#random fandom problems

[redstarfish-art]

It's official. I've been out of the Batfam shipping loop for so long that I can no longer tell the difference between JayTim and JayDick in fanart when they're not colour-coded with red or blue.

[mo-gxn]

junkrat….. (i like him a normal amount.)

[raycatz]

*peaks into the LU tag* oh drama?

*tries to find a source* ah them again.

Make what you want forever! LU is an AU and does not adhere strictly to loz canon. LU fanon does not adhere strictly to LU or to loz canon, and how things are written vary between person both within the LU fandom and LOZ.

I agree that the purity "you can't do this" "oh they're siblings" "oh but they're mirror counterparts" shit needs to stop. Creators in the LU fandom struggle with people trying to police this as well. I'm sorry those purity gatekeeping whatever folks tend to come from the LU fandom. It pisses me off too. It's something creators on both sides are fighting!

LU is one comic and headcanons/background in that comic and in the fandom do not apply across the board to other linksmeets. However, LU is going to be what many people are coming from and I can understand that that's frustrating.

I also agree that there's a lot of game knowledge not used or known in LU fandom stuff. Everyone is coming from different places of access to the games or time to watch let's plays. Doing homework and research should not be a requirement to engage with fandom. It should be something someone wants to do for fun. If you don't like their interpretation, block and move on.

and I'm sure guilt tripping and insulting people is a great method to get them to do what you want /sarcasm

The LU fandom was once a lot better / gave a lot more focus to researching and comparing and contrasting the games. A lot of the initial character building in the earlier fandom days was from dissecting the games and it was SO MUCH FUN. I think that part of the fandom has kind of died down and it's unfortunate. More prevalence is given to the existing fanon instead of understanding where or why that fanon came about, or looking to the games. (whenever I see people asking for if there's a fandom consensus on something I have to resist the urge to tell them that There Is None. There are more frequent uses, but no One Right Way to do something, and that's how it should be. Write what you think is most interesting without worrying about what others may expect. The beauty in the LU fandom for a while was how varied the fandom made the designs, or hcs. It was almost as though each portrayal was it's own slightly different LinksMeet and we were just sharing the cast and building them up together, and that has pretty much come to a slow and steady halt.) (There are youtube videos about the LU characters even which fail to differentiate between LU comic canon, LOZ canon, Jojo's Q&As, and fanon, and it's frustrating!) However, it is what it is? Imo we, (I?-) Should be doing what we can to disambiguate the information instead of picking fights.

I should not be giving time to loz-LU drama rn. However, if people want resources on game info or character analysis hit me up!

There's a good number of LU posts that explore the characters from a game perspective (granted that they're from the LU fandom 2020~2022). If you want to know where a fandom hc came from there are explanations. There are a number of websites for accurate loz game info, and I have playthroughs I could recommend.

[keyofjetwolf]

The year is 2025 and I love this fucking feral little goblin of a website.

[redstarfish-art]

The sequel to this is giving up on reading comics because I got tired of complaining about it being bad.

Hot take but I don't think that you should get to complain about comic writers being bad when you don't read the comics to begin with.

[beepborpdoodledorp]

Hot take but I feel like one of this fandom's biggest problems with mischaracterization has to do with audience vs character dissociation...like, we as the viewers know Caine is just a well-meaning dumbass who isn't purposefully trying to hurt the players' physical and emotional wellbeing, but most of the rest of the cast doesn't. I still remember when Ep 3 dropped and everyone was speculating on the 'he wants me to suffer' line thinking Pomni was referring to some unknown character and I feel like that has to do with our omniscience as the audience vs Pomni's point of view towards Caine and the Circus.

[allegedlyiwrite]

Nothing like a halfway decent incomplete fanfic to crawl into my brain and lay eggs. At some point between now and when I die, I will be writing some sort of paranormal situation, forever peeved that I didn’t come up with this world building first and can’t just rip it off because morals.

[hisbucky]

reminding myself I like both buddie and bucktommy every single time I have the misfortune of encountering the most insane takes, opinions, and just general toxicity in the fandom.

go outside. touch some grass. get help.

