to explore when it comes to Ian and Mickey and/or their relationship?

How do you think Ian and/or Mickey see themselves at the beginning of the series versus the end? How have their opinions of themselves changed over time?

Which reunion do you think is the most important to them?

What sort of parallels do you see across the series - could be in terms of their behaviour, or their emotions, or things that happen to them?

Are there any underrated lines of dialogue or non-verbal actions that you think should be explored more? (Think about looking at gifsets and edits, you never know what you might not have noticed before that could be interesting!)

[enduracarrotchips]

YouTuber AU

Hello welcome to Dating Scandal but with Twitter Involved (nightmare)

A little exposition here: 

Link, Zelda, Sidon, Revali, and Riju are the most popular group of youtubers on the internet and have a huge fanbase that likes to theorize, draw fanart, and write fanfiction about them. Disclaimer, I don’t actually interact with real-person fandoms myself lol there’s just too much potential for drama and misunderstandings & they’re always bound to end in a dumpster fire but that is sort of what this au is about so.

Impa, Mipha, Daruk, and Urbosa are family friends that appear in a lot of their videos/streams. 

(This is an art blog I swear)

enter vidcon 20XX

Link: 

blows stuff up/sets stuff on fire with a side of cooking vids and gaming

most are filmed outside, he does those challenges where you try to cook stuff with limited ingredients/materials

has the largest fanbase of all of them, but not the most…intimidating.

does a lot of collab videos, mostly with Impa, Daruk, and Riju because they have similar interests/channels, but Zelda appears in his videos and is seen filming and the stans read too far into it

simps. i’m pointing at you.

Most popular videos are “shield surfing on rock!—how I broke my leg” “can Daruk eat Impa’s motorcycle?” and “how to inhale ranch dressing.”

Twitter handle is @ arsonistslullabye because he’s a hozier fan

45m subs

Zelda:

theories, analyses, conspiracies, and the occasional e x p e r i m e n t

she once got link to eat a frog for 50 bucks.

most people argue that she’s better than more popular YouTubers because she actually has quality content to give to the world and she has a lot of defensive supporters

She used to get a lot of hate before Urbosa spoke up about it and scared the bejeezus out of everyone

has an actual posting schedule

“Happy Sunday everyone, it’s Zelda Hyrule and today we will be talking about cryptozoology and why blupees exist, you cowards.”

Twitter handle is @ zeldaofhyrule and she is pan. just so you know. One of those calm extroverts that mystify me to this day.

18m subs

Sidon:

fashion/life hacks. Like gourmet troom troom but if they were real people.

Has the 2nd largest fanbase

most of them are girls

Sidon has a boyfriend though, which he told everyone at VidCon a few years ago

cue the drama and shipping and the entire fandom trying to figure out who the boyfriend is. A well known reddit thread emerged that presented the common guesses being Link, Sidon, and Zelda.

“But it can’t be Zelda, Sidon’s gay.”

“I’m not in the fandom but I thought Zelda was a boy??”

“Did you just say Sidon? Is that a typo? Are you saying that Sidon’s dating himself?”

Sidon x Sidon became a fandom joke.

Don’t look at me I’m just setting up all the worldbuilding. every fandom has their weird dark sides and Sidon x Sidon is the Linkcest of the Sidon YT fandom.

Mystery BF is actually Bazz, a pretty inconspicuous guy who appeared in a few of his videos. This was confirmed a year ago, but everyone still ships him with other YouTubers because they’re convinced he was lying to throw them off his scent. He really can’t catch a break and this is why you should not ship real people.

Twitter handle is @ officialprincesidon

says “beguiling” a lot

21m subs ᕙ( ͡❛ ▿ ͡❛)ᕗ

Mipha:

Sidon’s sister, hasn’t posted a single video but just has the channel for show because she appears in so many of Sidon’s videos as a model for his makeup tutorials and whatnot

has 328k for that. Everyone loves her, she’s great. @ mimipha

Revali:

Link’s sworn rival

Link thinks they’re friends

He kept popping up in link’s Twitter threads and making snarky comments until zelda called him out for not even following link (so why was he stalking his acc) which kept the Twitter drama to a minimum

Revali was the catalyst of a few popular memes and that’s where most of his subs come from.

drags link into a few challenges that always get a ton of views because of how competitive they get

“ITS JUST ASININE” is a running joke that everyone tries to get him to say. His @ is itsjustasinine as well

Urbosa is the only person who can win an argument with him

5m subs and growing rapidly. newer to youtube than everyone else.

Impa:

Doesn’t have a channel she’s just a mutual friend of Mipha, Zelda, and Link

Rides a motorcycle, so she is used in a few of Link’s videos.

@ ihaveamotorcycle because she thinks having a motorcycle is a personality trait. the most unruly on Twitter when it comes to replying to fan’s stuff, leaking upcoming videos and generally causing chaos.

Mipha’s girlfriend. That’s how she met Zelda and Link.

Urbosa:

Is actually a model, but she has a ton of YouTuber friends because she’s known Zelda since birth.

when she entered the youtube community she didn’t realize she would be adopting like 15 children

5m subs. her videos are professional & related to her modelling career. @ urbosasfury

I feel like she would do unboxing vids. I’m not sure what she’s unboxing.

Daruk

Just a friend of Link’s, fun guy. yells a lot. once ate a rock and had no reaction.

people are scared of him for that reason

Riju:

yoga & gymnastics & “ha look at how flexible I am its eAsY” videos

you know the type

she also does reactions and is sponsored by save the sand seals charities which she is very enthusiastic about. She’s also Urbosa’s niece and the only minor in the gang (15). I like to think that the champions YT community is actually not creepy so everyone respects her a ton

doesn’t post frequently, she mostly appears in Link’s videos to jump out of airplanes or whatever. And sometimes Zelda’s if she’s interested in the topic. 500k subs, but she’s always really popular when she appears in Link’s videos.

VidCon:

In the months leading up to VidCon, some fans on the internet made a few discoveries: first of all, that the inside of Link’s house is painted green. This is a big deal because all of his videos are filmed outside either in his backyard or on trips that he and the brosquad go on to do…whatever bros do. explosions. idk. The point is he had some announcement about VidCon and filmed it inside. Only the wall and a potted plant were shown.

However, the colour was similar to the the shade of Zelda’s living room. Fans dug through years and years of old videos and found a clip of Zelda walking through a hallway, where there was an open door and a glimpse of a houseplant.

