#originally intended for international fanworks day
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adventures-in-mangaland · 9 months ago
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I'm going with 10 All Time Classics from the Captain America (MCU) fandom. I mean, they're all classics to me, at least. In no particular order:
1. This, You Protect by owlet
First installment in the Infinite Coffee and Protection Detail series, which are all amazing. It's a “Bucky escaping Hydra and rebuilding his sense of self” fic, which he does while spying on Steve. With eventual Avengers Family and a lovely cast of OCs bonding with Bucky in the meantime. It has a very distinctive perspective and writing style; Bucky's in constant internal (and sometimes accidentally external) dialogue with himself, making it hilarious and tragic all at the same time. I love it. I've recently been getting into The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells and this Bucky has a similar sassy-but-vulnerable vibe? Read this if you like that, anyway.
2. The One Who Knows by Dira Sudis (dsudis)
This is a Political Animals AU, in that no-powers Steve is inserted into the Political Animals world and Bucky is TJ. Discusses being outed and depression but is ultimately hopeful. The author is one of my all time faves and has written lots of great stories for this and many other fandoms.
3. Blue Scales by chaya
Steve is a merman AU. He's still Captain America, though. It's crack with heart, I love it.
Best line: "May your scales and your love story be our weird secret forever.”
4. Our Lingering Frost by eyres
AU where Bucky is rescued from Hydra in the 50s (?) and so is around for Steve to be found.
5. Assets Out of Containment by follow_the_sun
It's a classic to *me*, OK? Bucky goes undercover at Jurassic World just as that movie's plot kicks off. They're Hydra dinosaurs! It's just great. Also has a podfic and crossovers with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
6. Not Easily Conquered (series) by dropdeaddream and WhatAreFears
Some of the greatest fanfiction I've ever read, the whole series is epic. Anyway, it's a "Steve doesn't go into the ice" AU with added queer angst when (never sent) love letters from Bucky resurface. I particularly like the second installment in the series The Thirteen Letters, which are just Bucky's letters and are insanely well-written.
7. to memory now I can't recall by Etharei
Time travel AU! Featuring post-CATWS Bucky accidentally switching places with CATFA era Bucky.
8. If Wishing Made It So by Leveragehunters (Monkeygreen)
Genie!Bucky AU! This author is great at writing AUs with fantasy/genre elements, it was hard to choose. They've also written an excellent werewolf!Steve AU and a horse!Steve AU that I really love.
9. Into That Good Night by Nonymos
An Interstellar AU! Very angsty and tragic but with an eventual happy ending.
10. Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square by Speranza
Speranza must be one of the best writers in the fandom, so it was hard to pick just one of their fics. Other strong contenders were All the Angels and the Saints and The Fifties, so check those out too! But this one has a special place in my heart. Steve, Tony and Natasha accidentally time travel to WW2 London, leading to an accidental run-in with CATFA-era Bucky. The author does tragic and romantic time travel tropes so well, but with a happy ending.
I now realise that most of these are AUs, so here’s a bonus rec for a non-AU in-universe story that’s severely underrated and deserves more love:
+1
Heart, Have No Pity on this House of Bone by Sena
This story follows Bucky in-action in the Pacific Theatre. It’s very well written and, from what I can tell, well researched. Steve only appears in Bucky’s imagination and the story focuses on the horrors of war rather than romance, but it’s gripping! And it explores unrequited love, being closeted and period-typical homophobia, which I also enjoyed. I’m still holding out hope for a sequel.
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nebulize-my-mind · 3 years ago
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So I'm kind of bored and have nothing to post, so I figured I'd throw up the old fanfic I wrote before I had a Tumblr. This post is going to be very long, so enjoy =)
All links go to AO3, though all stories are also available on Fanfiction.net if you prefer. The exception is the last link, which takes you to a story I only have up on Fanfiction.net (though I plan on changing that eventually).
