#if it wasn’t my own gifset I would literally tag this as fave

[raplinenthusiasts]

flower boy

[olderthannetfic]

I keep hearing things about Live Journal commenting and like conversations in the comments? and possibly something about profile pictures? I was wondering if your would be wiling to explain any of that or experiences or how it differs from ao3 or something? (I joined fandom in 2018 and am really interested in it's history [guess who just discovered fanlore! hehe])

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I was never much of a fan of changing icons, but a lot of people would have dozens and dozens and would choose the specific one that made sense with their comment or post. Sometimes, you’d match the fandom/theme/etc., but other times, the choice of icon would kind of color the interpretation of the comment. A lot of them were animated with pithy text that cycled through. Some were more like character portraits, but plenty had a vibe that was a bit more like a reaction gif. So... like... on a comment where you were going “WTF!” at something, you’d pick an icon where your fave was making a WTF face.

Icons are/were also used extensively in journal-based roleplaying, but I don’t have any experience with that.

(Your default icon shows on your actual profile page, but you can select other icons whenever you post a post or comment. I presume this is what people meant by profile pictures.)

LJ had (and Dreamwidth has) decent threaded comments, even if a comment thread is 300 comments long and has a lot of deep subthreads (rather than a top level comment and 299 direct responses). Comments have URLs, and you can go into a thread to just see some part of a subthread, which makes it easy to read even the otherwise horribly indented discussions a bajillion comments in.

This tended to inspire a lot of longform text discussion in a way tumblr supposedly doesn’t. (I mean, there’s always my own tumblr... but in general, no, tumblr is not great for this.) I’d say LJ’s level of back-and-forth in the comments, tl;dr, and pretentious blowhard-ness was about on par with Reddit, another space that prioritizes text and threaded comments.

One thing about LJ comments is that they (originally at least) had titles. So a comment thread on a post would be like “Some quick responses” and another would be like “Thinky thoughts on your third point”. (The late and unlamented “thinky thoughts” was everpresent on LJ.)

Because LJ was so locked down with infinite friends filters and such, you’d often meet other people in the comments of a third party’s post. Not everybody posted anything public, let alone anything you could really interact on, but they might show up in a big discussion elsewhere.

(Basically, on LJ and on DW, you can put different groups in filters and either 1. restrict your post to that group or 2. view a dashboard-like feed of just that group. Very helpful for sorting your friends who post commentary from that bastard you like but who needs to stop spamming a different MCU gif literally every 10 minutes all day every day to the point you can’t find anything else in your feed.)

Some of the same commenting energy exists on AO3, but it depends on the fandom. Have you ever been into a really popular WIP for a big ship where fans of the WIP would chat with each other and speculate about future fic developments or talk about canon in comment threads? The vast majority of AO3 comments are top-level and directed at the author, but you do see this other kind every once in a while. That used to be extremely common on big fics on LJ. (TBH, the main difference on AO3 is that people feel inhibited, not that they can’t still do this LJ-like behavior.)

I didn’t really post fic to LJ, so I was looking at more meta discussions, but there too, it was pretty common for two commenters to start talking to each other rather than the OP.

And yet, at the same time, you were in OP’s space where they could lock everything down if they wanted, not in a reblog situation like tumblr, so there was much more of an awareness of potential moderators. It wasn’t all good: LJ had plenty of cult of nice where people were saccharine in public and salty in friendslocked posts and tons and tons of vagueblogging.

Overall, it did privilege people who spewed out walls-o-text and wanted to discuss everything to death. Getting big for... like... properly tagging other people’s gifsets was not a thing, though there were some big name fic reccers. The focus was much more on people who could produce a lot of their own work and on people who could hold their own in a debate.

Honestly, you could probably go look at astolat’s post where she proposed AO3 and read the comments to get a sense of how people were interacting. I think that one had a lot of top-level comments, but there were probably threads.

[claudia-kishi]

Is it possible to name your top 5 joan outfits? Your top 5 sherlock quips? Your top 5 killer-of-the-week?

oh. OH. okay. top 5 is hard. you’d think i would keep track since i make those sets. i do not. but i can TRY....???????????????

i guess it’s a ~collection~ but ALL OF HER PAJAMAS WITH THE RED FUZZY SWEATER LIKE A+... YES.

JOAN IN OVERALLS. LITERALLY WHAT A VISION.

super random but the cute lil top with the lil tie thing and skirt in tag you’re me 

also more of a ~collection~ but HER IN ALL HER WINTER COATS AND HATS AND EARMUFFS!!!!! THE CUTEST

also a super random one but the CUTE FLOWERY TOP AND THE SHORTS she wears in worth several cities!!! 

