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aroaceleovaldez · 5 months ago

Note

what do you mean by fandom infrastructure?

Oh goody I get to rant about this. Definitely gonna need a read more for this one. There's gonna be a lot of general fandom thoughts here so I'll put a big title for when I get to the actual list and pjo-specific stuff for if anybody wants to skip. Okay, my anthropological fandom thoughts:

"Fandom infrastructure" isn't official terminology by any means, but as someone who's been in a wide variety of fandoms for like 15+ years and in varying stages of participating within said fandoms, I generally use it to describe the sort of environment created by a fandom that supports and sustains the ecosystem within it (and may also extend to what kinds of attitudes are fostered within the community). This obviously looks different for every fandom (and different per platform), but I think it's really valuable to break down what systems exist in different fan spaces and how those impact the community that utilizes it, and take lessons from different spaces about what those systems do and how they're effective or not.

General forms of fandom infrastructures have shifted over time - a lot of more recent formats, at least in western fandom, tend to be very reliant on source material and you rarely see a lot of sort of classic archetypes of "old fandom" like concepts such as "big name fans" (I partially blame social media platform drifts for this - I'll touch back on that later*). A fandom with more consistent infrastructure over time (plus just a general favorite fandom case study of mine) and just a general good example of fandom infrastructure is the Furry fandom. It's a bit of an outlier to begin with as Furry fandom doesn't have an actual source material, which means it's an entirely self-perpetuating fandom, and as a result you get some really interesting community structure! (I highly recommend the documentary The Fandom for a dive into the history of the Furry fandom and even some adjacent fandoms!) One of the number one things I always like to note with the Furry fandom particularly compared to other fandoms is it's a very easy fandom to join/integrate yourself into and become a part of the community - it's one of the few fandoms that has generally agreed upon written etiquette/guidelines for behavior in the community that is very easy to find (early 2020s MCYT fandom had a little bit of this as well, but most guides were specific to individual MCYTs rather than the community as a whole and difficult to track down) and a ton of guides explaining what the community is and ways you can begin exploring it. Not to mention the absolute plethora of resources available in the community for just about anything you could think of, and tons of community-dedicated spaces where people can get involved in various ways. The furries are a very well-organized fandom in general! They're also an older and very well-established fandom, so there is much to learn from them.

I like to consider fandoms that have good infrastructure to be fandoms where the fandom is self-reliant or self-perpetuating (not fully dependent to a source material - so the fandom doesn't experience total dry spells when there's no new official media.) and one that's easy to join and integrate into.

Tangent: I have this whole personal concept about "entry-level fandoms" particularly when it comes to the cosplay community. A lot of those fandoms tend to be the ones labeled as "toxic" but when you break it down it's actually that the fandom is just very easily accessible and for a lot of folks that is their first fandom and they haven't learned general fandom etiquette yet. For cosplay, entry level fandoms tend to be relatively mainstream or otherwise easy to access the source material for and then also easy to cosplay while also offering ample room to grow (doubly easily accessible while also not limiting) - usually that the main cast of characters have very casual every-day outfits that can be easily made with a closet cosplay (cosplaying using clothes from your closet or otherwise "normal" clothes) (low barrier to entry) plus more elaborate and evolved outfits for when new fans get comfortable enough to begin exploring further (niches to grow into). Also bonus points if people are able to use their natural hair at all because that makes it even easier. Another aspect that tends to be helpful is how much one actually needs to get into the source material to begin interacting with the community - if you can get the general gist/premise of the franchise pretty quickly and not have to actually engage with the entirety of the source material, that's way more likely to be an entry-level fandom (like, One Piece for example is not likely to be an entry-level fandom, lol). Homestuck is (or more was) an easily accessible webcomic, and despite it's length for the majority of it's run it was actively updating so there was no expectation to be completely caught up, plus it was extremely common to just fully skip over entire segments. Cosplay progression: human characters in basic outfits > trolls > god tiers/etc. My Hero Academia is a mainstream readily accessible manga and anime, particularly to western audiences, and the general premise throughout the series remains relatively close to the pitch from the beginning, alongside not shifting core characters too much. Cosplay progression: civilian outfits > hero costumes and more complex characters. Percy Jackson actually very much fits the bill for this as well - its a VERY popular book franchise to the point where most people have probably had to read it for school at some point, but also it's generally not expected you'll read past Blood of Olympus or any of the side series, if you even read past the first series (and you won't be super lost if you even don't read far past the first book). Cosplay progression: camp t-shirts > adding armor, props, or maybe trying to make goat legs or etc. A more recent and very interesting newcomer to the entry-level fandoms scene is Genshin Impact because it somewhat breaks the format - it's still easily accessible (free to play game) but the character outfits are all incredibly complex. But as cosplay becomes more mainstream and just in general as manufacturing techniques improve, it's suddenly become very easy and affordable to just buy a decent looking cosplay, which is very appealing particularly for a fandom like Genshin. You can have a very nice and complex looking first cosplay with little effort, similar to the effectiveness of closet cosplays in the other examples. As varying techniques improve, the barrier to entry becomes lower in more communities, and there are more opportunities for a wider variety of entry-level fandoms. Okay tangent over -

There's a lot of ways fandoms can be self-perpetuating, but some of the most self-perpetuating fandoms I see are ones that either have a lot of room for original characters, concepts, and similar (see: TTRPG fandoms) and/or fandoms that are heavily divorced from the source material (often due to the source material being widely deemed "meh at best" but having compelling base concepts) (see: Miraculous Ladybug) which is where you often see a lot of AUs - Warrior Cats fandom is a good example of both! I have not kept up with Warrior Cats in ages, but I'm still in the fandom. I have no idea what book they're on. If Warriors stopped publishing books tomorrow I genuinely don't think the fandom would even notice. They've been doing their own thing for ages. There's a ton of room for creating your own characters, storylines, and etc within the worldbuilding of the franchise where it never stops being identifiable as Warrior Cats, which means the fandom can basically do their own thing eternally without ever cutting off newcomers to the community.

The majority of this stems just from being able to not rely on the source material to drive the fandom. If the community inspires itself, then it's able to continue to sustain itself without outside reliance. But to do so indefinitely it will eventually need new fans. And this brings me to the whole "easy to join/integrate into the community thing" -

*It's later - Tumblr used to be a huge fandom hub in general, but the content bans around 2018 led to a giant migration of communities to other platforms. That 2016-2018 era is when we see a shift in fandom in general, with fandom attitudes shifting from old-era concepts like ship-and-let-ship, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato, use of "squick," etc (in general a major loss of old fandom linguistics and terminology - nobody even says OTP anymore!). There's a couple of reasons for this sort of multi-fandom cultural drift, but in general it seemed to widely be the combo of a new generation of younger fans entering their first fandoms all at once while simultaneously being cut off from learning established pan-fandom culture. Newer fans never learn about the old community, how it functioned, or how to upkeep it, and now the fandom is fully reliant on the source material and fizzles out almost completely in the absence of new official media. (Also I think somewhat the lack of BNFs/Big Name Fans can also contribute to this, as they are often the people new fans will look up to and emulate the behavior of when learning how to interact with a fandom - this can be good or bad, depending on the BNF! - alongside being able to learn about the community's history through them, since they're almost always older and well-established members of the community. In the absence of BNFs, the community often turns more towards the source material/creators and it can get Bad™.)

Tumblr as a platform, due to being a blogging and sharing platform, is inherently structured for long-form discussion, long-form text, documentation, and sharing concepts and ideas in nuanced ways. Also preservation - there's no time limit for when posts disappear, and there's no algorithms restricting you to only the newest posts. Tumblr's features even make it really easy to go back and find old posts, even despite the semi-broken search features. Tumblr creates environments where these types of communities absolutely blossom. There's a reason why it was the go-to platform for fandom stuff. Instagram is image-focused, actively discourages text, has a mediocre search, and no proper means of sharing except awkward reposting most of the time. Tiktok is even worse, being short-form video-centric (so even more difficult to repost in absence of sharing features) but otherwise similar (and even less text-friendly and more difficult to search, especially for older posts). Twitter has strict text and image limitations, heavily limited sharing options, and any attempts at threads get messy extremely quickly, so nuance is dead there. Reddit has long form text capabilities but no real sharing features and next to zero longevity. Facebook and Discord are locked behind requiring an account to even view it (instagram as well, to a point). And Youtube is right out (generally it acts as supplementary to other social media). Theoretically you could try to use Ao3 for that, but it's an archive, not a discussion board or social media - at best you'd probably just be going back and forth like scientific journalists which will not be easy for most people to follow. As far as mainstream western social media goes, Tumblr is the best place for "classic fandom" so-to-speak. There's a reason a lot of very established fandoms have built their own dedicated spaces - forums, art sites, etc (usually in combination) - the more splintered your community is, the less of a community it is. It's very difficult to build a community when you never know where the majority of your community is going to be at any given point! In most cases you'll still have the source material, but how is a new fan supposed to know if everybody's on twitter or instagram or tiktok at any given time? That uncertainty immediately cuts off new fans. And you need new fans to perpetuate a fandom (or in general, new people to perpetuate a community). Not every community is capable of having dedicated hosted forum boards and such (though GOD i wish,,,, i miss forum boards,,,, forum boards are awesome,,). Maybe there's a Discord, but discords are difficult to find, easily overwhelming if large, and often intimidating for new folks to join. Not to mention difficult to moderate and if they're busy then it's basically guaranteed most people are just going to get drowned out.