There were 2 types of responses to the theory:

“They could just be roommates guys calm down”

“and they were ROOMMATES?”

others pointed out that Link could just not have a house and had to crash in Zelda’s

Some guy on reddit claimed he had a botany degree and declared that the houseplants in the clips were not of the same genus. Normal people pointed out that the plant would have grown 4 years between the clips and would look considerably different.

#Zelink trended on twitter for a while and people posted other old clips from both of their channels and the frog video blew up again

Impa retweeted a post tagged as #zelink with “rofl” and later publicly apologized for causing confusion.

Fans noticed that in the “can a motorcycle drive over my arm” (it was clickbait he’s fine) episode 2 years ago, Link was eating out of a paper lunch bag with his name written on it in handwriting that a few people claimed to look like Zelda’s, leading people to believe that she had packed him a lunch.

However, this theory was shot down with the counterargument that Zelda can’t cook. although. i mean how much skill do you need to make a sandwich.

No one knows what tumblr is doing at this time

Zelda wore a scarf in her “Save the Sand Seals” video that matched identically to the scarf Link wore when he travelled to Hebra to film a shield surfing video, but it’s been debated wether it’s actually the same scarf or not.

Neither Zelda nor Link has spoken up about the theories, and besides Impa’s one slip on twitter, neither has any of their friends. Zelda received a lot of backlash for the assumption that she was dating Link because he has a lot of delusional fans that didn’t want her to “steal their man” or whatever the hell that type of fan would get mad about

Oh yea and bolson & karson run a zelink fanpage on twitter sorry I forgot about that

after that whole mess, everyone was even more anticipant of VidCon in the hopes that some of their questions would be answered.

The whole batch went to VidCon this year: Link, Impa, Daruk, and Riju are a gang while Sidon and Mipha go together and Zelda & Revali each go separately. Urbosa is there for supervision moral support

Zelda has always been much better at dodging questions that she doesn’t want to answer than anyone else, so her Q&A went without a hitch. When asked to confirm the rumours she said “which one?” and then moved on to the next question (without actually confirming any rumours).

Link is generally a more awkward person but eventually said that he had filmed the video in Zelda’s house because it was nicer and didn’t realize it would cause such an uproar. Fans were disappointed, but Bolson claimed he saw Link and Zelda exiting the hotel elevator on the same floor after Link’s Q&A session. No one believed him.

Fans went back to theorizing over who Link, Zelda, and Sidon were all dating, because apparently they can’t just be dating unknown people and have to be with other YouTubers

Sidon and Bazz got engaged about a week after VidCon, making at least 4 preteen girls cry

actually try 4 million

Sidon x Sidon made a brief comeback but Sidon spoke up about his fandom for the first time ever on twitter and told everyone that no, he was not dating himself. eventually, everyone settled down and accepted that none of them were in a relationship save for a few loud fans.

Link and Zelda still got the occasional “when will you tell us who you’re dating?” comment but most of them were joking and the people who still hardcore shipped them were generally frowned upon. Zelda’s popularity went up after VidCon and she regained the 200k subscribers she’d lost after the first theory dropped.

Two months after VidCon, Link posted a video titled “Zelda and I’s House Tour!” and gave around 45 million people a heart attack

as revealed in the video, they had actually been dating since they were 16 and everyone’s just a fool.

the potted plant is named Hestu.

[analyzen]

Italian Fandom Meta | Most Popular Types of Pairings on EFP vs. AO3

EFP (2001–, Fanlore) is the most popular writing archive in Italy, and it hosts both fanfic and original fiction. Under the cut you’ll find a breakdown of the most popular types of pairings on EFP in comparison to the most popular types of pairings in the Italian section of AO3.

The Italian version of this analysis can be found here.

TL;DR:

53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted

49% of the registered users on EFP have deleted their accounts

M/F works amount to 60% of the whole website

EFP’s three most popular fandoms (Harry Potter, One Direction, Original Fiction – Romantic) all have a majority of M/F works

On AO3, most Italian works are M/M (56%)

F/F doesn’t have much content on either site (4-5%)

Methodology

I’ve followed @olderthannetfic’s methodology from this earlier Fanfiction.net analysis. Basically, I picked a sample size of 666 chapters and organized them in four categories (M/M, M/F, F/F, Not tagged; more on this later).

Why I chose chapters instead of stories

On EFP you don’t have specific links for every single story. Instead, every chapter you post gets a unique id, which can be seen in the link itself. For example, at the time of writing this the last updated chapter on EFP was this one:

viewstory.php?sid=3974099

Which means that this was the 3'974'009th chapter ever posted on EFP.

Ids follow the usual numerical order, so if a link reads id=3, then there have to be id=1 and id=2, and the next link will have id=4.

So I’ve used a randomizer to select ~1200 unique ids to analyse.

Weren’t 666 chapters enough?

I started out with 700 chapters, but half of them weren’t working. That’s because 53% of all the chapters ever posted on EFP have been deleted from the website.

Thanks to the link of the last updated chapter, we know that almost 4 millions chapters have been posted on the EFP. But EFP's homepage shows different stats:

Registered users: 602395, 205974 of which are authors Last registered user: [blacked out] Total of stories: 517083 Total of chapters: 1869573 chapters Total of reviews: 6222695 Online users: 17 logged in and 53 visitors

While we should have almost 4 million chapters, the stats show ~2 million chapters. Why? Because the stats only show the stories, chapters and users that are still on the website, and they don’t show the stories, chapters and users that have been deleted.

(Sorry, I forgot to translate this one. It reads: Total of chapters posted on EFP between 2001 and today. Orange: deleted chapters. Blue: chapters that are still online.)

Thanks to the stats on the homepage we also have a link to the last registered user. User ids follow the same numerical order as chapter ids, so once again we know that 49% of the users ever registered on EFP have deleted their accounts. That's a lot of deleted accounts.

Categorization

After selecting 666 (accessible) chapters, I organized them into 4 categories:

M/M: contains all stories tagged as “yaoi”, shounen ai” and “slash”

M/F: contains all stories tagged as “het”

F/F: contains all stories tagged as “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash”

Not tagged: which contains a) poetry, b) stories tagged as “no pairing”, and c) untagged het stories.

As for the untagged het stories, there are two issues:

Many M/F fics simply aren’t tagged

Many gen fics include untagged M/F ships

If the description made it clear that the story included a heterosexual relationship, I added the story under the M/F tag. Otherwise I left it under not tagged.

