#often thinking they have every right just because they create and share fan content for free

[canichangemyblogname]

Thank you for saying what you said about Athena and Hen. They are such good characters and Aisha and Angela play them so well and yet in fandom I often see people strip them of all their complexities and reduce them down to what's essentially the mammy stereotype which as a black fan is so disturbing and disheartening to see. Also thanks for saying that little bit about Maddie because y'all she suffered from parentification and I absolutely hate seeing the abuse she suffered being wrapped in a cute little bow by calling her Buck's real mom. Finally I know you didn't mention Eddie but wanted to talk about how I hate the whole Eddie's a bitch thing. Because yes Eddie is bitchy and I love that but fandom often runs with that one aspect of his personality to the point where it feels they're depicting him as the sassy/spicy Latino stereotype.

I don't think people are meaning any harm by doing this and I don't think they're intentionally being shitty but I don't like how fandom has this tendency to strip women and characters of colour of any ounce of complexity, minimize their other relationships and make them them into one dimensional figures often in an effort to prop up white characters.

I haven't been in this fandom for very long but it's just been really depressing. Like for a show that has a diverse roster of characters and shines the spotlight on each and every one of them it's maddening to see a fandom that is not normal about women, queer people and POC.

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[dinarosie]

hi i am actually very interested in the fact that you are "anti-marauders" because i have a strong feeling you've never actually had a conversation with a (real, not tik-tokified) marauders fan. i don't particularly "hate" snape, but i do NOT think he's a good person. i have a lot of similar nuanced feeling pertaining to peter, and i will admit that james and sirius are often childish and did bully snape. i've decided to reread half-blood prince, and rewatch the movie, so i can have a real conversation of my opinion on snape, and i will send in another ask later.

also, sectumsemprus (is that it?) is his SIGNATURE spell- for reference, voldemort's signature spell is avada kedavra, and harry's is probably expelliarmus. do you know how many times you have to use a spell for it to become your signature spell?

Hi there! Thanks for reaching out.

First, I want to clarify that I use anti-Marauders tags not because I created this blog solely to spread hate against them or to harass their fans, but because it’s a general Tumblr rule. For nearly any post criticizing a character, you’re expected to use anti tags, as fans of that character might not want to see critical posts about their favorite. This ensures fans who may not want to see criticism of their favorite characters can filter or avoid it if they choose.

Now, you mentioned that I probably haven’t talked to a “real” Marauders fan, which is why I have anti-Marauders posts. But honestly, I don’t think all fans of the Marauders share the same views, nor is it possible to talk to every fan before making a post. I see a lot of anti-Snape content daily—much of it from Marauders fans—and often get an idea for a post that I decide to share. I imagine most bloggers do this; it’s part of engaging with fandoms online. I try to offer thoughtful critiques when possible, but that does take time. Sometimes, seeing particularly harsh, illogical, or double-standard comments pushes me to post a short, sarcastic response—one that mirrors the style of some of the content I encounter.

Overall, I wouldn’t call myself “anti All of Marauder fans.” Yes, I use terms like “Marauders fans” and “anti-Marauders” tags, but my issue is only with fans who unreasonably hate Snape and mock him (even for things like his background) or who attack Snape supporters, labeling them with hurtful terms simply for supporting him. Outside of those specific cases, I have no problem with other fans.

As for your question about Sectumsempra, I understand you’re suggesting it became Snape’s “signature” spell through frequent, harmful use. I looked up the reference you mentioned, and here’s the passage from Deathly Hallows where Lupin speaks of Sectumsempra:

“He lost his hood during the chase. Sectumsempra was always a specialty of Snape’s. I wish I could say I’d paid him back in kind, but it was all I could do to keep George on the broom after he was injured, he was losing so much blood.”

It’s worth noting the term Lupin uses here: specialty, not signature. Sectumsempra first appears in Half-Blood Prince as an unknown spell by an unnamed creator. After Harry uses it on Malfoy, it’s still an unfamiliar spell until Snape admits to creating it at the end of the book. But in Deathly Hallows, right after the Battle of the Seven Potters, Sectumsempra becomes widely associated with Snape (via Lupin’s words).

While in Half-Blood Prince the goal is to keep the creator of this spell anonymous, in Deathly Hallows it’s crucial to know exactly who used Sectumsempra during the Battle of the Seven Potters. The inconsistency here seems intentional. The author isn’t referencing Sectumsempra’s notoriety here to highlight Snape’s past; rather, I believe she brings it up as an important clue about the future. This clue gains significance after we view Snape’s memories, especially after reading Dumbledore’s line to him just before the Battle of the Seven Potters:

And Severus, if you are forced to take part in the chase, be sure to act your part convincingly… I am counting upon you to remain in Lord Voldemort’s good books as long as possible, or Hogwarts will be left to the mercy of the Carrows..."

But in THE PRINCE’S TALE, we see that Snape defies Dumbledore’s advice—he steps out of his role as a Death Eater and targets another Death Eater with a spell that’s highly conspicuous, one that could jeopardize his cover. (If successful, and had it hit another Death Eater, they would have immediately recognized the spell as Snape’s own.) So why would Snape make such an irrational choice? Why take such a risk? To save the life of Remus Lupin.

This scene is one of many that show Snape’s growth and commitment to doing the right thing—not out of loyalty to Lily, not for Dumbledore, nor for any personal reward.( And that's exactly why, in the chapter where Snape's true loyalty and the real story behind him are finally revealed, this spell and its backstory are brought up.) As he admitted in his iconic line to Dumbledore, he had grown weary of watching lives be lost when he had the power to save them. Whether it’s an old bully, Lucius and Narcissa’s son, or James and Lily’s, Snape steps in without hesitation to protect a life—even if it endangers his own

Another reason I don’t believe the author’s aim here is to highlight Snape’s crimes as a Death Eater is that there are numerous scenes throughout the series discussing Snape’s actions during that time. Yet, we never see any indication or hint from the author that Snape committed serious harm or atrocities while serving as a Death Eater. In fact, in his argument with Bellatrix, it’s mentioned that Snape actively tried to avoid participating in missions. During his planning conversations with Dumbledore, we’re also told that his soul has never been tainted by murder. And in Karkaroff’s trial, there’s no crime or accusation he can use against Snape.

[bidisaster-peanut-romano]

Throughout the entire game, who do you think are some of the most underrated or under-appreciated characters?

stumbling into the askbox whyyy hello there!!! it had been a while!!

OKAY SO. let's start from one fact: every. single. character has something special about them. so like the easy answer is... anyone, lmao. truth be told we (the whole community) has been around for llke, 18 years (WOAH) and some sides are completely unexplored. even just from the idea that... have you guys ever noticed how little content there is around about nerds and jocks, for exmple? and i don't only mean art but also writing, analysis, metas, thoughts and such. not to mention the townies, the townies, when, having some of them been given some actually adult attributes, there would be a lot to unpack.

i feel like this is a) mostly for the nerds, that the rightful fisgust for the horrible thing they did to mandy discourages a lot from engaging with them as characters too, and b) because they are quite overshadowed by the fan favorite preps and greasers. which, i mean, very legit. but i think that they do have a lot of potential, again, in terms of characterization and themes, and i feel like we are collectively missing out on a lot.

and there's also the fact that, even with the fan-favorites, there is so little tapping into the more serious and sometimes mature aspects. i wouldn't say christy is neglected by the fandom, but it's not often that i read someone talking about her repressed anger that explodes whenever she feels too much, that heirloom of her father that of curse she doesn't have, she isn't a problem boy like her brother, what do you mean with that, i could use this tie to strangle you goddammit! or vance, that we all love as the sunshine jokester of the greaser and heartbreaker queer icon, but how come none of us ever mention him having a canonical addiction, and what if his messy dating habits have to do with that, too? what if he's running from something inside himself, rushing to next best thing just so he can feel something?

but this is just me rambling as an introduction oops. so, just trying to list a couple of my favorites:

thad carlson (& dan wilson) (putting them together bc they're intrinsecally connected and while i do stand by the fact that he's wildly underappreciated in the fandom i would hit dan in the face with a brick): i would lterally give my first born for these two. they are what they actually wanted to write when they wrote about cain and abel. i'm not sure what is the exact reason why they have different last names, and i don't wanna enter headcanon territory here. what it does unavoidably indicate, though, is that they were doomed from the start. like it was written in their names. so, picture this: they were in the nerds together. they suffered the bullying, the abuse together. the humiliation tasted like blood in their mouths and shone like the stars they'd see with their heads smashed in a locker, but at least they knew their brother would've been there to hold them. there's something very visceral about suffering together with a brother. like the blood they share creates somewhat of a shell, one that can protect them from what is outside, that can give them the comfort that they will never be alone. whether they like it or not, their brother will forever be with them; it's inside them. except that thad had the rage of a wounded animal; dan had the fear of a small prey. so, while thad kept standing tall and proud and chin high against his bullies, dan started training and morphing until he could be accepted in the jocks. dan wasn't the bullied anymore. he was the bully. while his brother was still on the other side of the war- the side of the eternal losers, that is. the side that, no matter how many battles they will win, they will always be at a disadvantage. so thad has got all the hurt of having been betrayed by a half of himself, like the phantom pain of a lost limb. and the hurt makes him angrier and angrier and when he wants to take revenge on the jocks his brother is the first target he wants, because, see, he is the victim, his brother is cain who has killed abel. but also dan has got his head on backwards to look out for enemies and for anyone who might uncover him as the fraud he is, the way he just thought- they are just bullying me for what i am, so what if i become someone different? except that it's not like he didn't feel like a loser anymore, he just feels like a loser with a football sweater. so at that point you look at the direction of that violence, at where the anger and the resentment lies, and you stop there and wonder. who's cain there? who's gonna be the victim, who the executioner? like nathaniel orion said, "i want to kill him sometimes. i think sometimes he wants to die". i love them ur honor.

