#I’ve seen so many videos of that idea but no fanfic

[asukamood]

Do you all remember this?

Yeah so I was pretty inspired for a part two so here is it, I also headcanon DS Dream not being able to stand spicy food.

Why? He looks like he would vaporise if he did. I also like to project onto him.

Anyways, enjoy.

Part 1 — Part 3 — Bonus Chapter

====

It was currently 2 pm or an hour after Nightmare broke down the entrance door to pieces before launching himself at Dream like a grenade. 5 minutes after his emotional outburst, Nightmare processed what he had done and his pride shattered in seconds, eyes widening in horror at the realization.

Dream had laughed at the reaction, succeeding in pissing the living out of Nightmare. He needed to find a way to get revenge but how—

Oh never mind, he got an idea.

“Heeeey Dream?“ He called, spacing out the first word as he sneaked closer to the latter, who had his mind focused on a novel. “Wanna play a game?”

“I know that tone.” Dream said, not getting his eyes off the page he was reading. “You’re planning to stir trouble again.”

Nightmare scoffed, crossing his arms as his face twisted into a pout. “Excuse you, I’m a very innocent man.” The ‘unlike what your future self thinks’ part was left unsaid, a ghost thought wandering in his mind. He didn’t need to confuse that Dream more than he already was.

“Mhm.” Dream fake acquiesced, not even bothering to put his thoughts into words anymore, too caught up in the story.

Nightmare took offense to that and almost immediately snatched the book from the other’s grip, who took a solid second to process what just happened. When he finally did, he sent a glare in his direction.

“Nightmare, give it back.” He ordered, his eyes glowing with warnings.

“Nah.” He put the book aside, making sure to keep the page Dream was on. If he had made him lose it, he was pretty sure the other would immediately run to the tree and bite into the first apple he would see. “I want to play the game with you.”

Dream raised an eyebrow. “What’s the game? I swear if you tell me it’s seven minutes in heaven—“

“No no no!” Nightmare exclaimed, waving his hands hysterically. “It’s not that, I promise!” He let his arms fall to his sides again when he was sure he managed to convince Dream. “It’s truth or dare.”

“Truth or dare?” Dream repeated, scratching his chin in thought. This game looked innocent on paper but it could quickly escalate depending on the truth or the dare.

“Yeah but instead of the traditional one where we have to pick questions on the spot and where we get to choose one of the two, I suggest we use a wheel and write our questions and dares beforehand and just pick them once the time has come. It’s gonna be more entertaining this way, I would know.”

Dream opened his mouth and closed it several times, visibly conflicted. This game screamed disaster and chaos but Nightmare looked eager to play it, plus, with the emotional outburst an hour ago, he feared he would get upset again.

A long defeated sigh escaped his mouth. “Okay, I’ll partake in your… suspicious game.”

“Great!” Nightmare didn’t even try to comment on the ‘suspicious’ part, he had to admit it sounded fishy. “You can go get the wheel, I’ll start gathering the papers.”

Dream nodded and disappeared around a corner to reach their room while Nightmare rolled on the floor to get to the drawers, sanity? Never heard of it. He grabbed two pens and tucked papers below his elbow before skipping back towards the couch. He was about to go and walk to take two empty baskets until he remembered that he could just teleport them to him.

He glanced at the corridor, Dream didn’t seem to have found the wheel yet. Perfect.

He held his two hands up and closed his eyes, sure enough, two baskets appeared out of thin air and he smiled. These powers could be very convenient when they wanted.

“Sorry, it was buried underneath all your figurines.” Dream apologized through the door before opening it wide, he was holding the famous wheel in his hands. “Who knew that this thing you bought on impulse that one day would come in handy.”

“What can I say? I’m a genius." Nightmare wriggled his eyebrows as Dream gave him a deadpanned look.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.” The brown-haired man sat on the opposite couch and put the wheel down in the center. “How many dares and questions do we have to write?”

Nightmare hummed. “Ten each sounds good.”

“Alright.” Dream agreed and took the pen that Nightmare was handing him. After that, they spent around ten minutes focusing on the task at hand in silence, which was only broken by Nightmare’s furious scribbling and Dream’s hesitant one. He had never been the creative one, unlike Nightmare who was the complete opposite when it came to that.

“Well, you sure do have a lot of inspiration.” He commented after a few, watching his hand sliding down the paper rapidly and his pen waving right to left without rest.

‘Perks of writing fanfiction for so long.’

“I wouldn’t have suggested it in the first place if I didn’t, it wouldn’t be very fun to come up with something for hours.” He replied, tongue sneaking out in concentration. He had so many ideas in mind but he had to write only the juicy ones, that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience after all.

