#shipping is and always will be a huge part of fandom (yes even if you think xyz ship is soooo dumb abd why do people even like it“

[kittyb1tz]

"why can't two characters just be friends" well they literally can you can choose to like. not ship them. Just don't expect other people to not ship them....

[lenalvthor]

hey i have a fucking bone to pick with sapphic fandoms

like, i get it okay. i've been on tumblr since 2011, i was in the trenches during the bury your gays nightmare, i grew up on buffy, i watched the 100, i've been through the furious and devastating queerbaits, and i've watched helplessly as the boom of proper progress with sapphic rep has burned and disappeared with the faults of the industry as it is rn and the resurgence of bury your gays in the form of tv cancellations

i even did a fucking guest lecture for a film & tv university course a couple years ago on all of this

we joke about the fact that queer (specifically sapphic) fans flock to any show with the barest hint of rep in it because we're so starved for it, and we talk about the fact that if nothing else, that proves that there's a market and an audience and it usually creates a huge wave of viewership and attention for the show

but i need to fucking point out: acting as though a show exists for the sole purpose of the sapphic relationship you've started watching it for is fucking detrimental to how you'll perceive the show, how it'll get talked about in fandom spaces and then beyond that (bc the line between fandom spaces and wider online discussion of media is a lot thinner than it was ten years ago) and isn't actually going to do any good for sapphic rep! like, at all! because guess what! unless you're watching a show where the entire storyline revolves around romance, this couple you're watching for ISN'T going to be the centre of the story! it's a part of it! and there's such a weird fucking entitled toxicity to how fans act around brilliant storytelling and worldbuilding and writing and characters throwing tantrums about not getting more screentime for the relationship they like because they don't actually care about any other part of the story. and the thing about people who watch something solely for a ship rather than the wider story it exists in, is that a lot of the time, you'll fundamentally misinterpret the characters and their dynamic because you're not taking any of the wider context of the world and story into account at all.

and yes, of course i'm talking about agatha all along in the immediacy. because we knew a long, long time ago that billy maximoff was gonna be an integral part of this story, long before we knew anything about what the vibe of this show was gonna be, long before anyone even had the tiniest whisper of rio's existence. the same way wandavision was monica rambeau's origin story even though the show was wanda's, we suspected that agatha all along would be billy's/wiccan's origin story even if the show focused on agatha. and you know fucking what. that's good fucking storytelling. this show is smart, it's funny, it's curious, it's campy, it's queer, and it's ensemble. that's always been the point. agatha and rio were a delightfully unexpected part of it that added such delicious tension and phenomenal sapphic rep, but you know what else! the point of that dynamic is to flesh out agatha's character! this show isn't about agatha and rio! it's about agatha and billy, who they are, how their pasts and their magic are connected, their traumas and their power and how the road shapes their futures! rio is a part of exploring agatha's past, and it's phenomenal, but i am so fucking bewildered by the ridiculousness of people's reactions to billy now having a bigger part in the story and there being less focus on agatha and rio. you do know that you write scenes and characters and stories in a way that makes sense right? that because of the nature of this show, even if we don't get more than a handful agatha and rio scenes for the rest of the episodes, they're both still sapphic characters, this is still wonderful sapphic rep, and this show is still very, very queer?

like, it's obviously not fair that we have to beg for scraps to have queer shows to watch. but that doesn't mean that any of us get to do such a fucking disservice to the people who make amazing shows and fight to put sapphic rep in them within the contexts of the stories they're telling by whining that it's not enough. what we're getting with agatha all along, what kathryn han and aubrey plaza and jac schaeffer have said with such grace and nuance and intrigue and depth about agatha and rio's relationship, is so fucking rare! and it's nestled within a story that's got so much other intricate storytelling that makes agatha and rio richer characters when you actually pay some fucking attention and care about who they are outside of their sexual tension!

and i'm saying this because this is an issue i see with So many other shows, where the worth of a show gets boiled down to fandoms wanting content of their ship and nothing else and then poisoning the conversation and reception around what else it is that show is doing with its story. idk get some fucking media literacy, grow up and respect artists and creatives.

[cr-aspec-fest]

CR Aspec Fest - Info & FAQs!

The Critical Role Aspec Fest is a month-long fanwork fest (with a prompt for each week) celebrating aromantic-spectrum and asexual-spectrum experiences!

Schedule and Prompts

WEEK 1 (Feb 1st-7th): Aro-spec

WEEK 2 (Feb 8th-14th): Ace-spec

WEEK 3 (Feb 15th-21st): Unconventional relationships

WEEK 4 (Feb 22nd-28th): Free week! Whatever your heart desires.

FAQs

(if something isn't answered here, please feel free to send an ask or message!)

Can I make something about a character being demisexual or demiromantic or (insert other label)? Can I make something about a character who's straight?

Absolutely - please do! Aspec is a very broad umbrella term, and this event is all about celebrating a variety of experiences that aren't well-represented in media. If it feels right to you, go for it. I'm not going to exclude any works from the fest just because they aren't relatable to me.

What types of fanworks can I make for the fest?

Anything! Be that fanfiction, fanart, meta, gifsets, edits etc. - everything is welcome! If you're writing fanfiction, you're encouraged to post to the AO3 collection here.

Which Critical Role characters can I make fanworks about?

Anyone in anything they've streamed - so the main campaigns, EXUs, Candela Obscura, Daggerheart or other oneshots!

Do I need to be aspec to join?

Definitely not, as long as you're coming in with the mindset of being respectful of our experiences. For one, I'm aromantic but not ace-spec - so making works about ace-spec experiences is naturally going to be more difficult for me, but entirely doable with a little bit of research! I think it's a great way to learn about others.

Why February? Why a whole month?

Yes, there are plenty of aspec weeks hosted in other fandoms, which are great and the inspiration for this event! But personally, I am both slow and busy, so making just one thing per week is much more achievable for me. I chose February because Aromantic Awareness Week is the week after Valentine's day, and this fest was originally going to take place during that time. I'm also unaware of any other fandom events happening in February (although please let me know otherwise, just for my own interest!). The fact that February splits so nicely into 4 whole weeks is an added bonus!

Would you like people to share around the existence of this fest?

(Okay, maybe this one's a bit of a cheat.) Yes please! Even if you don't plan on taking part, getting eyes on the existence of this event would be wonderful. This is the first fandom event I've ever hosted, and I don't have a huge platform among fic writers, who are likely the largest contingent of nerds (lovingly) who'd be interested in taking part in an event like this.

Other Rules

Please don't bash any ships or headcanons you don't like! Part of the fun of fandom is seeing the broad range of possible interpretations, and I'd always rather foster a sense of community rather than opposition.

Suggestive, NSFW and whump content is fully allowed, but must be tagged correctly for whatever platform you're posting on.

Fanworks should be focused on aspec experiences or characters, but other topics or characters can totally be included, and these experiences don't have to be super clear or well-labelled in-text (gods know that real-life experiences are often opaque and confusing) - it's your intention that matters. This is up to your discretion, really. As with the rule of thumb for AO3 tagging - if someone was viewing this for aspec content, would they be disappointed? If so, you can always rework it, or post it outside of this fest.

This account will be reblogging every fanwork made for the fest - just remember to tag us, and use the #CRAspecFest tag! If you don't have a tumblr account and want a post about your work to be included, send a message.

There'll be more posts on this account with ideas for how to approach the prompts, plus reminders at the start of each week, tagged #CRAspecFestPosts. All submission reblogs will be tagged #CRAspecFestWorks.

[dorlilymylovesss]

I want to speak out on a topic that has been really bothering and stressing me out. For several months now, Me and my friends who don't even ship jegulus, but are just Regulus fans have been harassed by Jily shippers. And not just with hateful words, but with specific accusations of fascism.