otto tyler: i have no literal idea why there is so so so little about him. admittedly, content about townies is in gnereal harder to track down, since they have... no last names.... for the most part. but the otto tag is absolutely desolated. this boy is what you'd call too angry to be this young. his first response to anything is extreme violence and fantasies of it. playing his audios you will be met with die, kill, die, kill, kill, die, die. and all of his vitriol is poured on the school, like they have all come together specifically to hunt him down. and he's been canonically hospitalized, as well; when you walk in the asylum for the first time (galloway away i believe) he tells you not to "anger the watcher"- but who is this watcher? the composition of the scene seems to implies it is the statue in the courtyard; the most coherent correspondence would be the orderlies you will have to avoid as you walk past them; maybe otto himself has just been told not to anger the watcher by the people who are supposed to take care of him, but that are just playing with his mind to make him too afraid not to behave. which, incidentally, doesn't sound too different from what he might have suffered at school. otto will ask you if you have ever punched a wall. he will swear he hates everyone in the school, that everyone in the school hated him, he will threaten to destroy it. otto is a landmine, he's an unstable kid who just needed some ground to stand on, and instead they placed him all alone on a shaking earth. all is anger is desperation, it's having spent too much time without a support system, too much time bound -to a chair, in a cell, in a straitjacket- surrounded by people who couldn't understand him. who stifled his expression instead of channeling all the feelings he had all the time, exploding and intense in an overwhelming and violent way. i like to think of him as an artist. he mentions tattoos; i like to imagine he's learning to do them himself. that he's finding that as an outlet for his expression. and yeah overall. i am a lot fond of otto, and i think he would have a lot to say.

mr. wiggins: look, this guy is super unlucky. he's the only teacher with no class minigame; he's only ever walking around, and if you saw him you probably mistook him for the more familiar mr. matthews. but believe me when i tell you he's a real one. example 1: when someone snithces to him, he says something along the lines of "thank you, but i will never be able to trust you again". BRO. let me tell you, in 1968 this guy was OUT on his college campus and he was MARCHING and RIOTING with workers and students. he even mentions having spent a night or two in JAIL. he will walk into class and say the nastiest things about reagan while he keeps saying that as a teacher he will have to be politically neutral as if he didn't just have a fight with hattrick about socialism.

[velourfant]

on fanfiction, fic authors, and the (misplaced) expectation that fanfiction should be an extension of the source material rather than…fanfiction

forgive the negativity, i promise this won’t be a norm :)

i’ve been writing fic as a hobby since i was in elementary, first for the TMI series, then 1D (lol), then haikyuu, genshin, you name it. for the most part, writing has afforded me unique opportunities to connect with fandom, even if many of my earlier fics never saw the light of day.

while i’ve received a lot of love from the communities i do publish fics for, i’ve seen an uptick in entitled fic readers publicly bashing fanfics because authors “mischaracterize” characters from the source material.

then, i watched a tiktok about a renowned bakudeku fic:

*i’m not a diehard bakudeku or my hero fan, nor do i consume any fan content for the series, so if i’m missing something regarding the bakudeku fic, you’ll have to forgive my ignorance. the point i wanted to make extends beyond mha anyway.

…and realized this problem was not endemic to the fandoms i’m active in, but a larger sign of souring fandom etiquette.

i don’t care how entitled you think you are to reading “good” fic. voluntarily consuming someone’s work and then complaining about it because it doesn’t meet your “standards” is a terrible way to interact with fandom spaces. you’re allowed to have opinions within your circles. everyone does. but the moment you publicize hate so you can interaction farm + round up other entitled fic readers (who often don’t produce their own fic), you’re inviting negativity into a space that you have no right to police. what gives you the authority to criticize someone else’s labor of love?

to begin with, the expectation that every fic writer’s interpretation of the chars must perfectly align w the source material imposes a skill/time barrier on fan work creation, draining all the fun out of the creative process. even if someone knows in their head how x and y are characterized, the disconnect between your brain and the words you put on a page takes time to mitigate. writing is a skill honed with practice. in other words, it’s difficult to convey what you want with words. by expecting fic authors to faithfully abide by source material characterization instead of allowing them creative freedom to INTERPRET ART (because believe it or not, these chars are just another piece of art that can be analyzed from different angles) as they see fit, you’re limiting the pool of creators to one of the following:

1) fic authors who understood the source material characters “correctly” on first read

2) fic authors who didn’t initially, “correctly” understand the characters, but could reread the source material and capture them through thorough study

i’ve missed some nuances, sure, but doesn’t that sound ridiculous? because i think it sounds ridiculous.

a suggestion, if i may: how about you just don’t read a fic you don’t like instead of lobbing unrealistic expectations at people who share their work out of love for the source material? how about you create your own fic since you’re soooo confident that deku wouldn’t wear this or that? legit why don’t you try contributing to the space instead of clout chasing and driving fic authors out? if you have so much criticism, then please, by all means, bless us with your vision. only through creating will you see how difficult it is to abide by your standards.

and if you’re a fic author who criticizes other fic authors’ works, shame on you. everyone in the space is interpreting art. congrats on being able to map out “canon-compliant” scenes or dialogue. stop holding other people who aren’t quite there yet/have no interest in doing so to the same expectations.

[danielfuckingricciardo]

Why Anita Driver should be Stopped - An Essay(ish) Post

Hi. So I don’t often do long posts like this, you probably know me as a fic writer and shitposter, but this situation has been irking me since I first read about it and so I only felt it right to explain why.

First off, I wanna say that I understand what she’s doing (I’m going to refer to Anita as she/her throughout this though I have no clue on the author’s actual gender identity). I think she’s very intelligent, using pastiche and parody to create content tailored towards a certain specific audience.

But as someone who knows their fandom history, and has moved in fanfiction circles for over 10 years, the attention one specific book I’m not going to refer to by title because I may throw up in my mouth a little, has received has me very worried for F1 RPF writers as a whole.

RPF has always been a main stay of fanfiction culture. Though there are many ‘antis’ who think it’s wrong and inappropriate to write about real people, RPF fandoms, think One Direction, BTS etc have always been some of the biggest out there.

And I’m sure you’ve seen as popular fan works such as the ‘After’ series by Anna Todd and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ by E.L. James have transitioned from fan work into published original novels.

Because of this, fan works are booming. Fanfiction is less of a dirty little secret now, confined to locked sites and email chains, but is something that many people know about even if they don’t consume it themselves.

And so, enter Anita Driver. Capitalising on the BookTok trend of ‘spicy’ fiction (what I would call erotica), the author has taken it upon herself to self publish a novel in that similar style but using Daniel Ricciardo not just as inspiration, but as the main protagonist.

I get what she’s trying to do, I really do. I can see that it’s parody, it’s not meant to be taken seriously, but firstly it’s illegal and secondly it really puts fanfiction communities at risk.

Part One: Defamation

Legally, you can’t take someone else’s identity and profit off of it without their explicit consent to do so. There’s a reason Harry Styles became Hardin Scott, and Edward Cullen became Christian Grey. That’s someone else’s intellectual property, or their identity. You cannot legally make a profit out of that. The subject could quite easily build a lawsuit against the author, and the author would have no grounds for defence. There’s a reason AO3 do not allow you to share fundraising links or anything else similar to that, and it’s to protect themselves and the authors against possible lawsuits.

I’d also just like to add that there’s plenty of erotic F1 inspired books out there. I haven’t read them myself but I know that the ‘Dirty Air’ series draws inspiration from current drivers on the grid, but doesn’t explicitly mention anyone real by name! Every character is the intellectual property of the author, it is original fiction that can safely make a profit.

By using Daniel Ricciardo’s image and personality, Anita Driver is putting herself at risk, in this case, not for theft of intellectual property, but of defamation. I haven’t read the book, of course I haven’t read the book, but I can easily believe that the content within could be considered to be defamatory as it may damage public perceptions of him. Now I’m no expert on law, I took a semester of media law and that’s it, but people have definitely sued for less.

In U.K. law (which I’m going off because I know the most about it) “A statement is not defamatory unless its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the reputation of the claimant.” (x) It could easily be said that portraying Daniel in this way would cause damage to his reputation. We know his image isn’t squeaky clean, but having this book using his name could easily lead people to believe that he was in some way associated with its production. I don’t think anyone would like their public perception to be that they actively encourage and fund the production of erotica about them.

In a lawsuit, Amazon could also be held liable for this, as their website is the main distribution platform for the book, and Anita Driver is a pseudonym and and an unknown.

“It is a defence for the operator to show that it was not the operator who posted the statement on the website. The defence is defeated if the claimant shows that it was not possible for the claimant to identify the person who posted the statement.” (x) If Anita Driver remains anonymous, Amazon could easily be held liable in a court case. Because of this, it would be in their best interests to remove the book to avoid this. (I do not like Amazon, and while they would easily be able to fight the court case with their billions, it would be much easier for them to remove the book and avoid any possible cases.)

