#this is the most content our ship has gotten in... like years?

[connorsjorts]

cyberlife putting magnets in connors feet is canon to me now. i left the fandom some time ago, now im back, so i can enjoy all the fanworks that came out while my brainrot was dormant. but im so shocked at how widespread the notion that hankcon is problematic now is. it was the main ship a couple of years ago? and now the main tag is flooded with negativity. and idk if my claims hold any water, but i feel like the dynamics that were quite commonly used for hank x connor now are used for reed900? when did this fandom decide that two characters which 1) appear rarely and only to be an asshole and 2) doesn't even have any lines are a better ship than those two bastards who are literally insane about each other? (none of their interactions are normal, but its so in character for both of them, i love it) anyway, i hope you didnt have to experience any of said negativity and are doing well, cause i loved your fanfics <3

Honestly I forget that Connor’s magnet feet aren’t canon—how that clumsy-ass android who botched a barrel-roll into a first story window managed to keep his feet planted on a moving train is the biggest plot hole in all of DBH.

Welcome back to the fandom! Sometimes I wish I had been here from the very beginning, because even when I showed up in 2020 it was like this. I remember wandering into the ship tag, naive and desperate for conktent, and finding nothing but “hankcon shippers are perverts” and literal comparisons between a thirty year old man and a six year old boy 🥲 I pretty much avoided tumblr entirely because of it and stayed exclusively on twitter the first couple years! (RIP.) I feel like tumblr has actually gotten better since then? That said, in the four years I’ve been here I’ve somehow managed to avoid any direct hate, probably partially through luck and partially because I’m not afraid to use the block button. It’s never personal, it’s just that I am here for one thing and one thing only and that is old man yaoi. I would also advise staying off of ig and tiktok for fandom content because good god, people are MEAN over there.

As for reed900, the ship doesn’t really do much for me personally, but one thing that I really love about it is that it’s basically fanfiction of fanfiction. Like, fans basically created that ship and even their characters out of next to nothing, and made something so compelling that it’s now the fandom’s most popular ship on ao3! That is so cool! As someone who doesn’t care about the DBH canon like, at all, and is way more into the fans’ creations and creativity, I have a deep appreciation for reed900 shippers even if I don’t subscribe to their newsletter. 

I do agree that it’s very similar to the hankcon dynamic, which, who can blame them? It’s a great dynamic. And I don’t begrudge anyone for not wanting to ship Hank and Connor. But when it comes to people who ship reed900 but actively hate hankcon, those who call hankcon disgusting and cry about having to see it while never seeming to take any actual steps to avoid it? I dunno, I smell ageism in their hearts, and to them I say—old people are hot, and it’s not our fault if you have bad taste in men 😌

Thank you so much for your kind words about my fics 💖

[dystopiandramaqueen]

Me: I will ignore celebrity culture and live a normal life

Max and Lizzie:

[thewispsings]

two lonely friends | oscar piastri

paring: oscar piastri x journalist!reader

summary: lando norris has two lonely best friends. he gets an idea, why not set them up?

f1wags: y/n l/n, landos bestfriend was seen entering the monaco grand prix paddock today!

view comments below!

user1: OH BROTHER

user2: free my girl y/n 🗣️

user3: the day y/n stops getting referred to as “landos bestfriend” is the day i can REST

user4: landos bestfriend?? sorry i only know y/n l/n f1 journalist??

user5: y’all do this every race 🙄 OFC SHES THERE. THATS HER JOB.

user6: she’s such a moocher

user7: she’s literally there to do HER JOB?

user8: it’s crazy how after a year of oscar being in f1, we still haven’t gotten a y/n and oscar interaction ???

user9: y/n, our comfort outfit queen

ynandlandocontent: my favorite snippet of landos and y/ns interview 🧡

view comments below!

user10: ugh them ☹️☹️

user11: literally just make out already

user12: the very best FRIENDS

user13: she’s so unprofessional 💀

user14: this wasn’t even part of the interview 😭 this was just a blooper 🙄

user15: OKAY BUT Y/N FINALLY GOT TO INTERVIEW OSCAR ???

user16: ugh i love them so much 😞

user17: lando and y/n shippers where??

user18: HERE 🙋‍♂️

oscarpastyupdates: y/n interviewing oscar today!

view comments below!

user19: oscar “but um” piastri everyone!

user20: FINALLY SOME Y/N x OSCAR CONTENT!!

user23: why do i ship…

user24: they literally only talked once 😭😭

user23: okay let me BEEE

user25: guys did you see how hard he was blushing, or am i just crazy???

user26: they literally want each other SO BAD

user27: i can feel the tension through the screen

user28: ok so do i ship lando x y/n or oscar x y/n

— one day later !

ynupdates: queen y/n was seen out last night by multiple fans! she looks beautiful!

view comments below!

user29: HELLOOO???? IS THAT NOT OSCAR

user30: ARE WE JUST GOING TO PRETEND THAT THAT IS NOT OSCAR PIASTRI???

user31: omg oscar stole landos girl

user32: landos girl???

user33: wait i like this

user34: i love how the caption doesn’t mention oscar at ALL

user35: let them cook 🔥🔥

user36: okay oscar i see you 👀

user37: i wonder how lando feels about this..

liked by charles_leclerx, yourusername, landonorris, and 673,928 others!

lando.jpg: happy birthday to my little sister! you’re ancient now 😞 here’s to many more birthdays together!

view comments below!

user38: aw ☹️

user39: okay guys i’m crying

user40: lando ALWAYS eats with his birthday captions

user41: i wonder if landos ex’s had ever felt intimidated by y/n

user42: y/n has said that she has never not gotten along with landos gfs, so there’s that!

user43: okay now kiss

user44: i still ship idc

user45: her and lando ✅ her and oscar ❌

yourusername: ugh lando you love me so much, it’s disgusting

lando.jpg: i will take away your present.

yourusername: NO IM SORRY

liked by, mclaren, landonorris, oscarpiastri and 873,928 others!

yourusername: and who’s gonna pay attention to the redheads of the world?

pic credits: some kid named oscar??

view comments below!

user46: OKAY OKAY OKAY

user47: ugh you look so good 😔

user48: OSCAR IN THE CAPTION ??? WE ARE SO BACK!!!

user49: happy birthday queen!!

user50: happy birthday 🧡🧡

user51: oscar and y/n hard launch when???

oscarpiastri: ME I’LL PAY ATTENTION TO THE REDHEADS OF THE WOLRD!!! I WILL!!

user52: okay oscar let’s calm down..

user53: oh he’s down bad

user54: who needs more confirmation then THIS??

liked by maxverstappen1, mclaren, landonorris, and 873,928 others!

oscarpiastri: happy birthday to my best friend, and the most beautiful lady in the world 🧡

view comments below!

landonorris: bestfriend?

landonorris: oh okay

landonorris: cool cool cool

landonorris: yeah that’s chill

landonorris: totally NOT going to brust out into tears rn

landonorris: hahaha

landonorris: that would be stupid

landonorris: cool cool cool

landonorris: okay okay okay

landonorris: i set you two up and you just completely forget about me huh

landonorris: wow i can’t believe this

landonorris; i’m going to die alone

landonorris; alone and sad

landonorris: FUCK YOU GUYS

user55: let’s all just move pass lando having a mental breakdown…

[lurkingshan]

A list of sins in the Wandee Goodday finale

Yak finally confessed that he is still having hallucinations when he steps into the ring—and Dee did NOT tell him to bow out of the fight.

Dee magically cured Yak’s years long trauma ringside and there were zero consequences for Yak lying and hiding his mental health struggles for the entire show.

Yak gave a big speech about Dee believing in him more than he believed in himself—which is not the actual story we got on our screens. Cool fanwank of your own show, though, I guess!

The show began with telling us that Yak could not be out with a man because of the effect of homophobia on his career, and now he’s doing love confessions in the ring and this is apparently fine. Add it to the list of GMMTV shows trying to have it both ways with the bubble.

They only gave us Kao’s love story via a retrospective exposition dump and an awkwardly shoehorned in asexuality PSA. They could have actually written him a plot and showed us these themes, but I guess that was too much to ask.

The money problems magically went away by Yak winning one fight, and there was no fallout for Yei hiding things from Cher.

Ter and Taem were paired up as expected—A POX ON YOUR HOUSES WRITING TEAM. Everyone who caught the signs that they intended to redeem Ter was correct; I have no idea why they chose to have him harass and assault Dee when this was their intention the entire time. Pairing him with a character who survived a different assault makes it so much worse. Just another sign of the poor judgment behind this show.

Yak’s graduation becomes a background detail handled with a two second appearance in a montage.

And instead we spend time on a very strange PSA telling us that old people have sex, too? How this is relevant to anything I could not tell you.

Continuing their bad dynamic from the entire story, Dee pretends he’s not going to thank Yak in his little beauty pageant speech (that he’s giving for receiving a professional scholarship, for some reason). Contra the writers of this show, I don’t actually think it’s funny that Yak feels so insecure and Dee is always fucking with him.

DEE SANG A GODDAMN SONG. WHY?!? This show has just gotten so embarrassing.

