#wank i guess

[persephinae]

This reads like fanfic with the serial numbers filed off. Like it doesn't really go in depth about WHY she wanted to live in the spooky forest all alone, never builds out her character other than someone telling her "uwuwuwuwu you're such a good person" and her being like "well I am a healer uwuwuwuwu"

You can have imperfect characters and still give them depth and they can still be sexy. In fact, they become even MORE sexy when they're imperfect and mess up, say the wrong thing, or have a temper.

You can have porn with in depth storytelling, I prommy.

Like you can do in depth world building, plot, interesting characters, and good porn. You can do this. You don't have to do this romantasy floss crap. You are poisoning the well, people.

Why are you accepting a puddle when you can have an ocean?

[darlingofdots]

the vast majority of fanworks are bad, and that's fine, actually. they are bad for the same reason that the average number of legs for a human person to have is less than two: statistics. like with all endeavours and especially creative ones, most people who write fanfiction or draw art of their favourite characters are bad at it. if you line up all the crochet projects in the world, most of them will be, well, bad. some are bad because they're the first thing a person ever made, or the second or third or tenth, and this kind of thing takes practice. others are bad because the person who made them is just not very good at it. maybe they just learned how to make granny squares and they're perfectly happy to never expand or improve on that. most people who dance or bake or garden or braid hair are not amazing at it! and you'd never go to your kid's dance recital or eat your friend's homemade carrot cake and expect the same experience as you'd have at a professional ballet performance or award-winning bakery. And that's if we assume there is an objective measure of Good Art, which there isn't! Some art is just "bad" because you don't like it!

I think though that specifically with fanfiction, we sometimes forget that when we read a book or watch a movie, dozens of people have looked at it and given feedback and made changes and done quality control before the final product reaches our shelves or screens, and that's not counting the original writer's learning process and past experience. A published book is not anyone's first crochet project, even if it is their debut novel. But with fanfiction, the barrier to entry is so low (on purpose! this is a good thing!) that we do get to see a lot of wonky granny squares, and on sites like AO3 they're sitting on the same shelf as the hand-made silk lace wedding dress and you can't always tell just by looking at it which is which. The consequence of this is that we encounter fic that we think is unpolished, has bad punctuation, is out of character, and we are tempted to think "well, this is awful! how dare this person put this wonky granny square on the same shelf as the lace wedding dress!" But that's not how fandom is supposed to work! That wonky granny square is somebody who is really excited about this TV show they just watched and they are reaching out into the void to share their excitement with you. To scoff at them for not making a lace wedding dress is really, really rude. Even if they did make a lace wedding dress, maybe it's just really not your style, or you think they should have used a different pattern, and it's still their wedding dress. You don't have to wear the dress and you don't have to read the fic.

We all know that there is some fanfic out there that is incredible. I think it's important to talk about that! But the vast majority of people who post their writing online are just sharing their little hobby projects that they make for fun and I also think it's important to remember that.

[thats-the-biz-babe]

isn't it funny how eddie getting right up in buck's face and shouting at him for no reason, and guilt tripping and shaming him for having feelings = peak romance

but tommy calling buck by his name, looking after him and giving him an ice pack and painkillers when he's injured, noticing when he's not okay and checking in on how he's feeling, even dressing up in a suit and driving with him to a cemetery so he can make a speech to a dead cowboy in order to break a curse he doesn't believe in = abusive behaviour

[bucksboobs]

It’s not just 805 even. 806 also spends most of its run time telling you “these two like each other, there’s somethings they don’t know about each other but they’re willing to learn and grow.” And then in the 11th hour it gets ripped away in a way that, had it not been for the interviews, would seem like the beginning of a breakup/makeup plot. They want to be together, they said so in the breakup scene. Everything in the show points to them getting back together (anecdotally, the irl casual watcher friend I have thinks they are getting back together)

Like say whatever about Lakers Tickets but Buck said out loud “I could [see a future there].” “Why be apart when we could be together” “[the First and Last] could be the same thing.” He wants this. Tommy said he was doing this because he couldn’t handle it if Buck broke his heart which implies he knew he was falling in love. They want to be together but Tommy is scared (and we don’t know why) so it reads as temporary. And then I read the interviews. And they act like this is the end. And that just makes me sad and angry and I just want one person to acknowledge how much they hurt a significant portion of their audience.