So honestly, it is easy to see why this book is a danger to the author. Now I’m not saying that Daniel would necessarily sue. I think he’d probably just laugh it off even if it does make him feel uncomfortable (which it probably does, it would me!) because he has more important things to do. But I honestly don’t know how F1 and Liberty Media might react to this, they would definitely be more likely considering Daniel’s Reputation in turn reflects their own.

Part Two: Danger to Fan Works

This leads me in nicely to part two, actually, because legal threats against fanfiction writers have been a real problem to various communities over the years. Anne Rice, creator of the ‘Interview with a Vampire’ series, had all works purged from the internet in the early 2000s, and threatened writers with legal action if they continued to post fanfiction.

Fanfiction has always been a niche. It’s a small part of the internet for those who want to put their blorbos in situations, or just to think about them fucking nasty. But fan works haven’t always been accepted. Many people still look down on fanfiction, particularly those feature OCs (original characters) or reader inserts.

Anita Driver’s book would be more at home on Wattpad than Kindle Unlimited. It is a fan work. It is written by fans, for fans, and should be kept to that specific audience (without paying for it of course, because as I said, it’s very illegal!)

A work of fanfiction being a book is nothing new, as I mentioned earlier, the ‘After’ series and ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ started out life as fanfiction. But when published, they were no longer fanfiction, they became original works of their own.

Putting fan works out in the open like that only threatens the F1 RPF community. It leaves us open, vulnerable, more so than normal. Sites like AO3 can only protect us to a certain extent, we can lock fics, sure, but that only stops those who don’t have an account from accessing our works.

If this one book is out there, who knows what may happen next. All it takes is for someone to say ‘I don’t want works featuring me published online and I will threaten a lawsuit’ and we’re back to email chains and password locked neocities webpages.

So it genuinely makes me worry.

And with the recent development of Dax Shepard sharing the book with Daniel himself, I feel that it’s all just too close. Fanfiction is never meant to be seen or read by its original subjects. Sure, they may actively seek it out if they want to, but unless they explicitly consent to it, they shouldn’t be seeing it. Daniel has had no say in the matter, it seems. It is being forced on him, which is going to look bad for the fanfiction community as a whole.

Part Three: Conclusion

Honestly, I don’t know whether I’m just being overly freaked out by this whole thing, I hope it just nicely blows over, the book disappears from people’s minds and we get to just keep our niche little side of the internet safe. But part of me is scared.

I’m scared for what may come, if the book is popular, will people try and emulate it? Will people start ripping fics from Tumblr/AO3/Wattpad to sell on Amazon to make a quick buck off the back of this? And will we have another Anne Rice type situation which kills the community completely?

I don’t know. And that’s what worries me. I hope that this whole thing blows over, that Daniel isn’t too freaked out, and that Anita Driver stops using ai image generators to make her book covers (Lance has waaay too many fingers on her most recent one. Caught you out babes x)

This is the end, for now. I suppose I’ll probably add to this if there are any more developments, and if anyone has anything to add (maybe some better law knowledge because mine is basic) please feel free!

Thanks for reading.

[pinkomcranger]

Previous anon, thank you so much for your voice about Saga and her space in the fandom. Your reply was amazing. I honestly can't even add to it, you said so much and hit it right on the head in every regard. I think you made a valid point too, there are fans who don't create but want to see her represented in the fandom space too. I didn't think of it like that. I'll focus on that and for the future share Saga and Andercase content not just because of that but love em so much too. I say this as someone who loves all the chararcters and multiple ships outside of her but I treasure her and the ship so much so makes little sense not to show that. My stuff isn't quality but still can share lol I should back up my words and show it with content. Also, thank you for inviting me to talk in your inbox about anything with Saga/Andercase. I'll be sure to when ideas strike and hope it can encourage others too! Would love to see the fan base show her love like every other chararcter gets. Not completely unrelated but would love if people cared about Mr. Door too. There was a ship fic with him and Alan but it's lost now and like Saga he's often on the back burner despite how interesting he is too (insanely interesting tbh). Besides, I'm sure the actors and would be just as appreciative as thr others have been to already loved chararcters.

You're very welcome! I still have many thoughts regarding Saga and her place in fandom, I might create a part 2 at some point. When I finally entered this fandom, I fully thought there would be so much dedicated to Saga, because here we had such a beautifully written and portrayed character, that it felt like a no-brainer. To see that wasn't true, to see her glossed over for characters like Casey and Zane bothered me on every level.

It's one of the reasons I came out of my near-decade hiatus, if I didn't see what I wanted, and I could create at least a little, then I was going to do that. I was extremely hesitant, mostly because I was late to the game (hah, Saga would like that pun), I didn't dip my toes in until last December. I wanted the fandom to see that Saga was still appreciated, she was still seen, it wasn't just Casey/Alan/Zane.

To see you're willing to throw your hat back in the ring pleases me beyond words, but I'll try to find them regardless. First and foremost, please don't think whatever you create is less than when that couldn't be further from the truth. I know a lot of us content creators tend to hold ourselves up to others, if we don't get as many likes/reblogs/kudos/comments as other's ships or favored characters, that MUST mean we're not good enough, right? It's hard to believe, and something I still struggle with, but it's not true.

There's various reasons why it seems our content might seem to be skipped over. Maybe the idea doesn't hit right for some people, maybe they can't connect, maybe they don't relate, or maybe it's just not their fav character/ship. That's certainly their right as fans.

Secondly, at the end of the day, sometimes you just have to create what you want to see. It can be annoying, to wonder why you have to create something that should be so obvious to everyone else. But that's the thing about fandom, sometimes you just have to show you're here to stay.

I guarantee you there will be others who love your content, even if you don't think it's that great. I had to be reminded of that myself, by two great friends and basically pioneers of writing for Saga and Andercase (@wondrouswendy and @hearts-are-connected ). I know they're some of the great ones, and they'll always cheer me on, and I know they'll extend the same courtesy to you.

Man, Warlin Door is a whole different topic for me! He's EXTREMELY interesting, well-written, and portrayed. To see him ignored even more than Saga sucks, another character I thought would get love. I would love for the actors to see that they're seen and heard as much as Ilkka and Sam are. They deserve nothing less.

I very much look forward to seeing your content! You have a very eager fan here.

[talenlee]

Game Pile: Gensou Narratograph

I’ve spoken in the past about the sprawling storytelling tradition of the Touhou Project. If you’re unfamiliar, the way I consider Touhou is not a series of videogames or even a franchise as you might conventionally interpret it, but rather a sort of communally shared storytelling space created by a large body of uncapitalised creative sources. Despite the fact that Touhou is the product of, initially, the work of one person (working in concert with an audience and then a community), it isn’t really reasonable to call it a franchise or even a universe. Those things imply a structure, a sort of coherence or an overarching ownership, and that’s something that Touhou absolutely does not have.

What Touhou has is a community and that community connect with other members of their community in almost any communication media you can find. It’s games, sure but it’s also doujinshi, fanfiction, fan art and in pretty much every single place people can create stuff, you’re going to see people creating something Touhou adjacent. In this way, Touhou stretches from a source point out and into pretty much every single other place people can be. I don’t have any proof but I’m confident that someone on the Antarctic Research Station of some country or another had a Marisa sticker inside their backpack or whatever.

Touhou is a lot of things, which is to say, I better watch my mouth. What I think I can say, pretty unreservedly, is that Touhou is distinct. Touhou material does not tend to look like or present itself as anything but Touhou. There are other materials full of girls who look like they’re twelve and wear numerous petticoats and ostentatious hats, but most of them succeed at looking like Touhou and not so much like their own thing distinct from Touhou.

What Touhou makes tends to be made for an audience of Touhou fans, which is why some of the games have a reputation of being brutally, comically hard. There’s a sort of deliberate alienation at work: Don’t you dare ask Touhou to change for you, you need to change for Touhou! Yeah the game is unfair and hard and you can’t get the good ending if you can’t skate through these bullets right, that’s how we like it! That’s how you know you’re a real fan!

(This is not really how they talk)

(most of the time)

(Since they left 4chan)

Anyway it’s this pre-existing weirdoscape that gave rise to what is, to my eye, simply the strangest goddamn Tabletop Roleplaying game I’ve ever seen.

Content Warning: I’m not really a Touhou fan and this game doesn’t change my opinion of it. If you’re heavily invested in this game being a good game and want to see me praise it, you won’t, so it’s probably best to just jog on.

Just a note: I’m reading an unofficial translation of Gensou Narratograph. I’m not fluent in Japanese, and any time I think a phrase is badly written or clunky or strange, I let it go. That’s not important to this and treating the game as if that’s vital is a great way to cut yourself out of a lot of really cool translated TTRPGs.

If you’ve been paying attention to me talking about Tabletop RPGs for any length of time, you might find that because I don’t get to play them very often I usually look at them in terms of their approach, their interface, and their offerings. Oo, what fancy words. What do they mean?

The approach of a game is how it induces you to play it. What’s the introduction to the book like, when does it start you playing it?