“Okay, I’m done!” He exclaimed a few seconds later, throwing his pen on the table once he did.

“Just give me a few seconds.” Dream’s hand hurried to finish the sentence he was writing before putting his pen down as well. “Here.”

They both folded each paper carefully, making sure that they were neither recognizable nor readable, before dropping them in the right basket once that was done.

“Now that the boring part is done, it’s time for the fun one! Who begins?” Nightmare was already bouncing on the couch with a beaming face, it’s been ages since he got a moment like that with Dream, of course, he would be excited.

“You’re the one who suggested the idea so you can start.” The black-haired man nodded, spinning the wheel not long after. It spun quickly on itself before slowing down and ending onto Truth.

“Here we go-“ He dove his hand into the sea of papers and grabbed one of them randomly before pulling it out and unfolding it. The writing was elegant and consistent, it must have been one of Dream’s.

“ ‘Have you ever pretended to be sick to get out of plans?’ What? That's a boring one Dream!” Nightmare whines, trying to divert the other’s attention on the fact he was currently sweating bullets.

“Answer the question, Nightmare. On our birthday last year, you faked being ill so we wouldn’t go to the animal shop didn’t you?” Dream had a scary face when asking that. His eyes were empty but widened and seemed to swallow the light before pulverizing it somehow, his mouth formed a straight line and his eyebrows copied its example. Anger was obvious in his features.

“Uh-“ Nightmare stammered, holding his hands up in front of him as if they were shields. ‘Shit, I didn’t think he would remember that.’ “Listen, I know I promised it but come on! You know I’m scared of dogs!”

“So you admit it then?” If Nightmare had to describe how dangerous Dream seemed right now, he would tell you that he currently looked like a Dark Souls boss.

“Please stop making that face. You’re terrifying like that.” He trembled like a leaf in the wind. “Yes, I admit, I did it.”

“Then why did you promise we would go if you were planning to pull that cheap trick on me?” He insisted, hardening his glare.

“yoUR TURN-“ Nightmare slapped the wheel himself to dodge that question, not wanting to tell him that he lied just to see Dream’s excited face because he was down very bad for him. Nope, his ego wouldn’t be able to take it.

Luckily for him, that trick seemed to work since his eyes finally stopped staring into his soul and dropped on the object below instead. The wheel spun before coming to a stop on ‘Dare’.

Nightmare’s lips twitched upward in a satisfied smile while Dream let out a sigh.

“I would have liked to accuse you of rigging the game but I’m the one who set up the wheel so I’ll just settle with a sigh.” Nightmare rolled his eyes.

“Stop wallowing in defeat and pick a dare already, we have maaaany more rounds to go.” Dream nodded and calmly took a paper before unfolding it.

“ ‘Put a blindfold on and eat whatever the person in front of you gives you.’ “ Dream paused, staring at the paper a few seconds after finishing reading. Then, he looked up at Nightmare.

“Why do you do this to me?” His voice was filled with despair. “I thought we were friends.”

“But we are, I just like messing with you.” Nightmare flashed him a grin while handing him a long black tissue. “You know the rules, and so do I.”

Dream eyed the tissue with pain in his eyes, and glanced at his friend before letting out a breath and accepting his fate. Nightmare was waiting for him to continue the song but suddenly remembered that the song was released in 2009 so Dream just couldn’t get it, what a shame.

He wordlessly tied a knot behind his head, making sure his eyes were covered. He couldn’t see anything obviously but from an outside perspective, he looked like a turtle ninja whose bandana fell on their eyes. Nightmare bit his bottom lip in an attempt not to burst out laughing.

“Alright, I’ll be right back, don’t move okay?”

“I see absolutely nothing. Where do you think I would be able to go? My grave? The hospital?” Nightmare snickered at that, flickering his forehead and earning a yelp.

“And you call me dramatic.” He shook his head before disappearing into the kitchen.

He opened the drawers and frankly started to look for a particular red tube of sauce. After a few minutes, he finally grabbed what he was looking for.

Tabasco.

An evil grin made its way on his face.

Oh Dream, sweet summer child, you have no idea what's about to happen.

Talking about him, the guardian of positivity, who was still blindfolded and alone in the living room, found himself thinking of not-so-joyous things. What if someone broke in right at this moment, came up to him, and ran through his chest with a knife, thinking they were Nightmare? What if—

“BOO!” Dream’s body jumped back against the couch as a high-pitched and not-so-manly scream was ripped out of his throat. Nightmare burst out laughing, almost doubling over.

