#someone please be interested

[ace-disaster-weeb]

Another Genshin Impact tier list inspired sort of fanfic, this time inspired by BonkMeGud's "Genshin characters in the zombie apocalypse" tier list! There's also some loose "The Last Of Us" inspiration here, if anyone's interested. Welcome to...

"Daylight"

This is a platonic Y/N fic because my ace ass demands more reader insert content that isn't just about shipping. You and Qiqi develop a close sibling-like bond over the course of the story, in which you seek out a safe haven for Qiqi to survive the zombie apocalypse at. Several of the scenarios from the original video this story is inspired by still apply here, but I did take a few creative liberties.

The characters in the "antagonists" tier aren't necessarily enemies for the whole story, they just play an oppositional role to you and Qiqi at some significant point. Most of the characters in general are just trying to cope with everything and survive. However, the Fatui are villains for the majority of the plot (Dottore probably started the whole zombie apocalypse thing), but they weren't on the tier list I used, and neither were most of the Fontaine characters, so...whoops.

There is some romantically implied Xiao X Reader in the prolog, which details your arrival in Liyue and the initial zombie seige on it as the apocalypse starts up, but unfortunately, that ship does not sail here. At the point where the main story starts, you've been living in a heavily fortified Liyue for the past 3 years. Given the fact that Qiqi is a zombie herself, the general populace has grown to distrust her. Because of this, Baizhu has opted to keep her hidden in an attempt to protect her. You've assisted somewhat in doing the same, fearful of the increasingly...erratic behavior of some of Liyue's residents.

Despite everyone's best efforts, this proves to Baizhu's undoing, as Qiqi's capture and his subsequent death at the hands of Hu Tao become the inciting incident for your journey. Within the first few chapters, you uncover Hu Tao's death cult, fulfill Baizhu's dying wish of rescuing Qiqi, and with a little help from Zhongli, the 2 of you escape from Liyue by hitching a ride on Beidou's ship.

The rest of the story sees you and Qiqi traveling around Teyvat as you try to find Qiqi a new home. Along the way, you both meet various other survivors, as well as learn more about what's happened to them over the past 3 years and what's been happening to the rest of the world.

The finale would see the remaining survivors all beginning to unite as one huge faction while Albedo and Sucrose begin to finalize a possible cure. At this point, you and Qiqi are basically inseparable, and even as the apocalypse starts to die down, the 2 of you continue to live and travel together, having found that sought-after safety in each other.

Again, I'm still kind of new to the Genshin Impact fandom, so I might have some info off, but I'd also love to talk more in-depth about different plot points if anyone is interested.

[cozylittleartblog]

"content creator" is a corporate word.

we are artists.

[dollsome-does-tumblr]

vision for the future:

cressida marries lord vegetarian and gets her parents off her back

lord vegetarian goes off on his multi-year naturalist adventure and is happy amongst the birdies etc., living his best life

eloise comes to stay at cressida's new digs for friendship reasons

friends to lovers surprise smoochy smoochy time 💕

eloise is cressida's "companion" to the outside world. just regency gals being regency pals!

happily ever after!

[birrdies]

dead men walking

[thym3y]

miku playing irish tenor banjo!!

[pikp0kcas3]

The Hazbin Hotel fandom’s issue with accepting aromanticism and asexuality

Now that it is officially Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week, I want to talk about this!

I find that, as an aroace myself, I am constantly grasping at good representation and coming up empty— it usually ends up in one of two ways.

One: the character is portrayed as emotionless, cold, and robotic in nature. It’s the question aromantic and/or asexual people are often asked: “Are you heartless?” The answer is no, of course, but general media makes it out to be the opposite.

Or two: Their lack of attraction is seen as something to “fix” because they “haven’t found the right one yet”, and they end up with a partner as a “happy ending”.

It frustrates me greatly because of how little people actually see aromanticism or asexuality as a true part of the LGBTQIA+ community.

So when I watched Hazbin Hotel, and I found out about Alastor being aroace, I was over the moon. I was on cloud nine. I also saw how his voice actor has looked up the term as an attempt to learn about aroaces, which makes me OVERJOYED?? Amir is truly a blessing, and I love that he’s proud to embody a character that’s part of our community. It’s so beautiful to finally have a proper character, a fan favorite at that, who just so happens to be aroace— and that’s another thing I love about this.

It’s never explicitly stated in the show (though it is stated in interviews), but it’s rather clear when you’re watching, isn’t it? Alastor’s aversion to any sort of sexual advancement, coupled with Rosie’s blatant “I know you’re an ace in the hole” comment sort of spell out his asexuality pretty clearly, as well as what side of the spectrum he falls upon. In addition, his Valentine’s day card was strictly platonic, which caters to his aromantic side. It feels so validating to finally be represented, to finally have a character in media who shares the same lack of interest in romance and sex as I do.

When I entered the fandom to look for more content, I kind of expected to see the same respect for Alastor’s orientation there too. But that… wasn’t the case? I am fully aware that aromanticism and asexuality are both spectrums— of course, aromantic and/or asexual people can enter those kinds of relationships. I’m not denying that and they belong in the community as much as anyone else on the spectrum.