How To Summon A Halfa (Without A Ouija Board) by Asey_the_Ghost (AO3) / LuckyNumeralThirteen (Fanfiction.net)
Rating: G
Fandoms: Danny Phantom
Characters: Danny Fenton, Sam Manson, Tucker Foley
Relationships: Gen
Tags: Summoning, Summoning Circles, Cereal, How Do I Tag, 30 Minute Fic, Cross-Posted On Fanfction.net, Short One Shot
Published: January 15, 2021 (originally published Halloween 2020 on fanfiction.net)
Words: 467
Chapters: 1 (oneshot)
Summary: The title says it all
No Students Out of Bed by Asey_the_Ghost (AO3) / LuckyNumeralThirteen (Fanfiction.net)
Rating: G
Fandoms: Harry Potter
Characters: Minerva McGonagall, James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew
Relationships: Gen
Tags: Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Marauders Friendship (Harry Potter), Minerva McGonagall is Done, boys being ridiculous, Rules What Rules, I Just Figured Out How To Tag, What am I doing, Cross-Posted on Fanfiction.net
Published: January 24, 2021 (originally published October 12, 2019 on fanfiction.net)
Words: 675
Chapters: 1 (oneshot)
Summary: In their defense, they just wanted a little fun...
What A Lovely View by Asey_the_Ghost (AO3) / LuckyNumeralThirteen (Fanfiction.net)
Rating: G
Fandoms: Natsume Yuujinchou (Natsume's Book of Friends), Fukigen na Mononokean (The Morose Mononokean)
Characters: Natsume Takashi, Ashiya Hanae, Fuzzy (Fukigen na Mononokean)
Relationships: Gen, Ashiya Hanae & Fuzzy, Ashiya Hanae & Natsume Takashi
Tags: International Fanworks Day 2021, Songfic, kind of, Chance Meetings, First Meetings, Crossover, One Shot, Cross-Posted on Fanfiction.net
Published: February 15, 2021
Words: 1,219
Chapters: 1 (oneshot)
Summary: Sometimes the universe just decides you're not allowed to be lonely.
AKA, Ashiya Hanae likes to make new friends.
(Technically a songfic, uses the lyrics to the Japanese children's song "Toryanse")
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Rating: T (Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death)
Fandoms: Danny Phantom, Boku no Hero Academia (My Hero Academia)
Characters: Danny Fenton, Vlad Masters (briefly), Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Inko
Relationships: Other/Not Listed
Tags: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s02e08-09 The Ultimate Enemy, Ultimate Enemy timeline, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dimension Travel, Time Travel, technically, Blood and Injury, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, will update tags as I go, Slow To Update, Work in Progress, no schedule, Rating May Change, Cross-Posted on Fanfiction.net
Published: May 1, 2021 (originally posted October 10, 2020 on fanfiction.net)
Words: 1,131
Chapters: 1/?
Summary: He lost everything in the explosion. Then he lost himself.
Please read this note before considering the next fic
Note: The Magic In Those Eyes is a fic I've been working on for years, but hasn't been updated in a very long time. I do intend to finish it. Because I've been working on it for so long, there's a lot of parts that I would write differently now than I would back then. There's even some parts I'm embarrassed by and one in particular I wrote with very limited knowledge of the LGBTQ+ community at the time. I've learned and grown a lot since then but I'm owning my mistakes. If you choose to read, thanks, but please cut past-me some slack?
The Magic In Those Eyes by LuckyNumeralThirteen
Rating: T
Fandoms: Spider-Man + Harry Potter Crossover (also includes MCU Avengers, Spider-Man is a mix of canons and headcanons)
Characters: Peter P./Spider-Man, Harry P. (also includes all characters from the first Avengers movie)
Relationships: Not listed
Categories: Adventure, Hurt/Comfort
Published: January 22, 2019
Updated: March 15, 2020
Words: 90,420 (includes A/N's)
Chapters: 36/?
Summary: Harry Potter, The-Boy-Who-Lived. Peter Parker, the Amazing Spider-man. Two heroes, two separate universes. But when Harry is tired of the constant betrayal and misery that is his life, he strikes a deal with Death and the two come together to help
 wait, are those the Avengers? (Includes animal/human transfiguration, severe diversions from canon, and LGTBQ stuffs, such as slash)
Lucky's Fair Warning: There's a lot of very long rambling author's notes. The entire Avengers movie has been written into this story with virtually no changes to the plot. The fic is very trope-ridden and cliche at times. And there are LGBTQ+ themes that are handled poorly at one point but with no bad intentions, simply a lack of knowledge that has since been corrected. I may eventually get around to rewriting it, but I'm trying to finish the fic before I go back and make any changes to it.
