#this fandom has been really meaningful

[matrixwhore]

.

k…so…hmm i don’t know if i’ll leave this up. im truly in a moment where i just wanna be lowkey. i don’t exactly want to be perceived too much rn. but this pride is really important to me. and i don’t really even know if this is worth anyone’s time, but i feel like i should say something...if only just to be able to look back and see that i did celebrate in my own way.

i don’t think i’ve had a pride where i’ve experienced it the way i would have liked, tho this is the year where i really feel whats at the heart of it the most. im queer and genderfluid/nonbinary. not just in how i love, but also how i live. i’ve had some recent revelations about all that that’s been really exciting, but a lot of figuring myself out happened in the midst of a great deal of crisis so there hasn’t been very much, joy or celebration these past few years. last year in particular was so hard i experience such a severe period of anhedonia and apathy i didn’t think i’d see the other side of it. iwtv was the first thing i was able to fully enjoy, and feel the enjoyment, and then coming on here and meeting so many amazing lgbtq+ people (espc. my black mutuals) has been mind altering. not even an exaggeration! talking and sharing ideas and laughing and just enjoying you guys has shifted my life experience in ways i wish you knew. i wish words could express it, but i don't think they really can. so i guess this is a thank you to my gay vampire show family as it is a very real celebration that i chose to watch it and that i'm still here.

there used to be a goal post for not being here. and wanting to see S2 shifted that. and then immersing myself within this fandom experience gave me reasons to push it further. and then suddenly i was being inspired to do things for me that i had given up on just bc connections i've made. and now i dont even know where that goal post is. it used to be so clear and in sight. i was almost a statistic in the worst way. one of the most effective way to erase us is by making us take ourselves out of life so they can say it was us all along. something was wrong within is. but nothing is wrong with all the beautifully complex and chaotic ways i exist. something is wrong with a society that doesn't want me in it when the world clearly does. when it keeps giving me reasons to keep going and keep fighting despite the opposition. even if i took myself out, i couldn't be erased anyways bc i’m so loved. as i am. im loved. and i love and that’s really untouchable. on the other side of not being able to feel, and not being able to care. im reminded im loved. and i feel it now. and i care so much about it that its given me fight. its given me the stubbornness and spite required to live in all this.

i think a lot about this.

[image description: a poem by Lucille Clifton titled - won’t you celebrate with me.

won’t you celebrate with me

what i have shaped into

a kind of life? i had no model

born in babylon

both nonwhite and woman

what did i see to be except myself?

i made it up

here on this bridge between

starshine and clay,

my one hand holding tight

my other hand; come celebrate

with me that everyday

something has tried to kill me

and has failed.

end image description]

i know theres a lot of pain. and grief and uncertainty that exists throughout this fandom. i know there’s a lot people are experiencing that they aren't sharing or getting into. if my life is anything to go by i know that suffering in this life can sometimes be so egregious you question what it’s all for. i question that a lot. even now. and i don't have an answer really. I don't think it’s my place to answer that for others anyways. but i’m celebrating you guys bc you’ve helped me feel. and care. and i attribute so much of the joys i’ve had these past several months to getting to experience you all. you were here when i came searching for something to connect to. even if i didn’t realize that’s what i was doing at the time. we’re here together now. and you may not know it or feel it. but just you being here ripples and reaches. so i really hope you’ll celebrate with me. they didn't kill us. and the ones that have passed live on in the ways we still love them. still grieve them. and honor them in everything we do. our lives are written in pen and permanent marker all over the world. they’ll tear off the flesh of their fingers, raw and bloody, before they ever succeed in wiping us away. we’re rooted in the core. the earth remembers us and keeps bringing us back. bc we belong here. happy pride.

[spitedemon]

i really don’t think it’s “typical dragon age fandom nonsense” for people to be genuinely upset about the world state choices. combat, level design, art direction, gameplay gimmicks, those have all varied across each dragon age game. the one thing that’s remained constant are nods to our previous choices.

i wasn’t expecting my HoF to come riding in on a griffon, but i can’t find a monument dedicated to warden tabris somewhere around the anderfels? lucanis couldn’t have some lines about the time that one arainai boy was stirring up trouble in antiva city? you’re gonna tell me that making a mage the new divine wouldn’t have some impact on nevarra and antiva? on the anderfels, the supposed most devout militant andrastian nation in thedas? you’re saying nobody in the north is paying attention to who rules orlais or ferelden? come on.