I want to start by saying that fandoms are a place where people can express their creativity and interpret characters as they like. Fanfics, art, and shippings are forms of self-expression, and they don't have to conform to canon. It allows us to look at characters from different angles, develop alternative plots, and create something new. And I don't judge or hate people for their favorite characters and ships.

I'm a huge Regulus fan even before the Jegulus ship came along. Regulus Black is a character I have a deep interest in for many reasons. Despite his limited appearance in the Harry Potter books, his story and character leave room for a lot of interpretation and thought. And I don't like it when people describe him as a regular Death Eater.

First, Jily fans often argue their dislike by saying that their ship is canonical( of course this is true and no one denies it) and James would never date a death eater. However, it should be remembered that fan art and shippings are inherently activities for the self and the soul. Even if a couple doesn't conform to "official" canon and never even met, it doesn't diminish the right of fans to create their own stories and interpretations.

Second Jegulus shippers are called misogynists.

But they may simply see these characters as interesting dynamics that catch their attention or interesting tropes that can be created. Choosing this ship doesn't necessarily mean they are intentionally excluding female characters and being negative towards them. Yes there are people among jegulus shippers who dislike Lily and exclude her from the story, but they are a minority. Plenty of jegulus shippers love Lily and also ship jily.

The charge of misogyny implies a conscious and systematic disregard for women or female characters. However, in most cases, Jegulus shippers simply enjoy a particular story or interaction between two male characters. This does not preclude an interest in or respect for female characters. Many shippers actively create and support content featuring female characters in other contexts or ships.

There is always a diversity of interests and preferences in fan circles. Not everyone likes the same characters or couples, and that's fine. However, to infer misogyny just based on someone's preference for a certain male couple without considering the overall context of a person's interests is wrong and unfair. Plus, I've seen thousands of Jily fans who were blatantly homophobic towards the marlily and pandalily enjoyers, and called James her only love, and erase her identity, leaving only her relationship with James.

Third, why calling the death eaters fascists is wrong and insulting to the actual victims of the tragedy.

Fascism as a political ideology and movement had specific historical roots and consequences, including brutal repression, genocide, and war. Death Eaters are fictional characters created by transphobic Rowling for a work of fiction, and their actions and motivations are part of a fictional universe.

Using historical examples of real-life suffering and tragedies to compare to fictional characters is disrespectful to those affected by real-life events. Historical tragedies such as the Holocaust require special respect and careful handling. And many Jewish content makers have already spoken out about it.

The kind of hate I've encountered as a Regulus fan is something I wouldn't wish on anyone. That being said, I've always loved jily, but after the hate, stupid accusations I've cooled off to them. You can't treat living people like that because of fictional characters. A lot of people don't care about canon written by a creepy transphobic woman, can you imagine?

Instead of wasting time on conflict and hate I suggest you create content on your favorite ships and leave other people alone. You have no idea how your hating can affect a person.

Not all shippers have the intention to demean or exclude other characters. Many of us simply love a particular dynamic and choose to explore it in our writing. This should not be taken as a threat or insult to other fans.

I love jegulus and jily, but my fav ship is dorlily and it saddens me that fans of the same fandom hate each other so much.

Not all shippers have the intent to demean or exclude other characters. Many of us simply love a particular dynamic and choose to explore it in our writing. This should not be taken as a threat or insult to other fans.

Leave other people alone. If u can't create content for your favorite ship and only can hate others its your f..king problem, it's unhealthy and childish.

I'm deeply sorry for jegulus artists and writers who got hate here and even death treats. I hope you will continue creating something that makes you happy.

[ryuichirou]

I apologize if it is too personal but how do you deal with "antishipper" and the way they make callout posts and harassment campaigns against you ? It’s legitimately so scary and it makes me hesitant of posting my own art

Anon! I am very sorry you are going through this horrible feeling of hesitation and anxiety; knowing that people get targeted like that could not only stop you from posting, but stop you from creating altogether, and this is the worst part about this whole thing.

It’s not too personal, and I don’t mind talking about it at all. I’ve talked about our position and our relationship with fandom policing a bunch of times already, so I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself.

I used to be worried about posting certain stuff too. Well, when I was a teen/in my early 20s I wasn’t worried about anything: we had so much juicy stuff posted here lol But then the nsfw ban happened, and the social climate of this app and internet in general started shifting, the first stories about people driven to end their lives because of the hate they received started to come out, and we stopped posting completely. It wasn’t a huge loss to us back then, and this situation wasn’t the only reason why we stopped, but still, it clearly became much more difficult to just appear out of nowhere, throw problematic stuff in your blog and run away again.

I vividly remember us wanting to post my Shingeki no Kyojin drawings and comics based on our AUs and stuff, but not knowing what to do with Ereri – there was no way for us to be “unproblematic” (which was never a concern to us, we just didn’t want to get tons of hate lol) and still post Eren with a man twice his age. So we started posting them without a tag, starting with a drawing that wasn’t too shippy, and then miraculously the world didn’t end. That made us bolder, and we started to post them openly, and posted them for almost two years pretty regularly, alongside some of our other problematic ships + problematic themes. Of course we did get hate, we got a lot of hate while we were posting SnK stuff from all kinds of people, but what we also got a lot of people who found our content refreshing and interesting, even if it was weird and uncomfortable at times.

We weren’t the only people who shipped Ereri (let’s ignore my petty thoughts about the difference between Ereri and Rivaere for now), and we weren’t the only people in Twst fandom who liked Shroudcest, which is another ship that we were super hesitant about posting or even mentioning at first. But with all the hate around I was so certain the world was going to end the moment we post them, and that didn’t happen. The end of the world never happens, but what does happen is that people either get introduced to a fun new dynamic and get invested, or get happy that someone finally posts for the ship they were too afraid to post for. Somehow, when you see some other person being ballsy, you don’t feel as scared anymore – it happened to us with other people’s posts too. Yes, I still say this even though it spawns a bunch of callout posts and harassment, as it did with us. Were we cancelled? Yeah, somewhat. There’s so much you can say about an acc that states “problematic stuff, 18+”, right? I was super relieved and happy, actually, that a lot of people left/blocked us just because they’re the people I’d never want to interact with my art.

I’ve been yapping for a long time already lol so I’ll give you some pieces of advice instead… These are things that legitimately help us.

Surround yourself with people who support you – if not you personally, then at least your ideas (i.e. other proshippers). Luckily, nowadays it’s easier to find them… But also, having a friend who you can vent about these things to helps a lot! It’s cheesy but it’s a fact: when you’re not alone, it’s not as scary.

Always ignore comments/asks from antis and block them on sight, block anonymous asks too. Even if you really want to sass them, it’s much more effective to ignore them: when you give them attention, it invites more engagement from them.

Block people you get bad vibes from. Block those who like or comment bad takes or support harassment of others, block all of their alt accounts. It’s tedious and takes time, but it really helps to keep you hidden from them, at least to some degree. I look up Shroudcest sometimes just to block new people. They try to make fun of me for that, but who cares if it works? You can’t block everyone, but these people usually flock together and it’s usually just a bunch of friends, so taking several posts on these topics from people from the fandom and blocking everyone involved will obliterate the majority of harassers.

In terms of your safety, having multiple accounts in case you main one gets mass-reported helps + I would advice to keep irl stuff away from your fandom stuff just in case.

This is going to sound stupid, but please keep in mind that this isn’t about you. These people are very miserable and not very smart. Even if they try to paint you like a bad person, they don’t know anything about you, so don’t let their judgment affect how you feel about yourself. This is exactly what they want – to have power over you.

Stay strong and take care of yourself, i.e. lock your acc and/or take a break if you feel overwhelmed. Don’t worry, it will pass: it’s very rare for these clowns to keep focus on one person for a long period of time; they have like 5 different dramas per day. There are some absolutely batshit crazy rapid assholes who won’t leave an artist alone for years, but those are super rare and special cases altogether, I don’t think you need to be worried about those.