Also, on EFP “yaoi”, “shounen ai” and “slash”, and “yuri”, “shoujo ai” and “femslash” actually mean different things.

This screenshot here is from the posting page on EFP. It reads:

Pairings * You must select at least one tag from the list, and you can choose up to three tags. Het: for heterosexual relationships Shonen-ai: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Shojo-ai: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories with no sex scenes Yaoi: for male/male relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Yuri: for female/female relationships with anime/game characters; stories containing sex scenes Slash: for male/male relationships from TV shows/movies/books FemSlash: for female/female relationships from TV shows/movies/books

The thing is. People either respect the rules and use different tags for different kinds of stories, or they use these tags interchangeably to maximise the chance to appear in other users' searches. Which means that you’ll find RPF tagged with “shoujo ai”, and Attack on Titan fics tagged as “slash”. (More info on this later.)

Findings

On EFP, the majority of the stories are M/F.

To confirm this, I checked some specific fandoms:

Some notes:

Because EFP doesn't have metatags like AO3, what I did was: 1) go to a specific fandom, 2) filter through every single tag, and 3) jot down the number of pages per search. Every page contains up to 15 stories, so for example searching for het in Original Fiction – Romantic gives you 846 pages, which amounts to around ~12690 stories.

The tag in red, “Nessuna”, means “no pairing”. It is used for gen fics but also for untagged M/F fics. This is especially true in some fandoms, ie. Original Fiction – Romantic, and Harry Potter.

EFP’s filtering system sucks. You can only filter through stories with specific relationship tags, but you can’t filter out relationships tag. So what you see in the graph is how often a tag is used... which brings us to some issues. For example, Harry Potter is the biggest fandom on EFP, so much that Harry Potter stories amount to 11% (!) of the whole website. But in the graph it looks like the One Direction fandom has more stories—wrong. Actually, One Direction has many stories tagged as both slash and het, while Harry Potter stories tend to be either one or the other.

EFP’s filtering system sucks, part 2. Because “shounen ai”, “yaoi” and “slash” are often used at the same time, you can't really smash together all three of the tags to get a total amount of stories. I'd say that around 50% of the stories tagged as shounen ai and yaoi probably overlap, but there is no easy way to find out because, again, EFP’s filtering system sucks. The same goes for “shoujo ai”, “yuri” and “femslash”.

Fandoms with a majority of M/M stories

While there are some fandoms with more M/M stories (ie. Death Note, Hetalia, Glee, Sherlock, Supernatural, Teen Wolf), these fandoms are simply extremely small in comparison to other bigger fandoms full of M/F fics. Which obviously skews the numbers in favor of M/F fics.

What about femslash?

EFP suffers from the same lack of femslash as AO3 as a whole. In the fandoms I've analysed, only two have a big enough number of F/F. The fandoms are Glee (which has more F/F stories than M/F stories) and Grey's Anatomy (which has as much F/F as M/F stories, with little M/M).

Original Fiction

I thought it might be interesting to explore the original sections too, especially because Original Fiction – Romantic is the third biggest fandom on EFP after Harry Potter and One Direction. These Big 3 all have a disproportionate amount of M/F stories.

By logic, this would mean the the majority of the userbase on EFP prefers M/F stories. But then, aren't fans always complaining about “too much slash”? If “Any Two Guys” were enough to find slash appealing, wouldn't it be easier to simply write original M/M?

I think that looking at original stories might help us understand why people might prefer slash over het in some fandoms. For example, the amount of M/F stories in Original Fiction – Romantic implies that, when authors have to chance to choose what types of stories to create from scratch, they might prefer M/F stories.

This would support the theory that many people might prefer slash because of the lack of (well written/primary) canonical female characters + how well M/M relationships, both platonic and romantic, are written in canon texts in comparison to M/F or F/F relationships.

Obviously, we have to keep in mind that not all fanfic writers write original fiction and viceversa, so I'm not trying to find a universal explanation here. Also because not every website has a majority of M/F stories.

Which brings us to...

AO3 vs. EFP

As per today 20/04/21, the Italian section of AO3 contains “only” 24777 stories, divided between many different fandoms. To make a comparison, the Italian stories on AO3 amount to 5% of all the stories available on EFP. To make another comparison, the whole Naruto fandom on EFP has 20129 stories in total.

EFP has also been active for 20 years, while the boom of Italian fics on AO3 only started around 2018. We can't really make a 1:1 comparison between the two archives, but we can still try to understand the preferences of their users.

M/M and M/F stories on EFP vs. AO3

EFP: 60% M/F, 25% M/M

AO3: 56% M/M, 23% M/F

The percentages are almost swapped.

This might be because of the archives themselves. EFP has always been the general website for any Italian fandom (and actually at first it mostly hosted M/F content), while AO3 has always had a big M/M userbase. I'm basing this statement on this AO3 analysis from 2013, in comparison to this FFN analysis from 2018 which showed a majority of M/F fanworks, and finally this AO3 vs. FFN vs. Wattpad analysis from 2019, which showed that AO3 has always been the outlier for its majority of M/M content.

Then again, M/M stories on EFP have always been subject to the “usual” type of borderline-to-direct harassment that M/M fans are used to, which is something that still happens to this day especially in certain writing groups on Facebook, where the Italian writing community is pretty active. It wouldn't be weird for slashers to move to AO3, where they know they'll find more like-minded people and less headaches. (Also, the Italian section of AO3 has a lot of M/M RPF that's banned on EFP.)

The “Multi” tag on EFP

The only thing that barely resembles a multi tag on EFP is threesome, which for some reason is often used as a synonym for love triangle. So from the tags it isn't easy to understand if a fic includes an actual threesome (as in, a sex scene), a polyamorous relationship, or a simple love triangle.

This doesn't mean that there aren't poly stories on EFP—it simply means that they're impossible to find using the search system.

And that's all, I think!

[tundrainafrica]

Note: Instead of posting a meta or a fic today, allow me to take a quick break from that because I think I really need to appreciate some people here and the fandom overall.  

February 7, 2021. 

Today, I turned 24 and my boyfriend surprised me with a gift I think I’ll be taking to heart for a very long time. 

The story behind the gift was as precious (or even more precious) as the gift itself and I thought I’d share it since it turned out some content creators were involved in this gift and I very much want to express how much this gift has defined this day for me and will place my 24th birthday as one of those birthdays I don’t think I’ll ever forget. 