The interface of a game is how it plays. What does the game let you dick around with? What are the systems in the game space that you can play around with and that you can express using the game’s systems and how does the game’s systems make them work? Simplified, what does the game give you as a button and what happens when you push it? This includes things like if the book is well-written, how you handle it, and if it looks nice.

The offerings of a game is the promise of the fantasy you get to indulge if you play it! Whether it’s becoming an adventurer engaged in tactical combat or a spacefaring captain doing deals for rare goods, the offering of a game is how all the other stuff makes space for you to enjoy this thing.

I think, fundamentally, that the more I read and reread this book, every single part of Gensou Narratograph is extremely, extremely bad. Or rather, completely unsuited to my experiences of what I want in a tabletop RPG. It’s one thing to call the approach bad, but is it bad if the approach is explicitly trying to get a mere normie like me to go away? Is that not the point?

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Also behind myself. Because in terms of approach, this game starts not with an introduction to the universe, nor an invitation to fantasy or even character creation, but instead with a page describing the ‘correct’ way to read this book. The first thing the book says to do, the way you should start with this game, is not to look at mechanics or character options or anything like that, but to instead read a recap of a play session of the game, with Zun. Zun is the creator of Touhou. Zun is, in a way, just some guy.

This recap is a hundred and ten pages long.

It is a hundred and ten pages long.

This game does not start you with character creation, but instead an actual play script with someone famous, and you should want to read it because that person is cool and famous and important. I read some of it. I tried. I also didn’t have any meaningful context for the actual play because to me, understanding how the game works is important to knowing what’s going on when they make gameplay decisions. But okay, after that, we get to the introduction, which begins with a pitch for its fantasy about being resolution experts who use spellcards to unleash a beautiful hell of bullets. Great! This is the stuff I expect I’m supposed to be seeing in a game like this, so far so good. Then we get a description of what a tabletop roleplaying game is, a description of the gamemaster and players, and then a description of what you’ll be playing.

Let’s put a pin in that point though.

Then we get a list of requirements – rulebook, players, place to play, d6s, writing tools, types of sheet, tokens, and a nice reminder to take breaks. Then there’s a list of nice-but-not-necessary things to include like snacks, music, time and place for post-game talk, some resistance to bullets, and people to play with, which gets mentioned twice as both necessary and not necessary. I personally would file players under ‘essential’ rather than ‘nice to have.’ Then we get some glossary and it’s blessedly short – this whole introduction is only five pages long! – before the book introduces characters.

Now, in my preference of an approach, I think that you should give people the pitch of the offering – here’s the fantasy! – then the basics – here’s what a d6 is! – and then the fundamental mechanics of the game, like the d20 resolution system, where big numbers are better – and then move on to character creation. Which means that while I feel like I’m missing something, once you get past that 110 page introduction, then this approach is more or less doing what I expect to do in a book with what I consider a good approach.

But we’re going to put a pin here to jump ahead a chapter to talk about the rules, the things that make up the interface.

The rules system is built around checks; you roll n dice to aim for a target number of y, formatted as ‘nd:y’, and that works fine as a formatting choice. This is not an additive kind of dice roll, though, but a dice pool. So if you roll 2d6 aiming for a target of 4, and you get a 3 and a 3, you didn’t succeed at the check. It’s a simple binary system too – either you rolled the target or higher, and you succeed, or you rolled below it, and you failed. You have triumphs and fumbles, representing very good success and very big failures, and, shout out to thy dungeongal, it has even got a failure table for fumbles. It’s not a Rolemaster fumble table, but it’s pretty good for a small affair in a simpler game.

There’s something like an initiative system for most of the story – a ‘yet to act’ and ‘acted’ system, which means that once you do something significant, you have to wait until everyone else has a turn. I don’t mind this, this is a system that formalises something I know a lot of people already do in their game situations. Some players don’t like this? I know a few who would rather be quiet and let the story happen without being regularly called upon to check if they’re okay.

From there, there’s mechanics about a multi-phase story, following a pattern; you have an investigation phase with quests you should fulfill, and the quests serve as flags for getting to the next part of the story, in the next phase. Clues are distributed randomly by dice on a pre-established map, and then there’s a time limit to work out how long you have left to fulfill the investigation phase of the story. There’s random daily events that represent the ongoing life in Gensokyo, a recovery stage of the day, and players even move around the map of the world based on rolling dice according to their motivation stat.

You know, like a roll-and-move board game.

Players are atomised in this part of the game. They don’t move as one but instead everyone is moving and investigating in their own time. If you wind up in the same square as a player you can build a bond with them and do your thing with them, which is useful for assisting later on. Failing to uncover a clue in a location leads to more clues being propogated, meaning that over time the play space fills with clues and failures still bring opportunities.

The combat system – called Danmaku Combat – is heads-up, one PC vs one NPC. Characters have unique boards for combat, known as their Danmaku Fields. From here the rules get complicated, and I use that word in place of the word complex. You roll to determine attacks. Your die rolls represent how many bullets you place around your enemy, but also where. You don’t get to control that. You can use spellcards, and then you can roll to dodge, and finally the game calculates hits. Then there’s a set of qualifiers to check how the resolution of that round works, bullets are tidied up, and the combatants reset to a new initiative.

After that, there’s a denoument which also suggests that you should share the story of your game on social media.

I will say about this system I appreciate some simplicity. If you’re in the same square as a bullet, you get hit. That’s just how bullets work. There’s even a mechanic for grazing! I like some of the board-gamey mechanics and I think the idea of flying characters bringing their own ‘board’ to represent how they influence the space around them in battle is pretty novel!

I do not like any of the other mechanics.

No not even that one.

I’m trying to be kind. I’m trying to be kind, I’m trying so hard. I’m trying to approach this as if it’s just extremely alien, as if it’s categorically different to what I want in games and therefore every single thing I dislike is fine because cheese and apples, oranges and pears, some people just like different things, it’s fine, it’s fine, and hey, maybe even I’m being a bit of a western chauvinist expecting this game book to be built the way I think a game book should be.

Except hang on, no I’m not, I’m talking about this strictly as a matter of preference. And we’re not even at the thing I find the most repellent about this game.

See, when I described above ‘characters,’ you might notice I didn’t use the term ‘creation.’ I called the section ‘characters,’ because you don’t get to create characters. Characters are pre-generated. This game comes with thirty writeups of established, pre-defined, pre-characterised Touhou girls, and you get to get to pick one of twenty-one character traits about them that can, based on the dice, be entirely equally distributed across all thirty of these characters.

This is fantastically strange to me.

This is actively player hostile to me.

And it’s not like this breaks with the trend of how people care about Touhou: I don’t know anyone with a Touhou OC, but I know a lot of people who refer to old friends, friends they had in younger days, as ‘a Marisa’ or ‘a Reimu.’ I know more Touhou fictives than I know people who create new things in the Touhou space. If you’re a Touhou fan, you’re probably a fan of these characters, and I guess if that’s all you’re a fan of, you wouldn’t be bothered by the lack of a creative toolkit for existing within this world.

This is a vision of tabletop RPGs that does not exist to me outside of the most fishknived deliberate designs like Everyone Is John. This game’s vision of its setting and its characters are not that this is a place you want to play in but that this is a pre-existing cast of characters you want to embody and play. You don’t make a Touhou OC (A TouhouC) in this game and get to play them meeting important NPCs, you pick up a pre-established Touhou, with her established interests and behaviours, and try to play her as close to your vision of her as you can. And I say her, because they are all women, and…

Lords.

I know there’s a queer angle on all this but I am too aware of the audience that likes Touhou for the Wrong Reasons, because, again, I know where a lot of the English-speaking fandom came from.

If I was going to be so gauche as to talk about Gensou Narratograph as if it were a mere game that I was going to have an opinion on I’d say it looks like it sucks. But that’s just my opinion based on merely reading the entire book and not being already a fan of Touhou, a shorthanding of a number of critical considerations of the qualities and choices made in this game, summed up in a short form to express my ideas clearly. It’s not that it’s a bad game, it doesn’t make people ill or commit tax fraud or anything. Chances are good, if you’re a fan of Touhou, you’re probably going to love the idea of a game that hands you a character sheet at the start and says congratulations, you’re Suwaku Moriya now! Look at your funny froggy hat! You have a skill called Creating Kun (Earth)!

It is, in the truest sense, the most Touhou TTRPG that could exist, in that it seems completely impenetrable to me, offering no reason to engage with it outside of pre-existing love and veneration for the property, and happy to be that way.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[marengogo]

Silver Lining - What If #3 : For A Dreaded, but Inevitable, Separation

Who (feat. BTS) - by Lauv feat. BTS JK&JM  [~ how i’m feeling~]

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

–🐺–🐺–🐺–

My Dear Ladies, Gentlemen, and Distinguished Enbies, how are you all?Let me tell you, I’m in a rather poetically-nostalgically romantic mood. Could it be because of FESTA? Or maybe PRIDE MONTH? I don’t really know. All I know is that LOVE IS IN THE AIR and is not the type where animated birds are singing along with you while you bust out in a colourful choreographed rendition of 🎵You Make My Dreams Come True🎶[500 Days of Summer]. No. It’s more like the kind where you have a secret lover in a period of time preceding a looming world-war that nobody sees coming and the way you communicate with your lover is through letters, one of which ends up in the hands of a very naive child [Atonement]. Hence, as a natural consequence, I started thinking about Jikook.