ALL THIS TO SAY: For a true fandom community to exist, essentially, it needs to a.) not be entirely reliant on the source material (instead being driven by activity within the community), and b.) have a cycle of new fans that can come into the community and take up the mantle of upkeeping that infrastructure and continuing the activity within the community, usually with low barrier to entry. This is where that fandom infrastructure becomes important, because that's exactly what supports and encourages that activity in the first place.

To begin with, you must have a community acceptance for deviating from the canon/source material. This is normal and fine and okay. This is what fandom is known for. This is exactly why we have the terms "fanon" (concepts largely agreed upon by the fandom but not officially canon) and "headcanon" (the canon that exists in your head/is personal to you) and AU (alternate universe)! You have to help foster this - you don't have to actively engage with every canon deviation you see, but respect when it is other people's prerogative to deviate from canon and don't shut them down just inherently for "daring to disrespect the sacred canon" or whatever. Remember the ancient fandom proverbs: don't like-don't read, YKINMKATO/Kinktomato ("Your kink is not my kink and that's okay"), ship-and-let-ship, etc. Cringe culture is dead, engage in some whimsy, and remember that ultimately you always are the one to curate your own online experience. Etc etc.

The other major thing is you need to foster spaces where new fans can easily enter and begin engaging with the community. These spaces are extremely important in fandom communities because it's what allows fans who are completely new to fandom to comfortably begin partaking in fandom at a level appropriate for them and without pressure. It's in these spaces that those whose who wish to can begin fostering skills that then leads them to engage with the fandom in larger and more complex ways, growing into different niches within the community and thus allowing the fandom to continue. (I have a whole little essay about this topic [here] which is extremely relevant to my major points here.)

"Alright so where's the PJO-specific stuff and actual examples?"

I'm glad you asked, theoretical reader. So, to answer the beginning question - what is some fandom infrastructure I've seen in other communities (and/or Riordanverse fandom, back when we had that kind of stuff)? These are generally types of blog or other niches that prompt activity, discussion, and other forms of interaction within the community. I have comprised many examples though forgive me if my organization is messy because these are somewhat difficult to categorize concisely: (Also if you do know of examples in the riordanverse fandom of any of my examples, like specific blogs or etc, feel free to comment them!)

- General community hubs and community spaces. I have these as two slightly different but adjacent categories since I think these things generally fall into one of two categories - spaces meant for general chatting and interacting with other fans (community spaces) and spaces more meant to find specific topics (hubs).

Things like forums, discord servers, group chats, etc - these exist in the PJO community but are far and few between and difficult to find. If you run one I highly recommend putting a link in your tumblr sidebar (enable custom theme > edit theme > new page [bottom of sidebar on the left] > there should be a little dropdown menu where it says "standard layout" - select "link" and plug in a discord invite set to never expire. there ya go). A couple I know of include my own (one for general riordanverse and one for my askblog), the Titan Army discord, these two, Riordanverse artists server, Nicercy (Percico) events, Jasico challenges, and Above The Clouds (also jasico). There used to be a big general PJO server but it's mostly inactive now (I affectionately refer to it as functionally a knitting circle these days, cause that's most of what's discussed there now, lol). There also used to be a well-known TOA-specific one and a general Riordanverse cosplay discord but both had problems and I'm not sure either still exist. I've heard there may also be a Percabeth server floating around somewhere? But I've never seen it.

"Hubs" is what I label things like blogs surrounding specific designated topics, usually consolidating stuff like general fanworks, specific fanfiction, fanworks of specific characters/groupings/ships, etc. I believe there might be one or two general riordanverse fanart blogs floating around. I'm not sure about blogs for specific fanfiction. A lot of ship-specific blogs went inactive by like 2017 but a couple are still alive like @solangelo. (I'll get into some other examples in a similar vein to this later*) We don't have a designated blog for keeping tabs on whenever there's a Riordanverse fanzine or similar project but some fandoms do (I would love this btw and i am almost tempted to do it myself) - an old pan-fandom one was fanzinewatch. I run a blog dedicated just to reblogging fanart (and occasionally other fanwork) of Hazel and Nico - @deathsibs. I don't know of any individual character-specific blogs off the top of my head unfortunately. Etc etc.

In general the purpose of these things is to help connect the community and make it easier to find and promote things or meet people. These are good places to ask questions, particularly directions or recommendations. That brings me to another one-

- Ask/Tag games and memes. Back in ye olde tumblr days there used to be TONS of fandom-specific inbox and tag games, or people would do milestone promos or etc and do these massive blog recommendations or literally just list everyone they follow or similar. This was a really useful way for people to find more blogs for specific topics and engage with each other in general. Here's an old one I found as an example. My friend has a nice tag with a bunch of old ask memes as well, and Hermitcraft-ask-games is a great example of a blog categorizing fandom-specific ones (Hermitcraft/adjacent MCYT in this case). Tag games can refer to both posts where you respond to the prompt in the tags while reblogging or a game where you tag other people - the latter has mostly fallen out of favor cause it can get very spammy and posts can get very long with it. Less spammy versions tend to be something more akin to an ask game or a follow forever, where you are responding to a specific question or prompt by tagging blogs that fit that, usually as a recommendation. It's a little nicer and more favored because then you're promo'ing other folks and usually it's not a long chain of reblogs, plus the posts tend to have dedicated formats so they aren't super messy.

- In another similar vein, Art games/memes. PJO fandom doesn't have a lot of these! These are your "Draw 6 Characters," "Character color wheel," etc prompts. The fandom I see this the most in is MCYT fandom, particularly Hermitcraft/Trafficblr! There's a ton of little variant prompts I see all the time there (not just for fanart! also fanfic and etc!) - Characters in your style, Fanon species swap, color palette swap, etc etc. (I am totally going to try and make one of these for riordanverse, give me a bit, lol)

- Prompt weeks/months. Also similar - prompt weeks/months/etc are pretty self-explanatory. They're events that give you a set of prompts to create/post fanwork themed to over that time period. PJO fandom used to have plenty of these, though I only see a couple floating around these days. I know Jasico Week/Jasico Challenges and Solangelo Week are still alive, and TA week happened recently. Fun fact, in some smaller/largely inactive fandoms I've actually seen prompt weeks DM active people in the community to tell them the prompt week is happening which I actually really like. In circumstances like that where a fandom is so small, scattered and inactive, it's a good means to get the word out.

- Headcanon/ship/"Imagines" blogs *It's later (again)! Headcanon blogs used to be EXTREMELY common back in ye olde days of fandom. Some of the most popular iterations tended to be ship-specific headcanon blogs. PJO fandom had A TON of these (and many are still up! They just haven't posted since like 2017 at the lastest. Quite the trip down memory lane though). They were generally formatted by people submitting their headcanons/"imagines" anonymously, which would then be formatted into an image to match the blog's general format (sometimes themed to specific characters or subjects, depending on the submission itself) and posted. A good example from PJO fandom I stumbled across the other day while looking at old askblogs is Percicoheadcanons. Absolute classic format right there. Also bonus time capsule points - the most recent post is from before Blood of Olympus was published. That's just particularly amusing to me given the ship in question here.

- Shortform Headcanons / Short Memes & Shitposts Helyeahmangocheese reminded me of this one in my previous post - shortform headcanons are essentially any headcanon thrown out into the world in a short format. So you're "headcanon that [x]" or whatever with no elaboration. Just quick little snappy things off the top of your head that people can pick up and run with. Sometimes there would be blogs dedicated to these, with people submitting them in blog formats like the above, and then shortform headcanons to be posted in that format. Short memes & shitposts are the exact same type of thing - just short little silly textposts and similar cracking jokes that the fandom can take and run with. Both of these are more important to the fandom than you'd think - a.) they have a very low barrier to entry, which means they're a great way for new fans to begin engaging with the larger community. b.) they circulate new ideas for other fans to build off of, creating collaborative concepts. These collaborations help build the community with giving opportunities for people to chat/inspire each other's work and can create iconic fandom moments or community references/in-jokes. And old one from PJO fandom that floated around was somebody threw out the concept of Will Solace's weapon being a lasso/whip (because cowboys/he's Texan/etc) made of light, which then got illustrated and elaborated on by many other fans such as Cherryandsisters and was very popular fanon for a time.