Dee finally asks Yak to be his “real” boyfriend, but it has no meaning because he already has been for weeks. And they already did the big public kiss moment in episode 11! It’s like they wanted the tension of not letting them get together until the end but were not willing to sacrifice the weekly ship moments so they tried to have it both ways. It just did not work. Tell a good story or make a branded pair content vehicle removed from story, you can’t do both.

They made Yei and Cher’s wedding kiss so weird by having Yak and Dee do it first whyyyyyyyyyyy

Welp! At least I got to see Oyei and Cher get married; I’ll be hanging onto that one.

This one goes down as the show that finally pushed me over the edge re: GMMTV and their tendency to start strong before completely losing the plot. I was primed to love this show and it thoroughly let me down. None of the threads they set up at the start were followed through and virtually nothing that happened in this story had real consequences or meaningfully mattered. What an absolute waste of a fantastic cast and a solid and fun premise. I will be skipping most GMMTV dramas going forward unless I hear they hold up all the way through.

[burntblueberrywaffles]

Is this true that anidala fandom is relatively small and although there are theoretically many fics about them, in most of them they are only the background ship? Idk I just heard this opinion somewhere and wonder if it's legitimate cause I'm thinking of getting into anidala more and maybe writing some fic

Unfortunately that is accurate 😔 trying to find Anidala centered fanfics is hellish for that reason; while the tag seems to have many fics, you have to sift through a ridiculous amount of non-Anidala centric fics to find anything to read 😭 - my filtering game has gotten insane I have like 30 excluded tags going on when I venture in

That’s the reason I took the time to make two different Anidala fanfic rec lists - (here’s the first one and the second one!)

From my experience on the tumblr side, we’re certainly a smaller fandom; I think while a lot of people might like Anidala, with it being 2 decades old, there’s only a few of us who are passionate enough about them to still actively make posts in the year of our lord 2024 LOL - that said I really don’t want to discourage anyone from joining the fandom, there’s definitely a significant backlog of content for them! 🥰

If you end up writing some Anidala, feel free to let me know! While I’m currently in the Snowbaird hole, Anidala is one of those ships that I always come back to and I’d love to see more fics for them ❤️❤️

[cpd-55055]

Farewell Hailey Upton 💙

Tonight’s the night! The end of an era, the end of my PD journey.

I started watching this show at the end Season 6. I saw an Upstead edit on youtube, fell in love with Hailey, and the rest is history. No other character or ship has gotten me this obsessed with a show. Obsessed enough to create a tumblr page and start writing fanfic, and I don’t think any other character/ship/show will ever get me this invested. Whatever happens tonight, Hailey Upton will always be my favorite. Good ending or bad, Upstead will forever be my OTP.

I know neither of them will see this, but I’m so grateful to get to experience Tracy and Jesse’s chemistry for 5 years. Both are exceptionally talented, but Tracy especially is freaking amazing. She is able to convey so much emotion without any dialogue and that is so rare to see in the industry nowadays. I’m truly excited to see what’s next for both of them professionally and personally.

And huge thanks to all the Upstead/Hailey/Jay/PD content creators here. Thank you for the daily content here on Tumblr. (@spiridakos, @aayla-securas, @uptonhalsteads, @xofeno) Seeing new edits, and GIFs always make me happy to be part of this community. To the fanfic writers out there, you guys are insanely incredible. (@imjustwritingg, @fank0ne , @anniesardors , @upsteadhope , @justmypartner) You guys are doing this as a hobby but still manage to write creative pieces that are 10x better than the actual show’s writing. You guys inspired me to write, and although I’m nowhere near as good as you guys, I’m hoping to continue writing for our ship. And thank you to those who are always sharing their thoughtful insights and theories about this show. (@agent-bash , @spiridakosstyle, @go-to-two ) Without your positive energy, most fans (myself included) would have abandoned this show a long time ago. And to anyone else I missed, thank you for making this fandom happy, positive, and fun.

I know the past two seasons have been incredibly hard for us fans. I’m hoping and praying that it all pays off tonight, but whatever happens, just like Tracy said, #Upsteadforever ❤️

[gh0st2626]

Darrow and Mustang Reunion

 just finished re-reading LB and realized how much I wanted a proper reunion. Since Red God is still probably a year away, I wrote a quick reunion scene. Thought I would share it here. This is supposed to take place after LB somewhere in the beginning of RG.

Darrow-Path Back Home

It had been a few hours since we landed back on Mars. After rendezvousing with the remnants of the Republic Fleets, we had tried to open communications with Mars but the enemy interference along with Mars shields had made that impossible. Sevro and I had taken the Archimedes to sneak back to Mars so we can co-ordinate an assault on Phobos with the remaining ships grounded on Mars. The lack of Lysander's and the Rim's fleet along with our upgraded stealth tech made the endeavor a lot safer than it would have been after the battle of Phobos.

It was the middle of the night by the time we got to Agea, and I have instructed Holiday to wait till tomorrow before announcing our return. Now, I walk alone in the hallways of the Augustus estate towards my wife’s room.

I step into her room silently and slowly close the door behind me. The site of my wife sleeping on her bed causes my breath to catch. How my times have I thought that I would never get this moment again. To hold her in my arms again. Now she lays just a few steps away, and my path has finally led me back to her.

The room is dark, with the only illumination coming from the light sneaking past the curtains at the window and my wife’s data pad on the nightstand. My wife lies at the far edge of the bed with her back towards me. She wears a simple white tunic, with her golden hair spooled behind her.  Not wanting to wake her up I silently slide into her bed before catching site of my wife slowly inching her hand towards a hidden compartment in the nightstand and pulling out a razor. Not wanting to startle her I whisper, “Lo wife”. She stiffens and let's go of the razor she was holding. A tremor goes through her body as I put my arm around her and pull her close. I kiss her on the back of her neck and smell her hair. She turns to me slowly and I see tears in her beautiful golden eyes. She reaches her hand and cups my cheek and then pinches it, as if to make sure that I am real. I stare into her eyes in silence before she kisses me. It is a long but gentle kiss. She holds her lips to mine reluctant to let go till we both run out of breath. She pulls back and I let her catch her breath before I give her a hungry kiss. I pull her to me and start to peel her tunic off. She runs her fingers through my hair, and I finally feel the weight of the worlds slipping off my shoulders. Here, sharing her warmth, I finally know that I am home.   

I wake to the sight to my wife sleeping beside me with her head on my bare chest and her leg coiled around me. We had not gotten any sleep till late in the morning. After our fun, I told her about all that has happened to me these past couple of years and she had told me about all that has happened to her. Though I had known most of it through the data packets and holo-messages that she had sent to me. Hearing it from her now finally pressed upon me the full weight of the hell she had suffered since I left Luna on the damnable night. Hesitant to wake her up, I lightly trace the scars that the mob had given her from her neck to her back, her hips all the way down to her legs. I feel my rage build with each scar that brushes my fingers, but I take a deep breath and let the rage exhale out of me just like the book said. The mob did not deserve this woman. I… do not deserve this woman. But she had made her choice years ago, and back on Mercury I had promised myself that I would be the husband and father that my wife and son deserve. So I will not close myself off to her again.

 My wife stirs and flutters her piercing golden eyes open to peer at me with incandescent love and contentment. She starts as she looks at the light coming in through the window. “What time is it?’ she asks as she reaches for her data pad on the nightstand. “Shit” she curses. "I had a meeting with the praetors two hours ago". I take her data pad out of her hands and message Holliday to cancel all her meetings for the day. “The Sovereign has a day off today”. I say with a smile. “But.." she starts. “Mars has held for months. One more day won’t make a difference”. I say before she can protest. I hesitate “besides…I need my wife with me today”. She looks at me in surprise and then smiles with so much joy that it makes my heart skip a beat.

She gets off the bed and stretches like a cat before heading towards the bathroom. My eyes follow her as she goes. At the bathroom door she looks back over her shoulder with a smirk, catches my eye and winks before heading in and motioning for me to follow.

I wait a few moments before I close my eyes and feel the lingering warmth that my wife left on the bed. I breadth in her scent and remember what Roque had once said to me. “Home isn't where you're from; it's where you find light when all grows dark.” I had not realized that even back then she had been my light in the darkness. Through a decade of war, the hell of Mercury, the prison that was Marcher-1632 and my journey across the solar system, she has been the light that kept me going. So, I get off the bed and follow after her, to follow my path back home.

PS: This is the first fan-fic i have written so don't be too harsh lol. All constructive criticism is welcome.

[fuckyeahfraxus]

          Fraxus Week

                                      is approaching for yet another year!

Save the dates and please help spreading the word as much as possible. Even if you don't plan on participating, it would be a great help if you share the post 😊. Every reblog helps us to get the information around, so nobody misses the oppourtunity ❣️

As every year we can't wait to see what you guys will come up with for the prompts and again, thank you to everyone who casted their votes! It's always a highlight of the year and it's so amazing to see that the love and fandom for this incredible ship still very much existent and strong. Newbie or oldie, we welcome you!

The week will being on the 14th of July with the first Bonus day (we call it Fraxus Week Eve) and end on the 22nd of July with the second Bonus day, as usual. The rules haven’t changed but please make sure to read them again, especially if this is gonna be your first time participating.

We tried to arrange the most popular prompts so there's enough variety and the prompts that haven't gotten enough votes to be included in the nine days will be saved and thrown into the poll for next year, along with your new suggestions.