Keep in mind which fandom you want to do this with, btw. It’s usually okay for the most part, but if the fandom is just a bunch of kids, it’s more likely not worth it or deserves an empty account, at least. Twst is surprisingly good despite anything it might look like! Thanks to Yana being a shotacon and a creator of Kuroshitsuji, I guess. There are many great and supportive people in the twst fandom, it’s been a pleasure to be here, even though, once again, it’s the first fandom where I got a bunch of callout posts and nasty stuff in my ask (SnK fandom usually harassed me for other things).

TL;DR: it is scary, and you could easily get callout posts about yourself, but guess what, you also get to be yourself. Because realistically, callout posts can’t stop you from creating art. They want you to believe that they have power over you, but this isn’t true. Your life online won’t end after some random callout post – mine didn’t. They also don’t understand that each consequent callout post affects the person being called out even less. We do have a minor panic attack for the first hour or so, and it does involve more extra blocking, but mostly it just sours our mood for the day and drops our morale. I still draw, though, out of spite a little lol Oh, and do try to report these types of posts if you get them, there’s nothing wrong with that.

People had been persecuted for their art and ideas for centuries, so what happens now is really nothing new. Without diving into specifics, there are way worse things they could do than writing callouts, but they aren’t super likely to do those. Luckily.

Take care of yourself, but also please don’t doubt yourself; when it comes to your art being way too fun for lovers of censorship to handle, you’re in a very good company. I’m referring to all the artist and writers of this world btw and not just me and Katsu lol but us as well!

[solarwynd]

Blackpink has a large fandom but streaming has never been their strong suit. They've always depended on payola and ads and exposure. They've wielded the same tools now for the solo careers and that's working out pretty well for them for the most part. Meanwhile BTS have always relied on armys to carry them outside their English hits. So come solo era, apart from JK who totally embraced the English hits + massive payola combo scooter special, the other members are still playing by their 2018 playbook which doesn't work for 5 out of 7 members because you either need to have a strong solo fanbase like Jimin or actually command armys main focus like Jungkook and Jimin again to a smaller extent outside of his rabid antis and shippers.

I know we lament Jimin's situation and yes it sucks that he's being suppressed by his label who's supposed to promote him because we know they're wasting his huge potential and yes it sucks that he's targeted by people in his own fandom but I'm at least thankful that we have pjms and Jimin biased who are working for him and we have Jimin himself whose music we actually enjoy and are excited for. That even though the parasocial element exists, most of us are still 70% here for his music and not for his ships or looks (as lovely as they are). Imagine solo stanning Tae or Yoongi during this era. What an awful experience with no pay off either in terms of music or success.

.🎯

[coraniaid]

Reverse Unpopular Opinion: Amy Madison

[Reverse unpopular opinion meme.]

This is an interesting one because I think there’s a solid argument to be made that the character of “Amy Madison” does not, in fact, actually exist on the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

By which I mean … look, okay, yes, obviously, there is a character in an early Season 1 episode called Amy Madison, played by Elizabeth Anne Allen.  And there’s a character with the same name in a Season 2 episode, and [in an admittedly weird coincidence] she’s also played by Elizabeth Anne Allen.  And there’s one in Season 3, and a one in a few episodes of Season 6, and one in an episode of Season 7, and all of them are played by the same actor.

But … I mean, come on.  There’s no way these can all be the same character, right?  They don’t have the same basic back story or the same relationship to magic or to Willow; they certainly don’t have anything resembling a definite personality or set of motivations or a consistent character arc.  No, surely what’s going on here is that there are several different “Amy Madisons” in Sunnydale – just like there are several different characters called Anne or Nancy on the show – and in a bizarre in-joke the writers simply decided to cast the same woman to play all of them.

Now, ordinarily, simply being written inconsistently over a handful of episodes and not having anything resembling the same personality from week to week would be no obstacle to having a few die-hard fans.  But – as far as I can tell, anyway? – there’s no “fandom Amy” either.  She never really gets mentioned when people want to talk about how all the Scooby Gang had awful mothers [even though Amy actually did, explicitly and inarguably, have a very, very awful and openly abusive mother!].  There’s very little in the way of Amy/Willow shipping going on here or on AO3 [even though witchcraft is heavily coded as a metaphor for being a lesbian and Amy, one of the first witches we meet on the show, is repeatedly linked to Willow throughout the show’s run].  There are no adorable drawings of Amy as a rat staring out of her cage at Willow and Tara (or if there are, they aren’t getting as many notes as they should be getting).  

No, it looks like most people who are still watching and talking about the show twenty-five years later have about as much interest in poor Amy Madison as the writers did.  She’s a plot device.  A punchline.  A cipher.  A blank slate.  She’s whatever the plot requires her to be to further the stories of the actual characters on the show, and she’ll never ever be anything else.  Which is a little sad, if you think about it.  I think Amy – or, well, most of the different Amys: The Killer In Me’s smirking evil-for-evil’s-sake Amy I’m not so sure about – deserved better.

[As I write this the thought occurs to me, belatedly, that I might be one of Amy Madison’s biggest fans.  Pretty grim news for her if so.]

OK. Enough stalling.  Five positive things about Amy Madison [with, as ever, the usual caveat about the comics, which I’ve still not read anything about and still don’t exist].

Witch, Amy’s debut appearance, is a solid episode!  One of that season’s best, I think (though not, of course, one of its very best).  And I think the duo of Elizabeth Anne Allen's Amy Madison (and Robin Riker as her mom Catherine) is a big part of why that episode works: no, they haven’t got a huge amount to work with, but I think they both do a pretty good job switching between evil witch Catherine and innocent victim Amy.  Catherine’s bodyswap spell foreshadows (albeit unintentionally) the bodyswap artifact that the Mayor gifts Faith in This Year’s Girl / Who Are You? and I’ll always have a soft sport for it because of that.  And I really like that the episode ends with Amy alive and hanging out with Buffy in a way that suggests that they are going to stay friends, even if we don’t see any evidence on screen that that happened.

Sarcasm aside, I’m really glad the writers brought Amy back in the second season.  To me, part of the appeal of the high school years are the recurring minor characters – I talked about Principal Snyder before, but also Jonathan and Devon and Percy and Harmony and … yes, Amy too.  The show obviously doesn’t care about her very much, and you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to fill in the missing pieces of her story and make her arc make sense (why is she starting to do magic in Season 2?  When does she start hanging out with Willow?), but … well, I do care and I have done those gymnastics.  At least Amy didn’t end up like Marcie Ross or Buffy’s old flame Owen or any of those poor kids who must remember eating Principal Flutie. 

I’ve been reading a few old interviews Elizabeth Anne Allen gave recently (here and here, for example) which I think have some pretty interesting insights into how the character of Amy developed.  Had you ever heard there were persistent rumors at one point that Amy was going to be one of the starting regulars on Angel?  It’s mind-boggling to think about a world where that happened.  Allen seems to have put a huge amount of thought into her character, too, at least for her first few appearances, which … uh, I guess makes me feel a bit shitty about those opening paragraphs. [Not enough to delete them though…]  Also in one of the linked interviews she says that she “hopes she won’t be a rat much longer” – and that’s an interview she gave before the Season 3 finale had even made it to air, which made me pretty sad to read.  Forget appearing on Angel, imagine if Amy had been de-ratted in Season 4.  Imagine if Superstar was about Amy instead of Jonathan.

