#they’re fictional people

[letraspal]

Fandom community

Wanted to take a chance with this post to say to all of you lovely people who follow me and interact with my art that I’m glad for your kindness and support. I am a human being behind the post you see. Saying that, I will not allow any form of disrespect or abusive behavior towards my person or any other person here. I’m going to delete, report or block if necessary. I always open to constructive criticism but you have to be educated because I will be. Always. Right of speech is not something that happens without limits. And my limits is the well being of others.

Love, your creator Annie.

Fandom can do a little gatekeeping. As a treat.

So I finally decided to archive-lock my fics on AO3 last night. I’ve been considering it since the AI scrape last year, but the tipping point was this whole lore.fm debacle, coupled with some thoughts I’ve been thinking regarding Fandom These Days in general and Fandom As A Community in particular. So I wanna explain why I waited so long, why I locked my stuff up now, and why I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m a-okay with making it harder for people to see my stories.

Lurkers really are great, tho

I’m a chronic lurker, and have been since I started hanging out on the internet as a teen in the 00s. These days it’s just cuz I don’t feel a need to socialize very often, but back then it was because I was shy and knew I was socially awkward. Even if I made an account, I’d spend months lurking on message boards or forums or Livejournals, watching other people interact and getting a feel for that particular community’s culture and etiquette before I finally started interacting myself. And y’know, that approach saved me a lot of embarrassment. Over the course of my lurking on any site, there was always some other person who’d clearly joined up five minutes after learning the place existed, barged in without a care for their behavior, and committed so many social faux pas that all the other users were immediately annoyed with them at best. I learned a lot observing those incidents. Lurk More is Rule 33 of the internet for very good reason.

Lurking isn’t bad or weird or creepy. It’s perfectly normal. I love lurking. It’s hard for me to not lurk - socializing takes a lot of energy out of me, even via text. (Heck it took 12 hours for me to write this post, I wish I was kidding--) Occasionally I’ll manage longer bouts of interaction - a few weeks posting here, almost a year chatting in a discord there - but I’m always gonna end up going radio silent for months at some point. I used to feel bad about it, but I’ve long since made peace with the fact that it’s just the way my brain works. I’m a chronic lurker, and in the long term nothing is going to change that.

The thing with being a chronic lurker is that you have to accept that you are not actually seen as part of the community you are lurking in. That’s not to say that lurkers are unimportant - lurkers actually are important, and they make up a large proportion of any online community - but it’s simple cause and effect. You may think of it as “your community”, but if you’ve never said a word, how is the community supposed to know you exist? If I lurked on someone’s LJ, and then that person suddenly friendslocked their blog, I knew that I had two choices: Either accept that I would never be able to read their posts again, or reach out to them and ask if I could be added to their friends list with the full understanding that I was a rando they might not decide to trust. I usually went with the first option, because my invisibility as a lurker was more important to me than talking to strangers on the internet.

Lurking is like sitting on a park bench, quietly people-watching and eavesdropping on the conversations other people are having around you. You’re in the park, but you’re not actively participating in anything happening there. You can see and hear things that you become very interested in! But if you don’t introduce yourself and become part of the conversation, you won’t be able to keep listening to it when those people walk away. When fandom migrated away from Livejournal, people moved to new platforms alongside their friends, but lurkers were often left behind. No one knew they existed, so they weren’t told where everyone else was going. To be seen as part of a fandom community, you need to submit to the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc. etc.

There’s nothing wrong with lurking. There can actually be benefits to lurking, both for the lurkers and the communities they lurk in. It’s just another way to be in a fandom. But if that is how you exist in fandom--and remember, I say this as someone who often does exist that way in fandom--you need to remember that you’re on the outside looking in, and the curtains can always close.

I’ve always been super sympathetic to lurkers, because I am one. I know there’s a lot of people like me who just don’t socialize often. I know there’s plenty of reasons why someone might not make an account on the internet - maybe they’re nervous, maybe they’re young and their parents don’t allow them to, maybe they’re in a bad situation where someone is monitoring their activity, maybe they can only access the internet from public computer terminals. Heck, I’ve never even logged into AO3 on my phone--if I’m away from my computer I just read what’s publicly available. 