“H-Holy shit-“ He wheezed, barely able to get a proper sentence out. “That was so loud I think the entire village heard it-“

Dream’s cheeks flared up with hot blood, embarrassment evident. “You jerk. What was that for?!” Nightmare didn’t reply, too busy laughing his head off.

“Haha, sorry sorry.” He snickered a few more before eventually calming down, an arm wrapped around his stomach. He looked over at Dream and stopped breathing for a second.

Nightmare was sure he was over Dream, he was sure he was. Yet here he was, turning into a tomato in seconds just for thinking about how cute Dream was looking right now. He was down so bad, it wasn’t even funny anymore. Suddenly, he was very thankful for that blindfold blocking Dream’s vision.

“Anyways, I got you just the perfect dish~” Oh god, Dream did not like that tone at all.

“Ugh, please just get this over with so we can do something else.” Dream tilted his head sideways with a frown, hands trembling a bit with nervousness.

“Your wish is my command, my Lord!” The jab to that title was left not understood by the other, who was a century too young to get it. Anyhow, the man happily obliged and proceeded to shove a spoon filled with Tabasco in the other’s mouth.

Dream’s mouth clamped around the spoon, taking the liquid in, not realizing it would be the cause of his demise. Nightmare slowly pulled it out of his mouth, staring at Dream’s face to see his reaction.

His eyes may have been hidden but the remaining parts of his face showed enough. At first, wrinkles of confusion appeared on his face as he took in the texture of the ‘dish’ seeing that he was probably expecting something solid.

That’s when the pain kicked in.

His eyebrows shot up at once and his face froze in that expression for one second until a noise that was a weird mix of a choke and cough sprang out of his mouth. He leaned forward awkwardly before falling and knocking the table over, gasps spilling out of his mouth like water droplets in the rain.

A hand hovered in front of his mouth while the other was grabbing onto dear life on his shirt where the heart would be.

Nightmare was starting to have trouble breathing because of how hard he was laughing.

“Are you-“ Good lord, his voice was strained and sounded like a middle-aged smoker, the painful husk of a burning throat evident in his tone. “Are you trying to kill me?!”

Nightmare snickered, crouching in front of him and tearing the blindfold off to reveal a Dream whose face was as red as the sauce he swallowed and eyes threatening to spill out tears. His pupils rolled over to look at Nightmare, which was glowing with the sparks of betrayal and pure pain.

“It’s okay Dream,” He cooed with a mocking tone to avoid being caught simping even though quite honestly, Dream looks like he wouldn’t even notice anything, because of how blurry his vision seems to be at the moment. “It’s only gonna hurt for a moment.”

Nightmare lifted Dream’s torso towards him and hugged the latter, patting his head while Dream sniffled. “I’m feeling merciful today so let’s stop here and continue later when you’ll be feeling better.”

“You’re a douchebag.” Dream rasped the words, hissing up. “Ugh, do you even know how bad that hurt? I couldn’t even speak the following seconds because of how painful it was.”

Nightmare hummed. “That’s what you get for laughing at me earlier, now come on, we’ll get you some milk.”

“All that because of earlier?” Dream groaned, letting his face fall on Nightmare’s shoulder. “I hate you so much.”

“Nah you don’t.” Nightmare snuggled even closer, happily playing with other’s brown locks.

That color suited him better than blond ever would.

====

Aaand here, I also wrote a part three where they actually have access to technology because why not? I don’t know if I should really post it though. Let me know if you want to check it out anyway.

[rivkae-winters]

Edit: the app launched and Is down- I have the initial apology video in a post here and I’m working on getting a full archive of their TikTok up ASAP. I’m letting the rest of this post remain since I do still stand by most of it and also don’t like altering things already in circulation.

Warning for criticism and what I’d consider some harsh to outright mean words:

So I’ve just been made aware of the project known of as ‘lore.fm’ and I’m not a fan for multiple reasons. For one this ‘accessibility’ tool complicates the process of essentially just using a screen reader (something native to all I phones specifically because this is a proposed IOS app) in utterly needless and inaccessible ways. From what I have been seeing on Reddit they have been shielding themselves (or fans of the project have been defending them) with this claim of being an accessibility tool as well to which is infuriating for so many reasons.

I plan to make a longer post explaining why this is a terrible idea later but I’ll keep it short for tonight with my main three criticisms and a few extras:

1. Your service requires people to copy a url for a fic then open your app then paste it into your app and click a button then wait for your audio to be prepared to use. This is needlessly complicating a process that exists on IOS already and can be done IN BROWSER using an overlay that you can fully control the placement of.