[northern-passage]

You don't have to respond to this if you don't want to, I know it will start unneeded drama but I just found it soooo interesting that, since the transphobic blog lets you see their likes, most of their likes are TWC related. And it's not like that fandom is notorious for being a toxic hellspace, no sir.

to be frank it's not just twc, the IF space as a whole is pretty notorious for being toxic at this point. whether you're on tumblr or reddit or the forums, you're going to find these kinds of people lurking around.

that was why i did post that person's username because i could see them interacting with various other authors, and it's best to just block them before they send you something stupid, too.

just like any large online community there are going to be a lot of trolls trying to get attention by sending inflammatory messages or leaving cruel comments wherever they can; i've been getting that kind of stuff sent to me or left in reviews or comments for years now. and currently losers online are having a fucking field day with everything that's going on right now - racism, islamophobia, antisemitism, transphobia, even gore, i've gotten it all in my inbox over the last few months and i've seen others get even worse. these people are pathetic and not worth your time. i've gotten better at not responding to stuff like that, but it is hard to resist that instinctive anger, and that's exactly why they do it & exactly why you see it in every single fandom/online space.

all of that to say, just ignore and block them and you'll have a far better time online than if you constantly try to argue or reason with them because they don't care, their only goal is to make you miserable. even if you think you have some epic clapback, it's not worth it, you're still giving them the attention they clearly desperately want and potentially exposing others to harmful rhetoric. just block 'em, babey!

[xxswagcorexx]

thinking about that ashswag testrun ep......

[jellyjimmy]

me when i create copious amounts of jimmy/dutch content that will never gain any attention let alone have the opportunity to gain attention due to the fact that it will stay locked up in the dark depths of my iphone notes app to forever rot and be forgotten

[nicorobinphd]

my favourite part about being multigender to this day is something i realized within a couple weeks of coming out to myself, which is that i get to be a better man than the very misogynistic & violent men i’m related to while also still being a woman. i get to be fucking poetry.

(if you’re confused as to why you’re seeing this, read the tags. there’s a one piece post hidden there.)

(also, like just because i exhibit the paranoia of a terminally online hermit™️ deprived of an habitat enrichment, & because this website is hellish, i want to be clear that i’m not trying to exceptionalize @ the expense of monogender trans people who come to similar realizations, we are doing the same thing in a different genre.)

[andypantsx3]

And that's where both readers and authors should be looking: towards mending those community ties, however we can. Maybe that means giving up useless number-chasing if communities can't survive past a certain scale. We could choose to focus on the slow work of developing relationships and trust, creating smaller but more sustainable groups of people who can support one another. Even now, within the hostile infrastructure of the modern internet, I think these things are still just barely possible.

Alright, so: I want to explain a little more about this connection between the Twilight fandom, Fifty Shades of Grey, and seemingly, the self-publishing industry as a whole. It's a lot, so I'm going to have to chip away at it a bit at a time, and I think the best place to start is by describing the scene in late 2000s Twilight fandom.

In 2009, Twilight was one of the biggest fandoms in the world, although it was nearly invisible to outsiders because it

Was about a straight couple, while most other fandoms were predominantly gay, and

Was conducted almost entirely on fanfiction.net among a group of people who had little other background in fandom. (x)

That meant for many Twilight fans, Twilight was fandom. It was all they knew, and many had no path out. That also made it a corked champagne bottle with the pressure building.

Because of these community dynamics and the declining quality of the Twilight books themselves, Twilight fanfiction evolved to be mostly AUs so alternate they were more-or-less original romance novels that used Bella and Edward as broad character templates. (x)

Seriously, Twilight fandom got really crazy big for a few years there. It was not totally uncommon to get multi-million clicks on a semi-popular story. It's weird looking back on it and calling it "Twilight fandom" because it was really more like "Romance Novel fandom". For real, for a period there, calling a Twilight fanfic author a 'Twilight fan' would be the ultimate insult. But they never stopped writing about Edward and Bella! It's so weird. (x)

If you were in 2000s era fandom, you're probably aware of the phenomenon of Big Name Fans and the various social-climbing dynamics that happened around them. The Twilight fandom took this social power game another level:

This wasn't even just an author thing. There were Big Name Authors (BNAs) but there were also Big Name Readers. These were basically like... full-time rabid fans of a BNA. They devoted so much of their time to helping out the BNAs, reviewing their chapters, making them fanart, promoting their fics, kissing their asses with cringe-worthy intensity, you name it. Which is why you saw what looked like BNAs having 'employees', such as Moi, tby789's Director of Marketing. (x)

It became apparent that these power games weren't just for fandom clout. The fandom was proving that that social power could be translated into real-world dollars. You see, the Twilight fandom used to organize charity auctions where big name authors would auction off custom fanfiction, and the money generated was substantial:

Mostly authors would auction off stories. So if you donated in my name, I'd write you 10,000 words of porn in my Tattward universe, or something new, etc. That's how it worked. The 2009 auction raised $80,000. The 2010 auction raised $140,000. The 2011 auction raised $20,00. [NOTE: this is likely a typo] (x)

A lot of these dynamics were not unique to the Twilight fandom, but it was the combination that created a perfect storm of opportunism. This would end up changing not just fandom dynamics but the publishing industry as a whole.