Apparently, I had casually dropped both my tumblr and my ao3 account during one of our conversations and somewhere around November he had started looking through my bookmarks, my posts on tumblr and some of my interactions with people in the fandom.

I should have seen it coming. It had started with my boyfriend suddenly asking about my hyperfixation with Levihan.

Sav? Shipping? Sav? Binge reading ships and meta posts? Sav? Gushing about a fictional ship?

And I remember gushing about this with my seemingly uninterested boyfriend a long night after explaining what was oddly the most out of character thing for someone like me. 

I was sharing with him my metas and hcs and maybe, I was dropping a few of my favorite quotes along the way and it turned out he was interested. Suddenly he was asking me about my favorite fics, my favorite scenes. Suddenly, he was rereading my favorite fics with me and a few times, he was quoting those same scenes. I did find out he was looking through my blog when I got a random message from a really sketchy tumblr telling me to open my facebook. 

I suspected a few times that he could be planning something. December passed with nothing and eventually he stopped asking so I clocked that as a fevered dream or unnecessary assuming on my end and didn’t think too much of it after. 

It turned out my boyfriend had messaged my favorite authors about their fics and he commissioned one of my favorite artists (if not my favorite) to draw a few photos and bound them into a Levihan Anthology 

And it feels fucking amazing to receive something like this. To get Levihan which helped me through the worst of 2020, bound forever as a book I can just open up and read anytime. And I guess tearing up at receiving such a gift had me thinking of a lot of things at once (which were always at the back of mind) but I thought of sharing now. 

The past year wasn’t easy. Actually. don’t think it’s an understatement to say this past year was dog shit. With the covid pandemic and all plans after that cancelled, I’m sure we can all agree we had our ups and downs. 

I had a lot of my own plans completely thrown out the window for numerous reasons. I had plans of going to law school part time while building a career. And, I got a job right after college to make these plans come true. In September the law school I got accepted to (after working so damn hard the past year to get accepted) denied my appeal for night classes. I decided to drop my enrollment to focus on my career. A week later, my job laid me off. 

And for once in my life, I wasn’t going anywhere. And I lived in a house where everyone was always doing something and as soon as I lost my job I was pressured to find another one. But as we all know, searching for a job during this pandemic isn’t easy. I was still reeling after having dropped my enrollment just to focus on my job only to lose that job the week after with no prior notice. Everyone around me was busy doing their own thing. I had no one to talk to and for a while, I was falling into this pit of depression. 

My days consisted of me hiding under the covers of my bed in between the few interviews I would take day to day. Around that time, I decided to binge watch Attack on Titan as well 

I was never one to get hyper fixated in ships. In fact, this was the first ship since Royai and Victuuri which I have been so passionate. And this is a whole new level of passion. I think this is the first time I’ve ever written so much in this small amount of time. It was slow going. Just like Levi and Hange’s relationship, my fixation with this ship was a slowburn. 

Those days alone, I was reading fanfiction by the bundle, I was scrolling through the Levihan tag like a simp, leaving kudos in ao3 on a throwaway account and just scrolling through random people’s tumblr accounts. 

What happened during the one month? And when I was alone, sad, lonely and stagnant with no one to talk to, when everyone around me was living their own lives, all I had alone in the bedroom was Levi and Hange’s stories to keep me company between interviews. 

And the meta analyses and headcanons I had about their relationship were teaching me things. They were teaching me that life was never about how quickly you progress or how far you go. Maybe the real winners in life are the ones who can build good relationships, build relationships so mutually satisfying they keep each other growing and in those few moments reading, headcanoning ships, I did realize, maybe even as stagnant as I was at that moment, my life wasn’t dogshit. 

No one’s life is dogshit for a few small bumps along the way. Sometimes it just is part of the process of growing, learning to get past the worse, learning to manage relationships. And maybe it’s these relationships which make life worth living. Maybe it’s these struggles depicted in these stories and the bounce back. Maybe it’s the love, the life, the emotions so carefully described and depicted in every single story which makes life, life. 

With every single fic I read and every single fan art I scrolled through. Levihan was teaching my things about love, loss and life. 

Sometimes, these fandoms are the things which can catch people before they fall too low into something. These works and stories authors and artists shared so generously were what pulled me out of this state and are what inspired me to explore this relationship for all the potential its worth and maybe share my own stories and headcanons which people may learn a thing or two from or maybe just find some comfort and hope in.  

And these inspirations eventually evolved to writing. Writing 10,000 words in a day in between three interviews? I never was a writer but somehow, I found myself spending hours exploring the themes of love, loss and life with our favorite pairing 

I didn’t start writing out of nowhere. I didn’t start making metas out of nowhere. I needed the right inspiration, the right content to get me into this point where I could continue writing, reading, meta-ing, appreciating, headcanoning and everything in between.

And I just wanted to express my gratefulness to every single person in the fandom who had made it possible for me to pull out of that blackhole. Fandoms are underrated and I believe there are so many lessons which can be learned from the right content and from the right people. 

To the people who so willingly went along with my boyfriend’s little project: 

@faerielleart​ I saved A LOT of your art and they’re sitting in my google photos under a folder called Levihan and maybe I did share a few of your photos (the cheeks one and the beast titan one and the les miserables) ones to my boyfriend unsolicited just to show him how beautiful Levihan can be. Thank you so much for these beautiful drawings.

@lizaloveslevihan​ You were one of the first people I talked with in this fandom and dreams really was one of those stories that fucked me up a little bit, had me make a few misses on the commute on the way home one day but maybe it did have me explore the angst genre a little more, maybe it did have me explore Levi’s character a little more. 

@ariadneamare​ YELLOW. OH GOD. You know those letters? The ones which Hange left Levi at the end of the story? I ended up copying and pasting them and sending them to my boyfriend right after reading and I remember talking to him about this. We might be facing that same type of story in the future and I guess that ended up becoming a lot of foundation of our discussion and I guess, it’s just proof that there is so much to learn from fanfiction. There’s just so much to explore and fanfiction as a genre just does not get the credit it deserves.

@fanmoose12​​ I was exploring your works even before I started this tumblr up again. Maybe it was even your works which got me building my own headcanons from Levihan and writing from there. And I think I did leave a few anonymous messages telling you how I started exploring other genres because of your fics. Your works got my out of my dark place, it got me exploring a lot of other genres and for that I’m eternally grateful.

And somehow, my boyfriend picked that all up from late night discussions and one-on-one metas. Surprisingly, he wasn’t just playing along to humor his girlfriend. He was exploring the themes of love, life, loss and Levihan right along with me. (And got spoiled about Hange’s death along the way… Oops.) 