July 14th/Fraxus Week Eve: Wine and Blood / Scars and Flowers

July 15th/Day 1: Breaking stereotypes/Going against type

July 16th/Day 2: (Forced) Proximity and/or Reunion

July 17th/Day 3: Art/Musical/Rock Band

July 18th/Day 4: Fighting each other/Fighting side by side and/or Force of nature

July 19/Day 5: Guilty Pleasures/Indulgences

July 20th/Day 6: Court/Council/Jail

July 21th/Day 7: Face the past/Imagine the future

July22nd/Bonus day: Busted! Or Secretly being a couple already and coincidentally encountering another secret couple during vacation

RULES:

Everyone is allowed to participate and basically every sort of entry is allowed! Art, a fanfic, edits, headcanons, …everything! Just make sure that it has to do with Fraxus and does not imply something else/negative/other ships/trigger topics like r*pe etc! It also shouldn’t include something n.sfw. Entries bordering on n.sfw or suggestive mentions are alright.

Please put at least one of the tags fraxusweek or fraxus week in the first five tags of your entry! fraxus will suffice, too, if you forget to tag it otherwise but using the first two named tags will just make it easier for us to find the entries for this week! If you have twitter, you can also post your entries there with the tags!

You can also combine prompts, create multiple pieces per prompt or not use the prompts at all. If you’re not inspired by any of them, it’s okay to do your own thing or do something similar to the prompts.

The prompts can take place in the Canon Verse or an Alternate Universe, it's up to you!

Don’t worry about being late/on time!Late entries are always welcome, no matter how late. We know that things can get stressful very easily, so don’t worry about it!

Do not steal other people’s content! That won’t be accepted and that applies not only to this week but in general. Also refrain from reposting somebody's work without permission.

You can also submit your entries to our blog if you want.

If you’ve got any questions, just shoot us a an ask or a private message!

That’s it! We’re super looking forward to the event again. Let’s celebrate our beautiful ship!

Permission from the artwork in the banner was given by the commissioner and the artists of the commissioned artwork is @neeseeart. Please go check out their amazing work and support them if you can!! 💗

[mazzystar24]

idk who else to go to with this but i have so many people sending me hate because i don’t like bucktommy when i literally never even post about them????? they keep calling me toxic and a hater and i’m not i just have shipped buddie for years and i don’t vibe with tommy…. it makes me sad because this fandom used to bond over buddie so much but now i just see angry tommy fans (and admittedly some buddie fans but nowhere near as many) spreading so much hatred and rudeness while turning around and calling buddie fans toxic when we just want to ship our 6 year long standing ship… and like i said i genuinely never post about bucktommy, and if i do say something about them that can be perceived as negative then i always tag it “anti-bucktommy” and i NEVER tag it bucktommy so that they don’t have to even see it! It hurts to open up the app not knowing if i’m going to have another person calling me homophobic or a fetishizer (i’m literally queer) or calling me a toxic bitch when i literally don’t do anything but post happy buddie content 9/10 posts! and like i said i know i’ve seen some buddie accounts go to extremes and i’m not defending that, but i’ve seen people who will call out even the slightest apprehension to bucktommy as if they stepped on someone’s grave, while simultaneously bullying and harassing buddie shippers for minding their own business… like i can’t even go into the buddie tag and it’s people attacking us left and right while the bucktommy tag is nothing but everyone gushing over them… i hate that we can’t enjoy a 6 year old ship anymore because half the fandom decided to jump to this other one that has barely gotten any screentime between two characters that don’t really have chemistry with each other and they want to berate us for it and call us names. I’m not a fetishizer and I’m not toxic, I’m just a late 20s queer girl who wants to talk about buddie without a barrage of hate and insults thrown at me but I can’t do that anymore… 9-1-1/buddie used to be my safe place but now i can’t even come on tumblr because i’m worried a stan will be lurking in my asks/replies waiting to tell me how awful i am.

i’m sorry to dump all of that on you but i just opened a really nasty ask and it hurt a lot to read what they said about me and you were the first person on my dash

Hey anon!

Okay so I can already guess I’ll be late posting this cos i think I’ll be replying to this in increments throughout my day today, and also I can tell this is really bothering you so I don’t wanna just give like a short rushed answer - oh wow I actually wrote this in one sitting cos I can’t shut up once I start

Yes the fandom has been a downright mess lately and it’s like I always say, people if you wanna engage in discourse that’s your prerogative and no one is faulting you for that but it’s the utter lack of fandom etiquette these toxic fans have that’s the real issue and I also feel like as you said a huge issue is this kind of imaginary high horse they seem to have

Like I totally agree that there is like this section of toxic bucktommy fans who try to warp not liking bucktommy into being biphobic- which look if people are actually being biphobic by all means call them out but when you’re going to actual queer people who posted 166283894 posts celebrating bi buck, only to attack them for not liking the ship?? Then that’s just plain stupid I’m sorry, like being happy to have the queer rep and not liking bucktommy isn’t mutually exclusive and it’s ridiculous people are trying to make it out to be

Like I’ve personally been sent an ask like that where they implied that I was biphobic for not being a big fan of bucktommy and that “I don’t know how exhausting it is for bi people” - which I gotta say made me go what about my blog would ever make someone think ah yes straight 🤩

And thing is at the time they sent that my most note filled post was my celebration reaction meme extravaganza to getting bi buck which I feel added some fun irony to the whole thing

And calling people shipping two MEN (buddie) homophobic takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance that I gotta say I’d almost be impressed with the leaps in logic if it wasn’t so annoying

Now I personally don’t know what state the bucktommy tag is in cos I mostly stick to the 911 abc and the buddie tag but I know how the buddie tag has been and I agree the misuse of tags to make a negative space is absolutely ridiculous and again that all goes back to the etiquette part

And the fetishising thing is also just another thing that absolutely grates my nerves, because these toxic fans really need a dictionary thrown at their heads because buddie is like the polar opposite of that.

First of all a large section of buddie shippers im aware have asexual Eddie headcanons and that aside let’s say we want gay Eddie and buddie and all those things, let’s even say we want them to fuck nasty *gasp🫢* and sloppy and write 156273 smut fics where they plain fuck like rabbits (*nun faints in the background* also probably some pearl clutching occurred upon reading this),

THAT’S NOT THE POINT HERE- the point is the main appeal of buddie as a ship isn’t that ooo look two hot guys kissing; it’s the history it’s the friendship, it’s the vulnerability, it’s the will scene, the shooting, the trust, the parallels, the understanding of each other, it’s the domesticity and it’s all these moments that have nothing to do with sex or objectifying their dynamic or mlm relationships but rather shipping them because they are two people with this amazing connection and these experiences

and THAT? That’s the furthest thing from fetishisation

Now I could be controversial and talk about how SOME and some is the operative word of this sentence- SOME toxic bucktommy fans have been blatant in not really caring about the story or the characters or buck and Tommy as individuals or the team dynamic or anything other than seeing these two men kiss, these being a lot of the same fans who refuse to watch the show other than the bucktommy and Tommy scenes and then will act like they somehow understand the show more than fans who’ve been here years or seen the whole show BUT I digress because I know that saying this is me basically asking for spam hate (so shhhh let’s pretend I didn’t say that 🤫)

who said that? 👀not me👀damn that’s crazy a ghost just ran across my keyboard 🙄

Anyways back to you specifically, because I really do think it bares mentioning, if you’ve been respectful to others then that’s all you can do and thank you on the behalf of everyone cos it really makes a difference, and I wanna say sorry on the behalf of every asshole who’s deciding to attack you for ridiculous reasons, the best advice I can give you is to genuinely not let it get to you I know it’s easier said than done but you know who you are and you know your intentions and some dumbass sitting behind a screen who can’t even properly comprehend what biphobia or fetishisation actually is (or worse DOES know what it is but is just using it as a way to put others down over a tv show to have an imaginary high ground) isn’t worth your time or your distress and they cannot change who you are

This part might be over explaining the obvious but in case you don’t know/ are new to tumblr or whatever: If you wanna continue to have fandom spaces as a safe place filtering should get rid of a lot of the posts and so should blocking but ofc you’ll see a few so just skip past and enjoy the content you like, if you wanna make posts and are scared of asks from toxic shippers maybe you can turn off your asks temporarily until you feel like you’re in a better place mentally to deal with it

Oooo or an idea that might work is you can ask your followers and mutuals (who are the ones most likely to be sending the nice asks) to use an emoji at the start of their asks to indicate to you that this is an ask you’ll like then you can delete any ask without that emoji without even having to look at the hate if it’s causing you that anxiety - if that makes sense?

I hope my reply somehow made you feel better and I really hope that you can have your fandom space and enjoyment back 🫶🫶🫶🫶

[roykleinberg]

WAIT ANOTHER UNPOPULAR OPINION— and i want to preface that this is absolutely not a dig at anybody! just a trend ive seen on the tron ao3 side of things for the last couple years!

tronfic on ao3 is lacking every staple AU or trope! everyone is so caught up in writing uprising s2 fic or legacy continuations that there's literally none of the most basic AUs in the tron tag. AND IT MAKES ME SO SAD! tronfic needs to get a little more unserious!! it doesn't even need to be ship centric or nsfw— when was the last time someone wrote a college au? a fantasy au? any "tron characters in other media" au? a historical au???? pirates? vampires? COFFEE SHOP?!like, its not even my cup of tea at all, but i think it says something about how desperate our tron ao3 situation is that there isnt even an a/b/o au of some sort 😭 TRON FIC AUTHORS NEED TO HAVE FUN AGAIN!