Supposing Jikook are a couple, I can’t preface this fact hard enough I would imagine that the prospect of soon having to be separated for at least 2 years (As realistically speaking they would be enlisting months a part) isn’t the most delightful 🤡. Wanna be a little delulu together? Cool, let’s step into Delululand for a minute or the entire post, let’s see …. Situation:

Person A, who claims to be sleepy, starts a whole Wlive where for a good 50 minutes at least, while not really interacting with his fans, watches a program where Person B appears. He then goes on to watch Person B’s MVs, Person B’s dance practice, a compilation of Person B’s clips, Person B’s TikTok challenge (on youtube). He goes even as far as to reveal that he has watched, on his own time, more of Person B’s content. 

At the end of all of that, Person A starts playing a japanese longing-love song [Tele　phon number by Junko Ohashi], which is abruptly changed for a song which main chorus is 🎵... thoughts of you keep me up at night …🎶 [Up at Night by Kehlani]

In Summary: Though sleepy, Person A spent the night watching videos of PERSON B and subsequently repeatedly played a song about being kept awake because of thoughts of someone … Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 🤔.

Doesn’t seem too farfetched to think that perhaps JK was indeed thinking of JM, right? One could even dare say missing, and if you want to be even bolder, one could say that he was longing. As the title of the WLIVE was “Suchwita” the intention was clearly set, but some could argue that choice of songs was simply because he likes Kehlani and Justin, hence he thought of playing that song; repeatedly. Sure, that could be true, however, it is more of a common practice to select music that, yes we like, but that also have to fit certain moods. 

Every time JK starts a WLIVE we are graced with listening to songs he selects, perhaps from his “liked playlist”, meaning that they are not in a particular order or with a particular theme, reason why he often skips songs depending on the mood with which he started the live. We’ve had a WLIVE with exotic/oriental songs, another with dance/party songs, and also with KPOP. Though he usually tends to go for sad songs, or love songs or better yet, sad love songs. Just like the mood-light he created and constantly uses, I don’t believe it to be outlandish to believe that JK is a mood man.

If you add the aforementioned with the fact that JK seems to be particularly active on WEVERSE when JM is either busy (for example during the whole FACE Era, where we got a whopping number of 7 WLIVES if you count all the times he closed and restarted WLIVE then it is 10) or not in the country (for example JK WLIVE 140323 - JM off to go to the USA for FACE promotion ; JK WLIVE 240423 - JM off to the USA for the Tiffany Gran Reopening ; JK WLIVE 240523 - JM off to the UK for reasons yet not known). 

And now that JM is back: SILENCE.

In fact, both JM & JK are MIA. You’d think JK would have maybe popped in yesterday to let us know, or hint at the fact that, that something big is coming for himself, like all members have previously done for themselves. Nope; he didn’t. The only time JK has hinted at something big coming was about JM’s album. Media and BH had to let us know about JK’s album 🤡.

We’ve been saying this since BTS FESTA 2022 “it’s just 2 years”, “ we just have to make it until they get back from MS”, “We will be fine, let’s just support their individual endeavours, WE WILL BE FINE!”. Like a mantra, we’ve been reciting these and similar sentence for almost a good year now, and only yesterday when I started writing this post did it REALLY dawn on me the true heaviness of this upcoming separation. If Jikook are really dating, they are realistically looking at spending at least 24 months apart, as they would not be enlisting at the same time (reason why, I think JK is leaving in the order I stated here → Must Be Just Me … and not last).

If you knew that in a couple of months or so (I think JM will enlist right after his birthday) you wouldn’t be able to see the one you loved for a long ass-time, as well as about to lose your own freedom, what would you do? Would you stress? Would you try not thinking about it? Would you panic? Would you, for example, go out and try every single meat restaurant in your country? Would you try drinking? Smoking? Would you travel as much as you can? Would you go to as many concerts as you can? Hang out with as many people you love/like/care about as you can? But ultimately, would you try to spend every possible & available waking second you can have with your significant other?

Sure they can text, find a way to risk it and meet when they are on leave, or count on the other members to have dinners together, but no matter how you look at it, for two young men who seem to truly enjoy each other’s company; it feels hella painful. 

Thinking this really made me first want to watch a bunch of agonising love stories, but then I quickly avoided that option for Jikook lives in hotel rooms and then something happened. As I watched the famous 2019 VLIVE where JM apologises to JK for cutting the live, it hit me like lighting: 

EVER SINCE JK TURNED OF AGE (2016), JIKOOK HAVE NEVER HAD A VLIVE/WLIVE IN A HOTEL BEDROOM WHERE IT WAS JUST THE TWO OF THEM FROM START TO FINISH. 

Now, as these are just my observations and opinions, I might be wrong, and if you do know of one instance where they do, please let me know. Anyways, you can’t imagine how loud my brain exploded at this realisation! Prior to this I always felt like I had all these recollection of them being together in hotels so many times but it was all either:

Already with other members

Other members would join

Bon voyage 1: They “sleep” in the living room

Bon voyage 2: They share a room but we have no footage

Summer Package - Saipan: They walk into the same room and JM leaves right away 

In the soop 1: JK quickly goes into JM's room to cuddle in bed with JM, but leaves just as quickly. JM was at some point in JK’s bedroom, and on his bed, but then, the next we know, they are carrying out a mosquito net and JM gets hurt.

In the soop 2: JK goes to JM’s bedroom but we have no footage. JM goes to JK’s cabin, enters JK’s bedroom, sits on JK’s bed, but JK stays out of it which is the only reason why we got that whole footage with Bam if you ask me.

… But shall we go even further into Delululand?

Have you ever wondered why JK and JM never roomed together in any of the houses they lived in when they were all still living together? JM, as we all know, has roomed with Hobi and at some point, JiVMin (Hobi, Tae and JM) also shared a room. JK used to room with Joon and then ended up getting a room for himself, which was his (and Tae’s) desire. And yet mind you:

JK got his room alone, but was apparently always in JM and Hobi’s room

When during Bring The Soul JM told JK during dinner that he wished he they still paired them up in hotels, JK said that he was fine as he was and slept like a baby, just to find out a couple of years later that JK does visit JM’s hotel room often. 

Obviously, I don’t know why two of the closest member have never roomed together within the confines of their dorms, but if you ask me, it has always given me the vibes of when you’ve hit puberty and you invite a someone of your preferred gender over to maybe “do homework” and a parent goes: Just keep the door open … 🙄

So, JK and JM have never roomed together, where never publicly left alone in a hotel room after 2016, are quick not to be found in a bedroom together or if they are, there is no footage. 

If you think about ... we really don't have much to go off on in the "fanservice department" AND YET, they are the members that Joon found were still at home when they were supposed to go home and celebrate holidays. They are the members who went on a trip together. They are the members who sasaengs have provided innumerable pictures of them hanging out. They are the two members who, for a long time up until COVID would regularly share a care ride. Sure, they may not talk about each other as much as they used to, they don’t drop each other’s name like they used to, even though people around them still seem to insert them in sentences as “JK and JM did so-and-so …”. They are so consistent on their behavioural, and emotional, level.

The few times we’ve seen them interact since the beginning of Chapter 2, is like no time has passed, even when they both try really hard to imply or avoid the question of them hanging out. All we truly have right at this moment, are two young men, who assuming they are dating when not required to perform any public, or work, duty seem to fall off the face of the Earth. Silently and privately doing whatever-it-is they are doing while perhaps awaiting for the day they can no longer do whatever-it-is that they are doing, for a very very very long time. Very very long time. 

And now quickly! OUT OF DELULULAND and off to the movies to go what AGUST D IN JAPAN 🖤!

Always respectfully yours,

Marengo. 

[coffeedrgn87]

Navigating the Highs and Lows of Creativity: A Personal Reflection

My love affair with writing began in my early teens, an intimate dance with words that took the form of journal entries, poetry (I sucked at that!), and heartfelt letters to pen pals, my big sister being my most loyal correspondent. Then came the short stories, and eventually, the fan fiction. When I think about the fact that I’ve been part of the writing world—in some form or other—for over two decades, I always have to take a moment to digest the thought. It gives me pause; it is all kinds of mesmerising.

Those early days were filled with the thrill of discovery, but also the quiet anticipation of a reply that may never come—a pattern that, even now, defines much of my writing journey. And despite having this vast ‘experience’, I still find myself learning—learning how to write, how to edit. Like many writers around me, I post my work online. And yet, despite the countless hours I pour into my work, I’ve never quite grown accustomed to the silence that often follows. No matter how many times I tell myself that feedback isn’t everything, it never fails to disappoint when it doesn’t come. It always hurts, always makes me question whether I’m on the right path.

Don’t get me wrong; this isn’t an essay asking for more comments or wanting to increase reader interaction. This is me taking a moment to self-reflect because I know I’m not alone in this feeling. Every writer goes through this; we have the same experience each time we share our work with the world. Why is that? Well, writing is a deeply personal act—it’s not just an offering of words; it’s also a piece of ourselves—whether that’s a response to trauma or a way to process the myriad ways of life’s curveballs.

When that humble offering is met with silence, it can feel like a rejection of something much more profound than just our work—as if the very essence of our thoughts and emotions, laid bare on the page, were somehow unworthy of acknowledgement. It’s a rejection of the parts of ourselves we writers—unbeknownst to our readers—made vulnerable.