And I am eternally grateful for that and I made sure to shower him with a lot of kisses after he kept me in the loop with what has been going on these past few months with his sudden interest in Levihan.

And this huge thank you goes out to all content creators (authors, artists, gif creators, shitposters alike). Sometimes you never know who’s thinking about your work, who’s shoehorning your works and quoting them to their best friends. Sometimes, you never will find out but your work had pulled someone out of a blackhole which they’ve been stuck in and sometimes you never know that your work has been that seemingly small thing that had taught them a lesson in love, life or relationships. Sometimes, that one work turned out to be an inspiration which got them writing and sharing their own stories or making their own drawings

And I guess, the point is, keep writing. Keep drawing. Keep sharing pouring your love, passion and emotions into works of art because you never really know whose heart you touched or whose life you changed.

I have a job now. I decided to push law school a few years back and maybe take the time to work on myself now and maybe spend the next months or maybe years writing metas and fanfictions. I was pulled out of my hole. I was inspired. I have my own stories to tell and I don’t think I would have been here if I hadn’t spent the last few months reading fic after fic, meta after meta, appreciating art after art, 

So anyway, I just wanted to share some pics of my favortie fics, immortalized in one anthology, all organized by my boyfriend. And I think he made some great decisions with these.

(Bookbinding credits to @mayerwien)

[thinkingisadangerouspastime]

Writer Tag Game

thank you to @irresistible-revolution and @lady-tortilla-chip for tagging me!! i finally found time to do this 😭💛

How many works do you have on AO3?

only 51, because i got my AO3 account a couple years after i’d started posting on FFN, Quotev, and Wattpad and decided to move only the “good” fics over lmao

What’s your total AO3 word count?

605459 (there’s like 200k worth of additional words on FFN from middle school era fics lmaooo)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. certainty (collection of catradora oneshots i wrote after the s5 finale; has absolutely no right to be my most kudos-ed fic, lmao, but apparently i was writing the right ship at the right time 😂)

2. There’s a Fine, Fine Line (mcu flash thompson introspection)

3. No Ordinary Exchange (rayllum college!au)

4. Hair Dye (a collection of iron dad and spider son oneshots i wrote mostly in early high school,, i don’t disown them, but i also don’t like much of how they were written anymore lmao it’s been 5-6 years 😂)

5. how’s your lip? (a short sambucky oneshot i wrote while tfatws was airing)

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

YES. i want to show my appreciation!! comments are expressions of love and i wish to return that affection!!

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

hmm... honestly, i haven’t written anything with a majorly angsty ending. ashes, ashes, it all burns down is pretty angsty bc it’s mid-canon maiko set when zuko leaves the fire nation in book 3. you do what you can (until it’s not enough) is angsty in a similar way bc it ends with liz leaving (i.e. the end of sm: hoco)

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

like 99% of my fics have happy endings 😂 If I’m What You Choose is probably Extra happy because it’s so cheesy with how flash and peter get together (which, to be fair, was my exact intention)

Do you write crossovers? If so, What is the craziest one you’ve ever written?

i am pretty sure i have only written two (2) proper crossovers, one of which was a winx club x teen titans crossover from middle school that is terrible and uh. i will never finish 😂

just before the semester started, however, i finished writing (by hand) an incredibly self-indulgent crossover between monk and medium! i plan to type it up and start posting it in december 🤞 it’s not necessarily a crazy crossover, to be fair, since they’re both crime shows and they actually aired around the same time. still, the concepts and tones of the shows are pretty different, so it was fun balancing that as i wrote!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

yeah, a few times? the rude comment i remember most clearly was this person on Wattpad who left like,, an essay of a comment “critiquing” my rayllum fic and rating it on a scale of 1 to 10 and im like. bro. you really think i approached this self-indulgent college!au the way i write analyses for school?? the back button is right there. it’s right there. you didn’t have to read all of it 😂

i will say that i am incredibly fortunate that all hate i’ve gotten (again: not much) has been from high school or later; i never got any rude comments when i first started in middle school - which is, of course, when my writing sucked the most lmao - and i think that’s a major factor of why i’ve continued writing for so long. if people had said anything really cruel to me then, i think i would’ve taken it to heart more, yk?

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

nah, not my thing! something funny, tho, is that right now im really into medium (as i’ve talked about before) and like. i honestly don’t read smut, either. (i am boring like that.) but i am shocked at the lack of smut fics for allison and joe. like, they are a couple that fucks. i just can’t believe there’s no content about it 😂

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge (let me know if y’all see my stuff floating around lmao)

Have you ever had a fic translated?

nope! maybe when im fluent (enough) i’ll translate my fics into la french ✨

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no, because i am Horrendously unreliable and anyone co-writing with me would immediately hate the experience 😂

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

please. as if i could pick! right now im in my peraltiago feels because of the b99 finale 😭💛 and ofc also joe and allison, i have so many ideas for angst fics about them lmao

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

uhhhhh i mean i very strongly believe in never say never, lmao. my maizutaraang fic is on an indefinite hiatus, tho 😩

What are your writing strengths?

people usually tell me they enjoy my dialogue!

What are your writing weaknesses?

action. description. all that jazz. fr, i am considering becoming a screenwriter because it’s majority dialogue 😂

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

I SAY DO IT. ALSO I’VE DONE IT. where you belong is a so-called sambucky fic that’s actually just me pushing my “wilson family speaks la french agenda” 😌✨

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

*to the tune of the puffy amiyumi theme song* t-e-e-n t-i-t-a-n-s! teen titans, let’s go!

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

my “favorite” fic is more often than not the most recent one i’ve written because it’s the one with my most current writing style, therefore i hate it the least, lmao. as such, my unpublished monk x medium crossover is probably my favorite fic rn 😂

honorable mentions go to the why’d you have to go and make things so complicated? series, broken pieces still belong, and all i know is gone (but i am not alone) for being personal, fandom-defining experiences for me 💛

tagging: literally anyone who wants to do this, i’ve been away from tumblr lately and will continue to be away bc of school so if you are interested, consider yourself tagged!! 💕

[anonkp]

Writing Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @psyched1328!

*small note: if you don’t use AO3, use whatever writing account you have

1. How many works do you have on ff.net?

A whopping 3, plus the first chapter to a 4th! I have to laugh that I'm even doing this, because I haven't yet really accepted myself as a fanfic writer.