I know I have people lurking on my fics. I know my fics probably mean a lot to someone I don’t even know exists. I know this because there are plenty of fics I love whose writers don’t know I exist.

I love my commenters personally; I love my lurkers as an abstract concept. I know they’re there and I wish them well, and if they ever de-lurk I love them all the more.

So up until last year I never considered archive-locking my fic, because I get it. The AI scraping was upsetting, but I still hesitated because I was thinking of lurkers and guests and remembering what it felt like to be 15 and wondering if it’d be worth letting a stranger on the internet know I existed and asking to be added to their friends list just so I could reread a funny post they made once.

But the internet has changed a lot since the 00s, and fandom has changed with it. I’ve read some things and been doing some thinking about fandom-as-community over the last few years, and reading through the lore.fm drama made me decide that it’s time for me to set some boundaries.

I still love my lurkers, and I feel bad about leaving any guest commenters behind, especially if they’re in a situation where they can’t make an account for some reason. But from here on out, even my lurkers are going to have to do the bare minimum to read my fics--make an AO3 account.

Should we gatekeep fandom?

I’ve seen a few people ask this question, usually rhetorically, sometimes as a joke, always with a bit of seriousness. And I think…yeah, maybe we should. Except wait, no, not like that--

A decade ago, when people talked about fandom gatekeeping and why it was bad to do, it intersected with a lot of other things, mainly feminism and classism. The prevalent image of fandom gatekeeping was, like, a man learning that a woman likes Star Wars and haughtily demanding, “Oh, yeah? Well if you’re REALLY a fan, name ten EU novels” to belittle and dismiss her, expecting that a “real fan” would have the money and time to be familiar with the EU, and ignoring the fact that male movie-only fans were still considered fans. The thing being gatekept was the very definition of “being a fan” and people’s right to describe themselves as one.

That’s not what I mean when I say maybe fandom should gatekeep more. Anyone can call themselves a fan if they like something, that’s fine. But when it comes to the ability to enjoy the fanworks produced by the fandom community…that might be something worth gatekeeping.

See, back in the 00s, it was perfectly common for people to just…not go on the internet. Surfing the web was a thing, but it was just, like, a fun pastime. Not everyone did it. It wasn’t until the rise of social media that going online became a thing everyone and their grandmother did every day. Back then, going on the internet was just…a hobby.

So one of the first gates online fandom ever had was the simple fact that the entire world wasn’t here yet.

The entire world is here now. That gate has been demolished.

And it’s a lot easier to find us now. Even scattered across platforms, fandom is so centralized these days. It isn’t a network of dedicated webshrines and forums that you can only find via webrings anymore, it’s right there on all the big social media sites. AO3 didn’t set out to be the main fanfic website, but that’s definitely what it’s become. It’s easy for people to find us--and that includes people who don’t care about the community, and just want “content.”

Transformative fandom doesn’t like it when people see our fanworks as “content”. “Content” is a pretty broad term, but when fandom uses it we’re usually referring to creative works that are churned out by content creators to be consumed by an audience as quickly as possible as often as possible so that the content creator can generate revenue. This not-so-new normal has caused a massive shift in how people who are new to fandom view fanworks--instead of seeing fic or art as something a fellow fan made and shared with you, they see fanworks as products to be consumed.

Transformative fandom has, in general, always been a gift economy. We put time and effort into creating fanworks that we share with our fellow fans for free. We do this so we don’t get sued, but fandom as a whole actually gets a lot out of the gift economy. Offer your community a story, and in return you can get comments, build friendships, or inspire other people to write things that you might want to read. Readers are given the gift of free stories to read and enjoy, and while lurking is fine, they have the choice to engage with the writer and other readers by leaving comments or making reclists to help build the community.

And look, don’t get me wrong. People have never engaged with fanfic as much as fan writers wish they would. There has always been “no one comments anymore” wank. There have always been people who only comment to say “MORE!” or otherwise demand or guilt trip writers into posting the next chapter. But fandom has always agreed that those commenters are rude and annoying, and as those commenters navigate fandom they have the chance to learn proper community etiquette.