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witchbythebay · 4 years ago
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Philter or Infusion?
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I came across a post describing types of potions, but got curious about its descriptions of philters and infusions. 
°Philtre: water based, delicate ingredients
Infusion: water based, delicate ingredients 
I was familiar with infusions but not at all with philters (philtres?), so this got me wondering what actually differentiates the two. That ended up leading me down a big ol’ rabbit hole, so I’ll share what I found in case anyone else has ever wondered the same thing. 
Literal Definition & Etymology
I started with the dictionary definition of philter (also sometimes spelled philtre). While the generic denotation may not capture the nuanced meaning of a word within a specific domain (like witchcraft!), I figured it couldn’t hurt to start with the basics. 
Borrowed from Latin philtrum, itself a borrowing from Ancient Greek Ï†ÎŻÎ»Ï„ÏÎżÎœ (phĂ­ltron, from φÎčλέω (philĂ©Ć, “I love”))   A kind of potion, charm, or drug; especially love potion intended to make the drinker fall in love with the giver. [from the 16th c.]  x
So not just a potion, but a love potion. Note that the root of the word itself has to do with love. But, obviously definitions change over time and can become quite removed from their original meaning, so this is by no means conclusive. 
For what it’s worth, here’s infusion’s definition as well:
Borrowed from Old French infusion, from Latin infusio, infusionem (“a pouring into, a wetting, a dyeing, a flow”), from infundo.
A product consisting of a liquid which has had other ingredients steeped in it to extract useful qualities. An extract of rooibos and chamomile makes a refreshing infusion. The act of steeping or soaking a substance in liquid so as to extract medicinal or herbal qualities. x
Popular Usage
Next, I decided to look around some witchy and occult spaces online and see how other practitioners were using the word (if at all), particularly if there was any consensus about how a philter is made and what distinguishes it from other elixirs or potions, such as infusions. 
Online resources can be pretty dicey; I think we’ve all seen “witch tips” that may have started out as something reasonable, but have been passed through so many people and platforms, changing a little each time, that the end result is incorrect, incomplete, or even dangerous. So, my hope here wasn’t to find a single definitive Answer, but rather to collect a variety of them and see what they had in common. 
In the interest of saving space since this post is already really long, I won’t list all the results verbatim (although I have them saved if you’re just that curious), but the gist is this:
Unsurprisingly, few modern witches even seem to use the word philter; it seems antiquated or maybe literary at this point
It’s almost always used to describe either a love potion or other potion intended to evoke strong emotion in another person
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Bibliographic Usage
To round things out, I also looked for written sources, which can also be kinda fraught, especially when you don’t have many trusted sources on hand.
To give you an idea of what you might find, one example I came across is Ellen Dugan’s Book of Witchery: Spells, Charms & Correspondences for Every Day of the Week (2012):
"No, technically, it is generally thought that a magickal potion is to be brewed or steeped over heat, while a philter is mixed together like a potion but the ingredients are not brewed. Another definition of a philter is simply "a magickal liquid" (which says classic potion to me). Potion and philter recipes both typically contain the following: water or a base oil, various essential oils, and other magickal ingredients such as herbs, flower petals, shed animal fur, or even tiny chips of crystals."
So this seemed concerning for something meant to be ingested, but it does then clarify that, "the magickal philters featured in this Book of Shadows are not meant to be taken internally," or “worn on the body”; they’re meant to anoint and bless objects instead. Still, I didn’t find any other source that mentions this â€œlack of brewing” distinction, although Dugan may have cited a source later in the book somewhere? 
There were also lots of references to philters/philtres in older texts of all kinds, usually love potions or aphrodisiacs, but sometimes used interchangeably with any kind of liquid with pharmacological properties. 
For an example of the magical variety, in Henry Cockeram’s The English Dictionarie or an Interpreter of Hard English Words (from 1626), a philtre is, "an amorous potion to procure loue."  
Another example, philters get a shout-out in the lyrics to A Christmas Cantata by Stanley Schell (Werner’s Magazine, 1899):
"A love philter which I need; Make it sweet, and good, and strong (...)The poison philter that I need; Make it heavy, swift, and strong." 
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Finally, I found something that, based on the wording, seems like it could be the actual source of the info in the tumblr post that started this all. 