[cilil]

Ok, really not tryna vague or be shady, but I just gotta say: I do not and will never understand why there's so much drama around ships becoming canon or not.

Seriously, why do you care. Is your ship game that weak? Do you need a stamp of approval from other people for what you like and how you creatively express yourself? Because, sorry, but that's technically what that is and you don't need it.

C'mere. Come to auntie. Listen. I multiship like crazy and lots of weird and niche rare pairs too. Whenever any of my ships become canon that's pretty much an accident and a statistical outlier and because I just happened to like what the creators like for once. And then I usually think "oh that's nice" and go on with my madness. No getting smug and using it to put others down either!

I'm telling you this because I simply can't stress enough how much more chill and fun shipping is if you become deeply unbothered by what's canon, what the creators think and what other people approve of. Again, you need nobody's stamp of approval. And if people nag and bully you about what you like then these people suck and they have no right to demand explanations from you.

Make your case not to justify yourself to bullies - they won't be convinced anyway - but to get other people interested. Make your case through your art, your writing, your headcanons, your conversations with other fans. Make your case through passion.

And stop letting others tell you what you can and can't ship. Which goes both ways, just saying.

Ok, that's it, bye

[bolshoiromanova]

Rational brain: it really fcking sucks that so much comic history that's supposed to be Natasha's (including pls god no her relationship with Bucky) is getting passed onto Yelena now that Marvel is somehow realizing that stuff is actually compelling after sitting on their hands for 10+ fcking years.

Monkey brain: OMG more Red Room lore tiny Yelena who is that girl who is that older man (Iosef???) what is that book omg OMG!!!!

[samwinchestermydude]

I think we as Sam fans should be more annoying and loud about the fact that his crossroad demons were men twice.

(This is me being pissed off about how people will say dean is of course bi due to some dumb shit like the siren, which was his brother, and “bi lighting” or something, and then turn around and say Sam is the straightest character. Like what.)

[karenandhenwilson]

Okay, so you want to talk about the basketball scene? Let’s do that.

A couple of guys regularly meet for pickup basketball games. Buck has always declined invitations in the past and finally joined. It’s a pickup game, though. NBA rules are the last thing those guys are following. They’ve probably put down some ground rules. But more likely, they’ll assume everyone knows how to keep the game mostly friendly.

Because that’s the thing about pickup games of any sport. It’s not the kind of competition you find in a professional league or even in a semi-professional league like school leagues. It’s mostly about having fun, but it’s also about egging each other on, about riling each other up to such a degree that most people who meet for these kinds of games go around saying things like “just a friendly game, the ‘friendly’ being optional”. 

They play hard and fast with the rules, and we saw them egg each other on repeatedly during the scene. It was pretty clear where the whole scene was leading from the very beginning. Because the thing about these kinds of pickup games, no matter what game, is that the amateurs playing will always get injuries that professionals wouldn’t get so easily. Because of the general disregard for rules, but also because the amateurs don’t have the training for the game and might just take a wrong move, or don’t know how to fall, or aren’t able to contemplate the consequences of body checking the other player, especially in the heat of the game.

Everyone who joins in that kind of game knows exactly that they’re risking injuries. Not even just because the guys they’re playing with might get callous in their fouls, but just because they might make a wrong step, or they might be really unlucky in catching the ball.

Eddie had to go to the hospital. That’s true so far. 

Remember, we are watching a show about firefighters? The kind of job where having even so much a sprained ankle means you aren’t fit for duty. Because working with a limp while responding to a fire will slow you down in a situation where you can’t afford that. It might mean you aren’t even able to handle carrying all the required equipment in the first place. Working with a limp at the scene of a car accident or something similar, where you have to work with heavy equipment and sometimes have to rely on your strength alone.