However, now it seems that a lot of the people who are consuming fanworks aren’t actually in the community. 

I won’t say “they aren’t real fans” because that’s silly; there’s lots of ways to be a fan. But there seem to be a lot of fans now who have no interest in fandom as a community, or in adhering to community etiquette, or in respecting the gift economy. They consume our fics, but they don’t appreciate fan labor. They want our “content”, but they don’t respect our control over our creations.

And even worse--they see us as a resource. We share our work for free, as a gift, but all they see is an open-source content farm waiting to be tapped into. We shared it for free, so clearly they can do whatever they want with it. Why should we care if they feed our work into AI training datasets, or copy/paste our unfinished stories into ChatGPT to get an ending, or charge people for an unnecessary third-party AO3 app, or sell fanbindings on etsy for a profit without the author’s permission, or turn our stories into poor imitations of podfics to be posted on other platforms without giving us credit or asking our consent, while also using it to lure in people they can datascrape for their Forbes 30 Under 30 company? 

And sure, people have been doing shady things with other people’s fanworks since forever. Art theft and reposting has always been a big problem. Fanfic is harder to flat-out repost, but I’ve heard of unauthorized fic translations getting posted without crediting the original author. Once in…I think the 2010s? I read a post by a woman who had gone to some sort of local bookselling event, only to find that the man selling “his” novel had actually self-published her fanfic. (Wish I could find that one again, I don’t even remember where I read it.)

But aside from that third example, the thing is…as awful as fanart/writing theft is, back in the day, the main thing a thief would gain from it was clout. Clout that should rightfully go to the creators who gifted their work in the first place, yeah, but still. Just clout. People will do a lot of hurtful things for clout, but fandom clout means nothing outside of fandom. Fandom clout is not enough to incentivize the sort of wide-scale pillaging we’re seeing from community outsiders today.

Money, on the other hand… Well, fandom’s just a giant, untapped content farm, isn’t it? Think of how much revenue all that content could generate.

Lurkers are a normal and even beneficial part of any online community. Maybe one day they’ll de-lurk and easily slide into place beside their fellow fans because they already know the etiquette. Maybe they’re active in another community, and they can spread information from the community they lurk in to the community they’re active in. At the very least, they silently observe, and even if they’re not active community members, they understand the community.

Fans who see fanworks as “content” don’t belong in the same category as lurkers. They’re tourists. 

While reading through the initial Reddit thread on the lore.fm situation, I found this comment:

[ID: Reddit User Cabbitowo says: ... So in anime fandoms we have a word called tourist and essentially it means a fan of a few anime and doesn't care about anime tropes and actively criticizes them. This is kind of how fandoms on tiktok feel. They're touring fanfics and fanart and actively criticizes tropes that have been in the fandom since the 60s. They want to be in a fandom but they don't want to engage in fandom 

OP totallymandy responds: Just entered back into Reddit after a long day to see this most recent reply. And as a fellow anime fan this making me laugh so much since it’s true! But it sorta hurts too when the reality sets in. Modern fandom is so entitled and bratty and you’d think it’s the minors only but that’s not even true, my age-mates and older seem to be like that. They want to eat their cake and complain all whilst bringing nothing to the potluck… :/ END ID]

-

“Tourist” is an apt name for this sort of fan. They don’t want to be part of our community, and they don’t have to be in order to come into our spaces and consume our work. Even if they don’t steal our work themselves, they feel so entitled to it that they’re fine with ignoring our wishes and letting other people take it to make AI “podfics” for them to listen to (there are a lot of comments on lore.fm’s shutdown announcement video from people telling them to just ignore the writers and do it anyway). They’ll use AI to generate an ending to an unfinished fic because they don’t care about seeing “the ending this writer would have given to the story they were telling”, they just want “an ending”. For these tourist fans, the ends justify the means, and their end goal is content for them to consume, with no care for the community that created it for them in the first place.

