#onto this fandom

[holy--milk]

my friend refuses to get a fandom acc of her own and interact with the fandom properly, thus it is my sacred duty to introduce y'all to the new addition to the skin creature pantheon.

behold: ostrichzun

[seths-rogens]

i like to call this ‘popular mlm ships with freakishly similar name dynamics’

this means absolutely nothing i’ve simply been observing this for a hot sec

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[doodled0g]

memewashing

(alts for first one under cut)

[joycrispy]

Zepotha will never be Goncharov because when it comes down to it, tumblr culture is collaborative, while tiktok culture is merely iterative, and those are not the same thing.

[piowasthere]

WTF IS SUNS EYE COLOR

all of the pictures used r official btw

this is one of the most inconsistent designs i have ever seen, chirst- and we're talking about the same series in which Scraptrap exists.

[akanemnon]

We didn't even get an answer, and we never will (at least it's not determination)

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[soupdweller]

"so you are the one...they named me after..."

day 13: Night

[thevioletcaptain]

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

[ginnyluna]

It's 2024 and my girl Piper would rock those buttoned short-sleeves shirts

Finished version of this sketch

[egophiliac]

Wait, did you put a photo of Vil and Neige as kids in Eric’s office??

oh good, I was afraid that wasn't going to read properly and people would just be like "what is this supposed to be". :') but yeah! I like to think Eric was pretty fond of Neige as a kid! single dad sees orphan child approximately the same age as his own son and goes "hmm. okay, you guys are going to be friends now." (this did not go as well as he'd hoped.)

(also I do love how it's kind of a running joke that everyone loves Neige except for Vil, who's standing over in the corner and just seething with furious irrational hatred. someday maybe he'll find someone who doesn't think Neige is the best thing since cinnamon rolls.)

[conspicuous-clown-car]

infodumping autism time

[madeofjules]

I've seen quite a few bad thg opinions the past couple days so here's a reminder that these things are canon:

Katniss is suicidal until Peeta comes home. He gives her the hope she needs to heal and move forward. They eventually enter a romantic relationship because she desires and loves him.

Katniss's only reason for not wanting kids was her deep-seated fear that they'd be reaped. Becoming a mother shows how much she's recovered from her trauma. Her children make her feel joy.

Katniss is happy in 12. She would've ended up there anyway. (“A few hundred others return because, whatever has happened, this is our home.”)

So anyone who thinks her ending isn't good or what she wanted probably doesn't actually like Katniss and definitely doesn't understand her character as she's written. Thankfully her creator does know her and gave her the peaceful ending she deserves.

[notherpuppet]

I feel like you’ve answered this before but I can’t find it and I don’t quite remember sorry- but are you also Ace?

Yeeeee boiiiiiiiii 😜

🖤🩶🤍💜💚🤍🩶🖤

🧡💛🤍🩵💙

[shieldofiron]

What if I actually get this tattooed on my body

[happypeachsludgeflower]

Who wants to bet Peerless Cucumber has an entire fan base within the pidw’s fandom? Potentially even bringing in a portion of pidw’s readers who just want to enjoy shen yuan just loosing it in the comments.

Like sure, some of the fandom’s definitely there for the toxic masculinity and papapa, but I guarantee you there’s an entire section dedicated to gleefully watching the fandom sewer rat being feral.