2. This is potentially killing your own fandom if it catches on with the proposed target market of xreader smut enjoyers because of only needing the link as mentioned above. You don’t have to open a fic to get a link this the author may potentially not even get any hits much less any other feedback. At least when you download a pdf you leave a hit: the download button is on the page with the fic for a reason. Fandom is a self sustaining eco system and many authors get discouraged and post less/even stop writing all together if they get low interaction.

3. Maybe we shouldn’t put something marketed as turning smut fanfic into audio books on the IOS App Store right now. Maybe with KOSA that’s a bad idea? Just maybe? Sarcasm aside we could see fan fiction be under even more legal threat if minors use this to listen to the content we know they all consume via sites like ao3 (even if we ask them not to) and are caught with it. Auditory content has historically been considered much more obscene/inappropriate than written content: this is a recipe for a disaster and more internet regulations we are trying to avoid.

I also have many issues with the fact that this is obviously redistributing fanfiction (thus violating the copyright we hold over our words and our plots) and removing control the author should have over their content and digital footprint. Then there is the fact that even though the creator on TikTok SAYS you can email to have your fic ‘excluded’ based on the way the demo works (pasting a link) I’m gonna assume that’s just to cover her ass/is utter bullshit. I know that’s harsh but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it’s probably a duck.

I am all for women in stem- I’ve BEEN a woman in Stem- but this is not a cool girl boss moment. This is someone naive enough to think this will go over well at best or many other things (security risks especially) at worst.

In conclusion for tonight: I hope this person is a troll but there is enough hype and enough paid for web domains that I don’t think that’s the case. There are a litany of reasons every fanfic reader and writer should be against something like this existing and I’ll outline them all in several other posts later.

Do not email their opt out email address there is no saying what is actually happening with that data and it is simply not worth the risks it could bring up. I hate treating seemingly well meaning people like potential cyber criminals but I’ve seen enough shit by now that it’s better to be safe than sorry. You’re much safer just locking all your fics to account only. I haven’t yet but I may in the future if that is the only option.

If anyone wants a screen reader tutorial and a walk through of my free favorites as well as the native IOS screen reader I can post that later as well. Sorry for the heavy content I know it’s not my normal fare.

[blackterrae]

Ideas for Black!Reader Fic

I am going to try my hand again at writing. And I wanted to share some people and fandoms that I love. If you don’t know these shows/actors/franchises/movies/streamers I’m putting you on! For the following:

Princess Bride

Alice In Borderland

Johnny Depp- All his characters

Artemas (singer [i like the way you kiss me])

Cameron Monaghan- I know that there are fics out there but it’s only always his Jerome/Jeremiah roles never just him or Cal Kestis

Anthony Carrigan- I loved Anothy as Victor Zsasz

Paul Dano- There are Riddler fics but not as many for his other roles

The Entire Cast of Hawaii Five-0 (2010) - Don’t even get me started on how good this show is! And the cast looks amazing!

Chicago Med/Fire/PD- These shows have so much potential for fanfic storylines!

The Game (2006)- Has great potential for slow burns and fluffs.

Star Wars franchise (1977-present) - I know I said Cal Kestis but there are also other characters like Anakin, Luke, Obi Wan,Boba Fett (etc.)

NCIS franchise- I honestly love this franchise and it’s characters!

Hamilton

Any/All Sports Men- Jude Bellingham,Lewis Hamilton,LaMelo Ball,Allen Iverson(etc.)

Berleezy - He’s handsome and he’s funny!

Coryxkenshin- I literally love him and his videos!

Albert Aretz (Flamingo)- Look … he may be the epitome of mediocre white man but I like what I like!

AMP- Duke Dennis, Kai Cenat, Agent 00, ChrisNxtDoor,Davis, and Fanum ( all I gotta say is love a black man from infinity to infinity🗣️)

Beta Squad- A British YouTube/ streamer group!

SOMEBROS- Berleezy, Rico, ,PG, Joe (etc.)

WWE- come on now, do I even need to explain!!!

Four Brothers- All the cast but Garrett Hedland in particular!

Peacemaker - Don’t get me wrong I love Adrian Chase but I want to see just as much Peacemaker x black!reader fics because 2 words… JOHN CENA

MAWS- New animated Superman show! Love!

Smallville - The entire cast is hot! Tbh I fell hard for Tom Welling when I was younger when he was in Cheaper By The Dozen. Plus they literally whitewashed Vixen. COME ON! Vixen is a black female hero btw. She was also with Jon (Green Lantern) at one point.