I don’t think this is confined to a specific age group. This isn’t “13-year-olds on Wattpad” or “Zoomers on TikTok” or whatever pointless generation war we’re in now. This is coming from people who are new to fandom, whose main experience with creative works on the internet is this new content culture and who don’t understand fandom as a community. That description can be true of someone from any age group.

It’s so easy to find fandom these days. It is, in fact, too easy. Newcomers face no hurdles or challenges that would encourage them to lurk and observe a bit before engaging, and it’s easy for people who would otherwise move on and leave us alone to start making trouble. From tourist fans to content entrepreneurs to random people who just want to gawk, it’s so easy for people who don’t care about the fandom community to reap all of its fruits. 

So when I say maybe fandom should start gatekeeping a bit, I’m referring to the fact that we barely even have a gate anymore. Everyone is on the internet now; the entire world can find us, and they don’t need to bother learning community etiquette when they do. Before, we were protected by the fact that fandom was considered weird and most people didn’t look at it twice. Now, fandom is pretty mainstream. People who never would’ve bothered with it before are now comfortable strolling in like they own the place. They have no regard for the fandom community, they don’t understand it, and they don’t want to. They want to treat it just like the rest of the content they consume online.

And then they’re surprised when those of us who understand fandom culture get upset. Fanworks have existed far longer than the algorithmic internet’s content. Fanworks existed long before the internet. We’ve lived like this for ages and we like it.

So if someone can’t be bothered to respect fandom as a community, I don’t see why I should give them easy access to my fics.

Think of it like a garden gate

When I interact with commenters on my fic, I have this sense of hospitality.

The comment section is my front porch. The fic is my garden. I created my garden because I really wanted to, and I’m proud of it, and I’m happy to share it with other people. 

Lots of people enjoy looking at my garden. Many walk through without saying anything. Some stop to leave kudos. Some recommend my garden to their friends. And some people take the time to stop by my front porch and let me know what a beautiful garden it is and how much they’ve enjoyed it. 

Any fic writer can tell you that getting comments is an incredible feeling. I always try to answer all my comments. I don’t always manage it, but my fics’ comment sections are the one place that I manage to consistently socialize in fandom. When I respond to a comment, it feels like I’m pouring out a glass of lemonade to share with this lovely commenter on my front porch, a thank you for their thank you. We take a moment to admire my garden together, and then I see them out. The next time they drop by, I recognize them and am happy to pour another glass of lemonade.

My garden has always been open and easy to access. No fences, no walls. You just have to know where to find it. Fandom in general was once protected by its own obscurity, an out-of-the-way town that showed up on maps but was usually ignored.

But now there’s a highway that makes it easy to get to, and we have all these out-of-towner tourists coming in to gawk and steal our lawn ornaments and wonder if they can use the place to make themselves some money.

I don’t care to have those types trampling over my garden and eating all my vegetables and digging up my flowers to repot and sell, so I’ve put up a wall. It has a gate that visitors can get through if they just take the time to open it.

Admittedly, it’s a small obstacle. But when I share my fics, I share them as a gift with my fellow fans, the ones who understand that fandom is a community, even if they’re lurkers. As for tourist fans and entrepreneurs who see fic as content, who have no qualms ignoring the writer’s wishes, who refuse to respect or understand the fandom community…well, they’re not the people I mean to share my fic with, so I have no issues locking them out. If they want access to my stories, they’ll have to do the bare minimum to become a community member and join the AO3 invite queue.

And y’know, I’ve said a lot about fandom and community here, and I just want to say, I hope it’s not intimidating. When I was younger, talk about The Fandom Community made me feel insecure, and I didn’t think I’d ever manage to be active enough in fandom spaces to be counted as A Member Of The Community. But you don’t have to be a social butterfly to participate in fandom. I’ll always and forever be a chronic lurker, I reblog more than I post, I rarely manage to comment on fic, and I go radio silent for months at a time--but I write and post fanfiction. That’s my contribution.