- Confessions Blogs These ones can be decisive in fandoms, depending on how they're run. Confession blogs in general are blogs where people anonymously submit fandom thoughts, opinions, etc (formatted similarly to HC/imagines blogs like above). There's also usually a decent amount of funny confessions like initial misunderstandings or confusion about things. Most well-run ones of these will have rules against negativity towards other fans and similar. When done properly these blogs can be a nice way for the community to have discussions about topics that they may be afraid to broach publicly, and easily can generate community in-jokes.

- Positivity blogs / Fandom voting Somewhat opposite to (at least, more negative) confession blogs, fandom positivity blogs are a very sweet way to spread compliments around the community. Sometimes they're anonymous, sometimes not. Generally though the format is people can submit compliments or kind notes to other people in the community and it'll get posted tagging the individual in question. Trafficblrpositivityproject is an MCYT example of this concept. Fandom Voting is a little bit more odd and varies a lot between communities. An old one PJO fandom used to do was PJO Prom, where people could nominate blogs for different categories, they would either accept or deny their nominations, and then folks would vote for their top favorite blogs of each category and winners would be announced (though the event also included more than just that - like blogs asking each other to prom and etc). In other fandoms I've also seen elections where various members of the community would jokingly campaign for election (including choosing other members of their campaign), people would vote for a winner, and then do it all over again. Fandom elections tend to be a lot more chaotic and silly, versus stuff like fandom prom voting is more geared towards just appreciation towards members of the community.

- Fandom Events / Community Projects Related to PJO Prom, (and prompt weeks/months) general fandom proms or valentine's events used to be pretty popular, especially amongst RP and askblogs. These weren't always strictly organized, but they generally involved asking other blogs to prom/to be valentines and then people would draw cute prom/holiday art or similar to celebrate. Some blogs would send out valentines to multiple blogs just as a nice cute lil treat in a similar vein to how some blogs still do trick-or-treating events. Trick-or-treating events have been a thing for awhile, generally following that same structure, but it's become significantly more popular in general now that tumblr has image embeds possible in asks rather than having to submit a post. Other fandom events can include fandom elections like mentioned before, or any number of things really, but the majority of regular ones will include gift/fanwork exchanges in some form. Secret Santa projects are very common (and PJO did have them! There isn't one singular PJO Secret Santa blog since it seems different folks did different years so I can't link it, but I participated in 2016 iirc. It looks like the most recent one was in 2021 - pjosecretsanta2021). I did find Rrversesummerbang as a recently active one as well. Zines and similarly collaborative projects are also common - PJO fandom does occasionally have zines but they aren't very frequent and generally don't get a ton of traction (which is very sad cause zines are very fun - most of it seems to be just the fandom doesn't have good ways of getting word out about events through the community). We've also had a couple of coloring book projects! I participated in the 2016 one and there was another in 2022. Some other fandom and pan-fandom examples of similar stuff is Mcytrecursive (Gift exchange for fic-of-fic, in this case MCYT-specific), Fic in a box, Mcytblraufest (AU fest), general holiday exchanges, etc. (A lot of my examples are MCYT cause man that fandom is active). There are a lot of pan-fandom ones of these, but usually involvement of specific fandoms is entirely dependent on sign-ups and it can be difficult to know or guarantee any specific communities participating. Fandom-specific ones are generally more well-known in their own communities for obvious reasons. In other projects, Riordanverse fandom even once had a Multi-Animator Project! These are more common in fandoms like Warrior Cats that are very artist and animator-centric, but the fact that we have at least one major one at all is pretty cool! Collaborate games in similar veins to big events/projects like this (see stuff like the art meme/games) can also be great ways to get the community active and engaged. Voting/poll stuff like character or ship brackets can be really interesting too and depending on how it goes down can become an EXTREMELY major event in the community (see: MCYT Tumblr Sexyman bracket). Very fun times.

- Incorrect Quotes / Text Post Memes / Chat Posts Rolling back to headcanon/imagines blogs, incorrect quotes for specific ships/character groupings used to be extremely common. And not even just dedicated blogs, but incorrect quotes/chat posts were pretty much the number one thing the average fan who didn't create fanart/fanfic/etc would post. I was actually quite surprised to see that Incorrectpercicoquotes is still alive. They post more than just incorrect quote/chat posts (not uncommon for blogs of those nature, especially back in the day), but still it feels like seeing a thought-to-be-extinct-species in the wild eating a bag of chips. Anyways, like shortform headcanons and memes/shitposts (of which these are somewhat a subcategory of), these are another low barrier to entry type of fandom engagement, which means they're great for new members of the community.

- Askblogs MY FAVORITE TOPIC. I have a list of PJO askblogs on my sidebar actually cause I'm very passionate about them and askblogs in general. For what an askblog is, my blog @askblog-index goes over that and also I answered some questions about askblogs recently, which you can find in my askblogs tag (also I'm always open to answering questions about askblogs please ask me about askblogs I love them so much). There's so many different varieties too - text, illustrated, cosplay, voice acting, combination, etc etc etc. Askblogs are a really fun means for collaborative storytelling in the community, especially with how much they tend to generate headcanons or put characters in silly little scenarios. Cherryandsister's Will Solace askblog is practically personally responsible for a solid 50% of all Will fanon. Photokinesis!Will was entirely popularized there. They're also a really great place for people in the community to build up their skills - yknow those jokes about "the best way to improve your art is to become obsessed with something and draw it one billion times?" yeah askblogs are that. My art improved so much by starting an askblog because it pushes you to draw things you might avoid normally or wouldn't expect to draw - or if it's not an art askblog, is just plain good practice for writing or voice acting or whatever. It's a regular outlet where you can build up your skills with not a lot of pressure but also outside encouragement and concepts to build off of. Character or fandom-specific daily art blogs and similar request art blogs are similarly also very useful to building up skills (and can be applied to other artforms like fic writing!) (Request blogs are not the same as askblogs though please dont send random art requests to askblogs just gotta put that disclaimer). I also personally consider them extremely vital to fandom ecosystems, though often overlooked - remember those old "ask the seven" posts that would be the terribly colored text in random fonts on a white or poorly-chosen-color background that'd just be random stuff and it'd get reposted absolutely everywhere? For a lot of people that's both some of the first stuff in a fandom that they might make, and also some of the first stuff people used to see in fandoms in general. With my whole silly theory of fandom ecological niches, those types of posts are your base of the pyramid, because it's where most fans are going to start out. It gives them a low-stakes place to begin engaging with the community and figure themselves out and begin exploring the characters and media on a deeper level. That's what fandom is all about! It's what separates fandom from just the general audience of any particular thing. Those types of posts were popular because they're just easy to make! All you need is mspaint, if even! They get across their concepts quickly and easily in an easily sharable format - that's exactly why they got reposted absolutely everywhere! The concept of those posts (and general character chat posts/incorrect quotes) still exist in other spaces in fandom communities, but in different formats - usually tiktoks, being spoken and acted out loud. The problem with that format though is it can't go anywhere - even in shortform video format there's no way to easily condense it down (and also they have a higher barrier to entry, as the format at it's simplest usually requires some aspect of showing your face/using your voice. This means you inherently have to sacrifice some amount of privacy to engage with the format, which isnt friendly to new/younger fans). Meanwhile these ask-the-seven posts are one jpeg that gets across the entire concept. And we've evolved! We have better technology! We can pick better colors and fonts and add image descriptions! We can bring the format back!

- Cosplay This one is pretty self-explanatory - just. Cosplays are a type of fanwork too! PJO cosplay used to be pretty common on tumblr actually! Particularly there used to be a decent number of cosplay askblogs (which are just askblogs where instead of responding to questions with text or a drawing, asks are answered with either a gif or image of the mun/mod in cosplay reacting in-character). Cosplay is cool! And in PJO fandom it's particularly easy!

- Roleplaying Spaces PJO fandom does have a pretty active tumblr RP scene as far as I've been able to tell, which is good! Also you can find people who want to RP pjo just about anywhere. It's just somewhat of a matter of giving them a space to do so. I talked about how to get into roleplaying recently on my blog as well. RP is also one of the forms of fandom infrastructure in this list that transfers well to other social media platforms, in large part due to social media RP making it a whole lot easier. The fandom is mostly just severely lacking in hubs to locate RPs and help people find ways to begin engaging with them.