There is a second or two in Season 6’s Smashed – no more than that – when Buffy and Amy are catching up again (“How have you been?”  “Rat.  You?”  “Dead.”  “Oh.”) and you can, if you’re quick, delude yourself into thinking that the show is going to do something interesting with the obvious parallel it’s just set up. Willow has now not only brought Buffy back into the regular human world [and left her struggling to live and find meaning as a college drop out with a dead mother and an absent father last seen on screen about five years ago], she’s also brought Amy back into the regular human world [and left her struggling to live and find meaning as a de facto high school drop out with a presumed-dead mother and a presumably-now-absent father last mentioned about five years ago].  Surely this must be deliberate?  Well, no: the show doesn’t do anything with this idea ever again, because Marti Noxon had very different [worse] ideas for Amy’s character this season, but if you pretend it might be about do something like that it’s a pretty exciting couple of seconds.

The fact that “Amy Madison” exists as a (technically!) canon character means that I can write (or daydream about writing) fanfiction in which Willow has a friend in high school who is also a practising witch. One with a vague but miserable home life, who is secretly in love with Willow but too afraid to admit it (and so she keeps professing to be interested in men who she can’t possibly ever expect to date, either because they’re unpleasantly vile toward women or openly gay or both). And I can do that while, just about, pretending that I have not created the most embarrasingly psychologically revealing OC you ever heard about in your life.  Thanks Amy!

[gotskamstuff]

Season 4 pt.1 debuting with over 15.5 million views in the first 3 days and pt. 2 debuting with close to HALF the views in the same amount of days is bringing me too much satisfaction, sorry not sorry.

I truly feel sorry for the rest of the cast and people who work on the show, but I’m glad to see the fandom response reflecting into the views ‘cause I feel like sometimes shows, especially with this amount of success and popularity, take for granted the viewers affection and think they can feed us any crap without consequences and we’re gonna eat it up with no problem, like we’re gonna stay here no matter what ‘cause we’re addicted to it…doesn’t work like that, you gotta keep your audience by giving them something good.

Each show loses viewers from pt.1 to pt.2 in the debut and it’s known, but basically half of it is a lot (also considering how pt. 1 stayed at n.1 in the top 10 for over 2 weeks, but only 1 week later pt. 2 has already dropped at n.3 with lowering compared to pt.1 who stayed consistent)

Considering that Outer Banks had always counted on a young and loyal fanbase GLOBALLY that’s ready to hit play the instant the season drops, 8.5 million views globally in 3 days is really a strong message to them.

Whether you’re personally ok or not with the way S4 ended, it’s a fact that they screwed up with a huge chunk of their own audience that kept the popularity of the show alive and if they managed to lose this amount of engagement and excitement towards the series in 3 days then good luck to them to keep the interest alive UNTIL 2026.

I think they downplayed and probably still downplay the role of JJ in terms of engagement, S4 already lost numbers compared to S3 (after they probably lost occasional viewers over the bore s3 was) and I can’t even imagine the drop that S5 will be.

They screwed up big time and no matter how much they try to do damage control now, no matter how much they wait for the audience to calm down, no matter how much they try to ignore it…they lost a good part of their own fanbase and probably occasional audience as well.

IF the waters are ever gonna calm down it surely won’t be ‘cause the problem is solved and people got over it, but simply because people won’t be there at all and will have lost their involvement with the show altogether.

Maybe the Pates will learn for their next project to treat the set like an actual workplace and not a college dorm. Play stupid games and win stupid prizes.

I mean it with my whole chest when I say that without JJ I’m never gonna watch S5, and I have been close to an addicted fan of this show for almost 5 years, but the story died with him. They took away the character that was the symbol of this show and who’s story we were rooting for the most, and although yes, there is also other things to the story…the interests in all the rest doesn’t quite measure up with the loss. I know that many people feel the same way (and if you reading this personally don’t, good for you but I think the general response speaks for itself).

They doomed the show by killing the fan favorite, killing the largest ship fandom of the show and by ruining the storyline that created the most engagement and curiosity that had us rooting for it.

They took for granted the fanbase that made the show what it is today and blindly spitted on us thinking we’d be passive about it. The fans make or break a show.

Bring back JJ and you have the opportunity to make the GAG of the century and get the biggest positive response from your own audience to end the show…don’t and see the show collapse and lose it’s reputation and legacy for good. Simple as that🤷🏻‍♀️

I will never shut up about it ‘cause this is the biggest fumble of a Netflix series I have ever witnessed and the biggest let down I have ever experienced with a show (yeah worse than Game of thrones final season).

[praetorqueenreyna]

I love reading about u talk about acotar, really intrigues me enough to consider reading the books, I'm also very interested in any and all fandom gossip, so please please please tell me what is the current situation? What is elaingate in reference to? 👀👀👀

WELL FIRSTABLE if you read the books, stop after the first one 😂 and THANK YOU FOR ASKING I will relay the tale of some of the most low-stakes fandom drama to ever exist that I accidentally started WHOOPSIE

On July 24, 2024, the blog for Elain Archeron Week posted the rules for the event. There were 4 rules, one of which was that they wouldn't allow ships with "known abusers" and listed Tamlin and Beron as examples (I assume you know who Tamlin is lmao, Beron is a kind of generic Mean Dad character). ACOTAR fandom is known for being puritanical and religiously devoted to canon, but this is a new development. Event week mods have ignored/not reblogged content they don't like that was submitted for their week, but this is the first one I've seen that outright BANNED anything.

There was already a little kickback that mostly has to do with the two competing ships for Elain, elriel and elucien. They both think the other is the DEVIL even though both ships are equally boring. Apparently, the Elain Week is run by elriels, and eluciens were already huffy about the wording of an ask wondering if elucien would be allowed in the event. This part of the story is boring and doesn't have anything to do with me, the star of the show, so I will move on.

Anyway! A few fandom friends sent me links and screenshots of all of this because it's objectively funny. I made a post talking about how funny it was, which brought attention to it on this side of the fandom. My mutuals (the most hilarious people on the planet) asked what was going on, and immediately joined in on the fun. Memes were created at an astronomical rate. Art, fic, and poems for every possible ship of those three characters were made. Amazingly enough, Tamlin/Beron has had a huge surge of content, as the two men named and specifically banned from the week. I started tagging the posts #elaingate, and apparently it caught on enough that the tag now has over 100 posts in it.

To clarify!! The issue has never been about the ships themselves. There are VERY few Tamlin/Elain shippers on tumblr, which I know because I have run multiple demographic surveys and crunched the numbers. And absolutely NOBODY was making Beron/Elain. You have to understand how bland this fandom is. They consider one of the most degenerate, disgusting ships to be the main male character and....his wife's sister. And it certainly isn't isolated to elain/elriel stans, they were just the unlucky bastards to finally verbalize these insidious issues with fandom, especially ACOTAR fandom. Mostly just that the fandom is EXTREMELY conservative, and also that people that like the Popular Thing always have to make themselves out to be the ultimate victims. It's also in poor taste for running an event week. Yes, event weeks are run by fans in their free time, but the idea is to inspire EVERYBODY to create for the thing that you're a fan of. If you're so precious that simple seeing a ship you don't like sends you to the fainting couch, an event week is probably not the thing for you.

I wrote a whole essay on modern ACOTAR fandom here then deleted it bc YOU DID NOT ASK. But anyway THAT IS ELAINGATE we are all being very silly.

[conundrumoftime]

Fandom grandma tales: how I survived canon ruining two of the ships I liked.

(Written after a discussion with some of my TROP fan pals about how canon can break your heart re: shipping, and how fandom manages. There are spoilers here for the entire run of Babylon 5, and for one story JMS wrote after it. yes, that story. sorry.)

Babylon 5 was a sci-fi space opera show that ran from 1993 to 1998. It is sci-fi of the era of 22-episode seasons, of huge ensemble casts with characters who get their own B- and C-plots, with an effects and casting budget that doesn’t always match its ambition, and - something it was quite pioneering in, at the time - grand pre-planned story arcs. 