Do you write, draw, vid, gif, or otherwise create? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you leave comments? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you curate reclists? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you maintain a fandom blog or fuckyeah blog? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you provide a space for other fans to convene in? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you regularly send asks (off anon so people know who you are)? Congrats, you're a community member.

Do you have fandom friends who you interact with? Congrats, you're a community member.

There’s lots of ways to be a fan. Just make sure to respect and appreciate your fellow fans and the work they put in for you to enjoy and the gift economy fandom culture that keeps this community going.

[badolmen]

They don’t even attempt to assassinate US politicians anymore. You notice that? Not since the anthrax scare back for… who was it, Barack? And even that… pathetic. This new generation has no respect for an honest hitman. I’m not sure this new generation has any honest hitman - you see that shit with Boeing? Sloppy, fucking disgraceful - you kill the whistleblowers before they get halfway to a lawsuit. What kind of fucking amateur is doing faked suicides the night before testimony? Goddamn greenhorns. Back in my day someone tried to shoot Ronald Reagan in broad daylight. There used to be bomb threats to Congress. I took out a few union leaders in the utilities sector myself. Today’s generation? Won’t even threaten to throw a punch - not even over on that - what’s it now, ‘X���? They got no guts. None! And they don’t even have poor impulse control to boot! Too much of that - that panopticon anxiety bullshit. “Oh what if I get a called out post???” People used to send the president letters full of bioweapons. In the mail! Today’s generation? Not a chance. All because of woke.

[bambeebirdie]

Okay consider Bruce Wayne is the very well known bankroller for the Justice League. Batman is still part of the league, but they don’t know he’s Bruce Wayne. So, due to Bruce Wayne being such a well known figure and very obviously connected to the Justice League, that has kinda made him a target for certain people which means the Justice League has decided to assign one of their members to help keep him safe. Insert notorious billionaire fighter Superman becoming the part time bodyguard of Bruce Wayne in this epic superbat romance

[sofflepoffle]

Stories loooove to have someone get hit over the head and dramatically pass out but no one ever wants to the deal with the concussion that comes afterward

[mint-mumbles]

Just played Homicipher for the first time today (really good game btw, can’t wait for the full release) and when the player hides from Mr. Crawling without a weapon he goes to comfort them.

I was able to translate what he said after he pats the player character’s head after he startles them:

“There, there. Worry gone.”

Bro. I love him so much 🥹

[artist-issues]

there is a huge difference between “magic” as in, “the fairy-tale symbol for a another dimension of good or evil being manifested/a fantasy word for ‘superpower’”

and “magic” as in: “real-world sorcery.”

HUGE difference. Sorcery happens in the real world. It’s when creatures worship created things instead of their Creator. It’s when humans get played by real demons and think they’re tapping into something better.

But “magic” in stories is not always that. Weirdly it sometimes references sorcery. But it’s not always sorcererous. The Fairy Godmother from Cinderella is a symbol; she’s a rewarder of good ethics, and her “magic” just makes that agency a little richer and sparklier. But the witch from Snow White? She’s a character who references real-world sorcery. The same way the Huntsman references real-world people-who-hunted-for-a-living.

That is the difference. Sorcery vs. storytelling magic.

[parkersgnome]

Anti telling me I should’ve called the cops because I told them I’ve seen people sell 18+ figurines at comic cons, anime shops, and XXX stores.

Yall once I call the cops on you for selling a sticker of Asuka in a vaguely sexual pose 😡😡😡 /j:

“But, we sold a slightly sexually suggestive figurine of a fictional character!”

“Yeah, so have TONS of comic-cons/xxx/anime shops 💀💀💀”

[arte072]

Arya and Sansa’s relationship is only normal if your older sister’s boyfriend tried to murder you and got your friend killed and she decided it was all your fault because she thinks you exist to ruin her life lmao

Like it’s so dumb that the Stark girls’ tense relationship is reduced to Sansa calling Arya ugly and not a single mention of the Trident incident and all the moments afterwards. That’s where the actual complication comes in! And it’s in Sansa’s very first chapter no less!