Anonymous asked: this is tronfic anon again— basically i think the tronkinkmeme needs to come back. the person running the dumbtronaus blog is a goldmine for fun fic and yet no one is writing it :(

tron confessional with moss

unpopular counterpoint: I do not and have really never cared for au fic — aside from fairly basic canon divergence type stuff at least. and personally I’ve just never really gotten the appeal of things like college and coffee shop aus, or any of the other sillier / lighter / crackfic and adjacent premises 😬 it’s all just kinda boring to me. and maybe it’s judgy of me but any time I’ve tried to read au fic in any fandom it just ends up feeling so ooc to me it’s like reading about ocs and not the characters that I love in the situations that I love. I like expansions of canon moments, what-if style divergences, but at the end of the day I’m a simple reader and prefer things to stay relatively in line with what’s established

and I would assume — because it’s my thought process as a fic writer, at least — that people like their Uprising s2 and post-Legacy fics because there are so many big fat question marks in the Tron world that you can explore in so many different ways! I feel like a lot of those classic aus pop up more in fandoms that just. have more canon content? or fandoms for which the source material feels more finished / final. Tron fans are simply desperate for closure and I think that’s valid

but I’m also not here to be a gatekeeper of fic obviously lol. totally fair to want those things! and it’s always a little disappointing when the fic you want just doesn’t exist……… and that’s when you start writing your own because well might as well be the author you want to see in the world

thanks for giving me flashbacks to digging through both livejournal and dreamwidth for Tron/Ram crumbs though. ahhhhh the kink meme. simpler times

but major points off for almost making me curious enough to search for Tron a/b/o fic on a Friday night just to see if it exists. it has to exist. I refuse to believe that it doesn't. no fandom is safe

if someone else wants to fact check this for me I’ll owe you one

[nalyra-dreaming]

Sorry if I’ll destroy the good mood, but I kind of need some advice. And I feel like you’re a good listener.

All of a sudden I don’t look as much forward to season two as I did only like a month ago. Just when things has gotten really interesting and I should be very excited with all these teasers etc, but I don’t really feel much at all.

Most likely a combination of slight burn-out for one been hyperfixated on this for two years haha, but mostly because so many (or a very loud minority) in this fandom that I have experienced online (mostly on Twitter X but also here) have as we all know been just awful.

From all sides, about all things, people are being hateful. And I guess lasts week’s brief drama about ships was what did it for me lol.

Now no one has been directly bad towards me at all; but constantly see how others behave towards each other some of my favourite accounts in this fandom has even stopped posting or left due to this.

I know this may sound self-centred because this really isn’t about me, but this just sucks and I need some advice. I just feel tired, annoyed and almost icky.

I don’t know how to shake off this feeling? Maybe it will get better if I just go away for a while.

:(

I feel you. *hugs*

I didn’t really catch the recent drama but I can well imagine. Nerves are raw and frayed, emotions very high.

And the tone reflects that, more often than not.

But if you leave now… you’ll deprive yourself of the rush. Remember the rush?^^ I do.

And that is going to hit soon. Very soon. 🥰

So… my advice? Stay with the mutuals you trust, block freely, mute certain tags, and if you need to rant (or want to yell^^) feel free to come to my DMs if you want. Sometimes all that is needed is to let it all out.

Soon there will be so much new content. And the Jam interview has to hit soon! And the premiere events and screenings! Interviews! Stuff.

The … show will bring in some facts soon. A lot of the drama over the last year and a half is based on the … tale and the inherent ambiguity. That… will end, soon, one way or another.

So don‘t give up? 🤗🥰 TVL will be on our screens soon! The theater!! And probably parts of TVA! Just… imagine:)))

*hugs* My DMs are open 💕

[buckybarnesss]

Can we start a discussion? When it comes to Teen Wolf & Shipping. Do you know of any other age difference ships that don't get as much pushback that Sterek does? Such as Marrish, Because despite the antis complaining against it it's still in the top 3 ships of all time.

haha so we've chosen violence this morning.

@dear-massacre and i have brought this up before.

teen wolf is not the show to be watching if you're looking for "unproblematic" content. age gap ships have always been like at the bottom of issues with the show lol.

sterek is the ship that has always gotten the most push back. mostly because of it's exposure and the way the show queerbaited the fuck outta it. it's the one most people are aware of even if they haven't watched the show. therefore, it's the one that gets the focus.

hold on to your butts.

now i didn't watch s5 till the show had ended but people did find the age gap concerning and gross between jordan and lydia despite lydia being 18 at the time.

lydia turned 18 in season 4. natalie and her discuss this at the lake house i believe in time of death. this makes the birthday we see for lydia in party guessed her 17th birthday.

parrish tells jared in riddled that he's 24. by the time of 5a which takes place during the first semester of lydia's senior year 2012 she would've still been 18 and he would've been 25 because 3b was the first semester of their junior year 2011 so 5a is a year later.

jordan and lydia have a 7 year difference. while their age gap is concerning because of the power dynamics jordan wasn't grooming her and it wasn't illegal. i think the writing shifted to try to imply that they were drawn to each other because of the banshee and hellhound connection.

jordan giving those andy dwyer vibes.

now let's take a look at thiam. a pretty popular and accepted ship.

theo is the same age as our core characters. he is in their grade and knew them when he was young.

our baby beta liam was a freshman when he was introduced so that makes him a sophomore when theo is introduced in 5a.

by the time theo and liam become frenemies the age difference between them is basically the original age difference from the pilot presentation script as derek and stiles.

aiden and ethan were both romantically and sexually involved with lydia and danny in season 3 despite making it clear they were only pretending to be high schoolers. they may have been in their early 20s but they were adults fucking minors by deception.

danny's whole dating history is suspect too due to it being implied he had an older boyfriend and he was seen going to a gay club. like what. he's supposed to be the same age as our core gang. he did have a mild thing for matt though who was at least a peer.

there's also harris being shown to be at the rave with a much younger woman (21 he says). like bruh. this is never addressed.

mason and corey. liam and hayden. stiles and malia. lydia and jackson. allison and isaac. scott and allison. lydia and stiles. scott and kira. paige and derek.

those are all age appropriate actual canon relationships. i would also add derek and braeden too.

no one gives one episode wonder heather shit about kissing stiles nonconsensually either.

derek's age is never canonically given but like c'mon. in s1 he doesn't act that much older than scott and stiles. he acts like their peer.

jeff and the writers did age him up a bit because they realized they made derek 13 when he was involved with kate. they were uncomfortable with him that young and instead pushed it up to near 16. (still fucked).

i've seen it discussed on the subreddit (🤮) and people seem to deluded themselves into thinking derek was older when he and kate were involved. ding dong they are wrong.

visionary tells us plainly that derek and paige were sophomores (hello scott parallels) and kate got her nasty hands on him not long after paige died.

i think after sterek the most discussed age gap issue discussed is derek's seduction/enticement of erica. it was definitely out of pocket and questionable behavior on his part but it is rarely brought up by the antis that erica jumped him and kissed him nonconsensually later. or the manipulation and rape by deception jennifer commits.

notice a theme? people age up derek to try to say what kate did wasn't grooming and statutory rape and deny that what jennifer did was also rape. they'll deny derek any and all victimhood while turning it around on him calling him an abuser towards stiles and basically calling him a pedophile because of the sterek ship. antis really want to make a canonical victim of multiple instances of sexual abuse into the abuser.

or worse they'll call real life people these things over a fictional ship.

where have i heard this kind of narrative before i wonder? 🙄

besides, derek only does the steering wheel thing in retaliation for stiles using his body as enticement for danny without his permission. stiles is the one who did the bad thing and crossed a boundary. it's not nice or really acceptable for derek to harm stiles like that but there's context to the action. it wasn't random. it was pointed. he never does anything like this again and in fact spends a vast majority of his time trying to protect stiles.

nothing sexual or even overtly romantic occurred between derek and stiles in canon. their only crime was having too much chemistry.

the antis are mad because people ship sterek and it's not even canon. it's all fanon. sure i'm of the belief a deep connection and attraction is there between them but it's all subtextual and never acted on by either party.

let me reiterate this: antis are mad over a hypothetical ship of two fictional characters that never happened in the source material.

besides, by the time the show ends and i mean the last, last scene there's been a 2 year time jump. when the show ends it's 2015. stiles would've been 20 fucking years old and by the time of the movie he's in his 30s.

i think by then he'd be allowed to ride derek's dick off into the sunset if he wanted.