[redstarfish-art]

I don't think I can keep up with these new fandom trends. Mostly because so many of them involve extremely blurry lines between having understandable boundaries and trying to control others.

Though it's cool I learnt what a soft-block is!

Anyway, anyone can follow me if they so wish. I don't post much though. <3

So I just saw a post by a random personal blog that said “don’t follow me if we never even had a conversation before” and?????? Not to be rude but literally what the fuck??????????

I’ve had people (non-pornbots) try to strike conversation out of nowhere in my DMs recently, and now I’m wondering if they were doing that because they wanted to follow me and thought they needed to interact first. I feel compelled to say, just in case, that it’s totally okay to follow this blog (or my side blog, for that matter) even if we’ve never talked before.

Also, I’m legit confused. Is this how follow culture works right now? It was worded like it’s common sense but is that really a thing?

[redstarfish-art]

Is it possible to get into batlantern from fanart alone?

Is it possible to get into batlantern when you're not the biggest fan of Bruce and literally know nothing about Hal?

[cosmotellurias]

just saw someone describe Percy as "emergency contact of the gods" and if that isn't the truest thing ever 😭😭

[redstarfish-art]

The amount of times someone comments on one of my fics that are basically:

Random stranger: This character is NOT someone would do this! Stop saying they would!! Me: They literally did this in canon. Random stranger: That canon doesn't count as canon because *insert fascinating but extremely biased explanation*

one thing fandoms love to do is invent something and then get mad at people for not agreeing that it happened

[p3achiek33n]

Do I think there’s a problem with fandoms centering the men or MLM ships, even when the main official couple are lesbians/sapphic? Absolutely. One of the reasons love Arcane is because of the fact CaitVi were confirmed lesbians (and we do not have good enough rep in media) but most of what I’m seeing is praise for Jayce and Viktor. I love them too but people are completely ignoring or hating on CaitVi for them and it’s just ???

It rubs me the wrong way. They’re flawed, I’m not denying that but it’s no reason to hate on them or just completely shove them aside for the men, in this essay I will continue to-

[kacievvbbbb]

Maybe it's just me and I just don't understand the arc. Or maybe this arc will get some grand conclusion I'm really starting to doubt. But like I'm sick and tired of Tashigi being used as Zoro's misogyny proxy. Like the "a woman swordsman could never beat a man" belief and trauma made sense for both Kuina and Tashigi and was a very valid fear way back in the East Blue when they were still fighting relatively normal people and had no scope of how big the world is

but at this point where there are literally 20 feet tall dudes and people can blow up a whole city with just Haki the only reason Tashigi is still weak is because she is being written that way. Which is really hard to understand because it seems now more than ever One Piece has been getting more and more strong female characters so I don't know why every time Tashigi is on screen with Zoro we have to rehash this. It's even worse cause all she does in the scene is prove Zoro right by getting in a fight that she can't handle and needing saving. It's such a confusing message and honestly doesn't really apply or come up anywhere but with Tashigi and Zoro (outside of that one time where Zoro yells at enel for blasting Robin because she's a woman which was weird because Robin's been in a lot of fights before but seemed there just so enel could point out just how ruthless it is.)

Hell with the exception of the G5 all being in love with her. She is treated like a regular character and not just "the woman"

It honestly feels like both Tashigi and Smoker got lost in the narrative and Oda just doesn't know where to put their arcs. It feels like she was being written to help Zoro overcome whatever mental block Kuina's death instilled in him about facing female opponents with his sword. But she is just sooooo far behind him it renders the point moot and strengthens his convictions (it's weird that he will literally crush a woman's face rather than use his sword and is the only reason I won't say he doesn't fight women he does he just seems to have a mental block about cutting them down especially if they fight with anything blade like) but also we've only ever seen him face female character he knows can't challenge him it would have been interesting to see what he'd do in a fight against someone like big mom, tsuru or smoothie doubt that will happen though. But here's to hoping for Tashigi to have an actual arc.

[hookedwayfinder]

Fandom Etiquette

Some unspoken rules of fandom communities on Tumblr (aka fandom etiquette) for people new to Tumblr.