UMMMM ALSO HONORARY MENTION TO BATMAN TOP AMEN 

i quite literally just went through my own jwo tag and went through my most popular gifsets to find things bc i literally could not remember every single outfit... 

sherlock quips... FUN

i’d trade my dad for a tic tac (amen)

i’m smarter than EVERYONE i meet 

did you know a pig’s orgasm lasts for up to 30 minutes 

i would even go as far to call him a master baiter 

“you’re being a snob” “well someone has to be”

i’m sure there are more but it’s like 10:40pm and my brain is fuzzy and it’s 7 seasons long LKAJSFLKDJ

as for fave killers.... OOF. i honestly never really fixated too much on cases but hmmmm!!!!

jamie duh (though i guess it wasn’t of the week technically lmao)

rewatching lesser evils was !!! i think that was a good one 

bella not really because of the murder but bc how it ended with them not being able to do anything... vry different for them

the guy from deja vu all over again... not bc he was a good character but bc i loved seeing joan say fuck you to him basically :) :) :) :) 

possibility two!!!!!! FAVE!!! i really liked how this one turned out. 

ask me top 5 / top 10!

[literaetures]

omg ive never met anyone who likes the medici show!!!!! pls share ur thoughts

you must be new here bc i Love the show! it’s one of my all time fave period dramas (coming from someone who knows nothing about the actual history of the family other than the one (1) page history that was given in her high school history textbook and sporadic wikipedia diving when watching the show— i just love period dramas) and i often quote this post by @hotniatheron when talking about this show (because that’s literally. the whole show)

the cinnamon topography, the sets, the characters the costumes, the d r a m a, the storyline! i love it all! i’ve written a few posts on the show as well that i’ll link here if you want some memes (and usually gifsets i rb are filled with commentary) but if you really care about why i love the show, i’ll try to give you as much of a summary as i can (w o w so this got long because i have a lot of feelings so i’ll leave this under the cut but tl;dr i adore this show and i think about it more than once a week and have tons of half-written meta posts sitting in my drafts fjwkjfewn)

i watched s1 when it first came out and immediately fell in love, watched the whole thing in one day (avoiding a paper i had due lmao) and completely fell for it. i loved the morally ambiguous leanings of everyone in that season— no one was quite Good™️ or Bad™️, they all did things with their own ambitions and their own ideas of what a good future may look like in mind— i loved all the scenic shots and the duomo (the true protagonist), i loved the characterization of “the banker that wanted to be an artist”, the attack and murder of albizzi and his son! in the forest! in slow motion! while the duomo is being consecrated! the mist of the forest combining with the smoke from the lamps! still gives me chills! i hated every moment cosimo wasn’t respecting his amazing wife who rode in oh horseback! in the signoria! just to save his ass! and he completely shunned her for it! i loved lucrezia’s depth they gave her towards the end that was later extended in s2 (where you could Tell contessina took her under her wing and gave her the single braincell of the family) and even more, i loved the multi layered storyline of the season— the coming of age story of cosimo, the murder mystery of who killed his father, the PLOT TWIST of who killed his father!!! (i kept forgetting in my first and second rewatches of the season and every time i forgot it felt like i experienced it for the first time all over again!) but most importantly, i loved the narrative of not knowing what to do in life, that every decision you made is a gamble with outcomes that are both good and bad, but there will be people around you who support you and get you through it

and then. s2. by far the better written of the two three seasons with a more clear plotline and timeline that allows you to really take in the characters and the plotline at once while allowing for more nuance and depth in a way that we didn’t get in s1! here we have the distinct battle between Good and Bad which was shocking after the morally grey complexity that we saw in s1 but made for a fresh new season that i instantly enjoyed! b u t!!! it did not go! where i thought it was going to go! as someone who knows nothing about the history, i went into it completely in the dark and solely began crafting possible endings in my head. i thought. i had pictured. that lorenzo and francesco started off enemies, francesco realizes his uncle jacopo (sean bean) has been manipulating him, switches to the “good” side, hears the acts of betrayal, and instead of falling back into his uncle’s plotting and manipulation, i thought! i assumed! that francesco was playing him! i thought! that francesco would see through the manipulation and the abuse and was in a double agent scenario where he was plotting the “pazzi conspiracy” but he told lorenzo and giuliano about the plot and they’d catch jacopo in the act, give him a trial, and give him a prison sentence! i thought this WHOLE thing! even at the end of ep7! even after the hugs (i thought the extra squeezes was francesco signaling to lorenzo and giuliano that everything was going according to plan (because remember the whole Good and Bad clear divide? i thought this was going to be the grey zone of s1 to remind us of moral ambiguities)) and even when ep 3 “mass” was going. i was sitting there in my clown paint waiting for francesco to get! his! redemption arc! because i forgot! that this! was a historical period drama about real events! and it wasn’t until lucrezia’s scream that i realized “OH. it’s not going to get better” you can imagine. my pain. but i think that’s what made this season so good? anyone could have watched it and fallen in love with the storyline and good narrative they presented that allowed you to get lost in the characters and the story

and as for s3. i’m withholding as much of my thoughts as possible because i will be watching it when it finally airs on netflix and i want to properly give it the binge watch that i’ve given the past seasons to really sit with my thoughts to have fully formed thoughts and onions on it!

in any case, i love this show. so much! i cannot wait for the renaissance project to happen with seasons about all the artists, but g o d am i going to miss this disaster family so! much! (and all those scenic duomo shots) 

i love contessina and francesco (those are my two fave characters from the show) and there’s honestly so much more that i can say but honestly you can scroll through my series tags and see me cry about it because i’m rambling so much i know— if you give me a chance to tell you my thoughts on my obsessions! i’m so sorry in advance!

but i’m sure this is. not the length that you expected, but i hope it’s at least a bit entertaining! thanks for letting me talk about my obsessions for a bit!