As an introverted, mental-health-battling coffeedragon (who prefers quiet spaces and small groups), I’ve learnt to be cautious about where I seek validation. I’ve been burned before, and the thought of reaching out to strangers for feedback is daunting—even after over two decades in the writing world. The scars of past experiences make me wary of exposing myself again, and yet the desire for recognition persists. It’s a difficult balance to maintain: the need for validation and the need to protect my inner self. This delicate balance between creation and recognition is one that every writer navigates, often in solitude.

But, as I’ve grown older, as I’ve matured, and got to know myself better, I’ve developed coping strategies. I remind myself of the importance of writing for the love of it. I indulge in calligraphy, curiously seek out ways to create captivating content, and celebrate my progress. Sometimes it’s as simple as sending a rambly message into the Tumblr void, creating a record of that day’s achievements. What I mean to say is, I focus on the joy of creation rather than the reaction of others. I know that I’ve grown as a writer, that my skill, style, and voice have evolved and improved over the years. I know that my work has value, even if it isn’t always acknowledged, because I choose to acknowledge it myself, because I choose kindness.

And yet, despite knowing all these things, it can be difficult to remember them in the moment. Especially when I’m riding the high of having created something special. It’s then that I always forget. In those moments of euphoria, when I’m positively buzzing with what I’ve accomplished and am eager to share it with the world, the lack of recognition stings even more. The contrast between the high of creation and the low of unmet expectation—however unrealistic—is jarring. And each time it happens, it becomes a little harder to persist, to not give up.

In recent months, I’ve finally allowed myself to admit that it’s crucial for me to have strategies in place that help me navigate these emotional swings. So, I actively choose to document my feelings. I remind myself why I’m proud of my work and what the process meant to me—and I keep these reflections close at hand so that they are available to me when I need them the most. I take time to understand on my emotions, actively allowing myself to process any disappointment I may feel, while choosing to revisit the joy the process of creation brought me. As a coffeedragon, I tend to celebrate with a mug of freshly brewed, steaming coffee, indulge in scrapbooking art or other forms of hands-on expression, and even take the time to meditate, read a book or story I love, or enjoy a bit of fan art.

Central to my survival as a writer is the resolve to keep creating, a practice that has become both my refuge and my resilience. Starting a new project while still riding the wave of the last one helps me maintain my creative momentum. Rather than sulk or even complain, I actively steer myself away from getting stuck in disappointment. Instead, I remind myself that I am my own audience, that I created something for my own enjoyment. To me, that is a significant achievement. My work brings me joy, and I relish celebrating that—even if my characters sometimes have ideas that don’t quite align with my initial plans. 🤣

Persisting can be exhausting, but each time I choose to continue weaving a jumble of words together until they create a story, I not only build resilience, but I also hone my skills. Does it make the lows less painful? No. But it does make me stronger, and it does keep me focused on what’s important.

So, I keep writing. I keep growing, and I remind myself that this journey is mine, and mine alone. Just as in those early days of writing letters, where I learned to find satisfaction in the act itself rather than the response, I now understand that my writing journey is a deeply personal one, worth celebrating regardless of who chooses to join me. Silence hurts—every writer feels this way—but it doesn’t diminish the value or the joy my writing brings me. And that, I believe, is something worth celebrating—whether or not the world chooses to join in.

[howlingday]

Hey Howling, thanks for the advice before! I know asking questions isn't how most people expect advice, but it does work since it forces us to sit down and think a little bigger.

So thanks for that.

I guess that brings another question/advice/opinion I've been meaning to ask you.

When it comes to creating content to share, whether fanfic or original, what motivates you?

Cuz' the more serious I tend to get about an idea, the more I freak out about how much of my own personal time I inevitably start devoting to it.

Which is great in one sense... cuz I get lost into my wondrous world of writing headspace...

... and short little drabbles, and silly prompts are great fun! I really do enjoy them!

But when it comes to fanfics, swimming super deep in the depths of my untethered imagination honestly scares me...

Because who knows if all my effort will be shrugged at and forgotten by the fans or other creators, when I could have been doing something original...?

Or if... when I finally do stick my head up out of the depths of any fandom...

...I'll find that back in the real world, above the surface, the tide of my life will have changed, and I'll realize how much the shore has shifted and moved on...

... alongside my loved ones who will have made new memories without me, every time I insisted on spending just a little more time diving deep, as they never had the urge to go exploring with me...

... all because I was so focused diving into the fandom of someone else's waters.

Sorry, if it got a little heavy, (and I get it if this doesn't get posted), but as someone who gets lost spending months at a time thinking up of new ideas, I wanted your insight on what makes fanfic writing worth it.

Small prompts are fun and a great way to use time, but lengthy-novels and time-consuming art?

What do you think?

Oof... Really aimed right at a very tender and sensitive weak point of mine, to be honest.

But first of all, I'm glad my advice helped you out with your thought process for building your world.

Now, I'mma be really real with you about the whole "time" thing. One of, if not the most absolute worst thought I could ever think of is "how much of my time was this really worth?" Because one thing I find myself often being during my "slumps" is a nihilist. I'll be in my groove, popping out funny ideas and neat little plot points when BAM! I ask myself "What is this all amounting to? Is this something that's going to matter in ten years? Or five years? Next year? What am I going to do in the real world?"

THIS IS THE POTENTIALLY WORST MINDSET YOU COULD POSSIBLY EXPERIENCE.

What helps me out of it is to, well, keep doing it. Get my idea out there and see how much people love it. Keep going at it, build yourself and your style, and learn from your prior mistakes and the mistakes of others.

As for the OTHER aspects in my life, it boils down to numerous factors, because on top of the multiple dozen drafts of asks I have saved for later, I also have my job, my stack of video games to beat and or give up on, my 3000+ YouTube Watch Later list, my MMA classes, and whatever I've got planned with my friends. I remember in college, there was a critical thinking class that said,

"YOU DON'T MAKE TIME, YOU BORROW IT FROM SOMETHING ELSE."

I see the small prompts, incorrect quotes, and spitposts as just fun little writing exercises to just get out there. Definitely play around with them if and when you can.

I hope the advice I gave helps and didn't just sound like me whining. Honestly, the best way to get good at all aspects of writing, including planning, dreaming, and actually writing is to keep doing it. And kinda let it all blend together in your life. If I see or hear something funny or inspiring or just plain awesome, I'll pop it into an incorrect quote and send it out! People love it? Great! No? Oh, well...

But always, always, always...

KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!

[enneamage]

I was reading your post about RPF and was hoping that you could explain to me why so many people like to write it. I would go so far as to say I am repelled by it and don't understand the appeal whatsoever. tbh I don't even like fan fiction for what I think is the same reason: it isn't canon. It seems presumptive of any individual that has nothing to do with a creative project to contribute to it as if it is part of the original. It is even worse if we are talking about something that is irl. Why is it not enough to create a fictional work with all of the same traits that the writer believes the fiction or irl subjects have, and then just change the names? If the content is good enough, it doesn't have to be propped up on irl people in order to get readers.

Oh nelly here we go.

Whenever people ask about RPF fic I’m used to trying to use what footholds they do have in fan culture to direct them to why people write these kinds of taboo extremes, but you seem to be pretty squarely affirmational in a sea of transformational people, so this is going to start right from zero.  

I wouldn’t choose an RPF fandom to be babies first fandom justifying experience because of how deep in the pocket it is compared to some other transformational fandoms, so starting there is hard. If you’ve never had the experience of being exposed to something and wanting more of something, or different from something, or had your imagination wander off with what you’ve just seen, a lot of what transformational fandom does in general will seem baffling, let alone rpf spaces.

Basic Transformational Fandom

Transformational fandoms tend to kick off in media that provides a fun sandbox or (even when it’s good) leaves a little bit more to be desired. From there, the people left wanting start to group up and create markets for the creation of fanwork, and eventually someone puts hand to keyboard to make something. People sometimes think that transformational fandom is recent but the truth is that Fanficiton Fanzines stretch back well beyond the creation of the internet, people have been craving transformational content and art for a long time, and are very stubborn when it comes to finding each other to do it.  

Speaking from personal experience, even though fandoms often reliably form around media, I haven’t participated in the fandom for every piece of media I’ve consumed, so I know what it’s like to be interested and disinterested in the fandoms around what I watch/read/ect. There’s been times where I was very into a fandom in a traditional “I want as much of this as possible and also X and Y to smooch” way, times when I was kind of put off by what a given fandom was doing so I took the pass, and times when I was more interested in what the fandom was putting out than the actual content itself. It can take some shopping around to find a spot where what a market has lines up with what appeals to you.

So there’s… a bit of a leap between the usual premise of transformational fandom and rpf spaces. My understanding of the people who pipeline from regular fiction to RPF is they develop the instincts in one context and then they just retain and use that capacity when they switch to another. That sounds a bit slippery-slope but I mean that they just don’t have to start from scratch if they came through more traditional and less taboo fandoms. People still tend to draw the line because RPF is still mostly taboo (the fact that this fandom has such a large, open presence of it is wild to me, I’m really not used to it but such is the fine line of Minecraft roleplay) but some people find it easier to cross because of their background.