[felassan]

I was sent a link to an 'interview with Mark Darrah about BioWare' video that I hadn't seen before. it's called "Mark Darrah on BioWare, Dragon Age 4, & EA's Impact" and [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when watching, but it still has interesting insights and things in there. Mark had been invited on to chat after his BioWare Magic video. the video description reads as follows:

“Mark Darrah spent over 20 years with BioWare and has overseen its many incredible RPGs such as Baldur's Gate, Knights Of The Old Republic, Jade Empire, Mass Effect, and most notably on his portfolio, Dragon Age. He was also present during the pre-EA era and experienced much of the changes within the company after BioWare had been purchased by them in 2007. Today, he joins the show for a sobering conversation on the status of this once beloved gaming titan after speaking out in a recent YouTube video of his on "BioWare Magic" in which he holds the developer accountable for their bad processes. The conversation goes into deep waters no other outlet has reached yet, so we do hope you enjoy our biggest interview yet.” [source]

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some notes and transcribed quotes of interest from the video, in case that's of any use to anyone, for example for accessibility.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf / 'current or recent general BioWare'

Mark explained the ‘hockey stick’ analogy about game development that he has previously outlined in a video on his own channel. There is a tendency in game development, that is not unique to BioWare, to focus on “microscopic efficiency”, especially so in studios that have gotten bigger and bigger. This ends up building a backlog of content and things being built in isolation from each other, and devs working in isolation from one another. But at some point, a game has to come together for different reasons, like an upcoming demo is approaching or money is running out etc, and when that happens, this completion tends to build upon itself and it ends up happening rapidly. At BioWare, historically the idea of ‘don’t worry, it’ll all come together really fast at the end and it will be great [like magic]’ [I am paraphrasing there] was called “BioWare Magic”. This term is from the late 90s but it still has bubbled around within the studio in more recent times. Mark said, “I think it’s partially because of the way that the leadership works on projects at BioWare. There’s a leapfrogging that happens. So the team that led KOTOR ended up being the team that led ME1-3 and Anthem, but meanwhile, between those games, other games are being done with different leadership teams. So culture can have this weird sort’ve almost, like it takes two steps forwards and then one step back as a new leadership team kinda gets into the driver’s seat. Because basically, what ends up happening is that the team that is closest to ship, at least for the big games, tends to drive the studio to a large degree.” There are other leadership teams in the background at those times, but from a culture perspective they are largely in the background.

Sonic Chronicles had a team of just over 20 devs and Mark led this. The smaller team size meant they had more agility and more ability to control and understand what was going on in a way that doesn’t really exist on larger teams. “Something that BioWare has been struggling with is, BioWare has had big teams all along. In the Baldur’s Gate [era], it was teams of 100+ people at a time, at a time [in the industry generally] when teams elsewhere in the industry were tiny. So BioWare has processes that have been around for a long time that are actually pretty good at dealing with team sizes between, say, 100 and 200 people, but what’s been happening for a while is that those teams have started to get beyond 200.” “What has happened at a lot of other studios, they have processes that work at 60 but don’t work at 150. They’ve had to develop new processes to work at larger sizes. BioWare kind’ve got to skip that step, they didn’t do that, but now they’re having to do that, because now we’re beyond what their processes can handle.”

On what prompted Mark to make his ‘BioWare Magic’ video: “I don’t know, it was just kind’ve, it’d been chewing away at me and I know that James Stephanie Sterling, it’s one of their go-to things, when they’re talking about process, is to go ‘BioWare Maaagic’, when talking about BioWare specifically or just game development in general, because someone did say that, on Anthem, I don’t know who but I do have my suspicions. So I think maybe it was just eating at me for a while. I don’t think anything in particular triggered it.” “BioWare Magic kind’ve became a term that I recognized as something that was being used to kind of paper over things that weren’t great, processes that were problematic, on DAII. Part of the reason it was gnawing at me was I kind’ve felt like this was a term that we had left in the past. We talked this way in the early days of Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and DA:O, but that we had learned our lessons – I think most people had, but I think there remained enough people in senior enough positions that hadn’t had the experience of shipping as many games, or had been in places where they hadn’t shipped for a long time, or had just kept this romantic view of ‘just keep going, just keep driving, it will all come together in the end.’”

“As to why the revamps of Anthem and stuff [got cancelled], I don’t know. EA has launched things that have fallen on their face, Battlefield 4, Battlefront 2, that then they’ve spent the time to fix, but in the case of BioWare, that hasn’t been the case. That’s not what happened with Mass Effect: Andromeda. Maybe it’s partially because BioWare is doing multiple things at once. If you’re at Dice, and you want Battlefield 4, and it’s a problem, it’s like, well, ‘you better fix it because you got nothing else to do’. Whereas with BioWare, it’s like, ‘well, you could fix it, but don’t you want those resources on Dragon Age or Anthem or whatever’s coming next?’ So maybe it’s that. I don’t know, I’ve thought about this and I can’t.. It could also just be ‘too big to fail’. Battlefield was too big to fail. Anthem wasn’t. It disappointed but it wasn’t a franchise that needed to continue.” “[looter shooters] It’s a tough genre, there weren’t a lot of people who understood it from a dev perspective.”

On the EA “scapegoat” / blaming EA: “I think there is some truth [in it], I do think it’s an easy scapegoat and I think it’s very easy to say, ‘oh, Big Evil Corporation’, but you have to remember that, honestly, I mean BioWare would have probably shut down in 2007 or 2008 if we hadn’t been acquired by EA. The coffers were pretty empty before it got acquired by BG Holdings or Elevation Partners, the company that sold BioWare to EA. There was no money left. So they kept the company going, it’s hard to be too mad at them. I think that EA doesn’t understand what BioWare is. I think EA ultimately understands sports games, and shooters because you can kinda treat them a lot like a sports game and you get away with it, they’re quite competitive. But if you look at the franchises within EA that are not like sports games, The Sims, BioWare [franchises], they’ve struggled with that, they don’t understand and they’ve had a lot of trouble, and so when they look at BioWare, what they see, RPGs are expensive. So what they see is, thee are expensive, they don’t sell as well as Battlefield, what’s up with that? Has EA had negative effects on BioWare? Absolutely, but I don’t think necessarily in the way that people think. So, like, some of the stuff you’ve heard about Dragon Age: Dreadwolf, it’s like, ‘it’s gonna be a live service extravaganza’, ‘it’s gonna be singleplayer’, like that bouncing back and forth, that’s mostly coming from EA, that’s the kind of stuff that you’re getting from EA. But in terms of second-to-second pressure around what the futures of the individual games are, it happens, but that’s usually just rogue executive, not actually EA saying ‘we need this to be more BIG HEAD TURTLE RACING’, that’s not really happening. Or if it’s happening, a decent Executive Producer can judo it out of existence. So I do think, yeah, I mean, was there pressure on DA:I and ME:A to be on Frostbite? Absolutely, like that was politically basically effectively mandated, so there’s been impacts, and honestly I think maybe, since I did the BioWare Magic video, I’ve been thinking about this. One thing that happened before EA was that BioWare games slipped more, like wayyy more, which was probably why the company was almost out of money. So games have slipped since EA, but other than SW:TOR, games have not slipped years, except because of massive externalities. So Dreadwolf has moved, but because of it basically being restarted, but other than those externalities, things haven’t really moved as much. And I think maybe the reason why BioWare Magic maybe worked in the past was because you pivoted eventually and then you just kept going until it was great. If your date can’t move as much, you’ve pivoted and then you run into the date [and crash], and you’re just, that’s what it is, and you’re done.”

On Frostbite and whether the ‘omg Frostbite Bad’ stuff from players is overblown: “Every time you change engines, there’s a consequence to that. I do think there’s a fetishization of engine use by fans, but also honestly by devs. I think there’s a ‘grass is always greener’ [thing going on/mentality]. My feeling is, the best engine to use is almost always the engine you just used. So if you just shipped a game on Frostbite, probably you should use Frostbite for the next one, because you’ve built things to ship that game, so you can build on top of it. There are extreme circumstances where that’s not going to go, Eclipse was long in the tooth and it didn’t look very good, and so it’s hard to imagine that you could continue going down that road and continue using Eclipse indefinitely. Bethesda has essentially done that with their engine and it shows, but it’s left them being incredibly successful. Honestly, the mistake that I think that was made at BioWare regarding Frostbite, it’s again this sort’ve, independence of leadership. DA:I was made using Frostbite and we went in learning the lessons that Mass Effect had learned on ME1 from Unreal, like respect what the engine is, build on top of what’s there, don’t try to force it to be something else. And a lot of stuff was built and then ME:A started in the middle of DA:I’s development and basically started over again from blank DA:I. And then that’s going on, and then Anthem starts, again before DA:I has shipped, and starts effectively AGAIN from a blank sheet. So for me, for BioWare the problem wasn’t Frostbite, the problem was never Frostbite, the problem was we went through the pain of adopting an engine three times when we should’ve done it once.” “I’m sure there was somebody there that wanted DA:I to be on Unreal, but I didn’t feel that from the team as a whole. What I would’ve wanted to see, in a world where resources were unbounded, would’ve been a fast follow of DA:I, something that came out in 18-24 months, built not just on Frostbite, but on the DA:I tech base. I think there was an opportunity there. You know, we’ve pitched all kinds of stuff inside of Frostbite for, in early Joplin, like making the tools available to the public, like modding and what happened with DA:O and NWN, where the tools were available for building modules and things like that. There was no appetite for that within EA at the time. Interestingly enough, right before I left [his EP job], there seemed like there was growing appetite, but now with the latest news on Battlefield, I’m actually wondering if they won’t ceremoniously take Frostbite out behind the shed and shoot it in the head. They’re definitely laying blame on Frostbite for, in the case of Battlefield, which I mean, of all the franchises where I feel that’s undeserved, that would be Battlefield.”