But, the more I see the same line again and again and again, the more it feels like an excuse to just ship what you want.

Usually I don’t mind shipping? I’m often a firm believer in people shipping what they like as long as it’s harmless and they don’t go crazy over it. I also know for a fact that Viv doesn’t have a problem with people shipping her characters. They are fictional, after all.

But in this case, people are ignoring the very thing that makes Alastor a part of the aroace community! People are ignoring his lack of romantic or sexual attraction!

Is this not the same as changing a gay character’s orientation to suit a straight ship? If not, how so? I’m told that we are a part of this community, so why aren’t we being treated like it? Why is it so hard to accept the people on the end of the spectrum who aren’t interested?

Something I’ve been noticing throughout my life is that society has not exactly progressed very much on the idea of accepting asexual or aromantic identities. Maybe we have, a little, since the old days— but hell, people in “the old days”, which in truth wasn’t very long ago, believed that asexuality was a medical condition to be “fixed” by taking the right medication or having sex. That’s a pretty low bar to clear. And on the romance side, you’re seen as a “late bloomer” or “boring” if you don’t express interest. These days, being friends with someone is treated like a gateway to them possibly becoming a lover. Not getting married, not going on dates, not wanting a partner— it’s all treated like a crime when it’s not.

Maybe I’m selfish, or sensitive, or I’m butthurt over nothing, or I’m making it all about me. Maybe I’m gatekeeping or whatever the term is. But please, please, please, I just want an aroace character like me who simply is not interested in sex or romance.

And I want fandom to respect that. I admire the creations that fans make— the art, the animatics, the writing and the character analysis. And I want people to keep creating because creation is indeed a beautiful thing.

But I really would like people to treat aroace identities like they’re important. Like it’s more than just a spectrum to get wiggle room to wrangle in another ship.

[notherpuppet]

SOLD OUT WTF!?!??? Thank you so so much!! I look forward to delivering the dance partners to you all soon! 🦌🍎♥️

I really did not expect this kind of response so I’ll consider restock in the future! It’s a little difficult right now, but I’ll do another interest check in late September! Thank you 😭♥️

[starflungwaddledee]

from: @starflungwaddledee to: @post-it-notes7

message from santa: "happy holidays post-it-notes! 🎄🥳 i know you very politely only wished for a few modest things- characters high fiving, or struggling in christmas attire- but i hope you'll still enjoy this given that i kinda went the opposite direction entirely! i'm an enormous fan of your work and most times you post anything i wind up browsing your art tag from tip-to-tail in enraptured delight. as such, i thought it was only fair i give back something a little more significant in gratitude for all the joy your work has given me. i knew i wanted to do a comic, so i was thrilled you already had a whole storyverse for me to work from!! this scene seemed the most obvious choice (chapter 8 of "wishful thinking" on ao3) given that i enjoy a dramatic fight scene 😂 i tried to stick as beat-by-beat to the writing as i could and worked in as many details as possible; i hope it'll be fun to see it envisioned this way! merry christmas! ~starflung 🎀🔔 "

[napping-sapphic]

Really want to fall in love with someone who likes late night phone calls like let’s talk until it’s way too late let’s talk in a way that makes me a little bolder let’s talk in a way that makes me miss you even more than i did before let’s talk when we’re both soft and sleepy and just need some company in whatever form we can get it in

[hoofpeet]

Every day I think about what terrible advice "Don't draw ugly people" is..... I shouldn't be surprised by tiktok/youtube """""art advice"""" but it is kinda genuinely baffling that anybody ever said that whole-heartedly and meant it

[captainkirkk]

I've always been obsessed with 'character & community' fics, and I'm devastated that they aren't more. There's never enough fics about superheroes & the city they protect, rulers & the people they serve, teachers & the wider school body, captain & his soldiers.... I can never get enough of them

[thevioletcaptain]

Almost a decade ago, in November of 2014, I became so exhausted by seeing people throw around the absurd claim that Dean/Cas fans made up only 1% of SPN fandom that I decided to prove how wrong it was. The most readily available data which didn't rely on conducting a survey or poll -- and was therefore a more accurate representation of actual fandom activity rather than just whoever happened to respond to a survey -- came from fic numbers on Ao3.

I made a post about it at the time (the pertinent figures are included below, or you can see the original post here) and then completely forgot about the entire thing. Until now.

Why? Well, largely thanks to a sudden resurgence of the same old nonsense this week, mostly cropping up in the comment sections of a couple of polls that crossed my dash. The temptation to check if there had been any significant changes to the fandom's activity since I last looked ten years ago was too strong to ignore.

Friends. Things have proven to be shockingly consistent.