It’s the first fandom that I was involved with in internet spaces as it was running, or at least when its final season was (there’s Discourse and drama from earlier years that I missed). Its showrunner, J. Michael Straczynski - ‘JMS’ - was very active in (non-fanfic) fan community spaces, and you always knew exactly what he was thinking about things because he was part of the discussion around them. There was also fanfic, which he didn’t stop but didn’t go near on the grounds of legal liability for story ideas. 

Most of the fanfic in the early days as the show was airing was focused around two big ships, of which one was canon endgame (Delenn/Sheridan) and one was canon all-ends-in-despair (Marcus/Ivanova). I, as a teenager discovering a developing online fandom for the first time with all the overwhelm and excitement that causes (ask me anything about what reading fic was like before the days of tags/ratings/warnings!) got into Marcus/Ivanova and also into one of the minor ships, Delenn/Lennier.

Delenn/Lennier was never, ever going to happen in canon. This is obvious; it clashes with Delenn/Sheridan which was JMS’s baby darling OTP, the show’s big love story. Delenn is married for the later part of the show. Lennier is her diplomatic aide, is absolutely devoted to her, and they have a very intense mentor/student relationship, which it seems is kind of standard in their culture (when Delenn’s own mentor died she went briefly insane with grief and started a genocidal war over it) but is still Very Intense. He is canonically in love with her, but that’s as far as the explicit canon statements go.

However. HowEVER. Canon also gives us, for that relationship, some wonderful ship fuel. Lennier knows about every bad thing Delenn has done, including all the stuff she doesn’t/can’t tell her husband. He’s her link to her previous world and culture and stands by her even when they kick her out. She says at one point, “without him, I would stumble and fall and never get up again.” 

And then… we had Season 5, the final season.

Season 5, for various complicated production reasons, was operating a little outside of pre-planned story arcs and in this season the Delenn/Lennier stuff ramped up about three gears in one go. It was still very obviously never, ever going to be canon, and was almost certainly not intended by the creator (who wrote most of the episodes himself) to look like there was even anything there. At this point Delenn is married; any relationship with her aide would not only be going against the show’s OTP, but going against it in the sense where she’s cheating on her husband, and there is Just No Way JMS would have gone there. And yet! Season 5 gave us:

A scene where Lennier says he can’t stay, it’s too painful to be around her now she’s married, and she’s devastated and has the following conversation with her husband about it:

S: I got your message about Lennier. Is there anything I can do?

D [snapping]: Almost certainly not.

S: Is it because of me?

D: In part, I think so.

S: Yeah, I was afraid of that. Well, as we say back on Earth, three’s a crowd.

D: On Minbar, three is sacred.

S [slightly uncomfortable laugh]: Well, I don’t think I’m ready to handle that one, Delenn.

Delenn then calling Lennier back to the station to do some secret mission thing for her, which involves her sneaking out of her bed while her husband sleeps to meet Lennier in a darkened alley behind a bar, where she tenderly strokes his face and they have a whole conversation about whether her husband understands her or not.

A scene where Lennier comes back from his secret mission to meet both Delenn and Sheridan, Delenn goes to greet him with a hug, and Lennier does this very pointed step back and nod in the direction of her husband, and she pulls back and just sort of pats him on the arms instead. 

I MEAN.

But, the issue here is not what fans did about it but what canon did about it. Canon did the canon equivalent of dragging that ship outside and shooting it in the head. 

In the final few episodes of the entire series, Lennier tries to kill Sheridan, runs away in shame, and then someone finds his diary in which he’d been writing for ages about what a bad decision he thought Delenn had made and how her whole marriage was an awful idea. Even to this day, it’s fun/awful watching people go through a first-time watch when they get to season 5 and hit that. ‘Character assassination in the form of a diary’ was a whole thing for a while. It’s been 20+ years and the actor who played Lennier is stilll mad about it (not because of shippy stuff, but because he - correctly! - thinks Lennier absolutely would not have done that). 

What *fandom* did, on the other hand, was Fixed The Problem.

Delenn/Lennier was not at all a big ship when the series was airing, and for a few years after. Then the fandom dynamics started to change. With less pressure on what canon was going to do, it felt like fandom had more space to play around with things it didn’t do. Fanfic got less interested in trying to fit within the overall story being told and started spinning off in all its own directions. And *this* ship started getting bigger and bigger. People did really interesting things with it, canon divergence went in all directions, everyone wrote a fix-it story of some variety, some authors did a great series of connected stories based on an idea that Minbari have three genders, the quality of the writing has been brilliant. And I think without that absolute whiplash feeling of what happened in canon, there would never have been this feeling of “well I’m not having THAT” which led to all this.

We did not need canon! Canon had done its thing. And canon had broken our hearts enough ways with many of the other stories it told (entirely on purpose) and we weren’t just going to sit back and let it ruin us forever.

By comparison, the other ship I was into was Marcus/Ivanova. This is entirely doomed. Susan Ivanova’s love life is just perpetually doomed. The first partner of hers we meet is an ex who’s interested in getting back together, but then it turns out he’s just using her to infiltrate the station for the fascist terrorist group he’s secretly joined. Then she falls for an archrival of hers, Talia, who works for Psi Corps, the organisation she loathes most of all things - but it’s okay because it turns out Talia is starting to question them too! Maybe these crazy kids can make it work! They have one night together and then OOPS turns out Talia was being secretly controlled by a sleeper personality implanted in her by Psi Corps the whole time. Ivanova’s love life is doomed. 

So for two seasons, she has this sort-of-flirty, sort-of-bickery, sort-of-friendship going with Marcus, who is on the surface of it very much “why not fall in love at first sight like a true romantic, YOLO!” but it turns out is actually deeply messed up himself and full of survivor’s guilt and pain and, you get the clear impression, would have died of shock if she’d actually called his bluff on the OTT flirting and said “yeah, let’s go for it”. And then he sacrifices himself to save her life. It is a very tragic ending, it is absolutely the way he would have wanted to go, she wakes up both furious and absolutely distraught, says that the last thing she heard was him saying “I love you”, says she wishes she’d at least slept with him once, and says that in a way all love is unrequited. PAIN. 

So, lots of fix-it fanfic, lots of ‘Marcus comes back to life’, lots of canon divergence AUs where he doesn’t die and they live happily ever after and both get over their huge levels of unresolved pain. Pretty standard for that kind of pairing. And as a pairing it doesn’t get in the way of any big canon pairings, it doesn’t imply anything icky like mentor/student power imbalances or adultery. And JMS clearly quite liked it. So that’s better, right?

NO. It was WORSE.

JMS wrote an Marcus/Ivanova story himself, published in one of the sci-fi magazines, to try to give them a happy ending. This happy ending involves Marcus, many many years in the future, waking up from the cryogenic suspension he’s in (it’s sci-fi, keep up, keep up). Ivanova is long dead, but he isn’t about to let this get in the way, so what he does is to *create a new Ivanova* by getting some kind of DNA + computerised memory/personality bank thing, finding a doctor who will clone her, putting himself back into animated sleep until the clone reaches the age Ivanova was when she died, then - THEN, I’M STILL GOING - takes her to a distant planet where, with her memories wiped and their spaceship having deliberately been crashed BY HIM so there’s no way back, they live out their lives in peace.

WHAT.

That pairing still does okay in fandom but it’s not really taken on a post-show world of headcanons and riffing on other people’s ideas and tropes in the way that Delenn/Lennier has (and we all just pretend that story never existed). 

So! This has been my experiences in the field of What We Do When The Show Has Thoughts On That Non-Endgame Ship We’re Into. Fandom manages. Fandom will see you through. And in the words of Susan Ivanova:

Babylon Five was the last of the Babylon stations; there would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us. It taught us that we have to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for one another, for if we don’t, who will? And that true strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely places. Mostly though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings - even for people like us.