Justice League/Justice League Unlimited (2001 and 2004)- I mean I literally can’t find any Jon Stewart x black!reader fics and he was with a BLACK WOMAN!

Warner Bros Franchise (minus the looney tunes & space jam)- There are lots of popular franchises that this company has from Fast & Furious to The Matrix!

Peaky Blinders- Saw a Tommy shelby x arms dealer black!female reader fic on my previous account but even then I couldn’t find it again on that account. So it’s gone with the wind. And the cast (i.e the actors and other characters they’ve portrayed). Example: Cillian Murphy as Johnathan Crane.

The Bear

FBI (All)

The good doctor

Tiktokers: Vinnie hacker

Blue Bloods

Will Poulter- I haven’t really seen any Adam Warlock fics

Slashers

Stranger Things

Cruel Intentions

Burnt

Dave Lizewski

Eddie Redmayne

Macgyver (2016)

Fresh Prince of Belair

Guardians of the galaxy- Explanation? Do I really need one?

On My Block

Descendants (characters will be the actors age in real life.duh)- Love Boo-boo Stewart & Mitchell Hope!

Matt Rife

Joey Bragg (Liv &Maddie) - What can I say I love dorks!

The Boys- Haven’t seen that many fics about the characters and a black reader

Once Upon A Time- I love dark fairytales sometimes because they remind me that not every story has a happy ending and you have to learn from them. But this series is good for any theme really.

Walker Texas Ranger (1993)

Top Gun

Nicolas Galitzine

Magcon: Whether you saw their vines on YouTube or vine, you know who they are

Dolan Twins

Mission Impossible

Euphoria- Entire show has great storylines with the potential of drama in fics

Shameless- Especially Carl Gallagher and Lip Gallagher

Creed- Michael B Jordan need I say more

Keanu Reeves- There are very few fics about Keanu but I’ve seen a few of his John Wick x black!reader fics (chef’s kiss) but never see any of The Matrix Fics!Also Ted (Bill & Ted)

River Phoenix

Batman Beyond

Rider Strong

Danny Gonzalez

Timothée Chalamet

New York Undercover

Past-Present Singers & Rappers/ Groups -Bow Wow, Tupac, Lil Baby, Nelly, Omarion, Prince, Michael Jackson, Jon B,Usher, Central Cee, Måneskin, New Edition, BTS, James, PRETTYMUCH Bay(etc.)

Anime(Any kind!)- Would love to see other shows, I know hunterxhunter,aot,one piece (etc.)

Bridgerton- There is very little Bridgerton stories catered around a black reader.

Marvel- Now that’s not to say that there aren’t any in fact there are many but I never see (Tobey Maguire Spider-Man stories and it seems like everyone tends to focus on the famous Marvel characters like The Avengers but not on other aspects like X-men or better yet, heroes that haven’t even gotten their own movie but are just as amazing like Squadron Supreme , it’s equivalent to DCU’s Justice League.

Secret Invasion- Not gonna lie , I’m feening for Gravik.😳

DCEU- Another franchise that pushes its other characters to the side. For example, Hush (Thomas Elliot) is literally the epitome of Bruce Wayne gone bad!

Ross Lynch- There are so many roles that Ross did so well in Like Teen Beach Movie or Sabrina.

Highschool Musical Franchise (2006- present ) I’m not just talking about HSMTS (2019), I mean even further back than that. I don’t see any Troy Bolton x black!reader and that’s crazy. I also can’t find any Zac Efron x black!reader

Interview with a Vampire (1994) and (2022)

Austin Butler- He did well in his role as Elvis!

Vikings - There are a good amount but still!

Transformers

Suits

Saved By The Bell

The Goldbergs

Parks & Recreation

Leverage

The Outsiders

Heart of Stone

New York Undercover (1994)

Addams Family

Victorious

Matpat

ICarly

The Real Bros of Simi Valley (2017)

Think Like A Man (2012)

One on One (2001)

Scorpion (2014)

The King of Queens (1998)

G.I. Joe Franchise

Terminator

Beware the Batman (2013)

Any and all Asian Idols/Actors

Seal Team

Mortal Combat

Bill and Ted

Barbie

Detroit: Become Human

Will Trent

Tokyo Vice

Growing Pains

Graceful Family (Kdrama)[Any Asian Drama shows or movies would be great as well]

The Regime

Batman: The animated series

The Sympathizer

The Invitation

Jawbreaker

If anyone needs ideas for these franchises/movies/shows/actors , then holla at me! I got you!

Also add more to the list if anything that you would like to see comes to mind.

Also tag black writers who you want to see this!