- Public AUs / OCs Public AUs/OCs are a bit of a weird one to describe - they're basically any AU/OC that the creators (if there is a singular known creator of it) have given total free reign to people with. More often it's an AU that doesn't have a particular known creator but the fandom likes to run around with and do a lot with. In PJO fandom, the ye olde fandom OC was Peter Johnson, a son of Demeter. The AU generally was about how Peter Johnson was a new camper and Mr. D's favorite camper, and just generally a sweet lil guy while Mr. D proceeds to torment Percy because of the name jokes. A series of public AUs that's completely unique to PJO is Godswap aus - there's no one singular set godswap au, but the two most common swaps tended to be Demeter!Percy (in part due to Peter Johnson) and Aphrodite!Nico (admittedly this one was like 90% gay stereotypes/homophobic tropes and there's a reason why the fandom kind of dropped it. It was absolutely the most popular godswap for a time though, and some of the concepts from it have bled into general Nico fanon for better or worse). General pirate aus have also always been very popular in the fandom - there were some old ones back in the day, including local BNF (Big Name Fan) Saberghatz having at least one, maybe like two or three, including a cosplay. Pirate!Nico in particular was very popular. There was actually a slight resurgence of PJO pirate AUs on pjo cosplay tiktok in like 2020 or so I wanna say. Truly we came full-circle there. There's also just general popular AUs that fandoms like to run with. For awhile PJO fandom had a HTTYD au they really loved. The current fandom favorite AU seems to be Velinxi's Young Gods/Hades Game AU.

- Fangames This one might sound odd because Riordanverse fandom doesn't really have this, but fangames can be REALLY fun and cool. Fangames also often spark mini-fandoms in themselves and are just really awesome in general. There's a lot of different varieties of vastly varying complexities, but a lot of it is pretty much just "I made a game, it's about [fandom], here ya go." Some good examples from other communities off the top of my head are games like ClanGen or Untold Tales for Warrior Cats, or Featherbent from the Homestuck fandom which was a visual novel / AU fanfic. Btw, visual novels are actually not all that difficult to create. If you're interested in trying to make one I highly recommend checking out Ren'Py - it's basically a program to make visual novels with.

- Other project types / General Collaboration Related to community events, particularly Multi-Animator Projects (MAPs), AMVs/PMVs/Lyricstucks ("animated music videos" and "picture music videos" - lyricstucks are the same as the latter but usually in a scrolling tumblr post format with the song linked at the beginning rather than video format) are very cool and can be both individual or collaborative projects (in Riordanverse fandom most are probably very familiar with Viria's old lyricstucks - Nothing Left To Say and How Far We've Come). Some folks do dubs of fancomics (also used to be a thing in PJO fandom, particularly back when the PjoVoices group was active and the brief stint in the fandom when we had some Voice Acting askblogs) which can be a nice way to collaborate and engage with other fans in different mediums. "Aesthetics"/Moodboards (usually an arrangement of either 2x3 [former] or 3x3 [latter] grids of images) and the more recent "webweaves" also are a great low barrier to entry type of fanwork that has a lot of variety and versatility (just make sure to credit art/photos used) - especially if you make moodboards/webweaves inspired by people's AUs/fics/etc!

- Gifset Makers / Editors In Riordanverse fandom we don't see this often, because we're primarily a book fandom, but back in the days of the movies and more recently now with the show, editors and gifset makers are a very cool niche of fanwork creators. Gifset makers is pretty self-explanatory - they're people who make gifs. Editors can range from people who make edits of clips or put together clips of images or a whole bunch of very different things. Very wide range there. Edits (with credit to the original artists) can be a really fun alternative to AMVs/PMVs/etc if you don't draw but you have a concept (CREDIT THE ARTISTS - trust me, having your art used in an edit can feel super cool but ONLY IF IT'S CREDITED. IF IT'S NOT CREDITED IT'S NOT FUN. if you ask and credit people will probably be happy about it!). Edit blogs can also be very fun and are often a big hit in fandoms - "Where is [x]" and "[character] in places" are classics. Again just remember to credit artists appropriately and ask permission to use their work.

- Fanwork Promotion Blogs/Hubs PJO fandom does have a couple of these still floating around I think! I don't know them off the top of my head but I swear i've seen them recently. Regardless - these are any sorts of blogs that promote other fanworks. Maybe it's dedicated to just general fanart, general fanfic, stuff of a specific AU or concept. Going back to previous bullet points, character or ship-specific blogs are a form of these. They can range from elaborate and complex with how they promote or spotlight and recommend works, to just literally being random reblogs of stuff of a specific topic. These can actually also be a really nice if you're looking for a simple way to get more involved in the community, because chances are if you're on tumblr you know how to reblog things and that's about all it takes. These hubs can be really nice ways for more fans in the community to get spotlighted/recognition and become more well-known, and it also helps fans looking for specific types of fanwork. (The only caveat with these is if you are going to make a generalized hub blog, you have to actually make it generalized. You can't just exclude the things you personally don't like just because you don't like them - if you don't want to deal with that, make a more specialized hub blog for your more focused interests instead.) (Also personally I'd recommend if you're making one of these types of blogs that you're an adult, cause these blogs can require fandom tag-spelunking that may not be appropriate for all ages - ESPECIALLY if you run a fanfic hub.)

- General Resources This can look like a lot of things, particularly depending on what the fandom is about, but in general a lot of fandoms will have dedicated places to finding different types of information, and often important fandom terminology and sometimes fandom history. Fan Wikis may cover some of this, but not always (and depending on how the wiki(s) are run in a particular community, may not even have reliable information to begin with. I'm looking at you Riordanverse wiki). In furry fandom for example there's a ton of resources for how to get started in the community, commonly accepted community guidelines and general etiquette, fandom history and terminology, resources to find fursuit makers or other artists, various tutorials, etc etc etc. PJO fandom does not really have this! Like i mentioned in previous bullet points, while we have some hub/promotion or character/ship-specific blogs, they're relatively far and few between and commonly inactive, not to mention usually very specific in what niche they're focused on. The wiki only covers the source material (and is questionable quality at best most of the time) with there being next to no resources in the community in general for stuff like fandom history or terminology or etc. Did you know PJO fandom used to be part of the Superwholock of book fandoms (it was PJO, HP, Hunger Games, and Divergent. there was a whole symbol for it)? Did you know we used to have our own fandom lingo? Members of the fandom were usually called demigods or half-bloods, people would put their cabins in their bios (people would make little banners or other decorations to put on your blog themes to show your cabins or pjo stuff in general!), and we'd say stuff like "Spread this like greek fire" and "Amazhang" and etc. Those are actual things people said unironically very frequently. You're probably most likely to be familiar with "Persassy." We don't necessarily need to bring all of those things back, but point is we did use to have a community identity and sort of genuine subculture! And we lost that! There are so many community jokes and similar that most people have forgotten or at best kind of know of but don't remember the origins or contexts for. In other communities they have documentation for this kind of stuff - you should see some of the documentation that MCYT fandom does, particularly if the MCYT in question is a popular streamer or the SMP is primarily streamed content. Holy cow it's thorough. Resources and documentation are what help keep fandoms alive, because they give a means for new members of the community to learn the history of the community, learn established rules and etiquette, and just generally find their way around where they otherwise might be lost. It's really invaluable but often overlooked.

Okay, i think that's all the ones i can think of. This post has taken me over a full day of working on it, lol. Anyways i'm very passionate about fandom history and PJO fandom history/community in general so this was very fun for me to go on a deep-dive about. Also now i'm really tempted to put a lot of my old fandom knowledge and unnecessarily complicated lists/documentation to good use and try to help build up some of these bullet point concepts for riordanverse fandom myself because dammit somebody's gotta do it. But that's all i've got for now! As always feel free to ask me to elaborate on anything, or if you just wanna hear me babble on more about general fandom structures (i have another ramble about different types of fandoms relating to what fanworks they tend to exhibit the most!)/pjo fandom history/askblogs/RP community/whatever, I am always more than happy to talk!