If you post AI on your blog, prepare to be blocked by a TON of people. Why? AI shits on artists. The majority of people on Tumblr respect artists. If you share AI art on your blog, a lot of people are going to block you, which is probably not what you want. So don't post AI! (Same goes for reblogging AI shit).

Do not steal art from artists. Reposting art is usually frowned upon and if you wish to do this without people getting mad at you, credit the artist by name and link. For example, "This is drawn by Bob on Instagram - link to instagram here" If the artist if already on Tumblr, just reblog their work, don't repost it!

Do not redraw art from fanartists without their permission first! And if you do get permission, credit the original artist in your post, if not, people will think you are a thief and you will once again get blocked by fandom regulars. (redrawing official art from the fandom you're in is usually ok and a great way to learn. Learn to differentiate official art from fanart.)

Pinterest is the den of thieves. Great for finding a ton of lovely artworks with no way to get back to the original artist. Do not follow their example. That's not what anyone wants Tumblr to be. If you've got 50 fanarts saved on your pc and wish to share them with tumblr while you don't know the original artists? Then don't. That's the answer. Don't share art if you don't know who the artist is. Or learn to reverse image search.

Tagging is a way to communicate with the fandom about what you post on your blog without it afterwards showing up in reblogs. You can tag with character names, fandom names, ship names, and also personal tags such as "my fic" or "my art" - so that people checking your post can verify that it's made by you and not just stolen from someone else. Use tags to clarify if art or fic is yours when you post it.

Posting fanfic recommendations is usually a good way to make friends and earn yourself respect if you're not very creative yourself. Drawing fanarts or making edits for said fanfics will earn you god-status. Answering asks or posting meta or headcanons are other things you can do if you're not very creative otherwise.

Be careful sharing gifs and edits that you did not make yourself, even in-between your essays. Once again, it is technically theft, though I think most people view it as a lighter form of theft than art-theft. Crediting is still usually appreciated. Sadly a lot of photoshoppers accept this type of theft as part of the deal.

No matter which rule you broke in the past, you can always learn to do better. When in doubt, ask around in the fandom what you should do with a specific thing you want to post. Making a mistake does not get you kicked out of the fandom necessarily, so don't sweat it, just do better.

Even if you try to be a perfect fan, you will at some point break a little fandom etiquette here and there. You might reblog an AI art by accident... Share an image that was edited without you realizing it... Use someone else's gif without credit... It's ok. We all make mistakes. As long as you respect the fandom in 99% of your posts, nobody's going to cancel you for that.

This is by no means a conclusive list.

[necrotic-nephilim]

If you want to be bothered. Maybe this for dick and Bruce???

i ALWAYS want to be bothered these are always the highlight of my day tbh you're a delight for letting me just yap <3

Dick. For the canon isn't real square I am Specifically talking about the Tom Taylor Nightwing run. Usually I ignore bad runs but given this one is ongoing (though about to end THANK GOD and get replaced by Dan Watters who i have high hopes for since i adored his Sword of Azrael (2022) run but i digress) so I counted it. Especially since it's so debated if that run is bad or not, for some reason. I'm a 90s Nightwing truther. I love Dick so dearly and tbh recently I've been more enamored with him the more I read his Discowing era, I didn't used to be as big of a Dick stan as I am these days.

Bruce. Honestly where do you even start with Bruce. I want to fist fight him and also patch him up. He got me into comics and superheroes as a whole but I roll my eyes whenever he shows up in a story. He's a bastard and usually not a good father but also complex and should be dissected under a magnifying glass. I love him dearly. He's also just the worst. I think that's why I love him. I'm always a fan of unabashedly Complicated Asshole Bruce who's generally not always the best person, particularly not to the Batfamily and that being the driving force of his relationships with them, especially in shipping.

And for bonus points, Tim. Because know above all else, I'm a Tim Drake kinnie /deg. He's been my number one for a decade and I've yet to uproot him from my brain. He's literally the Worst half the time and I love him for it. And the canon isn't real refers to Tim Drake: Robin because... that sure was a comic. And that's about all I can say about it. Pre-Flashpoint Tim I miss you so dearly. I think it's fun that I want to put him in a blender and drink the juice but also want Nothing Ever to happen to him.