Of course Eddie would go to see a doctor for such a fall to make sure he was fit for duty. He can’t just show up with a limp to his next shift and walk it off.

The next day we see Eddie on shift. (How do we know it’s the next day? Pickup basketball games are every other Thursday. Buck and Tommy’s first date was Saturday. The shift with the guy who had no control over his hand was between those two events.) And he isn’t even limping. Based on that, I dare say his ankle wasn’t even sprained and the whole hospital thing was nothing but being overcautious. Because that’s what canon tells us with that.

And with that, I have to say: Everyone claiming Buck broke Eddie’s ankle invalidates their whole argument right away. If you have to make the injury worse to make your argument work, you clearly know you’re full of bullshit.

Let’s take a look at the aftermath.

After Eddie falls because of Buck’s body check, Buck immediately looks and acts in a way that shows he is feeling guilty. Chimney calls him out on his behavior at the same moment. We then get a whole scene of Buck talking through that moment and how he feels about it with Maddie.

We don’t see an on screen apology, that’s true. But we get shown at great length that Buck’s behavior was not okay, that he feels guilty about it, and that the people around him call him out for the behavior. The episode then ends with the strong suggestion that Buck will call Eddie to apologize. 

You know when we haven’t seen people feeling even slightly remorseful or are so much as talking about an apology?

All three times someone got physical with Buck in an argument. 

Bobby never apologized or felt remorseful as far as we see. We never saw any follow-up for that scene. We don’t even see any kind of reaction in Hen, who watches the whole thing calmly as if nothing strange is going on.

Chimney went on a whole rant about killing Buck and bringing him back to life weeks later. So his off-hand comment much, much later to Hen that he talked it out with Buck and apologized feels suspicious at best, and unbelievable at worst.

Eddie claimed “someone” was mean to Buck, skillfully avoiding admitting any fault of his own. And then shoved two people at Buck he knew Buck would be so happy to see he’d forget what a jerk Eddie was both during the argument and then with the very misleading note in the morning and telling Buck it was his fault for misunderstanding that note.

Somehow, it’s always only Buck who is haunted by it, even seasons later, when he makes a mistake or people even just perceive Buck as the one who made a mistake (e.g. Dr. Wells being brought up as a joke). And people wonder why so many people feel with Buck and argue about his bad decisions less than other characters.

[wulleooo]

DAY 5: VALENTINE'S DAY

not kidding when i say they're like all over my notebook

[shoulderholsterfreak]

Look, I know Thrawn is a pragmatic, highly tactically-minded person and he works for the bad guys, but I’m kind of tired of all the cherry picking people do to portray him as the Literal Worst Person Ever.

“He doesn’t care about non-Chiss!” “People are only assets to him!” “He only cares about individuals in how they can serve him strategically!” “He’s quite literally a real-world Nazi and he should be taken outside and shot!”

Meanwhile you have passages like this:

Just related to this event alone, in Outbound Flight there’s a scene where Thrass lectures Thrawn (who is lying in a hospital bed with a shrapnel wound to the chest) about overextending himself and getting himself killed in his quest to patrol outside the borders to deal with threats—and “humanitarian” crises—that aren’t immediately relevant to the Chiss.

And there’s a LOT more like this out there. I don’t know, it’s just weird to me that some of his fans, the people you’d think would be ready to jump to his defense, are so determined to hate him that they ignore the moments where he displays more positive and humanitarian traits.

[sailorsally]

Man I try to be friendly with everyone in the severance fandom because I like both MarkHelly and MarkGemma and I think that is the point but some MarkHelly folks are just plain out rude and mean and obsessed with their ships superiority to the point that I just cannot even like their posts even if I agree with them because I do not share the condescending and self righteous tone they are using.

[icouldhyperfixatehim]

honestly i can't wait for a some future day conversation where aaron tearfully tells robert that he just can't leave his husband for him because john Knows Something, and that Something is that aaron was a significant contributor in the death of a rapist. and then robert will go 🥹🥰🥰😍🥰 omg we really are soulmates, and sic tracy and cain tagteam on john

[qprstobin]

I'm gonna be frank, Eddie just does not give me the impression that he was bullied all that much in high school to me. Especially as he got older, like he was the school drug dealer, he was not getting beat up by the same jocks who were going to be buying from him later that week. It just doesn't make sense to me!