On leaving BioWare at that time a few years ago: “Casey and I did not coordinate our departures. Certainly I didn’t coordinate with Casey. Casey resigned a day after I did. It is possible that I triggered him to resign. I don’t believe that’s what happened. There was timing for other financial things that sort’ve lined up for both me and him that I suspect was probably the trigger for both of us, but we were not coordinated in this. It was frustrating, and was it getting more frustrating? I don’t know that it was, but for me at least, because we were getting to the period where Dragon Age was going to be in the primary driving position for BioWare - I don’t think that anything corporate changed in November, early December of 2020 that triggered me [to leave]. Casey would’ve been in conversations that I wasn’t in, so it’s possible that there was a trigger for him that I’m not aware of.”

Is the idea of ‘omggg classic BioWare’, the spirit of that era, overblown? “I don’t think so. I think that actually, the thing that makes a BioWare game special, for me at least, is the characters, the followers specifically. Obviously when you look at Anthem through that lens, you can kinda see a glaring problem. You have characters, but they’re not followers, not as present as they are in other games. But the funny thing is, we never said that out loud until, pretty much 2019, in the post-Anthem world, was when I think people started to really say out loud like, ‘you know, it’s about the characters, stupid!’ I think we’ve had conversations in the past where it’s like ‘BioWare tells its stories through characters’. There’s been the knowledge, but I don’t think that there’s been the acknowledgement of, say the thing that’s most important out loud and make sure that you’re respecting that. There was almost like, we were too confident in it and we’re like ‘we don’t need this because we can set it aside, we can have characters that are just in your base, we don’t need followers’. It took us saying it out loud to really acknowledge that. I think that that is still true, and I think there is still a pedigree at BioWare that can execute on excellent characters. The reality is, if you look at the story of, frankly, any BioWare game, they’re not amazing, what makes it amazing is you’re experiencing it through other characters, that elevates the story overall. Of course, that’s how it always has been and how it should be.”

On Dragon Age: Dreadwolf and the then-recent reports on its rumored release time [remember this video is from 2022]: “I don’t know where the ‘it’s got 18 months left to go’ measurement is coming from, but timeline, that makes perfect sense to me. They would’ve needed to adapt, and even like when I was still there, we were probably headed towards, yeah, probably towards 2023 even then. So I think that it’s very plausible to me, and I think that if they’ve been able to increase their completion urgency and bring things to further phases earlier, they could be in really good shape. There was stuff getting there when I was still there a year ago, and if they were able to be stable enough to keep that stuff, then they probably have a really good foundation to build upon. And I would think that they probably were able to keep the things that were nearing completion when I left, so, I mean, they probably have, for 18 months out they probably have - so I’m trying to say this correctly. Not that they have more things that another BioWare game would’ve had 18 months out, because that’s actually the problem, tons of things. [but] they have more done 18 months out than any other BioWare title probably has ever had. So a tighter core, maybe not as much stuff yet, but a tighter core, but that will let them go faster when they’re going. Essentially, if they’ve taken the hockey stick, and they’ve pulled this part up, and I think they have, then I think it should put them in significantly better shape going forward.”

One of the podcast/media folks shared the following comment: “What I personally have been told, I never call it a report or a scoop or anything like that because it’s just a sentiment, but the sentiment that had been shared with me [about DA:D] is sort’ve like, ‘we need to nail this’, not like a desperation like ‘we’re done if we don’t’, but like, we want this high score, we want to remind people why they love BioWare games.” They then asked Mark about whether he views DA:D as a “do or die moment” and about what the vibe inside BioWare was around this. Mark: “Not in the early days [of DA:D’s development], as that’s pre-ME:A and pre-Anthem. But I think, in a post-Anthem world, I think ME:A was, could weather that, but ME:A and Anthem together, yeah, I think there is some truth to that. Now would EA shut down BioWare? I don’t know, as you say they’ve done it before [to other studios], also studios become effectively in-source houses for other studios. There are fates that are almost as bad as being shuttered. So is it actually do or die? Honestly, I think the reputation matters more, because if people give up on BioWare externally, why would EA keep them around? If everyone just decides that BioWare is a bunch of hacks doing garbage then why would EA bother? One of the things that has kept EA kind of interested in BioWare is, BioWare is kind of like the sub-arm of a movie studio that makes the Oscar Bait. So maybe that excuses it for some people, it’s like, well yeah, your games cost more and they sell less than the Battlefields, but Battlefield was never gonna win Game of the Year, even if they made a perfect Battlefield, it’s probably never going to win GOTY, it’s the nature of the disrespect certain genres get. Like how you can make a perfect Marvel movie but it’s never winning Best Picture. So I do think that if BioWare is making quality that is respected and making people excited, that gives it leeway within EA that another studio that’s making things that may sell better may not get. So I do think that this needs to be a good game, and I actually think EA knows that too, and I think EA recognizes that, you know, they deserve some of the blame for Anthem and some for ME:A, less, but some. So I think that when they look at that, when they look at Jedi Fallen Order, a game that honestly doesn’t make a lot of sense within EA, it exists in part because it kind of brought in a studio that made it. Like it’s not the kind of game that EA would typically greenlight. But when they see it and that it did well, they’re not stupid.”

How much corporate-speak is there in a ‘I’m leaving the studio’ announcement letter like Mark’s when he left his EP role at BioWare? “So most public things, if it’s on the website, it’s gone through somebody, like there’s legal, it’s gone through somebody to approve a message. One of my frustrations in EA is just how, I mean, I was effectively like second Community Manager for Anthem because they weren’t willing to tell me ‘no’, and so I was able to basically put out messages that wouldn’t have survived the process. But I mean, they didn’t pay me anything to say nice things, I didn’t get paid anything on my way out to be nice, so I do actually believe that the core of Dragon Age remains strong, that there are definitely people there that know how to make a great game, and there are people there that know what the IP is, and I think that they are well-positioned to do that.”

“In terms of what, like, something that made me say ‘no, that’s enough, it’s over’ [re: his time at BioWare], there’s good days and bad days. I don’t know that there was any particular project that made me say no, enough, I’m done. Anthem isn’t the high point of my career both as a leader and also in terms of the product that came out the other side, but I don’t feel like there was a moment of ‘no, we’re done.’”

Other BioWare things

To a degree, BioWare have been a victim of their past success and were just leaning on that, or the thought from upper management was doing so. “I think that’s also partially weirdly caused by the leadership teams being somewhat isolated. I was responsible for shipping DA2. That was a big wakeup call for me and leaders on that project. But other people didn’t experience that, they were on Mass Effect at the time and then they shipped ME3 and had a different blowback for different reasons, but not for the same kind of development reasons, so they learned different lessons than I learned. They learned a lesson about the endings, but not necessarily about the way games come together.”

On Anthem’s failure and the cancelled attempt overhaul Anthem Next: “I think there’s tons of blame to go around for Anthem, certainly part of it should fall on me. For a lot of Anthem’s development, the team, this was before I was on the project, the team was not really recognizing that it was a looter-shooter. So you have to remember that this was a game that started development before Destiny even came out. No one knew what Destiny was except that they were making it clear it wasn’t an MMO. I feel that one of the early mistakes that was made was that when Destiny came out, when Borderlands was out there, there was a reluctance to draw that connection and say ‘this is BioWare’s Destiny or BioWare’s Borderlands’, that gives that clarity and draws that connection. A lot of it just came together really late. The leadership team had lost its ability to make decisions, or had that ability taken away potentially, so there was just a lot of churning happening, and decisions being made and unmade, or being left unmade for a long period of time. But what that means is, when I came in, I’m great at making decisions, and in a vacuum, decisions got made, but what that effectively resulted in is I just took the stick and pushed it down. I’m used to working with a leadership team that pushes back and I think what happened is this leadership team was so desperate, so hungry for decisions to be made, that rather than pushing back on the stick that I’m pushing towards the ground, they’re actually pulling it towards the ground like ‘Yes, finally!!’ And instead of me aiming like this [motioning with his hands like a plane’s downward flight] and the resistance happening like this, I think what happened is this actually caused us to go way too fast [and crash land]. It’s hard for me to see a path where things are actually way better, because we knew a lot of things, we went into the Christmas break before it shipped having not done a complete balance pass through the loot structure, and we did it in this awful hotseat way with QA playing the game 24 hours a day over that break. So we knew that things were shakey, but the team was tired, and you know, EA wanted it in the fiscal year, and the problem is.. so I do see a path [in an alternate universe] where you get a better Anthem, but that path requires the game to basically enter Beta around the time when it launched, and then sit in Beta for six months, say, and then launch in August or whenever that would have been, but EA wasn’t that company then. I don’t know if it’s that company now [video is from 2022], but it certainly wasn’t that company then. It wasn’t prepared to put a game out into Beta for that long and spend the time. I think if we had just spent six more months on it without having gone into Beta, it would have been better, but it wouldn’t have been what it needed to be. It needed to get out into the world and get the pushback.”