[obviously-im-a-boyo]

the thing about proship/antiship discourse is its VERY new. im only 18, right? i remember being in the lego ninjago fandom as a kid, and the biggest ship was called greenflame. this ship is between the characters kai and lloyd, both 17 i believe, but lloyd was 10 when the show started and he was aged up to 17 using a magic tea.

greenflame back in the day was probably the biggest gay ship in the fandom, and the creators acknowledged and supported it multiple times. it was only ever beat out by the 1 canon straight ship, which at the time mightve only been semi-canon/leading into being canon.

i returned to the ninjago fandom a few years ago, and suddenly greenflame is considered problematic. why? because lloyd was aged up with a magic tea, and there was a debate about whether or not his brain was aged or just his body. now, let me remind you, these are legos. these are literally animated lego ninja.

i was surprised because of how big greenflame had been in my childhood. it was one of my first ships ever, and really helped me get into gay communities at a time where i was finding out i was queer. now its being shunned and called problematic, and people who read greenflame fics or make art of them together are... called pedophiles?? people drawing canonically same aged legos kissing. are being called pedophiles.

and this didnt just happen to the ninjago fandom. i watched in real time as harry potter went the same way. when i was younger, ships like snamione (snape x hermione) were huge for some reason alongside your typical drarry and all that. i, and a lot of other people, didnt like these ships. but back then, harassment wasnt even in the question. back then, i blocked people or chose not to look up snamione stuff. when i saw a ship i hated, i ignored it.

and people used to generally have that "dont like, dont read" mindset. when i was maybe 12 or 13 i wrote a fred weasley x george weasley fanfic and posted it to wattpad, and it got very minimal hate comments and a good bit of praise. i even showed it to a family member who thought it was cool, if a little weird. but now? if i were to post something like that? it would be attacked, i could be harassed, potentially doxxed or accused of being a terrible person in real life.

its not a case of people's shipping preferences changing, really. its a case of people's morals changing, airing towards purity culture and allowing harassment when you see find art you dont like. what used to be a culture of "live and let live" now is a culture of "if you dont engage in this fiction in what i deem as the morally perfect way, you will be shunned from the fandom and your real life reputation is 100% at risk." which IS NOT OKAY.

and yes, its very much because of the pandemic causing normies to enter fandom in major ways for the first time. i watched IN REAL TIME through the DSMP fandom as normal everyday people got super involved in a fandom, started using fandom sites like ao3, and changed the culture. they started making rules and trying to push their preferences onto other people's fanfic and fanart, and thus the proship community was born as a reaction to that unprecedented hate.

ive always liked to write about darker subjects, but ive never felt like my safety was in danger for it, until 2021 when i wrote a few romantic age gap fanfics about some youtubers and somebody in my real life found out. he was part of this moral purity crowd, and he spread rumours to my entire school that i was a pedophile for the fanfics i was writing. mind you, i was 15, and the characters were both older than me.

my fandom journey as a writer is a perfect exanple of how fandom culture has been fucked up by normies getting too close. when i was a kid, i wrote greenflame fic and had close friends i still talk to today who loved my work. when i was a bit older in the harry potter fandom, i wrote a twincest fic that overall was well recieved and wasnt used to try and judge my moral character. a few years ago as a teenager, i wrote some age gap fluff and GOT ACCUSED OF BEING A PEDO IN REAL LIFE because of my fanfictions. that is a crazy switch.

this whole post is a ramble/rant but i think i got my point across.

[olderthannetfic]

Re: ‘most big fandoms are dominated by male characters so there’s less f/f’ - I think the conclusion that there’s so much more m/m and m/f out there because media with big fandoms include fewer women as characters and we are ‘just writing about the characters [we] connect with in the media [we] enjoy’ removes some of the agency involved in how we choose the media that we potentially end up fannishly enjoying. Yes, if there were more characters who are women in media with huge existing fandoms, we might see more f/f, but I think that many of us gravitate toward new media (and if we click with that new media, then new fandoms) based on our established interests from prior media/fandoms. I’ve been in online fandom in various capacities for over 20 years and in the first decade of my fannish ‘career’ I largely shipped m/m and wrote m/m. I was therefore, unsurprisingly, often drawn toward new media with m/m potential.

About a decade ago my personal interests began to shift and I found myself more drawn toward women characters and f/f. If I’m interested in women and f/f, I’m not going to keep focusing on new-to-me media with a whole slew of men and a couple women who barely interact. I’m keeping an eye out for media with several prominent female characters, media with lots of women, media with f/f potential. Luckily, that isn’t as hard to find across a variety of genres and formats as it used to be. It doesn’t always click — I enjoyed watching She-Ra and Ahsoka, for instance, and saw the f/f potential, but neither were id matches that sparked fannish creativity for me personally — but if I’m not checking out media with women and am instead continuing to watch/read/play media where the characters are largely men, then yeah, I’m going to get frustrated by the lack of f/f i those fandoms pretty quickly. That’s on me though, not on the fandom at large. If I’m not looking at what’s out there, trying to find the media that hits those iddy places and sparks the fannishness I crave, then am I really that interested in f/f in the first place? I don’t think fandom ‘hates women’, but I do think a lot of fandom just isn’t that fannishly interested in women for a plethora of reasons, and that’s fine! I do wish we could just admit that though.

There’s also…look, there are assholes in every corner of fandom. There are plenty of people out there who write posts that criticize unrealistic m/m smut, but that doesn’t seem to drive away the m/m fans from writing that super unrealistic m/m smut they want to read. Why then do a few jerks criticizing what they believe to be unrealistic f/f smut get blamed for driving people away from f/f? Did you really want to write that f/f smut to begin with? It’s okay if you didn’t really want to write it! But also, there is fantastically unrealistic f/f smut out there on ao3 with an appreciative audience. Unrealistic smut always has its place.

--

Yuuup.

I do think the few loud jerks on whatever topic have a disproportionate effect on things that people are already insecure about or that there's already less content about. Criticism from inside the house also seems to hit harder than from outside, for various definitions thereof. But I agree that there are bullies or just loud assholes everywhere, and it doesn't stop the juggernaut ships and fandoms. I think "the meanies made me not write f/f" is not a good analysis of the overall trend even if some specific people really did get bullied quite badly.

I do see people acting surprised that they don't like any f/f, yet not checking out media with multiple female leads. This is silly and we should move away from this along with ditching "There are no interesting female characters".

But another pattern I see is that, for the most part, really big fic fandoms come from things a ton of people consumed in the world overall. (The reverse isn't necessarily true: something can have mass mainstream popularity and no fic.) So even aside from willful blindness on the part of individual fans or personal reactions to gender, the overall lopsidedness of media does still matter for the big meta discussions that look at the ratio of stuff on AO3. If someone isn't really into small fandoms, they're going to have to go where the crowd is already going.