The Fantasy Market

There’s something of a midway between fic and conversation that doesn’t get covered as much even though it feels like the missing link between regular idle fantasising and RPF. People tend to want peer-to-peer contact with other people who share the same interests as them, and exchanging ideas or scenarios surrounding those interests is a go-to for that.

The line between trying to find the truth vs feeling out an appealing scenario brings be back around again to my imago post, so if people wanted to collect their “parasocial relationships are the devil” ticket here’s an easy one. You may have seen these kinds of posts around—“[name] would like a teddy bear. He would pretend he didn’t at first but eventually he would become the type of guy to get all the way out of bed if it fell on the floor in the middle of the night to go get it.” It’s not fic, but it’s a longform hypothetical that someone would post to their peers, maybe to get a full on conversation going about how much milage [name] would get out of a stuffed animal. From there they get to feel closer to their fellow fans, and also feel like they understand a bit more about the person they’re all interested in, since pattern finding is a big part of human cognition in general and it's fun to do it together.

On the hormonal end of the spectrum, thirstposting is a deceptively complicated art, somewhere between personal venting and posting for the people around them to resonate with. I know people mostly like to act like thirst tweets are always embarrassing and unwelcome, but honestly having a brother in arms in Times Of Great Thirst usually bonds a community pretty tightly.  

Self-inserts and X readers have never been my thing, but they’re an important link in the evolutionary chain of how we get from one person daydreaming to a whole community of readers and writers. There’s a market for good ideas about a certain person or situation even if they aren’t fleshed out, but a few steps in you start looking at content that looks more like fiction. A good offshoot of this step that people don’t often talk about or understand in these terms were the original POV tiktoks and concept/Imagine blogs. The people love a good scenario, and environments where some of the best imaginations are grinding out content to fuel your daydream can be great for that.  

I think that the people who didn’t enter through ‘regular’ transformational fandom probably found their way through this door instead. Fantasy tweet becomes thirst tweet becomes thread fic becomes wattpad, graduates to ao3 maybe, whoops we’re reading novels now.

The Reader / Writer Market

I use the word ‘market’ a little differently than some others might when talking about this stuff. A while ago I started poking around Economic Anthropology in a very amateurish way, because that was the first place I came across an idea that managed to line up with the majority of my fandom experience, the idea that ‘economics’ are the dynamics of human exchange based on wants and needs, not just the study of money and assets. Money only covers a fraction of the number of exchanges that happen in life, non-monetary economy is what I find really interesting, and what I relate to parts of fandom as. Think of the strangely elaborate systems that seem to reliably pop up when people want something, I have seen amazingly complex fandom coordination from young teenagers as long as the desire and the drives were there. Economics gets a lot more saucy once you start to relate to it as a study of human desire and how those desires get met.

The people want what the people want, and in fandom they often want more of the thing they’ve invested in. It’s often not enough, or even very appealing at all, to write something “original” or removed from the scene when the party is in the scene itself. Some people probably give it a go, but truth be told they often don’t get seen as often as work with the built-in audience that a fandom has/is. The goal probably isn’t even to be seen by a lot of people, but to show stuff to the people who would be most interested in that stuff, even if there’s only five people who are invested. People get content, author gets validation and engagement, it’s a little loop that’s a lot harder to get to in the cold world of original publishing. Most people don’t really want to become career writers anyway, they want to see their favorite boys smooch in the form of the kind of stories they read, which are likely already fic.

Footnote about old lit on transformational vs affirmative: A lot of the old conversation is gendered in ways that I understand, because they absolutely mattered / do matter, but modern fandoms like the MLP fandom are shaking up that binary. Men do take part in transformational fandom, just not as often as women on the whole.

[more-than-a-princess]

2, 4, 6 and 8

OOC RP topics meme - Accepting!

2. drabbles

I like drabbles when they serve a function, mainly. Considering how much I tend to write in threads, some of those replies could be drabbles on their own! But I like drabbles that move the plot forward. Maybe it's covering a time when the muses are apart when I've plotted with the mun about their reunion later and we want to show what happened to them in the meantime (I can think of at least two ships where this has happened or will happen in the near future. RIP my other writing partners but that drabble series will take some time to do!). Or maybe it's a fully-realized scene from an ask that will play into a future thread.

But yeah, drabbles take time so I want to write them for a reason. But I love reading them! Fill my dash with your drabbles, especially if they accompany interactions my muse has with yours!

4. multiple people threads

If it's multiple muns in one thread, that's not my thing. It's too confusing to keep track of turns and replying to everyone.

Now, if it's multiple muses in a thread, such as my muse and multiple side characters/NPCs, I don't mind writing this. However, these replies tend to take much more time to write instead of an average thread reply. For me, these feel much more like writing fanfiction or original fiction work instead of roleplaying: multiple voices, actions, and personalities to play off each other while keeping in mind who the main character (presumably my muse) is, and sticking with their vantage point.

(I may be taking a break from one of these threads right now to do this meme! Shh...)

6. excessive ooc

No. I don't like seeing it, I don't want to see it, and I do take this into consideration when deciding to follow a blog.

Now, what counts as 'excessive?'

To me, it's the difference between sharing some Munday content (a meme, what you're up to, your reports from anime conventions where you may or may not have cosplayed because I love seeing other cosplayers who roleplay. I'm sitting on so much cosplay content I've never shared over here tbh!) and 'I just got back from work and this is what I'm having for dinner' every day.

I do like getting to know the muns behind RP blogs, especially if they're someone I write with often, but there's a limit. Personally, I'm not a fan of seeing OOC content every day that has nothing to do with your muse(s), fandom(s), or RP.

That said, the OOC content I'm least fond of isn't even necessarily excessive: it's when muns project all of their interests onto their muse and make them their muse's interests as well. It's the difference between the muse commenting on something the mun is engaging with OOC and the mun insisting that because they like this hobby, it's now the muse's hobby too. The latter just feels a bit too self-insert for me for comfort, but that's me.

For example: Sonia would never be a Bridgerton stan, despite it being a big love and fandom of mine. She would not be into all of these Rich People Problems when that's literally her life (also see: Downton Abbey, The Gilded Age, The Crown, etc.).

She would, however, be a fan of ACOTAR because of the heroines and morally gray love interests. Sonia would probably call Tamlin out on being a terrible partner in the first book, like Lucien save for the 'You're my mate' scene, and immediately decide Azriel is the Best Bat Boy for being the token Shadow Daddy.

(She is wrong about this because the least problematic of the Bat Boys is Cassian, and I still have some beef with him after recent book events)

tl:dr - Romantasy is goth and romance enough for Sonia to be a fan. She likes horror, anime, and romantic J-dramas, it's not too much of a stretch!

8. reblog karma

My take on this is a little complicated, please bear with me:

I feel like mutuals should engage in reblog karma with OOC/non-thread starter memes if they are questions they haven't asked a mun before and those questions aren't already being answered. They aren't creating anything new on your writing pile if it's already too high/intimidating and you're showing interest in your mutuals, that's a win-win! For long-time mutuals though, it can feel repetitive not to send in the same OOC questions about RP and/or their lives, so I understand if they don't want to send in something every time because they'll get the same response.

For IC memes, especially thread starters, I'm okay with people reblogging the post from source and not sending me anything. If a mun doesn't really know how any of the meme options would work with their muse or just doesn't have an interest in that particular meme with my muse, I would much rather have them reblog the meme without sending me anything than to send an ask for a thread they don't have any interest writing, just to fulfill reblog karma.

Dropping threads after one turn or not even replying to a starter? This annoys me much more than not fulfilling reblog karma ever could. Major pet peeve of mine, for the most part (uncomfortable content aside. This is a good reason to drop a thread!). Please don't do it.

[biff-adventurer]

i'm one of those people who believe that you're responsible for what you put out into the world.

fan content is not as influential as content in mainstream medium, but there will be people who will read that stuff. the occasional stranger will read my small potatoes stuff every so often, and most times, i don't notice unless i go actually check.

there's no absolute standard on what and how people can write on subjects. mostly, it's about context - who the person is, what their intention is, where they come from, will always come through their work. there's no denying that. it's your brain, which holds your experiences as you saw them. ultimately, you can't escape the way you think and no one should be ashamed of that. you can still explore new ideas - but that exploration will always be done through your lens of experience as a human being.

people have the right to question or judge you - but they don't have the right to attack or bully you. they will have their opinions. you will have yours. what you put out there, like the things that you say to others face to face, creates consequences. sometimes, that's just how life goes. other times, you might be to blame. be brave enough to double check and question your actions. have compassion for both yourself and others, enough to be honest.

you'll never be able to make every single person understand your writing exactly as you mean it. that's where working toward writing clearly will help - but there is always the chance you suffer the same problem as the author of lolita, who wrote against an issue and people romanticized the issue instead. insane. no, i don't think it's the dude's fault. it's one of those instances that teaches us how you can do something so well that people empathize instead with the evil you've written, rather than the good you intend.

but just because of those things, doesn't mean you aren't responsible for what you say in public forums. yes, that's why framing is important. that's why transparency and tags are important. in the end, though, it's really important to also reflect on why you do the things you do and whether it's necessary to share it online or not.

the power of writing is the power to persuade. so the responsibility on your shoulders is to make sure, to the best of your ability, you're persuading in the "right" direction. that's all you really can do about it.