#pjo #riordanverse #fandom #fandom history #ask #askblogs #< relevant enough i suppose - there's a section on it lol #stillwaitingformagic #overanalyzer #HOLY COW this is a long post #anyways here's the behemoth. i feel a little old now having gone through a bunch of old blogs lol.#feels weird seeing blogs you used to remember from when they were active and they havent posted in over 10 years and you're like. oh.#its been over 10 years. damn. ive been here awhile.#yall ever think about how the riordanverse is almost 20? wild.#i hope i am not just a riordanverse blog to you but also a crotchety old fandom grandparent telling you about The Olden Days #which feels a little weird cause im not that old. i do have a cane though.#anyways im gonna go overthink fandom resources and hubs for awhile #and probably make some more blogs by the end of the week tbh lol. we'll see.#fandom infrastructure

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huffle-dork · 9 months ago

Text

Swap Across the CrystalVerse Chapter 7: PW Timeline

Read Swapboys | Crystal’s AUs | Read the PW Timeline

Read SITCV | SATCV Masterpost | AO3 Link

Alt lands, by himself, in a bedroom. It's not a familiar bedroom. Small, and made even smaller by how crowded it is with knickknacks. The walls are pale green. There's a desk, a wardrobe, a bed, and a small table shoved in the corner by a big window. On that table are candles, some figurines, bowls, a wooden wand, a plate with a five-pointed star drawn on it--an altar of some kind, apparently. And there's a cat. A small black one. Standing on the desk and staring directly at Alt with big yellow eyes.

Alt looks around the room and almost immediately groans out loud. He whacks the TRVLR in his hands with a scowl. "What is wrong with you?? Why are you acting up now??"

The TRVLR briefly shows the menu screen--and the code UF-0707019PW in the corner--before the low battery icon takes over.

Then, he notices the cat and he freezes. "Oh.. hi kitty?" He can't help but soften as he pockets the TRVLR and tries to get near it, holding out his hands for it to smell.

The cat immediately bolts, knocking down a water bottle and plastic cup of pencils as it jumps down from the desk and runs out the open bedroom door. No offense to Alt. Seems it just has the zoomies.

Alt glitches back in surprise and watches the cat jump away and can't help but laugh as he watches. Oh... tiny kitty zoomies. He remembers when Glitches had those-

Down a hallway, someone shouts. "Luna Void, I swear to fuck if you knocked over something important--no pets for the rest of the day!" It's followed by an exasperated groan and approaching footsteps.

Alt freezes at the voice. Shit! His mind blanks on something to do as he backs up- tries to think of something to say. He's broken into someone's house! ...completely on accident but! Still!

A man walks into the room, stopping in the doorway. He has long wavy hair pulled back in a ponytail, and is wearing a black sweatshirt with a design of a cresent moon made out of various-sized circles. He looks at Alt. His eyes widen and he backs away. "Wh-whoa, hey! Hey! I-I don't know how you got in here, b-but I'm calling the police!" He's reaching into the pocket of his jeans, probably going for his phone.

Alt jumps and glitches a bit to get closer, "Wait don't please I-I can explain!" He tries to say quickly. He searches the man's face, trying to see if he recognizes it. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you I just- d-don't know where I am-"

The man freezes the moment Alt glitches close to him. His eyes, somehow, go even wider. "What the--what the fuck?" He suddenly scrambles backwards. "How did--what--I--What the fuck?!" And then he turns and runs down the hallway.

"...shit-" Alt mutters and then tries to glitch after him. "Wait!"

The man reaches the living room, where there is another man standing. This one is wearing a blue button-up shirt and has a mustache. He clutches a phone in one hand like he's ready to dial.

"JJ!" the first man shouts. "I-I don't know what's going on, but--"

Then Alt appears in the hallway entrance. The first man spins around, gasping, and the second one jumps in surprise.

Alt finds himself freezing once again and he very slowly puts up his hands. "H-Hang on... please- I... I can explain- I'm not gonna rob you- or hurt you... I just... g-gotta figure out where I am." He swallows thickly. "Please, just, hear me out?"

He eyes the second man, taking in the signature look of JJ and feels himself start to relax. Okay- parallel again... so the first one must be... Marvin? Cuz cat?

The two men stare at him in shock. Slowly, Marvin backs up towards the coffee table. Then he quickly grabs a small piece of candy from a bowl and gently throws it at Alt.

Alt blinks and goes to catch it, holding it in his hands. He blinks comically back at the two men. "...uh... thank you?"

"What the fuck?!" Marvin shouts again. "You're real?!"

"Y-Yes I'm real!" Alt shouts back. He shoves the candy in his pocket and then shakes his hands, "Okay let's just.. back up. You already think I'm insane so let's just run with it!" He stands up taller and with confidence as he says, "My name is Alt Brody. I'm from another universe- a parallel one. Where the same people exist in different places. So... I know people just like you two, Jameson and Marvin."

The two of them just gape at him. Marvin glances at JJ and asks in sign language, Do you think this is a trick? Is A-N-T-I back?

He wouldn't do something that weird, JJ says. And if it was, he knows sign, you're not hiding anything.

"Fuck," Marvin curses.

"...I also know sign." Alt says sheepishly. His stomach drops at they seem scared once again of someone called Anti. Of course... at least the last one was kinda nice. "...I'm... technically a parallel of... your Anti. But, I'm not like.... evil or anything. I'm a magician."

Silence. "Okay. Yeah. Sure." Marvin laughs. "If this is a prank, it's not funny. Come on, where are the cameras? How did you do those weird effects?"

JJ just frowns at him. You're my age. You're not Anti.

Alt knits his eyebrows at JJ and slowly nods, "Yeah... you're younger than my JJ... huh." He then turns to Marvin and sighs, "It's not an effect." He holds out his arm and lets its glitch, showing it splitting into different colors and pixels before snapping back into place. "I'm magic. And also a glitch. Technically." He stuffs his hands into his pockets and looks at them. "...someone in your group... has to be magic... right? ...someone always is... somehow."

JJ and Marvin stare at the glitching. They both look weirdly pale. Marvin folds his arms, hiding how unnerved he is. "Yeah, okay, ha ha. I'm not that kind of witch. I-I-I don't know--how you're doing that--but this is a really fucking cruel joke."

I don't think he's joking, Marvin... JJ signs slowly.

"He--he has to be," Marvin says a bit desperately. "I-I mean--that sort of 'magic'--like in the movies--it's not fucking real!"

Now it's Alt's turn to look pale as his eyes widen. "...magic doesn't exist here...?" He breathes. Then, he pushes back his hair and slowly starts to laugh. "...oh boy... Mag is not gonna be happy..."

He looks back at them and opens up his palm, creating a ball of dancing electricity. He tosses it up into the air and as it hovers for a second, he glitches and then changes into a mostly black calico cat that stares at them up from the floor, his strange heterochromaic eyes practically glowing. Then, as the ball falls he glitches back and manages to catch it before it zaps away into the air. "...for me, magic is real." He says quietly. "I wouldn't lie about that."

Marvin and JJ watch all this silently, their faces an identical mix of awe and shock. Then Marvin slowly walks over to the sofa and collapses on it.

Are you okay, Marvin? JJ asks.

P-R-O-C-E-S-S-I-N-G. Marvin signs out the word letter by letter.

JJ nods. He leans back against the wall by the door. It's like... the many worlds theory.

You sound like H-doctor. Clearly, Marvin means 'Henrik' by that.

My point is, if it's true, then there are infinite possibilities. Including that magic is real somewhere.

"Fucking bejesus hell," Marvin mutters.

Alt shuffles sheepishly. "...sorry- we... haven't traveled to a world without magic before. I'm... so used to just being able to do it." His form buzzes with static for a bit, pixels vibrating off him before he forces himself to snap back together. "I guess it makes sense... we've been to enough places- about time we ended up in a place with no magic." He sighs and leans up against the doorway, "But that creates a lot of problems on my end..." He starts to take out his phone, hoping he can contact Jackie or Chase.

"This is... gonna be a lot," Marvin says. "Mr. uh... What was your name? Anti?"

He said 'Brody' too, JJ recalls.

"So, what? He's from a magical alternate universe where Anti is Chase's brother instead of y--"

JJ makes a shushing sound.

"Oh. Sorry."

Alt’s head snaps up at this, staring at Jj with wide eyes. “…you’re brothers with Anti…?” He asks quietly. He’s very quiet for a second, trying to imagine Dr. J being his sibling but… no. Too weird.

JJ tenses a little bit. By blood, he says carefully. Our relationship is... bad.

Marvin rolls his eyes. "Light way of putting it."

Alt nods in understanding.

“…it’s uh Alt, by the way.” He corrects Marvin, “don’t really go by Anti anymore… only Chase calls me that.”

For once, cell service and WiFi work. The cell service is abysmally low, but it's there.

Suddenly two cats run into the room. The small black one from before, chasing a fluffy ragdoll cat. The black one corners the ragdoll in and jumps on top of it, causing a "mrow!"

"Stop, you two," Marvin says automatically. "Not near the terrarium."

Alt glitches at bit back as the cats rush in but then his eyes sparkle. He kneels down, just to look at them as he grins. “Oh… such pretty kitties…!” He softly coos.