"A Philtre or Infusion is a form of water based potion, similar to a tea, and best suited for immediate ingestion of delicate ingredients such as leaves or petals." 
This is from Advanced Potion Making By Noel Green (2015). We see the same “water based”, “delicate ingredients” wording as the tumblr post. However, the description of the work itself says, ”Note: this is NOT a real potion book but is made for the fan of all things magical."  So there’s that.
Summary
tl;dr
My takeaway from all this is that the word philter:
is kinda antiquated
typically describes a love potion or aphrodisiac specifically
isn’t a subtype of potion in the same way as infusions, tinctures, decoctions, salves, etc, which each entail specific methods of creation or physical properties
As always, double-check what you read online. You might not find a conclusive answer to your questions, but you can still find out if what you’re being told is from folklore, or if it’s (probably unintentionally) sourced from (what seems to be) a narrowly-avoiding-copyright-issues HP fanwork. 
BUT I’m not a terribly experienced witch myself, so if anyone has further insight, clarification, or corrections to offer (or suggestions for further reading!) please don’t hesitate to add on or send it my way. Cheers!
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lost-kinn · 6 years ago
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That post you reblogged abt "types of fanfic writers" and you saying its a good joke in the tags. Like. Maybe I'm dumb (v likely actually) but what's the joke?
(for people just coming to this conversation, the post can be found [here].)
oh no! youre not dumb and this is a very nicely worded message. i’ve been trying to answer this message for several days, and I really want to be able to do it on this blog because i feel like you deserve an answer and i don’t have another way to contact you, but i’m not sure that i can. 
how do i say this–in the very short time that i’ve begun running this blog and wound up with a number of followers (and the idea that this blog has more than 0 followers is already beyond the scope of the intention of this sideblog, because it was originally meant to be only an archive for fanart), there’s already been drama in the inbox, and i’d rather just not host or perpetuate drama on this blog, even if that means that 1) i don’t write meta anymore, or 2) i just keep my opinions and interpretations to myself.
but to get to the point: there’s definitely more than two different ways to write a fanfic, and there’s more than two different ways to create a fanwork, and there’s more than two different ways to engage with interpretation and transformation of a text. i would like to say that i know this for a fact. but i’m not sure how to explain it.
the post i reblogged puts up a binary of â€œtype 1: wing it” and â€œtype 2: stringent adherence to factual detail.” it’s a black and white option. the third type is â€œsomewhere in the middle”–shades of grey.
this is a spectrum that only goes one way.
to extend the color metaphor, the spectrum includes white, black, and grey, and doesnt even consider the fact that there might be colors like red, orange, green, blue, purple, etc. 
on a scale of â€œi stringently adhere to canon and all of canon’s details” and â€œcanonical details can go fuck themselves,” i would be hard-pressed to place the fanwork that i do.
i would not know where to put, on this spectrum, a fanwork that considered the premise of a show to be better than its execution, and wrote an AU that revised the second season to honor, respect, and engage with the premise of the show better than the actual show-writers. 
i wouldn’t know where to put on this spectrum a fanwork that rewrites characters as queer or people of color. (a lot of the fanworks that i’ve seen with half-japanese, half-black naruto have been genuinely very compelling in regards to highlighting the ways that black children are treated in america. and the ways that naruto is treated in the show, for that matter.)
i wouldn’t know where to put on this spectrum a character study that tries to unpack a backstory that’s never explained in canon. no matter how well-sourced, no matter how detail-oriented the work is, it will still always be an interpretation. to come up with entire missing chunks of canon will always be a statement on trying to insert a missing piece into the entire rest of the fabric of the work.
let me try another way.
i did some theatre work as an undergrad. in theatre, it’s essentially taken for granted that your work will be an interpretation of the original script. as it stands, the scripts that are replicated arent actually the original script that the scriptwriter wrote; the scripts that are replicated and reread are actually the stage notes, meaning that it has additions from the stage manager and director.
i’ve seen and participated in the production of maybe five different versions of hamlet. 
one of them intended to replicate hamlet of that particular era, with stringent scrutiny to detail, as best as possible. 
the second production involved TV screens, electrical wiring, and heavy edits to the script. it was a commentary on surveillance states, self-surveillance, internalized state surveillance, and the ways that people go mad under it.