2. What is your total ff.net word count?

95,000, with another 38,000 on the new story that's written but not yet posted.

3. Top five fics by reviews per chapter:

Hah! Since I only have four, I guess they all make the list.

1. The Incident (Densi family times)

2. Kiss the Demons out of My Dreams (Deeks/Densi hurt/comfort)

3.  The Past is Prologue (Deeks backstory)

4. Support and Defend (missing scenes one-shot)

4. Do you respond to comments and why?

I do. I know how much I appreciate it when other writers acknowledge my comments on their stories. Plus I've developed some real friendships by commenting. And I'm genuinely grateful to have feedback. I'm still trying to figure out the mechanics of fiction writing, and hearing how people respond to what I've created is incredibly helpful and honestly, really encouraging when I still lack confidence in my abilities.

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

I do a lot of angst, even in my "happy family" story The Incident. I think of the three completed stories, that has the angstiest ending since part of it takes place on the anniversary of a character death.

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

I'd like to think they're all happy endings in that the characters I love all end up in a better place than where they started. I guess Support and Defend is the happiest because it's pretty angst-free.

7. Do you do crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest one you have done?

No, not yet. I feel like I need to master the voices of one set of characters before I pull in others.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not really. A few odd reviews but so far (knock on wood), no hate.

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

I wish! So far I haven't tried, even though others have pointed out some gaps in my stories where some smut might fit right in. Again, I want to get better at overall descriptions before I tackle that subset.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I’m aware of.

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

No, although I've co-written analyses and debates for wikiDeeks and have enjoyed the collaborative process.

13. All time favorite ship?

Densi is my only real obsession to date.

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

I like to think I'll finish posting the story that just started, since it's all written save for some editing. Otherwise I don't have any actual WIP's, although I do have some outlines and research done for one of the few Deeks, M. questions that I don't answer in The Past is Prologue. We'll see if I ever find time to work on it.

15. What are your writing strengths?

My first answer here was "not a lot," but I'm going to give myself credit for strong chapter endings, research abilities, and decent instincts for pacing. I don't know that it's a strength, but my favorite part of writing fiction is dialog. It's always where I start because the process of channeling the characters to see what they want to say is so fun.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I'd like to improve on working descriptions more seemlessly into the action and knowing how much to describe in the first place, and feeling more confident about the mechanics of storytelling- e.g., when to have the characters talk through something in detail vs. summarizing, how to use flashbacks, and lots of other things I'm always asking my writer friends for help with.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I'm not averse to it but I don't think it's come up yet. Maybe it just hasn't been on my radar as a storytelling tool.

18. First fandom you wrote for?

I never wrote a single story outside of grade school until my first NCISLA story came to me in a dream, fully formed. It seemed silly not to write it down. I was so unsure about it I almost published it under a different name in case it was horrible, but I got brave and used my true online ID.

19. Fave fic you’ve written?

Well I guess I have to be most proud about the long one, Kiss the Demons. I wanted to explore Max Gentry and see what would happen if my now-a-father Deeks had to summon him. It was a dark journey but I was happy with where I left him at the end.

I’m tagging @mashmaiden because I haven't seen her answers and I miss her stories.

[cinaja]

About Tamlin

Note in advance: This post is about the writing, aka how sjm wrote Tamlin's character. I am not going to analyse his character, as in motivations etc.

There are lots of discussions surrounding Tamlin's character. Personally, I think the underlying issue for all of them is simple: bad writing. The way sjm wrote Tamlin's development was shitty. Let's take a look:

Tamlin in acotar was: a little controlling (as in he would sometimes indeed tell Feyre what to do, but within reason), sometimes a little aggressive (as in he growled and his claws slid out, but NEVER more than that - besides, that seems to be usual behaviour for Fae) and maybe a bit bossy (although it could be argued that this was only expected of a High Lord). I'm not counting the whole Calanmai mess, because from the way sjm wrote it, he literally had no control over his actions at the time (I know, this set-up is horrible, because what he did would otherwise count as sexual assault. If anyone feels the need to yell at someone about how horrible this is, I kindly direct you towards sjm.)

However, he also always allowed Feyre to go where she pleased/do what she wanted and supported her in decisions like wearing pants and going hunting (in general, he didn't seem to be misogynistic), he listened to Lucien/valued his friendship and rather attentive to Feyre's needs/wishes. It was also always made clear that he 1) wanted to be better than his father for example regarding humans and 2) was NOT elitist in any way. He was said to be more soldier than nobleman and he actually would have prefered to become a musician. I agree, looking back, there were some toxic implications, but nothing anywhere near what happened later (and I'll readily admit that I didn't reread acotar in a bit, so if I missed anything here, feel free to point it out.)

Tamlin in acomaf was: violent to the point of physical abuse, not at all in control of his temper, mentally abusive, controlling to the point of locking Feyre up in his house, clearly blind to Feyre's needs. He was also elitist (for example the Tithe), (ab)used his power as a High Lord (all he ever did was giving orders), didn't listen to Lucien at all and even threatened him. He was also suddenly misogynistic, only wanted Feyre as a pretty house wife and killed some of his guards iver a simple mistake.

This is a complete switching around of his character and no one can convince me it isn't bad writing. Some characteristics (him being elitist, misogynistic and not caring at all about his guards) were outright 180° turns. With others, like his toxic traits, I'm willing to admit that there was a basis for that already established.

Still, the key here is character development. This means "the character gradually changes" not "include a time-jump and the character becomes a new person". Before anyone points this out to me, I know that the reasoning behind these changes is trauma. I know that changes like this might happen (although I'm somewhat confused about how trauma would turn him into a misogynistic, classist ass, but I disgress). No matter how theoretically possible a change like this is, it's still bad writing.

Which leads me to another point. Frankly, I find the whole set-up for Tamlin's character rather disturbing. What he does is textbook abuse. I don't think I need to point out that abuse should never be excused. Yet, it is written as a result of trauma, which (put together with the fact that most people are far more forgiving with fictional characters than with real people) serves to shift the sympathy of some readers to him. They see what he did as a direct result of his trauma -which, in a way, is what it was written as - and therefore want him to get redeemed. After all, him being an ass now was never properly set up, so they just want him to go back to the person he was in acotar.