The top fandoms, according to tag search, are these (counts are different from current AO3 works if you click through, but they seem inflated by roughly similar amounts):

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling ‎(664365)

Marvel Cinematic Universe ‎(389476)

방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS ‎(289493)

Original Work ‎(273412)

Marvel ‎(233004)

Teen Wolf (TV) ‎(219504)

Haikyuu!! ‎(215127)

The Avengers (Marvel Movies) ‎(208509)

原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game) ‎(207259)

Star Wars - All Media Types ‎(188548)

Sherlock (TV) ‎(169092)

Batman - All Media Types ‎(137281)

Captain America (Movies) ‎(118954)

Minecraft (Video Game) ‎(117892)

Stranger Things (TV 2016) ‎(117489)

Video Blogging RPF ‎(110169)

Voltron: Legendary Defender ‎(105117)

Miraculous Ladybug ‎(104003)

Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan ‎(103914)

魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù ‎(101819)

文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs ‎(95606)

Merlin (TV) ‎(88893)

僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga) ‎(86484)

NCT (Band) ‎(85868)

Dream SMP ‎(83222)

Stray Kids (Band) ‎(82711)

One Direction (Band) ‎(79490)

呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Manga) ‎(78975)

Homestuck ‎(77676)

Game of Thrones (TV) ‎(77361)

Good Omens (TV) ‎(76805)

陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) ‎(73444)

DCU ‎(71054)

ジョジョの奇妙な冒険 | JoJo no Kimyou na Bouken | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure ‎(70648)

Undertale (Video Game) ‎(68959)

A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin ‎(67854)

Star Trek ‎(67221)

Doctor Who ‎(65172)

Doctor Who (2005) ‎(65166)

呪術廻戦 | Jujutsu Kaisen (Anime) ‎(65109)

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett ‎(63727)

Once Upon a Time (TV) ‎(62211)

Avatar: The Last Airbender ‎(61743)

Hetalia: Axis Powers ‎(61343)

Star Wars Sequel Trilogy ‎(59581)

Iron Man (Movies) ‎(59158)

EXO (Band) ‎(58948)

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types ‎(58055)

Hannibal (TV) ‎(56796)

Thor (Movies) ‎(56604)

I'm seeing some truly gargantuan franchises and their network of metatags, top Weekly Shounen Jump manga that are mega bestsellers far, far beyond how much any shojo manga sells in Japan, some of the biggest musical groups and most popular youtubers in the world, etc.

Some of these do seem a lot more popular with the AO3 crowd than the world in general, of course. It's not an exact 1:1 causal relationship between media's audience/impact and how much fic writers care or how much fic writers on AO3 care. It's certainly possible for fandom to make fetch happen with a relatively less popular canon; it's just not the default and not driving the big overall numbers.

I look at The Untamed and (often mistagged) MDZS) being on this list and I think of all those hot fanvids for f/f Chinese dramas.

I keep seeing fans watch one, go "Okay, I have got to watch that next!" only to be disappointed that the canon is a handful of 5-minute episodes, not some epic 50-episode thing like the censored m/m ones and the bromance ones and the het ones get. They want The Untamed-but-with-ladies, not the reality of those canons. I suppose there are some nominally-straight series with two female leads and not a heavy focus on a het romance with just a single female lead, but the one I'm thinking of was reportedly godawful and the people who saw potential between the women had no interest in writing fic about it.

Do any of those f/f c-novels have good translations? That's not what brings the big fic crowds (it's the adaptations that do that), but maybe I should try reading a few. I just keep getting turned off of Chinese webnovels in general by dodgy translations.

[dearweirdme]

What’s absurd in a way is that by shifting from Taekook to Jimin x JK they still want the idea pushed that two members are queer but since there’s no truth to it it might appear less of a danger to the company? Cause as you said if Taekook wasn’t real, they’d just use that lol

Hi anon!

The way I see it is that it’s not the intention to have a huge part of fandom actually believe Jkk is real. That makes no sense to me, since BTS’s main targeted audience is girls (probably mostly teens and twenty-somethings). Having a ship (in the more classic way, not people actually believing in them being together) is good for attention. It causes a lot of fandom discourse, which is something companies want. They don’t actually want most people to think Jk and Jm are together, because if people actually think they are queer they would lose their dream of being with them themselves. BTS are meant to be seen as boyfriend material.

Jkk is much easier to contain. Their fandom follows company’s intent easily. Jkkrs are much less taken seriously. But, Jkkrs do a pretty thorough job in fandom discourse. And yes, because it’s not real.. it’s a safer bet. Let’s say no restrictions were put on Tae and Jk’s interactions. There would have been no Jkk fandom the way we see now. Jkkrs at large need Tkk to build their ideas around. Their comparison is always Jk and Jm to Jk and Tae. They have had to compared with Taekook ever since their fandom started to grow.

To the company having an actual queer couple as their main ship will always feel much more risky than having two friends as their ship. Even if both Jk and Jm identify as queer individuals themselves (and I think Jk does, and Jm possibly too) them not actually being together will still be a safety guard in place.

[whatiswritteninthestars]

My take on what’s been going on with the fandom regarding Melissa McBride. This will get me blocks I’m sure but you have to be careful who you trust. Listen to people but don’t think they are god. Even actors and showrunners have been known to embellish the truth. I do not believe for a second Melissa is being overrun and underminded. She already left the spinoff once and a lot was put in to getting her back on board. That’s not something AMC or Norman/Scott is going to jeopardize again. A lot of talk is going around about a pro Caryl showrunner and rumors of how the men are trying to block that from happening. For one if AMC wanted them they’ll sign them. They have the power over Scott. Another thing is they are not going to refuse to hire someone over their taste in ships. These are professional people who have done this job before.

Keep in mind about who you are getting the information from. If they use the line “you don’t have to believe me” chances are they aren’t being forthcoming. If they become aggressive when you don’t believe them chances are they aren’t being honest. This seems more about a fandom power play then it does as warning to Carylers to make a movement to AMC.

I’ve seen so much division in the Caryl fandom throughout several platforms. And it’s to much competition that often times makes it unbearable. There’s a few “leaders” who are constantly at odds with each other and fight for their place at fandom Queen. It’s childish and mean girl behavior.

FYI a true leader is someone who uplifts everyone regardless of how they feel about you. Not a dictatorship which some of you are guilty of. I’ve seen you guys shut down people and try to push them out of the fandom for having the same opinion earlier that you have now. So maybe think on that before you judge next time. None of us are ever 100 percent right all the time.

Some of you really need to let that high school mantra go. I don’t believe the ones being the loudest have any true connection to higher ups at AMC or the DD/BOC show. And I don’t believe Melissa is being strongholded. She is an EP and has a say in Carol’s story. AMC official accounts are using the Caryl hashtag. There’s a lot to look forward to. She’s been a part of the show from day one giving input and helping on and off screen even before she was an EP. Melissa was a huge part of season one even without the title. Actors have always raved about how she’s made them better and the same holds true with this show. So you all need to relax. Melissa is valued.

I can tell you this with certainty the one claiming to have this insider information is the same person who would dm a wide range of accounts that seemed to have information and beg them for whatever information they could. And when she got information she refused to share any. Which is what they are doing now. Talking about a female show runner but will not name names. Put your money where your mouth is if you think you have accurate information. And I will tell you this stalking and dming crew members or production members for a tid bit of information is not a source. It’s borderline harassment. You know who you are.

Now in closing this person also claimed that if Carylers were loud enough to AMC that the spinoff would not happen. Yes they were going to waste all that money or sets and contracts. Melissa was also already there when they were trying to make this movement lol. Stop acting like they are the Buddha to the Caryl fandom like you have no common sense and can’t function without them. There are many strong Caryl fans who don’t spread misery on a daily basis you can talk to. To calm your fears or just to talk about happier things to look forward to. These so called leaders seek out emotional people that they can control who are looking for guidance. This was once the greatest fandom in the land and could be again if we would break ties with the ones holding us down. So just think about that before being sucked down with the rest. Great things are coming. I promise you that.

[bluesunflowers21]

I have no posts and no followers so this probably won’t see the light of day, but it’s 1:53 am and I’m up reading yumihisu fanfics from 2014 and I just had this thought I needed to share.

Does anyone ever read these older fics and just think about their age? It’s almost like time travel, right? You’re looking into a time in fandom where so many things hadn’t happened yet, secrets not yet revealed, ship wars that have yet to exist. To see a ship you hold close because even if it’s painful in canon it was the first you ever saw that matched who you were in some small way, and it’s young again. It’s all new, and the angst hasn’t hit, and the tragedy isn’t tragic yet.

And then I look at the comments. 2013, 2014, 2017, 2018. All are people, who at one time or another, have read the exact same work I have, and have enjoyed it enough to make a comment. And it’s not just fanfic either, it’s YouTube comments, it’s old vine compilations, it’s late 90s and early 2000s music. It goes beyond nostalgia, it is for just a moment, seeing peaks into peoples lives in a more in-depth way than any history book I have ever read. It is a diary of humanity when things were easier, when we were all young and bright eyed and full of hope.