“There was a lot of politics in Frostbite [as an engine choice]. It was Patrick Söderlund’s engine when he ran DICE, he was in a very senior position, he could push for it. I think EA still remembers forcing render-ware down everyones’ throat and that blowing up in their face. So I think they’re reluctant to mandate it simply to save a few bucks. At the time, when DA:I, I can’t remember if it was me or Aaryn Flynn, at the time I would’ve described, Unreal was like a NASCAR car. A good fast car, you can go in a race. At the time I would’ve described Frostbite as a Formula One car. Way faster but way harder to drive, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, in a NASCAR you can probably not kill yourself. In an F1 car, I think you’re gonna plough that thing into a brick wall in 3 seconds and you’ll die. And that’s what you’ve seen happen with Frostbite in that sort’ve time period, back in the 2012 - 2015 time frame. Teams that approached the engine with respect did well, teams that didn’t ploughed their car into a brick wall. But I don’t know that that analogy still holds, I don’t think Frostbite is still the graphically-superior engine to Unreal anymore. Back then it made sense to use Frostbite, we could get a better-looking game using Frostbite than using Unreal. I question if that is still the case.”

“In its very core EA is a publicly-traded company. I haven’t worked in a senior level at other publicly-traded companies, but it is very visible. It is difficult to move a game between fiscal quarters. It’s virtually impossible to move a game between fiscal years, because of just like, that is the way the company, I’m not gonna say it’s run by its CFO, but sometimes it feels like it’s run by its CFO.”

DA:I was a victim of the moment in time it was made in, when open-world games were like taking over the universe. “It’s bigger than it needs to be by somewhere between 20-50%.

The team made DA2 in very difficult circumstances and were very aligned the whole way through.

The perception of a game in its first week after launch can make or break a game forever. This put a cloud over DA2. “Though it’s become the BioWare game that’s most fashionable to love, second after ME:A. DA2 was flawed because of the pace at which it was made. ME:A was flawed because things like bugs and things that should’ve been caught escaped. ME:A is a better game now than it was at launch [patches].” “DA2 has sort’ve recovered from the initial kneejerk reaction it received. ME:A has actually repaired itself into a better game.”

“I don’t think there was a reason that ME:A was excluded from the remaster [MELE]. I mean, the easy answer would be, it’s on Frostbite, the others are on Unreal, so to include it means just from a logistics perspective, it’s just a lot of extra work. I mean honestly, it still looks fine, so it’s not in as desperate of a need of a remaster either, it’s not on last generation.”

On the difference in design philosophy between DA:O and DA2 and why it happened: “It’s mostly marketability. The marketing for DA2 was supposed to be ‘tree houses and frat houses’. It was like, we’re gonna make sure that the game is appealing to the people that love DA:O as the tree house, but we’re also gonna make this thing that’s AWESOME and EXPLODING. The problem is, what happened in practice is that the marketing kinda forgot the tree house completely and didn’t market to them at all, and leapt into the frat house marketing and only made this sorta thing of ‘bruuuh! Bro! You can totally bro, bro!’ It’s essentially a victim of confirmation bias. The marketing said, this isn’t DA:O, this is a heavy metal guitar riff of a game, and then when you played it and it’s more action-y, you just went yep, it’s exactly what I was worried it was going to be, and you basically discounted it. There’s a love-hate relationship with even the term ‘RPG’. I think we’ve grown past this as an industry but also BioWare has as well. I think, ‘RPG’ is seen as inaccessible, that only a very small amount of people are willing to play, so there’s been an attempt to say like, you know, this is the kind of game that anyone could enjoy, to try to reach a branch out to other people. Accessibility does matter because RPGs are expensive, so you want to make something that can appeal to as broad of a group as possible, or alternatively, you need to decide that you’re making a game for a smaller group of people and scope and budget accordingly. The other universe path for DA:O would’ve been to stay in the vein of, effectively, turn-based or pause-n-play, tactical RPGs, and accept that the game sells 4 - 7million copies, 7 on the very upper end, and budget accordingly. So that’s where EA has an influence. If there are two options, EA are definitely gonna say you wanna go for 10 million. And honestly, one of the things that I think that has hurt Dragon Age has been, it’s never been allowed to just be what it is, it’s always been, much more than Mass Effect, it’s been subject to, ‘but could you be more, could be more accessible, could you be bigger?’ Even though DA:I is the best-selling BioWare game of all time, and before that I’m pretty sure it was DA:O. I think because Mass Effect has a cultural impact because of N7 that Dragon Age simply doesn’t have. ME has genius branding.”

[source and full watch link]

[myobsessionsspace]

This whole goddamn taekook vs jikook 💿🐎 is so exhausting. Honestly.

Was I a bit saddened when Jeongguk didn't mention Jimin? Yeah. But for the wrong reasons because my brain was hard wired into thinking "taekookers are gonna run a mile with it".

It's fucked up. But more importantly, it's not Jeongguk's fault - it's purely a me/army problem.

The fact that everyone in army has some kind of version of the members that's mostly fabricated, isn't something they can control.

They are most likely aware of all the hate they get online, especially if it gets really bad. That it gets really bad for Jimin a whole lot, from within army even, can't be unknown to them. But it's not on Jeongguk to change himself on the off-chance it's gonna reduce hate. Most likely that wouldn't work either. Tkkers, akgaes and Solos will hate on BTS every chance they get.

BTS are whole people, individuals that think differently and experience things differently. To reduce them down to their interactions with others is insanely harmful, but it has been normalised. From what I've seen, a lot of shippers (both taekookers and jikookers) reduce the maknae line to what they do and with whom. I did it too, when I immediately thought sadly about the letter when it's the first proper sign of life we've gotten from our golden maknae in ages.

So, as much as I'm f.e. looking forward to the travel show, I'd also advise shippers in particular to watch actual uncut ot7 content. ITS, BV, concerts and behind the scenes - there's a decade worth of videos. Yes, everyone believes in hybe having a narrative to push, so I don't expect people to actually do this honestly, but it might decode some of the army-internal brainwashing.

Hi lovely,

First of allllll

I’m here for what you are throwing down!

It’s not a THEM (the members) problem it’s an US problem.

How does it make sense that ‘fans’ be it solos, shippers, whatever, get mad when people we’ve never met talk about a member who they’ve ate, slept, breathed, played and worked with for 10+ years? How does it make sense to be angry over them interacting, touching, mentioning each other because of what the shippers will say? You damn right it’s exhausting😪.

⬆️An example 😓 They literally had phones in their faces from all sides and so many think pieces about their interactions VS ⬇️

I can’t point the finger without three pointing back at me, cos like you said I too have had moments when I’m like ‘those mf’s are gonna have a field day with this…’ as my first thought?! What’s wrong with me??? I get it when real OT7 say shippers & solos (when talking about those that actually are and not the ones they like to label to dismiss valid thoughts) ruin everything, cos as soon as content and good news drops there’s always gotta be some bullshit alongside it, from any subsection 😪

They HAVE to be aware but kudos to them, they keep it moving, they’re so strong to have millions of strangers on multiple platforms speaking on them like they know them, but still have so much love in their hearts to continue engaging because they know the some isn’t the all.

With every drama and battle online it actually deepens my love and awe of these regular guys, with talent hard worked for, still trying hard to show their goodness to their supporters, not throwing in the towel for their peace. They’re everything 😍

I’m glad people like you are making it your mission to not reduce them to their duos, ships and solo fandoms, but still supporting them as TALENTED INDIVIDUALS. I’m trying too💪. I want to be conscious in appreciating them for them, their talents, their individuality AND their bonds, ALL OF THEIR BONDS.

Obviously I bias some bonds more than others, it’s human nature🙈

We definitely need to keep pushing about original content, we need to keep pushing about original sources not just clips and cuts and edits, we definitely need to keep pushing about doing our googles!

We need to not close our eyes to the other interactions, it’s not scary! It helps us appreciate Jikook’s bond more and appreciate them as members, friends & brothers of the others.

Because no matter what people believe those 7 MEN love each other down.

It helps us be able to filter the bullshit when we do come across misinformation and defamation of character. It helps our confidence in knowing we’re stanning and supporting the right ones.

I’m super geeked for the show coming from Jikook too…whenever it comes 😩 Heck we’re starved, so I’ll start small, I’m desperate for a ‘keep warm, don’t catch a cold’ message from Jiminie even though he’s doing his best in keeping in contact, why are we so thirsty 😅

Thank you for writing in and speaking my heart! 😉

💜

[soullessjack]

so one of my other problems with babyjack is that the fandom just seems to have this sort of collective cognitive dissonance about it, in almost any context or discussion. like this post as probably my only standing example (bc it’s the only one to have gotten traction), there are all these tags about how babyjack leads to bad dean criticism, or how it’s nice in aus but they want canon complex jack, and like I’m not entirely disagreeing with that, but it is so fucking frustrating that people are still ignoring the actual problem with it and either only focusing on the most surface level issues that personally affect them or their corner of the fandom, or making up some point of acceptability for it that frankly isn’t theirs to make.

it’s the autistic experience of our struggles never being seen or cared about until they become other people’s inconveniences, and our voices being used to say something else entirely. when the main takeaway of that post is how the fandom’s treatment of jack being in a way he’s explicitly shown to hate being treated directly mirrors autistic people’s struggle for autonomy in the real world, I really do not need you to make it about how it makes your golden website boy dean look like a big meanie pants, okay? that’s definitely a part of it, but it’s not at all what we are talking about, and it 100% should not be the only reason you care.

and especially when the other takeaway is how this is just a smaller scale issue that comes from autistic infantilization, the absolute last take I want to hear is that you find that infantilization acceptable as long it’s an AU or something else separated from canon. believe me, I’m beyond glad more people actually prefer canon complex jack—like, I don’t think you guys understand that that is legitimately a rarity to find here— but the thing about babyjack is that the concept itself is inherently ableist, and directly relies on his complexities (and the representation he means for us) being removed and erased so that he can even exist in the context of those AU’s. It feels very… ‘have your cake and eat it too’ to me.