[bradleysbradshaws]

I am just *deep sighs* about most things now.

Look - I do believe I am on the right side of history for what I am doing. I have zero ill intent, but I have been put in an impossible situation, and I am surviving on sheer intrinsic mental fortitude at this point. I have managed to "stay in" the Roosmav fandom - barely - when anyone else who this has happened to has been long gone.

It's probably not going to happen, but I wish the Roosmav fandom could be like any other fandom that I have ever been in - open and welcoming to all who want to participate in it. It disturbs me that just because I and others are not privvy to a certain gated space, that we are not able to engage meaningfully with it. I do make the posts I make on tumblr because I do hope against all hope for some sort of honest interaction one day. I know it's not going to come from anyone who knew me last year because...I don't know...I don't know why people who happily treated me as a friend treat me like a ghost now, but it's their prerogative to do so. It makes me sad, but I am used to it; I have been used to it for a very long time now.

I will speak on this more another day, but I do find it concerning that more fandoms are becoming gated spaces it seems, nowadays - not just Roosmav. We all just want to enjoy something together...I don't know why it should have to be such a struggle for some of us.

[calocreek]

OK here it is, a ton of 'production' stuff for the Hot Guy Comic Zine! I've never been part of a project like this. Even though I was working on my comic mostly solo (shout-out to my editor Violet!), the world-building and story arc planning was completely collaborative. For example:

We started out on the world-building by voting on character's superpowers! Plenty of powers were almost unanimously agreed on, but Cuteguy was a HUGE campaign. We were pretty much 50/50 split between can fly/can't fly. Propaganda was exchanged LOL, like this piece where I campaigned for limited flying capabilities 😂 And thats what we ended up settling on!

From there we worked on a ton of brainstorming/world-building that I mostly spectated with an occasional doodle like these haha. I'm new to such elaborate AUs!

Pitch time!! I had pitches for each era and they were all pretty light and banter-y, so my year 1 pitch ended up fitting the vibe the best. My original pitch was 'HG + CG learn some key things about each other and plan to set up a base they can use together.' But when I started my script, I got really caught up in how they were navigating a partnership without knowing each others identities. The more I wrote through that, the more I wanted my story to be ABOUT that! So thats where my script started coming together.

Designs! I'm definitely not a confident costume designer. I was trying to go for low-tech + practical since it was early in their careers, and of course, easy to draw 😂

Process went more or less like this! Full color comics take a LONG TIME but it was a total labor of love. I had the graffiti bgs in mind from the very start since I knew it was dialogue heavy, I wanted to make sure the art was interesting and worth spending time looking at. Oh lord did I get carried away. I'm OBSESSED with the symbolism the fandom has put to the life series and so I tried to sneak in as much meaningful symbolism as possible. AND THE RESULT:

Guess I did pretty well! 😂😂😂

Anyway, I can't overstate how proud I feel to have gotten to work on this project. My whole goal as a hobbyist is to get to work with other artists I look up to and respect so this was a dream come true! Thank you everyone for reading, for 15k downloads (!!!), and for just being an awesomely creative fandom space to make art in! I hope to do more stuff like this again some day 💕

[thelaurenshippen]

hello it is world radio day and I want to talk about the state of audio drama very quickly--

over on bluesky, there's a lot of chatter about saving AD at the BBC and it's really worth reading through the tag. public funding for the arts, especially a medium in which experimentation and diversity are prioritized, is crucial and I'm deeply concerned about the BBC getting out of the game.

and, for me, this feels like part of a bigger discussion. the state of art in general is, uh...tough right now. when it comes to getting stories that you feel represent you - that are exciting and inclusive and meaningful - we just have to hope that some big stakeholders have spines and want to still make challenging stuff. idk about you, but I don't want to put all my eggs in that basket.

audio drama has always thrived in america because of you - welcome to night vale, wolf 359, the bright sessions, even the magnus archives (which isn't american but very popular here) have all been able to exist because of listener enthusiasm and support, not public funding or investment from large companies.

the best thing about podcasts is that they are mostly separate from governing bodies/regulations. sure, we all rely on hosting services to carry our shows but if push came to shove, we could create our own RSS feeds. the state of both the us government and tech (and the ways in which those two things are becoming increasingly intertwined) makes me nervous for free expression, but I take comfort in the fact that a lot of shit would have to change for someone to be able to bully me into making my art less diverse.

we have to start aggressively supporting small studios and independent creators again. if you can do that monetarily, fucking great - atypical has a membership program, most shows have patreons or crowdfund, etc. - but that's not the only way to support the art you love. talking about it, making fanart, telling your friends, reblogging, live posting, whatever! we talk a lot about the health of fandoms/reblogging here on tumblr and that's part of it too--we need to start really actively participating in our enjoyment of art again.

anyway, here are two crowdfunds you can give to right now that are still trying to meet their goal:

Camlann Season 2 Heartglass

and an incomplete list of audio dramas that I've been enjoying recently:

Red Valley Un(con)Trolled Havana Syndrome Sherlock & Co

[cynthiav06]

I cannot believe how this hasn't been addressed in the PJO Fandom yet but does no one notice that the books, Rick himself glosses over or downplays the fact that PERCY FUCKING JACKSON GAVE UP IMMORTALITY!!!