With the same caveat from last time -- that this is only showing trends in the subset of fandom who actively uses Ao3, and therefore obviously doesn't take into account the "general audience" subset of fandom who don't participate beyond watching the show and occasionally liking a social media post -- here are the numbers:

Old count | November 9th, 2014 | 4 episodes into S10

Total SPN fics posted - 86,352 Fics listed as gen - 22,718 (26.3%) Fics with Dean/Cas - 33,762 (39.0%) Fics with Sam/Dean - 12,286 (14.2%) Fics with Sam/Cas - 1,634 (1.8%) Fics with Sam/Dean/Cas - 787 (0.9%) 

The remaining 18.6% of SPN fics were non-gen fics featuring other character pairings, including reader inserts and original characters.

New count | May 28th, 2024 | 3.5 years after finale

Total SPN fics posted - 290,707 Fics listed as gen - 61,343 (21.1%) Fics with Dean/Cas - 116,925 (40.2%) Fics with Sam/Dean - 34,673 (11.9%) Fics with Sam/Cas - 5,548 (1.9%) Fics with Sam/Dean/Cas - 1,957 (0.6%)

The remaining 24.3% of SPN fics are non-gen fics featuring other character pairings, including reader inserts and original characters.

Notes on data:

All data was collected while logged in on Ao3 to ensure no incorrect counts were caused by hidden works.

There is some overlap within these numbers due to fics which are tagged with multiple pairings. This might be possible to account for if someone felt like doing more intensive data collection, but I've already spent about an hour and a half on this and that's already a lot more time than I'd like to be doing voluntary math. I enjoy statistics as a point of interest, but goddamn do I hate actually crunching the numbers.

It bears mentioning that Sam/Gabriel (5.1%), Sam/Jess (2.2%), & Dean/Reader (2.5%) all have higher counts than Sam/Cas (1.9%) & Sam/Dean/Cas (0.6%), however I didn't make note of those pairings in 2014, so I'm unsure if there has been any change.

I shouldn't have to say this, but literally all of us are just smashing our fave characters together like dolls, so as interesting as these numbers are this post is not intended to suggest that any ship is "better" than any other ship. This post is intended to do nothing more than show the available data which disproves a baseless claim about the size of Dean/Cas fandom within the larger SPN fandom.

TLDR; the percentage of active Supernatural fans on Ao3 who are interested in Dean/Cas as a pairing is significantly higher than 1%, and that has been a consistent pattern within the fandom for the past ten years.

[spite-and-waffles]

FUCK YES STEPHANIE IS THE JASON THAT NEVER WAS PANDA YOU ARE THE HERO THIS FANDOM NEEDS BUT DOES NOT DESERVE PREACH THE GOSPEL OF STEPHANIE AMEN

[nellasbookplanet]

I know this is old hat to just about everyone, but I'm more and more enjoying Imogen and Laudna as not just a mirror of the Briarwoods but also, and perhaps even more so, as a foil.

Laudna may be the death magic goth with a necromancer in her head, but out of the two of them, Imogen is the stronger mirror of Delilah. She’s the one with the undead lover, the one prepared to break the world by risking Delilah's return as long as it got her Laudna back, the one with the drive and the thirst for power and knowledge. Laudna meanwhile, while also tempted by power, is mostly just along for the ride, deeply devoted to Imogen over anything or anyone, alive only because Imogen found a way to resurrect her. They have looked each other in the eye, recognised the same seeds of darkness and the possibility of giving in, and said 'Together either way'.

But they are also in many ways a direct subversion of the Briarwoods. Delilah and Sylas both seemed perfectly happy to have made a pact with Vecna and revelled in the power he granted them, even knowing the disaster he would bring and the horrific acts he asked of them. Imogen and Laudna meanwhile, while tempted by power and openly voicing said temptation to each other, actively fight against it. Imogen was prepared to risk Delilah's return for the sake of Laudna's resurrection, but she would've fought her every step of the way. She's tempted by the power and knowledge of Ruidus, but also prepared to give all of it up if it means saving the world, because unlike Delilah she chooses to care about people other than herself and her lover. Laudna may be prepared to follow Imogen into hell itself, but she may also be what would lead her back out, because unlike Sylas she doesn’t just recognise darkness in her lover, she wants to fight it alongside her.

This is what I mean when I say these two hold the potential for great darkness. They wouldn’t function as a mirror and a foil of the most romantically iconic critical role villain duo if they didn't. But holding the potential for darkness and corruption also means holding the potential to resist and fight said darkness at every turn. It gives them the potential to choose kindness and struggle while still keeping a little bit of that darkness in their hearts, because without it, they never would have found each other.

[artisticbunny]

Ok so these two are characters from @dingodoodles 's amazing ongoing DnD campaign Fools Gold Sands and I have not seen enough fanart of them so I made some myself.

THEY ARE SO FUN TO DRAW AND ARE SO SILLY TO ME I LOVE THEM.

PLEASE GO WATCH/LISTEN TO THE CAMPAIGN IM BEGGING YOU!!!

You can find it on dingo's YouTube channel which is the same name as their tumblr please please please check them out! <3

[fumifooms]

My world shattering when I realize that Chilchuck is underweight

Post-canon Chilchuck stops dieting and gains weight real

Edit: I am going to SCREAM