Sansa disregarding Joffrey’s violence towards Arya because she’s predisposed to think of her little sister as a lesser person who deserved his wrath is an important part of the plot, babes. Her being able to ignore Arya’s pain is quite literally why she still thinks of Joffrey as her sweet prince right up until her dad’s head got chopped

Why are we asked to not comprehend both girls’ chapters just because it makes your fave look bad 😭

[throwawayasoiafaccount]

btw what theon went through is what thousands upon thousands upon thousands of slaves still go through in essos. so, do you still feel pity for the slavers that were crucified? do you still pity the slavers killed when daenerys freed the unsullied?

i ask these questions, and yet i know that there are still many people who believe that the violence against the slavers wasn’t justified, or believe that it was simply “too much” or “not fair.” truly… what an insane hill to die on.

maybe these people should spare more empathy for the formerly enslaved instead of wasting time making up excuses (that are not supported by the text) for why the slave masters' deaths were somehow not justified 🫶

[mouse-fantoms]

On top of being robbed of so much Juke content we’ll never get, what I think about alot is how Juke would have been approached more if it went further.

One of the (many) reasons I love jatp so much is it makes me believe their characters are real, that they have background, they have their own goals and ambitions to them, they’re fleshed out.

That moment of Flynn going “my girls got a crush and his name is Luke” and Julie going “what no?! Luke’s a ghost😳.” And Flynn saying “a cute ghost” and Julie giving in and saying “…with a perfect smile☺️” and adding that Luke is “cute air” which implies she has indeed given this Luke crush idea some thought.

That moment of just two best friends talking about the others potential crush like that’s such a good moment bc I genuinely believe that I am watching these two genuine besties just have that kind of talk with one another bc that happens!

Like that moment we have with our friends when they’re like “hey I got something to tell you 👀” or they approach you like “so… umm… I’ve been kind of noticing your behavior lately around this person.” It’s the realistic little things like that which is why I appreciate this show so much.

Julie having the line of “what no! Luke’s a ghost!” Means so much that, on top of acknowledging “hey he’s got a cute smile, and he himself is cute” she also acknowledged “…he is a ghost though…” but then our Julie being who she is (we love her for it) went “but he still do be cute though 🥰” like this is a genuine teen girl in high school having a crush

And then later on when Reggie and Alex bring up how Luke and Julie ooze chemistry (and the way that throughout the show when Julie and Luke are being cute and them, the looks that we see Reggie and Alex give like Juke and then each other is so good bc I genuinely believe like “yeah these boys are all friends with one another so of course they’d react that way to their other friend showing an interest in their fellow friend”) Luke’s like “no come on I have chemistry with everyone I sing with” HE DOES THE SAME THING JULIE DID WHEN THE EXACT SAME TOPIC EAS BROUGHT UP TO HER! (Soulmates your honor!)

Him denying it, like Julie did, implies too that he also had the thinking of “…she is alive though and I’m not” (I mean me personally I feel like Luke didn’t truly realize he liked her until later on even if there were signs earlier, just bc he seems like the kind of person where like music was his absolute everything like even if the Sunset Curve fangirls were always like ‘omg Luke is amazing 😍’, I just get the vibe that he would never really notice the advances towards him bc he is just so consumed in music and that is his whole existence, so when Reggie and Alex see that Luke appears to be falling for Julie it’s a big deal bc they’re probably like “Luke has NEVER shown any interest ever so the fact that a girl has replaced music in his life THIS IS A MASSIVE DEAL”)

And then the moment when they’re on Julie’s porch and she tries to hold his hand but ya know CANT (huge what a gut punched) and then she awkwardly looks away and he’s like “…this is an interesting little relationship you and I have” and they’re just there for a moment just looking and smiling at each other (THEY’RE FLIRTING SO MUCH WITHOUT SAYING ANY WORDS UGH TAKE ME 😩)

I am sat there genuinely believing that these are two teenagers who even though they know they’re not *supposed* to feel a way about each other, they still do. Like that scene is their confession to one another and it’s so sweet and genuine bc in that moment where Julie tries to hold his hand, they’re brought back to reality as to what they are and yet, they can’t help but still like one another and appreciate each other bc of what the other person has changed so much in their life.