And in reason as to why Percy gave up immortality?

The Percabeth stans are only too happy to make "Oh Percy gave up immortality for Annabeth." The hell he did. Have we read the same books? Are you really demeaning the importance of what Percy did. Cause here's what happened, and here's why it's so important:

PERCY GAVE UP IMMORTALITY SO THAT GODS COULD CLAIM DEMIGOD CHILDREN EARLY SO THAT THEY DO NOT REMAIN DEFENSELESS.

Furthermore, he did it so CHILDREN OF MINOR GODS COULD HAVE A PLACE TO BELONG TO, TO HAVE IDENTITY OF THEIR OWN, SO MINOR GODS THEMSELVES CAN BE PROPERLY ACKNOWLEDGED.

Similarly, he further added that CHILDREN OF HADES SHOULD NOT BE OSTRACIZED, THEY AS WELL AS HADES DESERVE TO BE WELCOME INTO OLYMPUS AND INTO CAMP , DESERVE PROPER RESPECT.

What ticks me off the most is how such an important sacrifice such an important change is never addressed again to the extent it deserves.

Cause this is not a surface level thing. This is going to change and better the lives of all demigods that come after or even demigods who were wrongly forced to remain in Hermes Cabin. A safe, more respectful, more meaningful environment for all demigods no matter who their godly parent is.

Are you telling that children of minor gods don't literally worship Percy for doing all this? Don't wholly completely feel grateful at least that he voiced out for them over his own difficulties? That he made a safe place for them happen?

Are you telling me that Minor Gods themselves don't feel at least a little grateful and respect Percy who did this of his own volition without having even met many Minor Gods. That he voiced out for their own children when they couldn't?

Are you telling me that Travis and Connor or any other demigods and cabin counselors don't automatically rave on about the greatness of Percy Jackson to any new arrivals in Camp Half-Blood?

Cause we were robbed of this of a proper homage to the sacrifice other demigods, Luke himself and Percy himself made to make it happen.

Piper, Leo , and Jason all seem so ignorant to it. Even newer demigods in Chalice of Gods or other books seem ignorant to this, and that's so against the usual canon representation of Camp Half-Blood as a community.

We should have seen it in Lost Hero, should have seen it in Chalice of Gods, should have seen it acknowledge repeatedly. You know why?

Yes, Percy didn't want immortality, but don't you know that deep down Percy knew exactly what immortality meant? Eternal protection from his father in his realm. No Gods bothering him, no more sacrifices or death quests. Freedom to do what he wants. To be able to spend time with his family as long as he wants without the worry of risking their safety. And he gave it all up

NOT EVEN IMMORTALITY. GODS WOULD HAVE GRANTED ANY WISH. HE COULD HAVE WISHED ANYTHING. FOR HIM TO BE PROTECTED? NO MORE QUESTS? FOR GODS TO LEAVE HIM ALONE? HE GAVE IT ALL UP, ALL OF IT.

Perseus bloody Jackson made happen what no one in the History of Camp Half-Blood has ever done. He managed to make Gods change their ignorant ways. He dismantled a culture of neglect and abuse.

And the fact Rick himself let this happen, let all this gloss over, and the fact that Percabeth stans have the AUDACITY to insinuate that he did for Annabeth and demean Luke's sacrifice, Percy's sacrifice is beyond me.

[mollysunder]

Sky and Viktor's relationship is such a horror movie to me. You've got a man who was frustrated by the limitations placed on his life that were out of his control, like his class, mobility, and general health. Despite everything, he manages to rise beyond his station and avoid being an assistant for the rest of his life.

Then you've got a woman from the same background who admires him and all that he's accomplished in spite of the similar class based prejudices they faced all the while she's his assistant. She works up the courage to take leap of faith and reach out to him with her own research to show what's possible if they worked together as equals. And then he gets her killed!

Sky's death isn't the end of it because while it affects Viktor it is in no way meaningful to Sky's life or value as a person whatsoever. Even the pendant he wears in her memory is based on the design of her notebook, but that was just her notebook's cover, she probably bought it from a store and the design itself is probably mass produced. Why not use Sky's signature that was in her letter and in the notebook, the thing part if the notebook with real value?

Then Sky's brought back in s2 and she really only exists to be Viktor's assistant again, who he kills, again! But this time it's different because this time Viktor's making a conscious decision to look Sky in the eye and kill her... to prove he's changed.