The ragdoll cat pushes away the black one, who zooms away while the ragdoll licks his paw.

Marvin grins. "That's Luna Void and Ragamuffin. They're my babies. Them and Salazar... though I wonder if I should change his name recently."

Marvin points at a large terrarium nearby. Inside, curled up on the floor, is not a pile of purple rope, but a snake. "I'm biased for the kitties, to be honest, though." Seems the cat talk has helped him recover from his rattled state of mind.

Alt giggles at their names. “Great names… I have a little void at home. Her name is Glitches. …you can probably guess why.”

Alt’s eyes wander to the terrarium and makes a slight Pog face as he almost glitches over- but he doesn’t want to scare the kitties or the snake.

“Woahhh! A snake! What a cool color!” Alt winces a bit at the name and laughs, “Yeah… not a great time for anything named from Harry Potter, huh?”

“He’s a lavender corn snake,” Marvin says, grinning. “And yeah… I’m thinking of calling him Crowley now, after a character in this book called Good Omens.”

Did you hear they’re making a series of that? JJ comments.

“I did! Think it’s coming out in May.”

Alt grins happily bouncing, “So cool- snakes are cool…”

Marvin takes a deep breath. “Okay. I think I’ve processed this whole… thing. Or at least I’m functional now. JJ? What about you?”

The same, JJ says.

“Alright. So.” Marvin looks at Alt. “If you’re… from an alternate universe… what are you doing here? How’d you get here?”

Once it seems like the others are settled he sighs and nods, “that’s the thing… we should be home. The first time we used this device, the TRVLR.” He pulls out the device to show them, “we didn’t know our code to get home but now we do and for some reason we keep ending somewhere different! Which might not be a problem if it was just me, my brother and Jackie… but we have a hitchhiker… a villain named Magnificent. He’s also magic… and very very dangerous. And everytime we jump- we end up separated… but pulled towards parallels we know in this universe.”

“Evil magicians,” Marvin mutters. “Ooookay. Great.”

JJ frowns. Don’t you use ‘Magnificent’ as your username on a lot of games?

“Wha—No!” Marvin says defensively. “It’s um… that… but in leetspeak. Whatever, are you saying I’m evil?”

I’m saying if they appear towards parallels of people they know, that’s a big coincidence.

Alt tries to hide his laugh about Marvin’s username.

“Okay whatever, moving on,” Marvin says hurriedly. “So we have to help you find this guy and the two others you came with? Jackie and… your brother? Chase, right?”

We know two people with those names, JJ says. If your friends appeared near them, we can contact them.

Alt sinks into his jacket and hides his hands in its pockets. “…you don’t have to help if you don’t want to- but… yeah they’ve most likely appeared by one of them.”

“Is Anti an option for people you appear by?” Marvin asks. “Since you’re like him? Because if that’s the case, they could be fucking anywhere, Anti skipped town a while ago.”

Let’s hope they don’t appear near Anti, JJ says. He would take advantage of that.

Alt stiffens as he hears about Anti and looks up in slight fear, “h-He skipped town? Oh… fuck. Yeah they… they might end up next to him- we’ve ended up in separate countries before… fuck!”

Please don’t panic, JJ says. If your friends have powers like you they can handle him easily.

“Can you call them or something?” Marvin asks. “Do phones work in other universes? If they don’t, we can at least check with Chase and Jackie.”

"Y-Yeah lemme see who I can call... I think I saw I had some bars..." Alt mumbles, taking out his phone. He dials Chase's number-

—————

Bro lands in a small, dark space that smells like cleaning supplies. What is this? A closet? Nearby, Jackie lands in an empty waiting room, with rows of chairs and a couple different hallways branching off. There’s a directory on the wall listing things that sound very hospital-like. He hears a clatter inside a doorway labeled ‘Janitor.’

Bro oofs and then feels around the room, laughing nervously. "H-Hey! Who turned off the lights?? Hello??"

Jackie rubs his head and shakes off the disorientation and then perks up when he hears Bro's voice. He laughs and goes to see if he can open the door- "H-Hang on Bro-!"

As Jackie goes over to open the doorway—which isn’t locked so he’s easily able to—another doorway opens. The front glass doors leading into this waiting room get pulled open and in walks a man in a snapback cap and gray jacket. He sees Jackie right away and grins. “I don’t think you’re allowed to go in there, bro.”

Jackie jumps slightly and whips around, looking at the man that entered. "Uhh-"

Bro peeks his head out of the closet, his own gray cap on backwards. "Yooo! Haven't ran straight into another me right away in hot minute! Sup?" He grins wide, going to shut the door to the closet behind him.

"You and Alt are wayyy too casual about all this jumping business, dude." Jackie mumbles.

"Eh its starts to feel less and less crazy with each jump."

The other Chase stops walking, taking in the sight of another him popping out of the closet. “Uh—What the—huh?” He stammers.

"See dude, you freaked him out!" Jackie says, nudging Bro.

Bro shrugs, "It gets all the weirdness out of the way!"

And then someone else appears, walking down one of those hallways. A man with shoulder length hair and round glasses, pulling on a red jacket. “Man, fuck that paperwork,” he mutters. “Hey Chase. Hey… wait a minute.” He glances between Jackie and Bro and Chase. “Uhhhhh…”

Jackieboy and Bro both blink at the new man that enters and Bro grins, pointing, "Eyyy two for one! Lets goooo!"

Jackie hits him again.

The other Jackie and Chase just stare at them. Then Jackie quickly walks over to Chase, giving the two a wide berth.

“Chase, what the fuck is going on?” he whisper-shouts.

“I dunno, I just got here! Isn’t there supposed to be a receptionist or nurse or something?”

“I think the desk guy is on break and I ditched the nurse.”

"Hi! Totally can still hear you by the way," Bro says cheerily. "Sorry to freak you out- we're you guys! From a parallel universe!" He beams. "Don't know where the hell we are though- hospital? I guess?"

"Probably- I've been in enough to recognize the smell." Jackie nods. "Uh sorry- to be honest I'm just as fucking lost as you two must be. But, I'm Jackie Mann- This is Chase Brody, also known as Bro Fantastic."

Bro waves.

The two of them just stare. Chase stiffens slightly as his name is mentioned, but they’re otherwise quiet for a while.

“Riiiight,” Jackie says slowly, clearly not believing them. “Well… good luck then. We’ve uh, actually got a thing to go to so we’ll be leaving now.”

“We do?” Chase says, confused.

Jackie nudges him. “Yeah. We do. So let’s go.” He looks more than a little freaked out.

“Yeah that’s a fair reaction-“ Jackieboy sighs.

“Oh- okay. No worries,” Bro says, letting his happy demeanor drop, “Guess you all don’t see this kinda stuff often here. Before you go though, can you tell us what city this is? Or I guess what hospital this is?” He shrugs, “We need to find some other people so it’d be nice to know. I think my cell should work here-“

Jackie pulls out his and nods, “Yeah I think we got bars.”

"Um... y-yeah, sure," Chase says uncertainly. "This is Southpoint General Hospital in Corrigale."

Jackie looks at him like he's crazy but he ignores him. "Um... m-meeting up with friends?"

"...kinda yes kinda no-" Bro laughs, "I gotta find my little bro, Alt. Then- well... we gotta find a really bad guy before he... does something... bad."

"wayyy to sugarcoat it, bro," Jackie mutters.

"They're already freaked out I don't wanna freak em out more!!" Bro whisper-shouts.

Chase and Jackie glance at each other. "Um... one second, please," Chase says, pulling Jackie to the side.

They're out of earshot for Jackieboy and his normal range of hearing, but Bro can still hear them whispering.

"Okay so they're not crazy fans of mine. They'd know I don't have a brother."

"Why do they look like us? What sort of bit is this? Are we on a fucking prank show? Who does that in a hospital?"

"I-I don't know! But, I... I don't think they're with Anti."

"Only Anti would be able to make makeup that real-looking, though."

"Maybe they really just look like us? Look, can you really see Anti pairing up with someone to fuck with us?"

"...No. I don't think he'd risk coming back into the city to do something so weird."

"...Chase I know you can probably hear them but can we just try to approach this like we're nor- okay yeah no you're not listening to me." Jackie tries to whisper to Bro but can already see his friend's eyes locked onto the other two.

In a quick zip, Bro comes a bit closer to them- not too close but definitely closer than he was. He blinks at them and tilts his head, "You guys mentioned a guy named Anti? That's technically who we're looking for! Well- my Anti- not yours, I'm guessing. Looks like this guy has you all kinda spooked. Is he a bad guy here?"

Jackie's head whips over to Bro. His face blanches and he suddenly bolts for the front door.