AND THEN, that scene in the beginning of the last episode how Julie asks to talk to Luke (and Reggie and Alex immediately are like “oop leave them be 👀 they’re having a moment” being the greatest friends that they are) and they’re both standing there, in each others presence, it takes a moment for Julie to say what she wants to but they’re just two kids who ended up in each others lives and they know they like each other but they know they can’t act on those feelings yet they still just have this love for each other is so enduring and charming. The way Luke tells her “anything Julie you know that” MAKES ME MELT like ugh 😩 their dynamic and friendship has grown so much with each other from episode 1 to like now and it’s so just ugh it gets me

When I think how Juke could have been approached if we had gotten a chance, I would have loved to see the new like “glowing touch” development and how that would impact their dynamic. (I just imagine Reggie just hugs Julie all the time bc he can (he just seems like such a hugger and I feel like he’d give good ones🥺) and Alex also will gives her side hugs (they just take advantage of being able to physically touch her bc they don’t know how long they’re able to do it for with their new ghost development)) I feel like Luke and Julie would just be a bit apprehensive since the hand holding thing on the porch, and maybe their hug was just a one time thing.

Would have loved to see Carlos referring to Luke as “Julie’s boyfriend” (he was there for edge of great and stand tall THERES NO WAY he’s thinking anything of than “the sleeveless one is indeed my sisters boyfriend”) would be extra great too with like Luke being in the room and Carlos just says that and Julie quickly trying to make him not talk about it bc it’s embarrassing 💀 her just being like “Carlos, he’s a ghost” and him being like “…hey with you having a boyfriend are you going to have less time with Dad and I bc you’ll be busy kissing him?” And Julie’s face just goes pale as Luke takes the time to take himself out of room meanwhile his face his like bright red

Would have loved to see when Carrie’s redemption is happening and it’s Julie and Carrie and Carrie’s like “sooooo 👀 I’ve seen how you look at your guitarist” and she immediately tries to shut it down but Carrie is like “Jules, we may not have been that close in the past year and some but we’ve known each other for how long? I can see your tells!”

I just think a lot about how this ship, even though they’re not meant to like each other yet they do and still care about each other, would have been approached more if we got the chance

[bucksboobs]

God at this point I hope Buck fists Tommy in the loft kitchen so y’all stop making this exact post every week.

[super-oddity]

i support ambiguous sexualities and gender-blind attraction within fanon. like i can read a fic with a pairing i don’t think would work in canon and 100% believe (or even love) it if it’s written well enough

[fandomsoda]

Deromanticize holding hands, deromanticize kissing, deromanticize intimacy, deromanticize long-term relationships, deromanticize love.

Normalize platonic intimacy and queerplatonicism. Please.

[doctorsiren]

thoughts on klapollo?

tbh I’m not super into it. Like I get why it’s a ship, and there’s really no one else I’d ship the characters with, but I’m not actively into it, y’know?

It doesn’t give me the same level of joy and substantiality as narumitsu, like something about Phoenix and Miles feels more real and I just don’t really get that from klapollo, but that’s just me. It could be that I project onto both Phoenix and Miles, while I don’t do that really for Apollo and Klavier (save for giving Apollo my silly scrunkly fingers), but yeah idk. So I get why people ship them, and good for them, but I’m just not ever out here thinking about them. I’ll see art of them and it’ll make me think “oh neat” but it won’t make me all “omg!!! Them!! They’re sooo in love!!” the way that art of Phoenix and Miles does. Like I’m not against it, it just doesn’t capture my neurons at all to make anything substantial out of it for me

[tariah23]

:/

[michaelnotwheeler]

So what do you fellas on tumblr think about rarry??

aka i binged a few potter movies (with this one I had gof in mind) and it’s on my mind, also I really like this fanart I think it’s rad and it’s my best one yet I think

Also please keep in mind I obviously do not condone or support anything jk Rowling has said or continues to say about trans people, I hope that’s apparent because I am a trans person