the third production was a comedy. the scene where hamlet found out that ophelia was dead had the audience in actual stitches. i think i laughed so hard i cried.
the fourth production was a genderswap. ophelia’s character had all the same lines and was somehow fresh and new and interesting by virtue that ophelia was now a man. hamlet was a disaster garbage goblin woman whose disaster, often chalked up to hamlet’s femininity, was somehow even more gender-nasty than it was in the first place.
the fifth production was a modern day adaptation, in which hamlet is an heir to a big business (very common adaptation), and the set included varying fake ads spoofing starbucks, amazon, and college application ads. hamlet’s â€œto be or not to be” speech was minorly modified to reflect the theme of â€œi labor/i shop, therefore i am.” the director had a very difficult time keeping in conversation with previous adaptations that had done this very premise, because it’d been done half to death. 
i would say that all of these productions engaged meaningfully with the source text, said something new about it, said something new about our current day situation and us as an audience, and did, in fact, take stringent care to stay true to some aspect of the text, right down to its nitty gritty details. each one of the directors slaved over research, from trying to figure out the details of the original period production, to details of productions since, to hamlet’s long history of being butchered by shitty actors, to shakespeare’s prevalence in the theatre community that effectively silenced new plays for a whole century, to the pushback against shakespeare, to the revival of shakespeare, and what that means for our current state of, so to speak, the â€œshakespeare fandom.”
i’d say meaningful, detail-considerate engagement with the source text was done with all of these productions. 
even the one with the TV screens and surveillance state.
even the one with the genderswap.
i think what i’m trying to illustrate is that it takes more attention to detail, an even closer reading of the text, to be able to play with the text and speak in conversation with it. i’ve never known fanworks to be purely reflective of canon, of simply giving a purely uncritical, unchanged interpretation of canon. fanworks (when done right) have always been creative, experimental, and transformative of canon, and that’s why i’ve liked it. 
fanworks, in a lot of ways, have always been about speaking back to a text, rather than passively accepting it. 
details and close reading are good. they are so good, in fact, that i have a career in teaching young people how to do it. 
but to me as a fan creator, these are not the point.
so i suppose that the joke, anon, is that a binary of â€œi rigorously attend to every detail of canon” vs â€œdetails of canon can go fuck themselves” is
 a strong bastardization of what fanworks and fanfiction actually do, insofar as i’m aware.
i hope that makes sense. i did my best.
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slusheeduck · 6 years ago
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Geeking IN: How Online Fans Are the Future of Media and Media Marketing
           Once dismissed as socially inept nerds, fans are taking the lead as this generation’s most successful creators. While there has always been the odd story of fans who end up taking the helm of favorite TV shows or adapting their favorite work into a movie, many new faces in the entertainment industry are using their knowledge from years of participating in online communities to market to the global internet audience, as well as keeping their own fandoms somewhat in line.
           Recent years have seen a boom in the acceptance of “fandom,” that is, a community of fans. Comic conventions have gone from a punchline to mega-events that require a lottery just to get in, there are countless articles on sites like Buzzfeed about “How wrecked were you during the Game of Thrones finale?” and “Seven ways to tell you’re a Cumberbitch.” Even something once as obscure as “fanfiction” has practically become a household term.
So how did we get to this point? Where in the scope of the past decade has it become acceptable to “geek out”? The main answer to this is, naturally, the internet. When the world wide web was still the great unknown to the general public, many fans saw it as a way to gather, creating their own websites or posting their fanwork on sites like Livejournal and DeviantArt. As the internet became more and more accessible, so too did joining in the fun of fandom. That leads us to today: now, many fans who have more or less grown up in these online spaces and seen the shifts in fan communities and interaction, are coming of age and producing their own content with a keen sense of how these communities work.
Perhaps the most public example of this comes in the form of best-seller book Fifty Shades of Grey. Regardless of what your opinion on the raunchy romance is, London-based author E.L. James has been completely upfront with the fact that it began as a Twilight fanfiction. While it is already rare for a fanfiction writer to “make it big,” much less into a novel that has sold over 100 million copies worldwide[1] and spawned a movie series and sex toy line, it’s even rarer for them to actually admit that it began as a fanfic. And yet James has no qualms mentioning it.