"Jackie!" Chase shouts. He glances at Bro. "I-I'm so sorry, he's--he's gone through some stuff. Jackie!" And he hurries after him.

Bro's face falls and he looks apologetic. He's frozen for a second before he rushes out after them.

“Wait- Chase!" Jackie yells out. He then sighs loudly before rushing after him.

Outside is a cloudy afternoon sky. Jackie presses his back against a lamp post, hands over his mouth and breathing heavily. Chase is trying to comfort him. "They said it's not the same guy, they're not with him, it's okay, nothing's gonna happen. It's okay, it's okay."

Bro slows down and tries to approach, "I-I'm so so sorry...! It's just... my brother- he's called Anti too. R-Really only by me but... I... I didn't know it would make you react like that... I promise my brother isn't anyone who would hurt you. He's... a really good guy- and magic! So... um... im... im really sorry..."

“F-funny name, hah…” Jackie leans his head back against the lamp post, moving his hands from his mouth to his chest. “I-it’s not your fault. It’s okay. This is just… really weird.”

“Do you need a moment?” Chase asks him.

“I’m good now. Promise.” Jackie rubs his eyes under his glasses. “S-so… your brother. His name is Anti? A-and he does magic tricks? Th-that’s cool.”

Bro looks sheepish as he nods, "Yeah... he goes by Alt now though. I call him Anti- but only sometimes. Cuz that's the name he wanted when he grew up."

"He can do more than just magic tricks- he's a magician. He can glitch and shit-" Jackie adds.

Chase blinks. “…glitch? More than tricks? What do you…” He trails off, realizing this isn’t the time for questions.

Bro looks really concerned, "... You don't have to say anything you don't want to but... I'm guessing your Anti... he hurt you? I just... we might run into him... knowing our track records. I wanna know what we might be getting into. ...my brother could be with him."

“Yeah, he… hurt me,” Jackie mutters. “Our friends, too. Y-you, uh, your brother probably won’t run into him. We think he left town to avoid the police.”

Bro nods solemnly, "...I'd be more inclined to believe that normally but... one time we ended up in other countries and... and he got really hurt there so I..." He looks terrified for a second and grips his hands into fists, "..police- so he's a criminal. Okay... I... I just hope Alt didn't end up with him." He looks back at Chase and Jackie and smiles slightly. "...I'm sorry for all the trouble. We can... get out of your hair- thank you for answering our questions."

"It's okay, really." Jackie nods slowly.

"Yeah, uh... nice to meet you. If a little weird." Chase laughs a little.

Jackieboy laughs, “Yeah it’s a bit strange. Thanks for humoring us.”

And then Bro's phone starts ringing.

Jackieboy and Bro seem like they’re ready to head out when Bro blinks and digs out his phone. “Oh! It’s Alt!” He quickly answers.

"Oh good!" Chase smiles a little. "Glad to hear he's alright--" And then his phone gives off a text tone. He blinks, answering it. "Uh... huh." He shows Jackie what he just received.

A messages from a contact labeled Double J. Weird question but have you run into anyone claiming to be from an alternate universe?

Jackie blinks. "What the hell...?"

“Chase! Are you okay?” Alt’s voice asks frantically on the other end. “Where are you?”

Bro looks relived, “We’re okay, are you?”

“Yeah I’m fine- I ended up with Marvin and jj- did you know there’s no magic here??”

Bro’s eyes widen, “Really? None at all?”

“No- they were really freaked when I got here - then they told me about the Anti here and I got scared that you were-”

“We’re not with him. I’m with Jackie actually- and we found both of our doppelgängers. But we’re okay- we’re actually right outside a hospital. Southpoint general.”

“Okay… it’s probably best for us to keep a low profile so- maybe we can see if someone can… drive us…?” Alt’s voice sounds disgusted at the thought.

Bro laughs. “Yeah maybe- I can ask.”

“And we’ll need to keep out for signs of Mag… I dunno how he’s gonna react to a world like this.”

“…Right. Okay bro bro we’ll keep you updated…”

Meanwhile, Chase is having a text conversation with JJ. Yeah how did you know?

Some guy showed up in Marvin's house. And I know it sounds crazy, but we believe he's telling the truth about the different world thing.

Jackie glances at Bro and Jackieboy. "What the fuck?" he whispers.

Chase keeps texting. How do you know for sure?

He could do impossible things. Like teleport and transform. I'm not fucking with you when I say this.

No yeah youre not the type Sounds like the guy is talking with his friends on the phone now. Something about meeting up. Chase and Jackie glance at Bro again.

I think were on the other end of that conversation Ask the guys for proof about being from another world. they might do something strange.

"You guys... weren't being serious about the parallel world thing... were you?" Jackie asks slowly.

Bro and Alt end their conversation for now and the hero blinks back at Jackie. “Oh no I’m completely serious.” He says, not missing a beat. He then grins mischievously. “Want me to prove it?”

“Bro didn’t Alt just say-“ Jackie tries to warn.

“I’m! From a world! Where Chase Brody is a superhero~” Bro laughs and then steps back into the air, hovering a little bit off the ground. He beams.

Chase's mouth drops open. The phone falls from his hand.

Jackie just stares blankly. "I'm not... I'm not hallucinating, right, Chase?" he mutters.

Chase shakes his head slowly. Then he suddenly bursts into laughter. "Man. Why couldn't I be born in the universe where I'm a superhero?"

"I mean... technically... you were, I guess. And this is... you?" Jackie gestures at Bro.

"Yeah. Yeah." He bends down and picks his phone up again. "Well. Uh. You probably don't want to fly like that for too long. Or else you're gonna end up all over the internet."

“Yeah Chase get down you’re not even wearing your mask!” Jackieboy scolds as he grabs Bro by the jacket and pulls him down.

Bro laughs and touches down quickly, messing with his hair. “Yeahhh that’d be bad for you… don’t want that. Not being able to fly around is gonna suck ass though-“

“Oh boo hoo- you’ll have to be normal like the rest of us for a bit-“ Jackieboy grumbles.

Bro shrugs, “So Alt is actually with your friends Marvin and Jj! So he’s safe- for now at least…. But that only leaves the issue of Magnificent…”

“Magni…what?” Chase asks.

“Isn’t that Marvin’s name on Minecraft?” Jackie asks.

“Oh my god- that’s amazing.” Jackieboy laughs.

“I don’t know, I don’t play Minecraft.” Chase says.

“You should ask JJ to add you to his server, it’s really cool, there’s a mushroom biome at spawn—” Jackie starts to ramble.

“God- we should get back into minecraft-“ Jackie blog says to Bro.

“Maybe if I didn’t have to keep catching this damned cat.” Bro grumbles.

“We’re getting off topic.” Chase shakes his head. “Okay. Remembering what you guys said, Magnificent is probably the guy you’re looking for. The bad guy you have to stop. Am I right? Do you have any idea where he could be?”

Bro shakes his head, “I have no idea. We have ways to track each other- but no way to track Mag. Usually… he ends up finding his way back to us. And if this place has no magic… he’s probably gonna try to find Alt. He has the device we use to travel between worlds.”

Jackie sighs. "This is... so much."

"W-well, uh... I can at least give you guys a ride?" Chase suggests. "Jackie can't drive, and I don't know if you guys know the bus system here."

“Yeah if you don’t mind that’d be great,” Jackieboy replies with a smile. “I know it’s a lot- a have a hard time following along when it’s stuff just in our universe-“

“Oh but- you guys were going into the hospital for something right? We don’t want to get in the way of that.” Bro adds.

"Oh, Chase was picking me up," Jackie explains. "I was, uh, in there for a while. But I'm good to go now."

"I kinda wanted to stop by and check on Jack," Chase mutters. "But this feels more important. I'm sure he'd understand."

"The question is, would he believe us?"

Chase opens up the camera on his phone. "That's what photographic evidence is for. Hey, other me? You wanna take a picture together?"

"Oh my god." Jackie rolls his eyes, but still smiles.

Bro’s eyes light up and he bounces slightly. “Yeah! Let’s do it!” He rushes over to stand next to Chase.

“Dork!” Jackie calls with a grin.

"God, the dork-ness transcends universes, doesn't it?" Jackie agrees.

“Yeah- but unfortunately he’s my dork.” Jackieboy laughs.

"Alright, say cheese." Chase holds the camera up high and does a peace sign as he takes the picture. Bro copies the gesture with a big ol’grin.

"And we're good." Chase puts his phone away. "We can do more later. I think we should head out now. I want to meet your brother. Oh! Wait a minute. He must be an alternate version of Anti, then? A... nice one?"

"Now that is hard to believe," Jackie says. "Oh, uh, I'm sure your brother is great, though."