@sheabuttahwrites @shinsouscatpisssmell @cocoamoonmalfoy @heathenarmyimagines @cinewhore @cocoamoonmalfoy @stxxllaaa @glitterjuju @lilvampirina @breanime @blackmissfrizzle @afro-hispwriter @stargirlfics @lavenderursa @clydesducktape @pettyprocrastination @theblvckvenus @plantvenuss @punani @n-slayaaaaa @infernalodie @halfofmysoulsblog @iridecsense @tomhardydallasstarsgirl @supremethunda @thekrazykeke @canumoveurseatup-no @hiatuswhore @avintagekiss24 @ohcaptains @iguessweallcrazyithinktho @xsapphirescrollsx @sunflowertuliplily @bakarilennox @batfamily14 @ramp-it-up @blackreaders-assemble @royallyprincesslilly @funnyexel @blackterrae @slashisms @artemisthewh0re @shelbydelrey @toocriticalharlow @v-era-18 @vampsired @queenimmadolla @sinnerlillith @greengoblinswifey @apocalypse-shuffle

[swearyshera]

So we are at the end of the road on something that has always been about the journey, not the destination.  I’ve taken my time to gather some thoughts.  This blog has meant a lot to many people, not the least of which is me.  I’ve had a hard time these last few years – I think it’s been hard times for everyone, in one way or another.  Personally, I seem to remember discovering this blog not too long before I had a breakdown and handled it very poorly, making bad decisions that cost me a lot of friends, or at least people whom I thought were my friends up until a breaking point.  (Your blog was unrelated to this).  When I came out of hospitalization I had a few things to rely upon – a video therapy group was one, certain family members and, well, as silly as it sounds, hitting up tumblr for my daily dose of Sweary She-Ra to make me laugh. And then in mid-January, 2023, one of the people who was closest to me in my entire life died suddenly of technically unknown cause but considering his health issues, probably a heart-issue. It was sudden and devastating.  We shared She-Ra and the Princesses of Power together because he was kind of curious about it and I was a nostalgia-fan of the ‘80s series.  We both became massive fans of Entrapta.  In fact, my nephew / best friend got me into the fandom in the first place because he had a silly idea for a fanfic about Entrapta wrecking havoc in the Fright Zone just post first-season and had little confidence in his fanfic writing, but decided to pass along said idea to me, an inveterate fic-writer for many fandoms.  I was put through the wringer this year – it’s the first time I’ve been in partial charge of a memorial service.  I am feeling better now than I did at the beginning of this year because I’ve found the strength to keep doing things that he and I liked to do together and time helps.  And again, in all of this, I had a silly little comic where a sparkly purple princess calls people “twattingler,” others make liberal use of the word that originally meant Fornication Under Consent of the King, one character swears all the time but apologizes for it, one character is contractually obligated to use Ned Flanders style cursing and there’s a fourth wall breaker and an incompetent boss with indecipherable accent and Marxist unicorns and all the rest.  No matter what was happening with my emotions I could just… take a little break and look at the funny fancomic.  Sweary She-Ra for me has been like a warm mug of tea on a cold day or a bowl of baked macaroni and cheese with a butter-cracker crust made out of the old 1960-70 something Betty Crocker cookbook.  It’s been Internet comfort food that has been sorely needed at times.  So thank you.  I just want to thank you for this funny little fan project.  I don’t think you have any idea how much it has meant to your audience.  @freedfromthegalactichivemind

And I don't know if the audience has any idea how much it has meant to me!

When I started this, things were pretty shit, weren't they? Here in the UK we'd just come out of the second Covid Lockdown, with the third expected to happen imminently; the weather was miserable, we'd barely seen our friends in months, the world in general just sucked. And I'd love to say that I felt a calling to break through that with some humour, but no... it was nothing like that. This is what happened...

And so it all went from there.

I almost just went for random scenes as I thought of them, rather than starting from the beginning. But I thought "Eh, fuck it, let's see how far I get", and the rest is history.

Even as the storylines got more complex (bear in mind, I started purely with the intention to do the original script with a few swear words peppered in), I always wanted to keep things upbeat. The painful moments are those 'this is the good stuff, hurt me more' moments rather than actually horrifying things - I know there's been a couple of exceptions, but in general it's held true.

But I've always been driven by one thing - the world isn't very funny right now; it's stressful, sometimes downright terrifying. And if I can alleviate that for ten, twenty seconds per day and make that tiny bit of difference to someone, then I consider that a job done. I'm not out here claiming to have the cure for depression, or some kind of plan to save the world, but I (hopefully) can make a few people smile in the midst of all the shit that's happening, even if it's just for a moment.