“Well, it all started way back in the day when I saw ‘Twilight,’ the film, and I loved those books — I could not put [them] down, absolutely avidly read the books,” E.L. James said in an interview on “Katie,” Katie Couric’s talk show. “This switch was flipped. I had to write — started writing, wrote a novel, then I discovered fan fiction
[I] wrote about Edward and Bella and then decided to write about Christian and Anastasia. I took the fan [fiction], and a friend of mine re-wrote it and I thought — if he could do it, so could I, and now I am here.”[2]
James even goes so far as to put this backstory up on her personal website. Regardless of individual opinions of the book, her success and openness about her past in writing has opened up a new wave of potential writers (and agents) who can see their fanfiction transforming into original works.
In addition to Fifty Shades and other books such as Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, the once heavily maligned group of fanfiction writers are shaping up to be the popular, original novelists of the next ten years rather than merely running fan magazines or writing something for a company-approved spin-off novel.
However, while the internet is just beginning to be seen as a source for new talent, it’s more importantly become a place to take seriously when it comes to marketing. Many fans who grew up in the age of internet fandoms have a keen sense of the international aspect of the web; it’s now nothing special to discuss the latest Star Wars movie with someone in Bangladesh from your home in Seattle with a dissenter from Norway. As a result of this global recognition, they are able to market their work for the internet community at large rather than simply the demographic of a set area.
With entertainment and media becoming more and more global rather than regional, this is an invaluable skill to have. It’s not enough to appeal to a target audience, but to instead be ready to market it, however indirectly, to the world. One of the most notable, recent examples of this comes from the show “Gravity Falls,” created by Alex Hirsch. While intended for an American audience of 8-12 year olds, “Gravity Falls” has reached worldwide audiences—its series finale, aired earlier this month, clocked in 2.9 million views in the US alone, and the series as a whole has become number one in total views on record for a children’s show[3]. While the show itself was enjoyable to fans, what gave it the extra punch into worldwide success comes from its use of “easter eggs” (special nods to previous episodes as well as other shows) and secret codes hidden in the show.
“I’ve always been a fan of shows that gave little hints to regular watchers, and I wanted to do the same thing with Gravity Falls,” Hirsch said. “But I never expected [the fans] to go so far with it! So I made things harder, and within an hour, they would find the answers to what I’d hidden.”
This mutual understanding of the fans wanting to find things and the creator wanting fans to work hard made it possible for fans to connect even more with Gravity Falls, as well as helped to create a tighter community. With these interactive elements, online communities began to form around the show, and soon enough people from all over the world were discussing and, more importantly, watching the show.
As if this wasn’t enough, Hirsch took his involvement with fan communities a step farther. He has done two Ask Me Anything (AMA) sessions on the message board site, Reddit: one as himself and another surprise visit as the main antagonist of Gravity Falls, Bill Cipher. Both of these AMAs gave more dedicated viewers a deeper look into the world of Gravity Falls as well as behind the scenes information straight from the source. Additionally, Hirsh regularly held contests related to “Gravity Falls” on Twitter, offering prizes of personalized messages from the characters (of whom he voices four of the mains) and often displaying all entries on his page, ushering in a sense of community with the creator of the show himself.
As lines begin to blur between social media and entertainment media, online fans are becoming a more crucial demographic than ever to reach out to. And as their numbers increase, more and more communities can spot the difference between pandering and “hype”. As we can see, fame can pop up merely because of involvement with a fandom or because of deliberate marketing based on understanding the current “fandom” market. An example of this comes from game developing newcomer Toby Fox, whose game UNDERTALE became an overnight success. Before UNDERTALE, he was very active in a few different online fandoms. In an interview with The Existential Gamer, he discusses the importance of the Nintendo game Earthbound in his past, because he “was part of an Earthbound fan community and it was a cornerstone of my life.”[4]  In addition to being in the Earthbound community, Fox was well-known in the fandom for the webcomic “Homestuck,” going so far as to have his music included in the series. With the knowledge of fandom mentality and what people look for in independent media, he was able to successfully fund a Kickstarter and produce the game, which itself is full of online and fandom in-jokes, endearing it to those “in the know”. And, given the fact that it’s sold over 1.2 million copies[5] and won “Best PC game” from both IGN and Destructoid—two prominent gaming magazines/sites—as well as numerous other awards during the 2015 gaming award season, the amount of those “in the know” is much more than most would assume.