I’m trying not to sound angry or accusatory, but I am also tired of having to force civility on a problem that’s pretty much just an open secret thar everyone collectively ignores and beats bushes around solely because they prioritize #domesticdestiel over all. I mean, do you guys even hear yourselves sometimes? Like half of it just boils down to “Autistic infantilization is always bad, except for this one context where it makes my ship look domestic and redeems my blorbo,” and it’s getting really fucking annoying to have to constantly explain something that is not only painfully easy to understand, but is understood and actively ignored, and still play nice so that somebody out there might listen.

So many people will say they like canon Jack and want more of him from the fandom, and I more than agree, but motherfucker you have a blog! You have the tools! Be the change you want to see! He doesn’t have to be your fav or your blog thesis blorbo, but if you want it, you are literally fully equipped to make it! Write some meta, draw some fanart, whatever. Better yet, you could even stop engaging with and perpetuating content that actively pushes down on what you want and, I must reiterate, is actively harmful and ableist. If you want domestic silliness go right ahead, but you don’t need to resort to ableism to do it.

I don’t think I’m asking too much or asking rudely, and frankly I don’t even think I owe niceties to anyone when it’s a problem that has been openly ignored for 6 years and holds plenty of bearing in the real world concerning my identity and community and shit we face constantly. Outside of our screens, we are constantly fighting for autonomy and recognition and representation, and even to be seen as people. Online spaces, especially fandom spaces, are a huge source of escapism and support that we wouldn’t get otherwise. So for the love of god, please stop bringing that fight here.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

That Troll Accusing P/T fics and Trek Fic Writers Blogs (Including me) of Racism could be a Right-Wing Bot.

Edit (4/16): I would like to emphasize that i really hope this theory is not true. It stemmed from having had multiple friends and acquaintances in the voyager fandom (white and not) be suicide baited and otherwise harassed with vague accusations of racism over the past year, (for P/T primarily, but other ships and characters on occasion too) yah we did cycle through a lot of explanations. Ultimately our anon(s) being someone with either a malicious motive or an extremely ill thought out and unproductive approach, were the explanations that wound up making the most sense. the content of the anon asks and comments i am refering too has been both vague and painful, and further, never came from a real ao3 or tumblr account. these also came with no evidence based points for the fic writers to work on.

I do not believe this theory below to be anywhere near the most plausible. but it is the only conclusion we could make sense of for a slew of similar anon messages that, at the end of the day, did a lot of hurt without making any concrete points that writers could take action on. By making this analysis, my hope is not to convince you all that a right wing troll is out to get voyager fic writers. Instead, i hope it comforts writers who have gotten similar attacks and helps them to dismiss messages that come with harassment and suicide baiting, rather than evidence based points. And i hope if there are real people behind those anons that seeing this analysis helps them to reconsider the effect their approach is having.

Original Post from 3/2

At first I thought I was paranoid post-2016 and 2020, but now I've been hit a couple times and seen comments on more of the affected fics. And I'm seeing concerning themes.

I make a couple of assumptions here: 1. My anon (whom I will refer to throughout as "The Anon") is the same each time. 2. The Anon is the same actor or belongs to the same group as The Anon troll commenting on P/T and some J/C fics.

The Anon as a Bot Evidence:

1. The Anon accusations are sweeping, but generic. They do not use in-fic textual evidence to justify their comments. You write P/T: You're a Tom apologist. You think Belanna is his exotic wife. You justify your blatant anti-latina racism by casting her anger as an inherent a Klingon trait. You write J/C: You think Chakotay is a noble savage and fetishize him. You write Harry Kim: You're infantilizing him.

These tropes and stereotypes are legitimate concerns that fic writers should care about and should be mindful of. These accusations on the other hand are not legitimate. They are left as guest comments or anonymous asks on fics heedless of the fic content or writer's background or track record. The AO3 comments do not reference fic content. They are repeated across all impacted writers. They target new and veteran writers alike. They target fics regardless of rating.

2. Comments that appear to reference fic specifics go no farther fic tags.

This was harder to catch. But a P/T fic tipped me off last month. It was tagged "Tom & Belanna & Miral". The Anon's first comment on that fic dove in accusing the fic of incest. This showed both that the anon had not read the fic content - they also didn't understand the difference between a / tag and an & tag. (Which also means the programmer of the tag-reading bot or human actor creating tag-based comments is not literate in how fandom ship tags are structured - they may not be a fan at all!)

3. The Anon never replies. Not on AO3 or on Tumblr. (All AO3 comments from "The Anon" seem to stick to the automatically assigned Anon name or use a generic, short first name like "Sam").

Exceptions to this - the rare ocasions where someone sympathetic to the anon replies break from the distinctive patterns of The Anon. Replies come from either burner accounts or guests with more unique names. And these replies are both A - fewer and far between - suggesting they are a different actor - and B - by and large quite serious and thoughtful. I take them to be real people, legitimate fans concerned about racism, caught up in the crossfire.

4. The Anon uses language intended to engender right-wing sympathies and white-moderate anger.

The Anon sent this in their message to me the other day. I will bold the relevant passages.

"You’re the perfect example of the kind of white person who ruins fandom for everyone else, a nasty racist bitch who cares more about their shitty fanfiction than the feelings of actual people of color. Keep using your precious freedom of speech to fetishize brown men I guess

"The kind of white person": This anon has no proof of my race and proof doesn't matter to them. (They have targeted writers of color and white writers alike) They are indiscriminant because they are hoping some of their targets are white women. They are also attempting to out-group white women from the rest of fandom - trying to engender in me feelings of being alienated from my community.

"Nasty racist bitch" "Nasty woman" incidentally is what Trump famously called Hilary Clinton during a 2016 debate. Calling me a racist is there to put me on the defensive (and to alienate me from my coalition) Im meant to feel shocked and disheartened by this accusation. And in a way, keeping this generic serves a purpose. A lack of specificity makes it harder for me to defend myself. "Bitch" is there to trigger my fear/anger response. It is also assuming my gender - again. The anon doesnt care if they accidentally sent this hate to a man or nonbinary person or a person of color. they are betting that at least a plurality of targets will be their key white woman demographic.

"people of color" - while it is correct terminology - is also terminology of the US left/democratic wing. By using this term the Anon is in-grouping themselves with the left - trying again to make me feel like an outsider.

Finally, the kicker is the Freedom of Speech part of this ask.

The Anon is using the concept of free speech here in the same way that the MAGA crowd does, to mean that I ought to be able to say whatever I want regardless of how it hurts others, rather than the legal term's actual definition - the right to critique one's government without being jailed or killed.

By accusing me of caring about Freedom of Speech this way they're not trying to make me feel guilt - theyre trying to hurt me, make me angry, and guide me to sympathize with Republicans. They are using the term this way to push me to think of my fanfic in terms of free speech and thus to agree with Republican freedom of speech talking points. Or if I reject the accusation - to feel torn between Left and Right.

The Anon is trying to sow discord. Theyre employing the same tactics that broke the Womens March movement in 2021, and that pervaded so many Facebook groups and twitter in the last two US election cycles. They are using tactics honed to cleave apart progressives and moderates.

My only question after all those realizations was: why the fuck are they doing this to such a niche group as star trek fanfiction writers.

And then it hit me.

The Anon's Motive: Trek Fic Writers are a Target Election Demographic.

By and large, US fan writers of ships from 90s star trek are women, often millenial and gen x women, many likely to be suburban. And yes - more likely to be white. In short we are part of the same demographic Trump lost in 2020 and needs to either win back this year, or try keep from going to the polls.

You can tell me I sound ridiculous - I think this whole stinking situation is ridiculous. I'm not unaware of how fringe a theory this is. I've been taught to always assume incompetence before malice. And for a while I considered that maybe The Anon was genuine. Maybe they had good intentions and poor execution. I'm sure I could write characters of color better (I am not afraid to admit that I'm still learning. Being wrong isnt something to be afraid of). I wanted this to be the case actually, but I have too much evidence and motive in favor of malicious bot tactics to ignore.

I have tried so hard to think of a reason I'm wrong. Except that all the pieces make sense. No fic / writer specific grievances have been aired by The Anon. They hit the same points every time, again, without textual evidence. They never reply. They chose words that wound and inflame but that never say anything specific about the fic or writer.

And wouldn't it be damn convenient for the Trump camp if a bunch of progressive and moderate US star trek fans decided not to vote because they were disheartened by being accused of racism and felt alienated from the democratic coalition.

This is a niche community. But we likely arent the only targets. And as a friend reminded me tonight, it doesnt take much to move the needle.