[skamofcolor]

I find it really funny when people say that the other seasons don't do as well as season 3 because the 'season 3 only watchers' care about representation. where are them caring about representation when the only remake that made noora a woc is flopping to the point cast and crew have to ask fans to use vpn? where are the so active fandom members now that imane's season is only getting half the views season 3 got? and why do they get defensive when we point this out? 🤔

#weknowhwhy

But seriously... 

 I think it is true that some people only start watching the “gay season” / season 3 because they’re also lgbtq+ and seeing a M/M love story is important to them. That I understand. I personally didn’t start watching Skam / didn’t care about it until Sana’s season, because having a Muslim woman of color as the main character was the representation that was important to me. tbh I just don’t care that much about white M/M ships, they don’t represent me as a queer woman of color, so seeing Ev*k GIFsets wasn’t enough to prompt me to watch. And I know that a lot of my mutuals (who are also women of color and/or Muslim) don’t watch until season 4 for the same reason. In these cases, I do understand the nuance of it. Especially because of how triggering S2 can be for a lot of people, with the archetype of all the William characters being based off of someone many (including me) see as an abuser, added with the sexual assault storyline. It can be a lot for some people.

However, it is funny/sad because I don’t think that’s the majority of people. I do think that this is primarily not about representation really, but about  fetishizing cis white M/M ships. Like there really can’t be any denial about it at this point, particularly when looking at Druck, Skam Austin, and Skam España. The amount of fandom racism and transphobia when it comes to David is pretty evident, and then you have La’keisha Slade (Shay) openly saying she doesn’t feel as appreciated as some of the Isaks / people still choosing to believe that Tyler is going to get his own season. The misogynoir and lesophobia jumped out! Plus with España... say what you will about it’s recent “panphobia,” but since the beginning the show hasn’t been trending nor has Cris gotten the same hype as other “Isak” types. Anyone can say that they only watch “the gay season” because that rep is important, but look at the responses to all of the white M/M ships vs. the interracial M/M ship and the (potential) W/W ships and it makes it glaringly obvious what that drive for “representation” is all about. 

It’s also sad because in the case for Skamfr especially, it’s literally unheard of (I would argue in any country, in any media) to have a Black Muslim woman be the main character of your show. I remember seeing all this “discourse” about OG, that people said they were only watching S3 because they were tired of the “heterosexual nonsense”... as if portraying a hijabi woman of color in love with a man of color was somehow the same thing as your run-of-the-mill white cishet ships... I think this really is a race thing, like white people really just don’t get how “typical” representations of women of color (especially Black women) being cherished or loved is actually subversive, because we don’t get to be empathetic women, we don’t get to be angry and soft and dynamic, not the way white women do. Again I understand why some people might not want to watch S2, but it’s the same thing with Liv in Skam NL. Even if you don’t or can’t ship her with Noah, having a Black/mixed girl as the main of this story changes so many dynamics and elements and it’s not a typical portrayal. Same thing with Megan being the only Latina Eva / Eva of Color with Skam Austin. 

And it does make me sad that when the SkamFr clip of Daphne's party came out, the ratio of GIFs about Imane vs. E*u were like, 1:20. And yah you can argue that it’s because folks who ship them haven’t seen them in a few episodes, people are excited, etc. etc. but it feels like more than that, doesn’t it? Just look through the tag at how many people think all of Imane’s problems will go away if she just goes to talk to E*liot or L*cas instead of Alexia or Manon or Idriss or any of the people we know she’s actually emotionally close to in canon. It’s like... just say all you care about is E*u content and go. It would make it easier for the rest of us who do care about Imane and want content about her. Like I said in another ask, we can moderate the content we see to an extent, but it is constantly exhausting.

People get mad because they don’t want to be told about themselves, honestly. Like again I think there are a lot of valid reasons why folks wouldn’t watch some seasons, having “diverse” casts doesn’t actually make a season good or accurate or a non-harmful representation for marginalized viewers. But the mental gymnastics that, imo, most people go through to talk about why their white M/M faves are the best or the most important representation, or why other kinds of rep don’t matter to them, is astounding. Like it’s tiring and tbh I’m bored of those viewers. So in a strange way I’m kind of glad some of the other seasons don’t have the same fanbase. It makes it easier to find mutuals who I can actively enjoy and critique things with without having to worry about the borderline obsession of these white M/M ship on my dash. 

- mod Jennifer