With the acceptance of fandoms and sheer amount of people participating in these types of fan communities, it’s more important than ever for businesses and entertainment networks to begin studying the trends of these demographics and seeing fans as potential employees as well. The latter particularly seems to be the direction entertainment-focused businesses should consider; not only are fans notoriously creative and attentive to detail, but they know precisely what online audiences will be looking for in way of content as well as advertising. And, as was shown by “Gravity Falls”, a show with a savvy team can create a feeling of community with the fans of their product, letting them know that yes, they’re also fans! They understand the frustration of waiting through hiatuses and know what kind of in-jokes to make for those who look for deeper meaning in their media.
I would say that now, we’re living in the time of the super-fan, and that should be something that is embraced in media circles, from a marketing and hiring standpoint. The more media legitimizes their super-fans, particularly the large number of those online, the more they can begin a symbiotic relationship to gain both views and profits.
 [1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/27/fifty-shades-of-grey-book-100m-sales
[2] http://www.examiner.com/article/e-l-james-discusses-twilight-influence-fifty-shades-of-grey
[3] http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/gravity-falls-series-finale-disney-xd-ratings-records-1201711939/
[4] http://existentialgamer.com/interview-toby-fox-undertale
[5] http://steamspy.com/app/391540
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nakiriialice · 6 years ago
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i dont think this site is ever going to die, and i do stand by what i said earlier, that i dont intend to delete/leave this blog anytime soon, but tbh this whole ordeal made me realize that it might be for my own good if i started investing my time into something else.
like, dont get me wrong. tungle is still fun in its own way. i joined originally because i wanted to explore & share fanwork made by fans for other fans, i wanted to cultivate my interests into a single place, and that is still what drives me to this very day. followers never really were the thing that motivated me. fandoms were busy, thriving, blooming, and it was super exciting to pick out the stuff i wanted to collect & showcase it on my blog.
i was part of the tokyo ghoul and the the osomatsu-san fandom for a really long time, and i enjoyed it immensely. we shared theories, made gifsets, bombarded each other with shitposts. it was truly a creative hobby at first! in fact, making graphics was what inspired me to become a graphic designer.
i learned a lot about life in general on this site when i first joined, i became aware of my own sexuality, i realized how hurtful internalized misogyny & racism are, the more stories i saw from ppl across the world, the more i learnt to appreciate and accept those around me, i embraced my own femininity once again, and i thrived to become a kinder person overall.
im glad that i grew out of my edgy phase and realized that im an empathic person and that it isnt a weakness at all.
but obviously there are always two sides of the same coin, and i do think my slowly worsening mental health & crippling depression really were induced and fueled by this site after all. seeing posts about how everything always sucks just poisoned my brain and i couldnt escape the loop for a very long time. tungle was a terrible coping mechanism.
but, all in all, i had to survive all of that. i had to get up and say it to myself â€œhey were going to get better”. and it was really hard at first. because even though i clearly understood that i became a much better person, i still missed the me that i was before depression. i missed my humor, i missed how i was always in the center of attention, how i always laughed everything off. it all felt like... someone else from the past. and i missed her.
so i kept going, and i eventually found her again. and i didnt even realize it first, it all felt so natural. so obvious. that this is me. i am now happy to be myself.
this site has taught me a lot, but its also becoming more terrible day by day. this CANT be your life. this SHOULDNT be your life. this is just a site. a site we made an account for to have fun. blogs i used to follow & admire left like more than a year ago, and tungle has been sparce ever since. theres nothing here anymore. im just here out of habit at this point. and... sometimes its still fun, yeah. bless the content creators who still have the motivation to do anything here.
lately ive just been scrolling past my dashboard. with a hollow expression. on one hand im going to miss the graphics and the art, the people i met here (even though we never really talked, they were still part of my life), being consantly connected to my fandoms (even though they might be small now), and of course the memes. but maybe it would be best to hang around... somewhere else. theres noone to talk to here anymore, noone to shout into the void for, and it IS bad for my mental health overall.
i think ill be here, though. im not gonna just leave or anything like that. maybe ill just be lurking more than usual. maybe i should be just... emotionally over with this site, and find something more... fun.
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