In the middle of all this, in no way has Sky's death been mourned by her family or anyone else who could have known her. Jayce wasn't affected by the reveal, he didn't think it was important to tell Heimerdinger, or anyone who knew her. Nothing about her life, death, or disappearance has spurred any emotional reaction or even curiosity about what happened to her.

Sky's new life was also extremely isolated because she became further tied to him (in some ways you could say she was defined by him). Viktor never mentioned Sky to anyone in the material plane during his commune arc, so she only exists to him and she has no way to communicate with others, she's just there for Viktor's sake.

Then in the finale we learn this all a part of a big time loop where Viktor actively set the wheels in motion to have him and Jayce create hextech together, but if everything follows as is, that means Sky is violently killed in those timelines too. That means Viktor weighed the costs and decided over and over and over again that Sky was expendable enough to let her die for his plan to work eventually. How is that not murder at this point?

What's worse is that post-finale Sky's humanity is a point of dispute amongst the fandom, the VAs, and the writers themselves. Sky's the hexcore manipulating Viktor. No, Sky's a manifestion of Viktor's guilt. No, she's actually supposed to represent his humanity/conscious made physical. And in none of these arguments do they discuss Sky as a person, she's just an object meant to serve Viktor both in the narrative sense and literal sense as his assistant.

The most absolutely maddening part is that with Viktor's new bio on the League site, not only have most traces of Viktor had been scrubbed by Piltover's archive, but Sky's life has been completely wiped. Her death was implied to have been swept under the rug, and only described as the "loss of life" consequence from his Hexcore experiment.

Viktor was afraid of dying a senseless death (created by the conditions Piltover condemned his birth to) in obscurity and then he turned it into Sky's destiny.

[burr-ell]

re: bh never having faced consequences, what are some moments/things they've done you think there should've been consequences for? i'm asking because i've realized these past couple episodes that i also fear they won't face any consequences for this, but i haven't been able to pinpoint why i feel that way yet

I don't think the answer is that they've done things that demand consequences so much as it is that a lot of elements of this campaign just don't coalesce or feel like they matter. Things feel important and relevant and cool in the moment and then don't get any kind of followup, nor do they have a meaningful impact on the characters. So much of this story falls to the wayside with no followup, if it doesn't have the wind taken out of it altogether.

A lot of plot points wind up mattering more to the fandom than they do to the characters—even good arcs, like the events of the party split arc, don't seem to have left much of an impact. There are fans who still bring up Hearthdell as a point against the gods or Vasselheim, but Bell's Hells have barely mentioned it if at all since episode 65. Laudna derides it as a "pissant town" with "pissant squabbles" and is far less interested in the village and its people than she is in her own trauma and feelings about the Titans. Ashton only brings up what happened there because they're still sore about being judged by an angel. There's still a chance that they call out Vasselheim's leadership for the whole mess, but at no point during Ashton's rant to the Exandrian Accord did they ever reference the blatant encroachment and attempt at a land grab. Molaesmyr fares little better; Chetney is the only character who ever brings it up, and when he does it's in the context of rattling Ludinus personally—a point that only he ever presses, even though Imogen and Fearne were also there. The fandom has been debating off and on about how much the nature of Predathos itself can be linked to Molaesmyr's destruction, but nothing has canonically explained it one way or the other, in part because the rest of the Hells just aren't interested.

It's also that lack of interest that leads to major NPC villains that are almost completely irrelevant to the story. It does not ultimately matter that one of Ludinus's generals is Otohan Thull or that the Malleus Key was defended by Ozo Cruth. The audience doesn't really know who they are, and they don't know because the party had no reason to care and didn't try to get one. Matt has indicated that there's a story to Otohan that will likely be revealed in a campaign wrap-up, and the same is probably true for Ozo, but in the actual story, all they are to the audience is a couple of overtuned stat blocks with swords, and the characters they killed might as well have been gutted by a pit fiend for all it mattered. About the only death that has any narrative resonance is FCG's, and it feels less like they sacrificed themself to kill Otohan and more like the story had to lose an interesting and engaging character to get rid of Otohan.

Even returning antagonists don't escape; both Ludinus Da'leth and Delilah Briarwood, important villains from their original campaigns, have been done a great deal of disservice in this one. Ludinus peaked in episode 51; his gambit with Vax and Keyleth was great, but the longer he got to keep monologuing, in a campaign already full of talking in circles about the same issue, the more insufferable he became. Even his death, karmic as it was, is cheapened by the almost-immediate implication that he's got a way to come back, which might make sense mechanically but is utterly exhausting narratively. Delilah, on the other hand, could have been replaced by an original character and nothing of value would have been lost; there's potential in an undead warlock whose patron is their own murderer, but any of the emotional juice of that story is outweighed both by how tiresome the pacing is and how overreliant it is on maudlin imagery and nostalgia for the original Briarwood arc. We don't learn about why Delilah is here or what her specific goals are until episode 77, 40 episodes after the party confronted her directly and gave her an opportunity to explain herself that she did not take. The corruption arc, again, had potential, but fizzled out as soon as a level 20 wizard dropped the soul anchor solution into their laps, with little actual impact on Laudna herself.