This is only enhanced by the fact that the entire story seems to go towards Tamlin indeed getting a redemption. His actions during acowar (the las third) clearly pointed in that direction. In acofas, it was always emphasized what a horrible state he is in, making people automatically feel sorry for him. While people like Rhys remain unforgiving, that behaviour only makes symptathy shift more towards Tamlin (after all, Rhys is the asshole who kicks a man who's already down). At this point, it seems highly likely that Tamlin will get a redemption arc in the following books.

However, I feel like many people (sjm included, as it seems) fail to realize how toxic that would be. I'm not saying Tamlin is beyond redemption (there have been cases where even cold-blooded murderers came to regret their actions and turned their lices around). However, the story of his redemption is not one that should be written. Tamlin is a domestic abuser. And some people who read these books may have been - or still be - abused in real life. The story of an abuser being humanized, of his side being told and him being redeemed could be increadibly harmful, because it might end up making people more sympathetic towards abusers.

I honestly don't know what sjm was thinking, writing Tamlin like this. It could have EASILY worked the same way if she had taken a lighter road with Tamlin. Cut out the physical abuse and the misogynistic and elitist bullshit. Make him a tad less controlling. Lack of understanding and the fact that him and Feyre really only barely knew each other would have been more than enough to cause their relationship to fail. But apparently, sjm needed Tamlin to become such a bad person that no one in their right mind would ever be able to ship him with Feyre. (And before anyone comes up with this idea: No, I don't ship Feylin and I never did. I'm not pissed about my ship not being canon, I'm pissed about bad writing.) Or if she really wanted to write this relationship in a way that raises awareness about abusive/toxic relationships, she should have written a proper development here and not have gone towards a redemption with Tamlin. It's simple as this.

Tags: @sjm-things @herpowerisdeath @clolikescloquetas

[whathefawkes]

20 Questions: Writer's Edition!

Thank you so, so much for tagging me @startanewdream, @sweeethinny and @narukoibito. Love these tag games and it's always nice to get to know you a little better <3

How many works do you have on AO3?

7

What’s your total AO3 word count?

13.873

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

2 - HP and when I was a wee little thing, I used to write for McFly (yes, the boyband, don't @ at me)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Do Me a Favour

Linger on

Unsaid Words

Walked Off You

Will This Come Back to Haunt Me?

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes, I do. I feel so honoured when people take their time to comment that I always reply (usually too late). But sometimes I also worry that people may think I'm not being sincere 'cause I can be very effusive in my thanks.

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

Definitely Will This Come Back to Haunt Me?

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

Hah, Do Me a Favour. It's just me and my self-indulgent need for a texting fic.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Hm. Does my birthday challenge fic for the Hinny Discord Server count as a crossover? I haven't uploaded it to AO3 yet, but it's inspired by the fourthe episode of the Apple TV+ series, Little America.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nope, never. People are so welcoming and generous!

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Nope.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Nope.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Harry/Ginny. (But please, god, let there be enough Wolfstar and Jily in the world too).

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

I don't seem to be getting anywhere with my WIPs as of lately. But I don't think I'll ever finish a post-war tale with a bit of road trip to it that I've got in my drafts since forever. I just feel like this is has been so explored, so thoroughly analysed, that I there's no need to another one to be published. The other one is a Jily Lives AU with a heavy political plot (a plot bunny I saw that I think about constantly).

What are your writing strengths?

I think I do a good job with descriptions, and I love diving into painful emotions, and those ones seen as 'bad', like jealousy, anger.

What are your writing weaknesses?

Purple prose, I'd say. Taking too much time to start editing something and losing steam. Not having enough words to say what I mean either in English or in my native language. I really struggle with characterisation too.

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

I like to read it. (And I get very excited when it's in a language I can understand). But for me to write it, it would feel somehow lacking, I think, unless it's a language I'm very comfortable with, or that I can count on some friends to look it over before I embarrass myself.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

McFly :)

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

I think it's a tie between Walked Off You, Will This Come Back to Haunt Me? and Do Me a Favour. The first ones I'm so proud of, but Do Me a Favour was a blast to write.

Tagging @clarensjoy @blinkngone @hpfangirl @femellerklem if you feel like playing. Otherwise, just know that I adore your writing <3

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Julie and the Phantoms Theory

Wow so I just binged watched julie and the phantoms on netflix and this show is amazing, like really really fantastic. It is aimed at a younger audience than most of the series I watch but it really doesn’t matter, I do think this is a show that any age group can enjoy. The music in it is so so good and I’ve been listening to the songs on replay non stop. Also have two new ships I am obsessed with Juke and Willex. If you haven’t seen the show it is defo one I would recommend. However despite watching the whole season I have soo many questions that need answering and well anyone who has read any of my posts ever know how much I love to over analyse and obsess/ theorise about tv shows. The rest I am going to put under the tag because of spoilers so if you want to hear some thoeries/ analysis then read on, but I should warn you I am going to be talking about the sensitive topics of death and bereavement so only do so if you feel comfortable. 

 So one of the biggest questions I have is regarding the deaths of Alex, Luke and Reggie. Now I know that they die from eating bad street hotdogs and I know alot of the reason why they die that way is for the comedy aspect of it. I mean one of the many things this show did really well was balancing the comedy aspects with the emotional aspects. I appreciate that as the audience we are suppose to just accept this somewhat wacky death and go with it but well thats just not me and I kept wondering what exactly was wrong with the hotdogs that it actually killed them. Some things about it just don’t add up and I hate not knowing the answers so here are some theories I have, some more outlandish than others. 

Theory 1- Food Posioning (Honestly this isn’t really a theory but lets just go with it)

My first thought when I first watched it is the most obvious one which is they got food poisoning. I mean the place they got the hotdogs from didn’t look the most sanitary. However here’s the part that doesn’t add up for me and that is how quickly they died. We know from Alex’s comment to Willy in episode 8 that they were two hours away from going on stage the night they died. This means they had to have started showing symptoms within those two hours before the show which lead to the ambulance being called. In the first episode Reggie says that after they floated out of the ambulance they went to a dark room. The part that caught my attention here is the line about the ambulance as this tells us that they died in the ambulance before they ever got to the hospital. Now I don’t know how far away the hotdog place was from The Orpheum but I’m assuming it was fairly close considering how important the show was to them, I personally wouldn’t go too far from the venue if I had a big show in just a couple of hours.  According to my google search the nearest hospital to The Orpheum is Diginity Health California Hospital Medical Center. This hospital is only 5 mins away from The Orpheum, obviously I know this time would be effected by traffic amongst other factors but the point is the time between ingesting the hotdogs and them dying was relatively short. Which makes it unlikely that they died from food posioning. Whilst food poisoning can kill its very rare and usually takes a lot longer than a few hours I mean ordinarily it takes days. So the likelihood that all three of them would have been killed by food posioning that quickly is actually slim to none.