I'm not saying he was never bullied at all (personally I think he was probably bullied by the people in his grade in like middle school, but leant more into the satanic image by the time he got to high school (which is when the satanic panic wouldve been starting) and people became more afraid to mess with him or it stopped when BS started dealing) or that people can't headcanon and project onto pm. It's fandom, do what you want lol. I've just gotten to the point where fics lose me whenever they claim Tommy/Steve/Jason was going around beating the shit out of him or shoving him in the halls every week or the like. Eddie just does not give the impression that he is scared of the jocks normally. He looks down on them and thinks he's better than them! He taunts them openly in front of everyone and pontificates on table tops.

I think if you take it in that context too, it makes the town turning on him more sinister? Like obviously, satanic panic was only growing at that point, and it was within the last year or two they started pointing at metal and D&D as recruiting centers for satanic cults. (Eddie also like an asshole is walking around with a satanic symbol on his jacket - peak edgy teen in the middle of a moral outcry.) But while people might've been afraid of him, and most definitely talked about him behind his back, that's worlds away from mob violence. The change was startling, even if Eddie might be able to see it on the horizon.

Idk to me that's more of what the hunt the freak line was about. The knowledge that they could turn on you and would if you gave them a reason (or if you want to go with the Eddie is closeted interpretation - if he got outed). I think he probably has been called the freak for a while but honestly I think he's proud of it at this point.

Obviously all of this is up to interpretation, I guess I've just gotten to the point where a lot of the popular fanon interpretation doesn't feel like Eddie to me anymore

[burial-at--sea]

interesting how anyone who posts about top sam gets harassed but some people wanna act like this fandom environment isn't toxic 🤡

[thevioletcaptain]

i'm fuckin thrilled because i love the boys (the show) and the boys (jensen and misha) and i love having fun (seeing said boys on screen together again) but once again it seems i must endure an influx of people who incorrectly think the boys is just some stupid edgy-for-the-sake-of-edginess show, and who will inevitably insist on watching only to complain about everything 🚬😮‍💨

[spatort-brainrot]

Was ist denn plötzlich im spatort fandom los? Man liest hier auf einmal Dinge über Spaltungen und fake leaks und Leute die das fandom "verlassen" wollen... Guys curating your fandom experience is okay! Just don't follow people you don't want to follow! Seid nur in Servern wo ihr Spaß habt! Blacklists und Blockfunktion existieren aus nem Grund! Nicht alles so ernst nehmen!

Ich verstehe, dass nicht jeder seit 10+ Jahren in online spaces unterwegs ist und die Erfahrungen gemacht hat die ich z.b. gemacht habe. Ich habe fandom wars gesehen like you can't even imagine. Der Trick ist einfach offline zu gehen! It's not real!!

Leute haben eine andere Interpretation? Let them! Leute wollen eher Pia und Esther sehen als Adam und Leo? Let them!! Leute schreiben omegaverse smut fic und dir gefällt es nicht? OKAY DON'T READ IT. Man kann Schauspieler für ihr acting mögen oder in einer Rolle feiern aber sie trotzdem kritisieren/cringe finden/mal ne Rolle blöd finden!! Just keep it in fandom spaces und harrassed niemanden und gut is. Es kann auch mal Spaß machen andere Takes zu lesen und sich zu denken 'boah die Person labert quatsch' - aber kommentier es nicht drunter. Schon wird niemand verletzt!

Fandom kann so fun sein. Mein Appell: organisiert euch selbst eure fandom experience, sucht euch aus mit wem ihr interagiert und findet außer spatort andere Gemeinsamkeiten. Wenn Spatort era endet bin ich sad, ja, aber guess what! Es gibt noch viele andere Sachen mit denen man sich beschäftigen kann.

Be nice to each other!