[denimbex1986]

'Often, when it comes to art and those who create it, we want to believe there is a rivalry between artists. Why couldn’t I have created that masterpiece? Or why wasn’t it me who was gifted with an award over someone else’s creation? There is rarely a celebration of someone else’s work where other artists are proudly championing the work that went into it. That’s why the praise for Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer has meant so much to me, because other creatives have shared their love for Nolan’s work as well.

Now that the film has grossed an impressive box office for a Nolan film, other directors of Nolan’s calibre are talking about why a movie like Oppenheimer has become such a masterclass in itself. Not only is the movie now the high-grossing biopic, but the movie itself manages to change expectations and bring audiences into a three-hour epic. That’s what Dune director Denis Villeneuve told the Associated Press is so shocking about the film itself. “Where it is right now has blown the roof off of my projection,” Villeneuve said. “It’s a three-hour movie about people talking about nuclear physics.”

He went on to talk about how the box office shock about Oppenheimer proves that the idea of “content” versus art is moot when movies like Oppenheimer, which is the pinnacle of art, are breaking records. “There’s this notion that movies, in some people’s minds, became content instead of an art form. I hate that word, ‘content,’” he added. “That movies like ‘Oppenheimer’ are released on the big screen and become an event brings back a spotlight on the idea that it’s a tremendous art form that needs to be experienced in theaters.”

Then, there’s director Paul Thomas Anderson, who is known for his movies like Licorice Pizza and Boogie Nights and often brings his unique take on cinema to life in his work. His praise of Nolan is truly that of an artist giving his seal of approval to another working artist, talking about how many fans of Nolan will make dedicated effort to travel to see Nolan’s films in the best possible way.

“When a filmmaker as strong as Chris is pointing a finger at you and telling you where to go … you listen … and audiences have been rewarded for it,” Anderson said. “I know some film buffs who drove from El Paso to Dallas to see the film properly. That’s about 18 hours round trip.”

He went on to talk about the difference between seeing Oppenheimer in theaters on digital and on film, saying “I don’t think there’s anyone who could disagree—seeing ‘Oppenheimer’ on film is superior in every single way,” he added. “Not to mention, people are tired of asking, ‘Why would I go to a movie theater to watch TV?’ Good question … you don’t have to anymore … I would call this is nature’s way of healing.”

Artists recognize other artists

I don’t know when it became a game of who is better than who, probably at the start of the award system, but this constant need to put down other artists to uplift others has made it so we refuse to let them praise one another. Actors time and time again praise the performances of other actors because their art form is a collaborative one, but directors and writers are forced into a solitary world, and we don’t get to see that same praise shared for one another.

So, seeing Paul Thomas Anderson and Denis Villeneuve talking about what Oppenheimer is doing for cinemas, while also just praising the film for its ingenuity and ability to keep audiences engaged with its 3-hour runtime in a movie about physics, is fantastic. It will be interesting to see what happens with the movie as the award circuit gets underway and whether or not this is Christopher Nolan’s time (as he has yet to win an Academy Award). Until then, it’s nice to see the praise Nolan is getting from his fellow creatives.'

[substituted-shinigami]

“Quick” Blog/Writing/Art Update: May/June 2023

Hello everyone! Thank you for your patience! Sorry, it’s been awhile, but I do hope to be back soon! I’ve had a good long rest from the stresses of social media (I wish I could also say life as well, but I’ve learned it does what it wants!), and I hope to be at least semi active again by the time Bleach is back in early July! Thanks again for your patience! 🥰

Now unfortunately when I say semi-active, I really do mean semi-active. I won’t go into detail about my real life stuff, but it causes me enough stress that I’ve realized I can’t deal with it and social media stress at the same time. So I probably won’t be on here as often, and will be posting even less, but I want you all to know that I still love all y’alls stuff and will look at it when I can! I took a peek just recently to try and get back into the groove (the app has really changed in the last few months, huh?) and saw you all were talking about Soul Society Trains awhile back, and I’m so sorry I missed it because OMIGOSH DO I WANT IT TO BE CANON! Like can you imagine if Squad 12 designed one?! It would be a horror show, with a bunch of little feet and eyes and horns and UGH! Or maybe, due to how Soul Society is layed out, it’s a subway instead! Maybe it's an immortal mole creature that travels underground on some well known migratory route, and if you’re knowledgeable and crazy enough, you can just grab its fur and hold on tight to get where you need to go faster! Where was I going with this? Oh, right! You all are great, and I hope to read more of your ideas, and headcanons, and other stuff whenever I’m able!

What else…oh yes, posting content. So you know how I was talking about social media stress? Yeah, posting causes a lot of that. Creating though, causes less of that though, sometimes even decreases it. Like I literally sleep better if I write fanfiction before bed (sad, I know, but hear me out). So what’s the solution? Well, I could just never post, but I like sharing with others too! So what I’ve decided to do instead is post in seasons kind of like a tv show! I’ll work on fanfiction/fanart throughout the year, and then once October hits, I’ll post whatever I finish on a sort of schedule, like every Saturday or something. That way, I won’t feel stressed to get something out every month and I can work on multiple stories at the same time (which is my preferred way to write)! That said, since I won’t be online as much, I may be pretty slow in answering messages/questions/comments/etc, so I want to apologize in advance. Know that I still love and appreciate all of you, and will get back when I can! 

Hmmm…Any last details? Oh yes, fanart and Bloodlines. I’m gonna be honest, y’all, fanart has been slow coming. I wanted to do more fan comics, but I haven’t had a lot of inspiration or motivation lately. I unfortunately might have to save that idea for next year, but if I do, I do have a back up plan that I think you all will like, so hopefully that works out. But for now, we’ll just have to wait and see!

Bloodlines…will be out…this year…or so help me, I’ll- *cough* Anyway, work on it has been going steadily, which should make me happy, but for some reason has got me extremely nervous. Like, is it going steadily because it’s close to finishing? Or is it going steadily because I missed a major flaw? Like will I be about to post it and realize I need to REWRITE THE ENTIRE THING! These thoughts plague me. Current improvements! I’ve learned what chapter hooks are and have implemented them to make the beginnings more interesting! Also, while I think Bloodlines is still a good “series” title, it is no longer a good title for the piece. The new working title is “Learning to Breathe”. I think that better encapsulates the story I’m trying to tell! Current worries! Is the climax “climaxy” enough? Does the build up pay off in the end? Do the dramatic moments make sense? DO I NEED TO REWRITE THE ENTIRE THING??? 

Anyway, I think that is finally, actually it! If you made it to the end, that’s pretty amazing of you! One day, I’ll learn to summarize my thoughts better, but today is not that day! See you all in July when Bleach comes back! I’m so hyped!

[tightjeansjavi]

like I said, you’ve been so sweet to anybody sending you messages about inclusivity.. it really made me comfortable enough to send you an ask about it :)

Also, just wanna add that I completely understand writers writing from like, their perspective. I know inclusivity has been really important to many writers, which is so awesome! but of course it would be really hard to write form a POV you’re not really familiar with. So that’s totally understandable!

Being tall and curvy and also spending years being really insecure about it, you just notice these small things I mentioned in the original ask! And I’m never going to be mad about that or anything, I’m just so glad to even be able to read what you amazing writers are creating! But sometimes it does get to you a bit, in like an “aww…” way? Because so often, it’s just everywhere. Books and fanfics and movies..

I feel like that one Taylor Swift lyrics like “Sometimes I feel like everybody is a sexy baby, and I'm a monster on the hill” 😂

I’m in my 20s now and still learning to be okay with it. That I’m always just going to be a “big” person because I am tall and curvy and I’m trying to learn to just be proud of it.

So yeah, I really appreciate you always working on being inclusive and accommodating to us. You’re really such a kind person. Thank you for making us little anons so comfortable :)

And thanks for the little discussion about this topic! It was really nice to be open about this kinda stuff with someone, even if I’m an anon.

Now, I cannot wait to read more blue jeans & Texas dreams Joel and more Gwen and Joel! And your new series too! And all the Javi requests! I’m literally so excited about absolutely anything you post haha! And again, please take your time and no rush at all!

So much love to you!! ♥️♥️

Hi love!! Sorry for the late response, I was finishing up chapter 5 of blue jeans 😵‍💫

I’m incredibly happy to hear that you felt comfortable enough to send the request to me! I truly want to make this as safe of a space as I possibly can make it for everyone <3

I have honestly briefly thought about writing something where the reader is plus-sized and I just haven’t gotten around to doing it. Plus, it is definitely intimidating when it is an experience I have never lived through but my hopes are that I am able to do it justice.

I can tell how important this is to you, and I think it’s wonderful that this topic of conversation can be discussed in an open manner. Honestly, I truly just enjoy being able to have these kinds of conversations on here, because I really want people to feel loved, supported, and heard.

There is definitely a lot of petite/small/thin characters in fan fiction/movies/society in general. I wish it wasn’t the general norm because not two people look the same. Everyone has a different body type and shape and so why should one be considered the norm/beautiful and the other not? It has always bothered me.

Javi P will be worshipping every inch of your beautiful skin, I promise 🩷

Your kind words are absolutely melting my heart right now. 🥹 I’m so glad we were able to discuss this and I’m sending all the love your way!

Thank you for enjoying my content and sharing these important things with me. All the love to you my dear!

♡ ♡ ♡