The actual player characters have, for the most part, barely substantively changed. Chetney has solved the mechanical problem of not being able to control his werewolf transformations and he does push big red buttons when no one else will, but he isn't really moving anywhere as a character. Laudna continues to do everything in her power to bounce back to the old kooky fun-scary bit from episode 1 every time anything interesting happens to her. FCG did actually have a great arc with an incredibly heartfelt and moving conclusion, but is no longer a meaningful part of the narrative and the party's grief over their death was not given the space to breathe that it warranted. Fearne has matured a bit over the course of the campaign but is still largely just as aimless and go-with-the-flow as she was in the beginning. Imogen, at the very least, started to take something close to an actual stance on the gods and what to do about Predathos, but every time she has to make a choice, she continues to ask someone else what she should do and then hem and haw when she's told it's her decision. Orym has finally let himself lean on someone else, but has otherwise remained static. Ashton had a very promising arc after failing to absorb the shard, but has since regressed into doing the exact thing they called themself out for doing: looking for someone to blame and wanting to feel like they were robbed. Moments like Shardgate and Swordgate, which in any other campaign would have been major watersheds, have become functionally irrelevant for all the impact they've had on the actual characters.

The elephant in the room here, of course, is Imogen and Laudna's relationship, which has been a millstone around the campaign's neck from the beginning. Shippers have accused critics of being motivated by bigotry, but the arguments deconstructing it are ultimately rooted in this very same issue: nothing that happens to them truly seems to matter. This is intertwined with the issues with Delilah, because every time Imogen and Laudna actually run into any sort of conflict or difficulty, it has something to do with that plot thread: Delilah broke the gnarlrock; Delilah was reawakened when Laudna killed Bor'dor and Laudna was extremely upset and traumatized about it; and Delilah was the one Laudna was listening to when she tried to steal and absorb Otohan's sword. All of those conflicts fizzled out as soon as the immediate surface issue was resolved: Imogen dropped the gnarlrock issue entirely; Imogen kissed Laudna and insisted that she couldn't be a bad person for killing Bor'dor, and Laudna completely dropped the subject; and Imogen, as soon as Delilah was sealed in the soul anchor, immediately took Laudna back after less than a day of mild distance and they went off to have makeup sex. It feels less like their love is so strong it can overcome any conflict and more like they retreat to the same way their relationship was before as soon as they possibly can. Even starting a romance doesn't seem to materially change anything.

There's no interest in unpacking anything that could cause a problem, either. Laudna canonically has no issue with Imogen floating the idea of siding with the Vanguard, even though it was a Vanguard general who killed Laudna in the street to get to Imogen; in fact, she refuses to take a hard stance for or against Imogen joining Predathos because she doesn't want to "hold Imogen back from her destiny". Prior to Laudna attempting to take the sword, Imogen told her explicitly "if you need [Delilah], then that's my answer"—and then instead of addressing that, Imogen blames herself for Laudna giving into Delilah by wondering if she should have given into her own toxic influence so at least Laudna wouldn't be alone. At no point have they ever had a difficult conversation about any of their underlying issues, like the actual material harm Laudna has done to herself or others or the fact that both Imogen and Laudna have repeatedly tossed aside their actual needs in favor of maintaining their status quo of unending support and presence in each other's lives. They both just attribute responsibility to someone or something else and continue to swear that they'll always be there for one another—just like every other conversation they've ever had. There's no challenge and no movement, not from them or from anyone else; nothing has ever upset the idea that this story could be anything less than idyllic, no matter the increasing evidence to the contrary.

A common refrain for a very long time, and perhaps one still around in some circles, was a desire for Character A and Character B to "finally talk", and not without reason. In previous campaigns, A and B probably would have talked. This, however, is a campaign centering on profoundly incurious characters with a narrative that is disinterested in those characters becoming genuinely invested in its setting or each other beyond a bare surface level. Of course they won't face any consequences for releasing Predathos when they didn't need to, nor will they face consequences for not communicating their incredibly risky and contentious plan ahead of time. Why would they? It won't matter. Nothing in this story matters, and that's the entire problem.