Theory 2- It was Premeditated.  

My next theory is much much darker and definitely more out there. It also depends on how dark they plan to go with Bobby/Trevor’s character. But we know that Bobby stays behind and doesn’t go for hotdog’s claiming to be a vegetarian (which was a lie), he also seems to be pretty eager for the other three to go. Now in the scene it seems like the reason for this is so he can be alone to filrt with Rose but what if Bobby had more sinister plans what if he had some hand in the boys’ deaths and had actually posioned them or arranged for them to be poisoned. Maybe he always planned to steal Luke’s songs and take all the credit, fame and money for himself. When Julie looks up Sunset Curve on her phone you can get a glimpse at the article she reads. In the article it says ‘There was a surviving band member, Bobby, but no one has been able to track him down...’ This article seems to have been written about a week after the night they died which shows that Bobby went under the radar pretty quickly after his bandmates died. Now again this could be explained away as Bobby grieving and wanting to stay out of the spotlight as he worked through that and that him stealing the songs was a more opportunistic act than him premeditating his bandmates murders. 

Another possible variant of this theory is that it was still an orchestrated death but it wasn’t Bobby who wanted the boys dead but Caleb. During that opening scene they were still alive and we know normally lifers can’t see ghosts so for all we know Caleb could have seen them perform and had decided then that he wanted them as his house band, he didn’t want to wait for them to die so he took matters into his own hands. We assume that the first time Caleb hears about the band is from Willie but there was that scene from the first episode where he bumps into Alex and to me it almost seems like he recognises the group. Also I don’t think its a coincidence that he bumps into them right outside The Orpheum. It could be that he knew they would show up as ghosts at some point and figured they would go back to The Orpheum when they did and so would sometimes patrol that area just waiting for them. It could also explain why he’s willing to let Willie skate around the streets of LA maybe he was hoping Willie would do exactly would he did and bump into one of the boys whether Willie was aware of this plan is a whole other kettle of fish I feel like most likely he wouldn’t have because I feel like he would have told them Caleb had sent him to find them when he told them about the jolts. Point is the whole thing could have been one big elaborate plan of Caleb’s to get the band for himself, his obsession with the band could have been bigger than what we were shown in the first season. 

The last variant of this theory could be a mixture of the previous two. Maybe it was an elaborate plan made by Caleb but with the help of Bobby. Maybe Bobby made a deal with the devil so to speak and in exchange for fortune and fame he gave up his bandmates. Maybe he even gave up his own soul too but he gets to live out his dream life first. We know through Willy that Caleb has made deals with lifers that are part of the Hollywood Ghost Club so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to think he could’ve made a deal with Bobby. 

To be honest I’m not completely sold on this theory purely because the show is aimed at a younger audience and although it does cover some mature themes around death and bereavement I think murder might be a little too dark for its target audience. But then on the other hand they did have that storyline of Caleb trying to destroy the boys with those jolts so maybe I’m wrong.

Theory 3- The Car Battery. 

Ok so this theory I think is the most likely out of them all. When you think about what we know about the boys death and the timeline its that 1) They ate hot dogs that tasted bad. 2) They obviously started to show worrying symptoms that lead to somebody calling an ambulance, these symptoms showed up in under two hours. 3) They died in the ambulance before getting to the hospital (which was approx 5 mins away). Also from the sound of it they all died around the same time, as in all of them were in the ambulance it wasn’t a case of one of them died at the scene, another in the ambulance and another in the hospital. Meaning the effect time was pretty consistent, we know that they all took the first bite at the same time. So keeping all that in mind lets look at the scene again. The first thing I want to point out is that when the boys get the hot dogs they don’t show us them actually being handed the hotdogs, when we see them they already have the hotdogs and they are at the condiments adding their pickles and sauces. This in my opinion tells us that the hazard did not occur during the cooking process but at this moment when they were getting the condiments. Also we see Alex talking about how he couldn’t wait to eat someplace where the condiments weren’t in the back of a car. This scene opens by showing us said condiments and also whilst Alex is talking focusing in on the car battery. Right after his comment about the condiments Alex goes up to the seller and apologises for getting pickle juice on his battery cables once again this draws attention to the battery and its close proximity to the food. The seller just laughs it off stating that maybe it will help with the rust. This seems like a throw away comment but it could actually be a big clue into what happened to the boys. This tells us that not only is the battery near the food but its rusting and in a bad condition and if its in a poor condition it could be leaking. Ok so why is this important to how the boys died? Well because car batteries have sulfuric acid in them. I said before that the whole food poisoning thing didn’t add up for me because generally speaking when things go wrong during the cooking process such as something being undercooked or unclean, it doesn’t tend to kill you and in the rare circumstances if it does it usually takes days to weeks; but the chances of surviving food posioning are very high. However if someone were to ingest sulfuric acid even a couple of drops could be fatal. For examble if there was any sulfuric acid in the bottom of the trunk it could have gotton onto the utensils they used or onto the bottom of the sauce bottles which could then have tranferred over to the food. 

Also sulfuric acid usually kills a person within a few hours and can start having an effect on the body pretty much immediately. The mortality rate of sulfuric acid poisoning is very high the survival rate is only around 35% which would make it much more likely that not only did they all die but that the all died around the same time after exposure. The reason why it can kill so quickly is because it can effect the airways. Also the comment the seller made about the rust could have another possible explanation because whilst a leaking battery could have contaminated the food, sulfuric acid can also be found in some anti rust treatments. So if the seller was trying to treat the rust on the battery without removing the condiments from the trunk then that too could have created an opportunity for the food to become contaminated with sulfuric acid. 

So yeah this is my best guess at how the boys died, they accidently ingested sulfuric acid that had contaminated the condiments that had been stored next to a rusted car battery. It’s tragic and more tragic than that is that although it can only take a few drops obviously the less posion a person ingests the more chance they have at surviving. We know that even though the first bite tasted weird they continued to eat the hotdogs but if they had stopped after that first bite they might have actually survived. Obviously I’m not an expert on any of this so I could be totally wrong but to me this is what makes the most sense. 

Anyway what theories do you guys have? Also what questions are you hoping to get answered if we get a season 2 (we better get a season 2 or I’m gonna be real mad)?