Bro beams and nods. Then he messes with his hair. “Yeah- Alt’s a good guy. He’s not like a lot of Antis we meet. You’ll see. I uh- I think Alt said they’re at Marvin’s house?”

Jackie pauses. "I'm looking forward to meething him, then." "Great, that's not too far," Chase says. "Come on. I'm parked over here."

-----------

Magnificent lands on a carpeted floor. This is a long hallway of some kind, lined with doors that have numbers printed on them. Probably in a hotel. ...No, not a hotel. It's too... clinical for that. The magic ice holding his arms to his sides is gone. Not melted, just disappeared like it was never there, leaving only a lingering chill.

Magnificent pushes himself up, suppressing the chill that the ice left behind. He looks around the hallway curiously. He, of course, tries to look around for any sign of magic nearby. Surely there must be something?

... Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Usually he's able to sense at least some distant magic, but not this time. In fact, he almost feels his own magic more drained than normal. What the fuck?

Magnificent's stomach drops dramatically. There's no magic here? ...oh no.

There are voices coming from around a corner. They're coming closer.

He hears voices coming and he curses, quickly using his power to change him into his Jack the Magnificent disguise. But- less showman-y and more... business like. He tries to casually look like he belongs.

A group of three people round the corner. There's a short woman with black hair, wearing a white coat, a taller man in some sort of beige uniform that kind of looks like nurse's scrubs, and a man with brown hair wearing an off-white sweater, holding a notebook and pencil bag.

"--really glad it's been working out," the woman is saying. "I'd love to see what you're working on some time, but you don't have to share if you don't want to."

"No, I know, thank you," the brown-haired man says. "I feel like I should show you, yes? I mean, there is the therapy in art therapy--" He's the first to notice Magnificent. And he stops short, staring at him, confused. "...Marvin?"

The woman and other man also notice.

Magnificent stiffens. ...he knows that accent. He waves timidly, trying to seem friendly. "H-Hey! Whats up?"

...he's so fucked-

"Um... how did you get in here?" the woman asks. She looks at the tall man. "Oliver?"

"What? I didn't let anyone in."

The woman sighs. She gives Magnificent--under the impression that it's Marvin--a stern look. "You know we have security cameras, right? You can't just break in whenever you want. Aren't you still paying that fine?" She's close enough that Magnificent can see she has a name tag: Dr. Rya Laurens.

Magnificent tries his best to process this all quickly and sticks his hands in his pockets, shrugging. "What? I can't visit my good friend Schneep? Seems your security is a little lax so- you can thank me for showing you its flaws." He tries to laugh.

Schneep blinks. "When did you cut your hair...?"

Mag blinks at Schneep and pats his hair, "Oh uh- recently. It was getting in the way... you know?"

"Oh. I thought you liked it long." Schneep looks confused, but he accepts this.

Dr. Laurens still looks a bit annoyed. "Well... you still can't just do that. We're all on edge after what happened with Anti. You'll have to go."

"Ah right... the Anti thing." Mag says, nodding like he understands. "Dunno why that just... slipped my mind.”

"Um... w-well, he came all this way, we can... talk for a little bit," Schneep stammers. "I-I can show him my room."

"I don't know if we can allow that..." Laurens says slowly. "But... we can go down to the visitor's room, if you want."

“It's alright, Henrik- I can just come back and visit another time. Properly, of course." Mag tries to smile charmingly. "Though- i turned myself around so- maybe you can least help me find the way back out?"

Schneep chuckles. "Your sense of direction is still terrible, then?"

Laurens also smiles a bit. "Okay. Sure. Schneep, you want to come with?"

"Yes, yes, of course."

"Alright, then. Oliver, do you mind?"

Oliver shrugs. "Nah."

"Very professional sounding of you," Schneep mutters.

"It's this way, we'll take the stairs," Laurens says, hurriedly turning around back the way they came.

"Ah thanks- 'ppericate it." Mag smiles and follows after them.

As they walk Magnificent lingers behind, trying to see if he can probe into any of their minds... just to see what universe they're dealing with. He tries to look through Schneep's mind first.

There is absolutely no resistance to Magnificent's probing, but what he sees doesn't really make much sense. Schneep's thoughts and memories are in scattered fragments, interspersed with things that look incredible--bleeding shadows moving on the walls, eyes dangling from the ceiling, the feeling of things crawling beneath the skin--but aren't... consistent in the way real things are. The figure of a man with two-colored eyes loom large in his memories, half his face terribly scarred. Fear is linked to this figure and his cruel grins. Magnificent sees a man in a red hood screaming, arm bent at an awkward angle, and flashes of dead people's faces. There's a man with a mustache and gentle smile whose face sometimes flickers into the scarred man's, there's one with a snapback cap who's smiling at him, one with green-dyed hair who has the memory of sickness and guilt attached to him, one with a long wavy ponytail--ah, that's his other-world counterpart. The more recent memories are the most stable, many of them involving hour-long conversations with this Laurens woman, all of them taking place in this building. A hospital. But not the normal kind of hospital.

Hmm... so Schneeplestein is in a mental institution. Fascinating. But, not helpful. It seems there's no mysterious power or anything to harness here. The two-colored eyed man seems interesting but not in a way that captures his attention. Sure, he could conquer these guys minds and maybe suck their life forces if he's desperate. But... what is there to gain? Boring... hm... what to do...

They reach the first floor, winding through some hallways towards the front of the building.

"You know they say I will be able to leave soon," Schneep says. "Not on my own, a-and not... permanently, I mean. I'm not ready for that. But for small trips into the city. Maybe we could... do something when that happens." He trails off.

"That'd be nice, Henrik." Mag replies shortly, still caught up in his head.

Something has been bothering Schneep about Marvin during this short trip. He's trying to ignore the paranoia, but it's hard. Is this... really Marvin?

...He doesn't think it is. There's something in the way that he walks that's off. He's too... confident. In a way that almost reminds him of... him.

"Schneep, are you okay?" Laurens asks. "Remember to breathe. You're not breathing."

"I-I-I am f-fine," Schneep says. "Um... Marvin has been in this area before, h-he should know where to go from here."

Magnificent pauses as he realizes Schneep seems to be more wary all of sudden. His right eye burns bright green as he tilts his head at Schneep. "Is something the matter, Hen? You don't want to lead me to the door?"

Schneep gasps as his eye starts to glow. He staggers backwards, dropping his notebook and pencil bag.

"Hey, be careful," Oliver says, crouching down to get those for him.

"Schneep?" Laurens follows Schneep's line of sight--and sees Magnificent's eye glowing green. Her jaw drops. "...what?"

Magnificent starts to laugh, "Oh- did I give something away?" He chuckles a bit more and shakes his head and as he raises his head again, you can see the scars around his left eye. "Oh well... cat's out of the bag, now, isn't it~?"

A bloom of spiraled magic appears behind him as he laughs, "Don't know what I'll do in such a pathetic world but... a puppet is a puppet~!"

"Wh-what is--th-this is not possible--" Schneep stammers, backing up.

Laurens reaches for the pager on her belt, about to call for security.

Oliver pops up and pushes his way to the front, protecting the other two.

Mag starts to approach them slowly, grinning sinisterly as he puts a finger to his lips.

"Hush now, kittens. Don't want to alert the other normies to my magnificence just yet~"

The effects are instant. They don't know how to pull away. They don't know what Magnificent is even trying to do. The moment their eyes land on the magic, all of them are instantly under his spell. Schneep lets out a final squeak of protest before the magic completely takes over his mind.

"Mmmm excellent job, kittens.... don't fight it now." He giggles and prowls closer. He goes straight to Schneep and lifts up his chin. He hums, "Oh... I missed seeing this face under my power~! You know, Schneeplestein... I think you can aid me quite well..." He looks at Laurens and Oliver and tilts his head. He then snaps and shoos them off. "You two. I have no need of you. Lock yourself in one of these rooms and forget me and Henrik were ever here, won't you?"

Laurens and Oliver nod. They walk over to the nearest room, with Laurens dropping her keycard on the ground before closing the door on them.

"What will we do now?" Henrik asks quietly.

"Hm... what will we do indeed?" Mag giggles. He looks around and then hums. "We should get away from the cameras... we have a naughty cub to find." He grabs Henrik and in a snap, him and Schneep disappear in a flicker of static out of the hospital.

#SATCV #SATCV PW #alt anti #bro fantastic #swap magnificent #jackie mann #as someone who's only read like a 3rd of the PW timeline this was wild for me ajhkja #but also very fun #its not often the boys meet people without some kind of magic fuckery!#also mag is such a brat in this section it was kinda fun to play XD

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