So much has changed in the last three years, but this blog has been such a central part of my world, it'll be weird when it's over (maybe that's why I don't want to stop there!). But if this coming Friday really is the last chapter in this part of my life, I'll still be happy that it happened. And if you've ever smiled or laughed at the blog, I'm happy that happened as well.

[hot-girls-favorite-is-daniel]

I love having to explain to people exactly how obsessed with SIX I was

like my friends will point out when it’s coming to my city and I’m like “yes honey I’ve known, I’ve known since 8 months ago and I have tickets don’t worry” and then when I mentioned six fanfiction and my friend was like “wait people write fanfiction about it?” “Yes and I’ve read so so many that I had to read wattpads fics FUCKING WATTPAD, if you read the six the musical fics on there you would know….I also know like every ship of the six and probably have read a diff of it” “PEOPLE SHIP THEM?!?!? Aren’t they like cousins?” “Yes but luckily the fandom is small enough no one ships the incest ✌️😜”

then he went on to tell me I was the person that drew Miku binder Tomas Jefferson 😭😭😭

and then when someone sends u a six meme and u have to pretend you’ve seen it for the first time (so that they keep talking abt ur intrest)

one time I was in a little six the musical thingy and the director was asking everyone abt a “little” background about the queens and one person from each group would answer, (I was in the Boylens, but like ofc bc I literally am Anne Boylen and the main character soooo) AND A KID FROM MY GROUP SHOT UP HER HAND AND THE TEACHER CALLED ON HER AND THE SHIT SHE SAID WAS “she uh grew up in France and then married the king and then flirted with 3 guys and then got beheaded” LIKE NO BITCH SHE DID NOT DONT RAISE UR HAND IF UR GUNNA LIE TO US DHFHJFJDIDISKSJSJWHUEUEUE SO THEN I RAISED MY HAND TO HELP HER PUT THERE 😭😭😭✌️😭

ALSO I TAUGHT MY GROUP SO MUCH SHIT ABT HER IN FACT EVERYONE AT THAT PLACE KNEW I WAS THE HISTORY ONE SO THEY WOULD COME UP TO ME AND BE LIKE “hey _____ do u know anything about Anna of Cleves” UMMM HELL YEAH !!!!!!! IT WAS SO FUN 🤭🤭🤭🤭

another time I was doing Karoke and me & my friend wanted to sing SIX and she’s like “so which song” and I’m like “I know the lines to like all of them so we can do any one”

one time my friends said “her forehead is so big it could be Library full of SIX facts” 💪

also I had(ve) no friends that were this intensely or at all obsessed with it so I would literally be fucking texting myself links to videos and stuff

Also like one time I got jumpscared bc out of the corner of my eye I saw Santa Claus and thought it was H*nry VIII

Also I have seen almost every single one of Art E’s (person who made six the kids) tumblr posts + may or may not have also gotten a virus (no fr I’m not sure) from tumblr when scrolling through six posts

whenever I couldn’t sleep or was home alone yes I would perform six and yes I would know most of the lines

the biggest album on my phone is six photos + I have separate albums for every queen and their kids

also I have seen pretty much every incorrect SIX quote and they are pretty much inside jokes with myself

when I would get really anxious I would imagine my life if I was an actor on tour playing Boylen and my friendship which each of the other random actors and also I would imagine my favorite six six (the last song) animatic

there were times where I could hardly do anything without thinking “OMG THIS IS SO JANE SEYMOUR LIKE I,AGINE IF THE QUEENS WERE HERE AND JEHFJDJWKWKWMMA” (to myself in my head I’m not annoying like that….well to anyone but G)

I wanted to make a Anne Boylen cosplay SOOOO BAD despite having no cosplay skills one time I tried to make one for a belle doll I bought at goodwill speicifically for that purpose and also one out of cardboard

I have an album with all of the bootlegs I could find that aren’t just a black screen and can send it to u

and yet although I’ve been obsessed for 2-3 years I have hardly made any art for it and just have like 50 million unfinished sketches and may or may not have unfinished fanfics and so so many mental ideas of animatics (idk how to animate) that I abandoned after a day and I own 4 pieces of merch that I didn’t make myself (7 if u include the stuff I made) ✌️😭 ✌️😖

when I was bored instead of watching a Netiflix show or listening to music like a normal person, oh no, I would rewatch H*nry VIII oversimplified I’ve seen it like 10 times honestly a banger

Also if you know these 3 songs you are SUCH a real one and I love you;