I feel that since Covid, even before it, the world has been so dull. Colors are faded, and sounds are muted, and smiles aren’t as wide anymore. But tonight, even if for one moment, I caught a glimpse of what once was. I saw the beginning of a world I had just discovered over 10 years ago. I saw a hole in history, and I remembered myself. I remembered humanity. I remember when I cared about people beyond a surface level, when I had empathy and sympathy carved so deep into my heart that I bled comfort and love. I remembered the little things, the fallen log in the woods behind my papas house, just past the field that was decided by and electric pole, and the hill covered in cherry blossoms that I dug arrow heads up from, I remembered my wooden easel that I painted when I ran out of paper, and my bed frame that was once white and ended in an array of pastel colors. I remember when I liked pink and purple like the walls of my bedroom before first grade. I remembered when I started to hate pink and purple. I remembered the bullies from elementary school. I remember my fourth grade teacher convincing me to read The Stone Child, and how it was the first time I had finished a proper book. I remember looking for any horror book I could find after. I remember starting middle school and being so scared of what would come. I remember making a huge card for my seventh grade math teacher because he was retiring, and him hugging me and the other student who helped, because I don’t think he expected that from any of us. I remember starting highschool and trying to figure out who I was. I remember my mom getting cancer. I remember theatre being an escape. I remember friends I haven’t spoken to in years, and some I still speak to today. I remember the little kid who would think “future me, please tell me it will be okay” and I now think of the adult me who says, “yeah, it will be”.

Maybe this is all nonsensical rambling, but now I can’t help but think of a game I played for the first time after watching YouTubers play it online. There’s a specific quote that I don’t think I really understood until this moment, one that I saw make others cry in…I’m not sure, relief? Sadness? Happiness?

“Despite everything, it’s still you”

Despite everything, reading those comments on a random ballerina AU fic written over 10 years ago reminded me that yes, after everything that has happened, things I’ve caused and things I’ve never had control over, the little kid who believed in people still exists. She is a part of me that has never and always existed. Everything she was, and everything she ever will be, is who I am. Everything any child was and will ever be is who they are. Everything a child could have been and will be, is who humanity is.

We are angry, and selfish, and cruel.

But

We are kind, and we are hopeful, and we are love.

Not that we are loved, or that we do love

We are the embodiment of the concept.

And this is all the sleep deprived ramblings of a 21 year old who has no idea if I am actually writing this or if I am just dreaming it. Who knows, either way I won’t remember it in the morning. Tbh I barely remember it now.

[straycalamities]

how did you come up with making Entre? What inspired you?

the onceler LOL and homestuck

okay story time w chase ahem

so actually how i got into tumblr at all is very relevant to the chain of events that led to entre existing. so before here, i was mainly on a...particular art webbed site that was basically a sinking ship circa: 2010 so i forgot how i heard about tumblr? but i joined here at first just to do naruto comm rp. like my only account was a naruto rp account for the first... i dont remember how long

eventually i got curious enough to make a personal account and started being active on that. a bunch of my friendgroup from the other site moved with me and we were just hanging out being naruto nerds. at some point i got into homestuck/learned about the askblog format. i don't remember which came first, but i DID run kibanaru and flutterdash askblogs before the lorax was a blip on my radar

i remember when i was in the homestuck fandom, i was so used to the naruto fandom where like..sure it's huge but i had established myself in a corner of it and it felt very like... it was a community! and in the homestuck fandom i didn't feel like that at all. i felt swept out to sea and it was very lonely tbh aside from the friends id manage to drag with me into it, but i always felt a certain dissatisfaction from my time in it

a friend of mine was the one to show me the lorax and the once-ler. i don't...remember how THEY found him, but they were already very into him before they even came to me about him. and they basically nagged me into watching the movie LMFAO (this was when the movie was still freshly in theaters so all we had was shitty camrips and LiveStream was a thing) so i started to draw smexy onceler and oncest fanart to mess with them and...well y'know ye olde saying about doing things as a joke.

so yeah i kinda got...genuinely interested in him. especially after i watched the 72' short and reread the book and was like wait. this movie is mid as hell actually. (the siren song of mid media) and i was like "well if /i/ wrote the movie id do this n this n this n this" and then all that added up in my head and i was like wait.

what if i did a once-ler askblog where i just change certain things to what i like? it wasnt gonna be a complete revamp/remastering because i wanted to do a proper askblog so i wanted to have his character be recognizable to any fans of the onceler. and this was wayyyyy before anyone was getting the idea to do the very creative and expansive onceler takes we have these days as a norm. so it was kinda like? being shoehorned into being Canon!Once-ler because?? that's just how you did askblogs back then

BUT!! there were a few other askblogs already around back then (end of April 2012 for ref) so i didn't wanna do what everyone else was doing (very much Established Business Once-ler/Greed-ler, Vest-ler/Oncie, or Aftermath Once-ler) so i got the idea to do the onceler but! he's still very fresh and new to his business. still basically vest-ler/oncie in personality but with big things on the horizon.

i started creating his blog the weekend before may. that's why his birthday is May 1 because that's when i officially started his blog and posted his first post and all that. literally when he was born.

so yeah this was all to try and find my niche in a community again as well as do what i'd already been doing for years now: waving my headcanons in ppls faces via my art LMFAO

it was honestly pretty new for me in a bunch of ways so it was very scary. i even tried to keep it a total secret at first. i thought people wouldn't recognize me for my art style.... (yeah idk how i thought that'd work either) and i mean??? for the most part that was true because it's not like anyone in the once-ler fandom would've known me beforehand anyways

so for the first uhhh...idk it didn't last long tho..i was a secret mod, but i got too itchy about sharing art that i didn't wanna put on his blog so i broke that pretty quick. i had a lot of personal rules i put on myself on what to do/not to do on and with his blog. and i still, to this day, follow a handful of them. so when i drew other stuff that i didn't think fit on his blog, i was like well damn i wish i could show this somehow...

tho sometimes i wish i'd tried to keep up the secret mod shtick a little longer

anywho. from there it's kinda like..he really just grew on his own. new ideas, new inspiration, new experiences shaping this or that. now i can write him without touching him for years like i just picked him up yesterday. he's that wormed in my damn brain at this point. he's basically his own person sitting in my head telling me what to do with him/what he'd say

so yeah at first? it was just me trying to write a very accurate 2012 movie onceler with a few tweaks. and then he just grew organically into what he is now. that's still his root and so that's still the default direction i try to take, but he definitely has a lot of things that make him his own person at this point too. even on his main blog.

as for why he's so stupid goofy. well. that's because i like drawing dumb expressions. the end. and in the end i'm glad his main blog remained super unserious and lighthearted because it really helped me mentally a bunch (those random spikes in activity? yeah it was for my own mental health LMFAO he helps me...a lot...because of the escapism and comedy)

bonus: as for truffula flu entre. i don't remember if something in particular inspired me to make him the ender of the world. i just felt like it'd be a fitting story for the once-ler for him to be in that spot. and from there i just approached him how i thought someone like him would react were he to find himself in that position.

my goal was always to make him as human as possible. like he's technically the villain of this story, but he's also the protagonist. yaknow. so i wanted to really interweave those two ideas interestingly into his character (and now im obsessed w it)

originally i thought of truffula flu as everyone doing their own storylines. i didn't expect at all that everyone would adopt MINE as all of THEIR canons. that was LKFJSLDKF a big surprise for me i was like wait what. i guess it seems silly now in retrospect that i didn't expect that, but i was just like "well this is entre's story. ppl can do whatever else they want tho" but suddenly entre's story was everyone's story. and it's pretty cool i can't lie