[mercuriians]

connect (with you)

synopsis ☆ kuroo’s walls come down after the game with karasuno.

content info — some hurt/comfort with our beloved nekoma captain because he deserves all the love in the world 🙏 SPOILERS for the dumpster battle movie so beware. reader is mentioned to be kenma’s sister a few times.

author’s note — just wanna say hi to the haikyuu fandom :) hope u enjoy this short drabble i wrote, i’ll probably make it look pretty later. lmk if you wanna see more kuroo x kozume!reader in the future.

your lips are on kuroo’s before the locker room door even has a chance to close. his skin is soft and familiar, his kiss eager yet vulnerable. something compels you to reach up, circling your arms around his neck as you pull him closer, tighter, until you’re sure that his warmth has become your own. the sound of his breathing is the only thing keeping you tethered to the ground as your mouths meet again and again. no words need to be spoken.

after years of being together, and even more years of being friends, you know tetsurou like the back of your hand. as if he’s perpetually been woven into your spirit, etched into your heart since the day he moved into the house next to you and your brother’s.

you know that the cheery grin he shot his teammates, the reverent bow he gave to the crowd, and the meaningful hug he shared with daichi at the end of the match were all borne out of three things—his sworn responsibilities as the captain, his earnest respect for karasuno, and the addictive rush of adrenaline.

the moment he left behind the arena’s blinding lights, though, the high seemed to wear off.

yet an aching feeling stayed with him.

when you pour your heart out on the court and play until your muscles feel like they’re on fire, when you devote hours of your precious time towards practicing—towards smoothening out every crack within your blocks, every blemish within your serves, every falter within your receives—and when you imagine the game countless numbers of times in your head until it feels like a memory, there’s a certain type of pain you feel when it’s all over. it’s a sadness that’s inevitable, and yet one that stings so profoundly and uniquely that it becomes a bittersweet moment you’re bound to remember for the rest of your life.

just one more second, one more chance— you think to yourself in a flurry of desperation. because as foolishly selfish as it sounds, nobody ever truly wants the game to end.

that feeling of wanting to remain frozen in the experience is something you yourself are all too familiar with. volleyball, after all, was what gave birth to the connection you now so deeply share with tetsurou.

you suppose that’s why you’re able to pinpoint the exact moment his shoulders start to shake.

pulling away from the kiss, you feel your heart plummet into your stomach before you can even see the tears trickling down his face. something you’ve come to learn about tetsurou is that he rarely ever cries, so when he does, it only makes the sight that much more impactful. wordlessly, you pull him into you once more.

the way your arms firmly, comfortingly wrap around his tall figure conveys a simple but invaluable message that resonates throughout the empty room— “i’m not letting you go.”

quietly, he sobs. you let him.

you barely notice your nekoma jacket becoming damp with his tears. when his crying slowly starts to recede, you break the silence, voice soft and tender. “you were amazing out there, tetsurou,” you whisper. “and there’s three things i want to thank you for.”

withdrawing by the tiniest sliver, just enough so he can meet your patient gaze, your boyfriend tilts his head slightly in the way he always does. his fingers subconsciously trace patterns across the small of your back. “what are they, baby?” his voice is quiet and a little hoarse. really, it’s a miracle that you manage to block out your own shadows of sadness.

“one,” you whisper, fingers reaching out to gently wipe away his tears, “thank you for being the best captain this team could ever ask for.”

“two,” you continue, leaning in to kiss away the tears that remain, before a small smile pulls at the corners of your lips, “thank you for helping my brother fall in love with volleyball.”

“and three,” you breathe out, your vulnerable gaze meeting his own, lips inching towards his once more, “thank you for being as strong as you’ve been, and for carrying the world’s burden on your shoulders when none of us could.”

when you finish your heartfelt confession, tetsurou’s hazel eyes glaze over with a fresh wave of tears—this time, however, it’s for an entirely different reason.

and this time, he’s the one that kisses you first.

[roachliquid]

Man. It really bites seeing Maximus (from the Fallout series) be so heavily overlooked by the fandom, when he is such a well-written character. Bar none, he's one of the best fictional examples I have ever seen of someone raised in a high-control group.

The Brotherhood of Steel, in their entirety, are given all the classic traits of a cult or HCG. They boast about having these grandiose ideals, all of which revolve around controlling other people's behavior. They use those same ideals to justify abusing lower-ranking members, implying all the while that it serves some greater good. And despite their supposedly rigorous beliefs, they're happy to turn a blind eye to unsanctioned abuse - because it serves the same purpose of keeping people "in their place".

Then we're introduced to Maximus - a young man who has made the mistake of taking those ideals seriously, but due to the environment he's been trapped in, was never taught how to act on them in a real and meaningful way. And in the process of figuring that out, he fucks up. (He fucks up a lot, because the Brotherhood wouldn't dare teach him anything that might help him function without their support.) But he genuinely wants to do the right thing, and we see that come through time and again as he slowly learns how to be his own person.

And yet, even with all that growth under his belt, getting away from the group isn't that simple. Because, like any high control group worth its salt, the Brotherhood doesn't want you to leave. Sure, they'll threaten to kick you out (or in this case, kill you) - because it keeps you in line. But they'd much rather have you under their thumb, so he still has to deal with the threat of getting sucked back in.

As a cult survivor, I rarely see people like me depicted accurately in the media. We're almost always either scheming sadists or helpless barefoot victims - you rarely see a nuanced depiction of how a regular person, with both good intentions and the skills needed to get away, can still end up trapped in that kind of group. Maximus is an incredible example of how that can play out, and I hope more people come to appreciate both him as a character and how well that dynamic was handled.

[lgbtlunaverse]

Fandom is so nice to Jiang Cheng's inferiority complex because in reality every single thing he gets accused of is something Wei Wuxian is better at than him.

Jiang Cheng killed Wei Wuxian? Nope. Didn't even get close. Wei Wuxian's own spirits tore him apart before jc could even get there. wwx:1 jc:0

Jiang Cheng tortures people? We get two and a half rumours and a mention from jin ling that jc has 'captured' demonic cultivators before, but who is also apparently confident that just letting wwx run off will kill the issue even though those earlier rumours said ~no one who sandu shengshou captured was ever seen again~

The word jiang cheng uses when he tries to talk big game about 'beating the truth' out of Wei Wuxian's is a word that carries the context of pestering someone to do their homework. Doesn't exactly strike fear into my heart.

Wei Wuxian? Excellent at torture. A prodigy. Did you fucking see what he did to Wen Chao? Dude didn't have fingers anymore because wei wuxian made him eat them. He ripped out his hair, burned his skin off, and then stalked him for several days just to prolong the pain. He forced Wang Lingjiao to bite Wen Chao's dick off and then made her shove a stool leg down her own throat! 10/10, no notes. Absolutely horrifying.

Meanwhile Jiang Cheng's idea of torture is getting a dog to bark at Wei Wuxian for a few seconds. Weak, unoriginal, I bet fairy was literally wagging her tail the whole time. 2-0

Jiang Cheng made the entire cultivation world believe Wei Wuxian was up to no good on the burial mounds and ultimately orchestrated his downfall? lol. lmao, even

It's a big thing in certain corners of the fandom to really zoom in one one particular phrase at the end of chapter 73, where after wwx and jc have their staged duel to make the world believe they hate each other jiang cheng tells everyone wwx has defected and become "a public enemy'' or "an enemy to the cultivation world" or whatever the translation you're familiar with decided upon.

(As an aside, something I really like about this line is that the last half of it is almost exactly the same, like verbatim, as what wwx told him to say. like, the chapter is really hammering home just how much jc is speaking from a script here. wwx tells jc to say "今后魏无羡无论做出什么事，都与云梦江氏无关." and jc says "今后无论此人有何动作，一概与云梦江氏无关" the only meaningful difference is that he says 'this person' instead of wwx's name)

I've seen it said that this bit, the use of 'enemy' was said without wei wuxian's approval, that jc deviated from the script just to hurt his ex-shixiong for leaving him. And that this is what caused all the other clans to turn against wei wuxian. Regardless of if this is what jc and wwx discussed, or if jc had malicious motivations for it (considering my conclusions above, you can guess where i fall) it doesn't really matter, because the novel tells us when the clans completely freak out and become convinced wei wuxian is out to get them (though of course they've been wringing their hands about it since the literal day wwx ran off with the wen, months before jiang cheng visited) very neatly in chapter 75!

It's when they find out about Wen Ning.

And how do they find out about Wen Ning?

Because Wei Wuxian took him on nighthunts! And they kicked ass!

...Wei Wuxian, my man, why are you on nighthunts??? Why are you showing off your incredibly cool sentient fierce corpse buddy, who is way better and stronger than all the other fierce corpses, in front of the whole cultivation world??

Whatever his motivations (extra money, maybe?? they were strapped for crash) I can only draw the conclusion wwx had already given up on appearing calm or non-threatening and didn't care if the clans thought he was a threat, because they'd believe whatever they wanted anyway. Which he seems to clearly be aware of the whole time.

Regardless, we know that this is what created the myth of the Yiling patriarch. It's literally when the title first shows up!

Even if you really believe jc was secretly plotting against wwx in chapter 73, he's clearly doing a shit job of it because nothing he said made anywhere near as big an impact as this. Flopped!

The other point people use to argue Jiang Cheng caused wei wuxian's downfall is Jin Guangyao's speech in Guanyin temple about how jiang cheng could have saved wei wuxian if only he stood by him. Setting aside that jin guangyao is trying to get into jiang cheng's head here, and isn't necessarily saying what he really believes (though it very well might be! who knows with a character like jgy. assuming he's always lying is just as misleading as assuming he's always saying the truth) the fact is, if you read the speech closely, what he's talking about is not the 'public enemy' line, he's talking about the bond between them. The fact that people wanted wei wuxian out of yunmeng jiang, because the two were too powerful together.

He's talking about that one time Jiang Cheng very publically kicked wei wuxian out of the sect!

Which, unbeknownst to Jin Guangyao, was in fact Wei Wuxian's idea the whole time.

final score: 3 for you wei wuxian, you go wei wuxian! And nothing for Jiang Cheng bye.