-divorced behead and died 🗣️🔥💯‼️ divorced beheaded survived 🗣️🔥💯‼️ IM H*NRY VIII IVE HAD 6 SORRY WIVES YOU COULD SAY I RUINEDTHEIR LIVES 🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️

-H*NRY H*NRY H*NRY HAD SO MANY WIVES THAT HAD TO DIE 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯‼️‼️‼️‼️ H*NRY H*NRY H*NRY HAD SO MANY ONLY ONE SURVIED ☝️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️

-ITS SO SUPER CRAZY THAT I GOT TO BE QUEEN 🗣️🔥🔥💯‼️‼️‼️ THE ODDS WERE AGAISNT IT IF U KNOW WHAT I MEAN OFC I WAS THE DAUGHTER TO A POWERFUL KING BUT I NEVER THOUGHT I’D END UP WEARING THIS THING 👑👑🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥💯💯💯‼️‼️‼️‼️

Also yes I censor H*nry and not fuck bc it’s funny and I like that it’s like a little with us six fans 💪 as well as Henrat

also I did a history project on Elizabeth I

also at another preppy little thing I did was think which of my friends are each of the queens bc I’m Boylen therefore we all have to be besties

And I could write something probably longer than this post abt my head canons of what I think their personality would be like au’s how I think their friendships are to each other what they would like and dislike, basically a really advanced sim and yes I have made them in the sims but sims 3 won’t let me have more than 8 so Edward had to go also Eddy is an iPad kid bc I deicided like come on Jane would so give him and iPad and be like “oh yes ofc I will pay 20 dollars so u can have new robux 😇”

also I have every single one of the queens and their kids deathdays on my calendar (Mae is not included) as well as their birthdays

also it has been 2 years and I still remeber the time and date I saw six for the first time (cried 6 times 3 when it started 3 when it ended) 💪💪💪

being a SIX fan is having no clue what to say when someone asks how many wars H*nry fought but knowing the amount of miscarriages Lina had

fun fact: Henry killed thousands more ppl than Mary ✌️😜

One time I got in like a 30 minute argument with my friends Snapchat ai about whether or not H*nry deserves decent human respect BITCH JUST BCZ IT WAS A “DIFFRENT TIME” DOESNT KAKE IT OKAY” 😤😤😤

ALSO I HAVE SOOOO MANY UNPOPULAR OPINIONS AND ALSO KATHRYN PARR IS SPELT WITH A K GUYS GET IT RIGHT BC ELIZABETH MADE HER A FRENCH VERSION OF ONE OF HER BOOKS AND PUT HER INITIALS ON IT WHIC WERE KP ‼️‼️‼️

Also fun fact Elizabeth signed everything Elizabeth R because R means Regina which means queen in Latin or something and Elisabeth could speak SOOO MANY diffrent Languages.

[a-small-writer-in-a-big-world]

I watched one of Moistcritikals videos that he uploaded today about how content creators don’t branch out often because of the fear that their audience won’t like what they make which then leads to burn out

And I think I somewhat connect with that statement

The numbers don’t mean much to me but it’s when I’m spending my time writing another one of my series, a one shot, or a Drabble, or an AU, something that I enjoy, and someone starts sending asks like “where’s the next update for the roommate series” “why aren’t you writing for the next part” and any of the other asks that have been sent to me that you may have seen if you were on my blog, it hurts.

It hurts me because while I enjoy writing the roommate series, it being one of my favorites I’ve written so far and being incredibly close to me, feeling like I can’t work on anything else that I like makes it feel like a chore.

Writing shouldn’t be that. Fanfiction shouldn’t feel like that.

I shouldn’t groan and resent the series because I feel like I’m being forced to write it. I want to finish it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to write other things too. I should be happy writing for it but recently, I haven’t been.

I should be having fun with my fanfics, writing that series and other series while also writing other fun stuff too without being hounded for the next update. I should be able to work on it on my own time, putting the effort I believe needs to be put in it, not matter how long that takes.1

And I think that’s where my burnout comes from the most.

I am grateful for everyone who enjoys what I write. The fact that anyone decides that my work is worth their time, that I’m worth their time, means worlds to me.

I want to work on multiple things without being constantly asked when the next update is for the roommate series. I don’t like when I get those. I like when people to me about the series, about what they like and what stuck with them, but I don’t want to be constantly reminded that I haven’t updated it a week or a month after it’s been posted.

I don’t want to feel like I have to constantly work on one thing when I have so many ideas

I don’t this turned into a rant and i don’t know if this makes any sense. I won’t stop writing the series but I just had to get my thoughts out about what’s been going on

[lchufflepuffcorn]

I’m sorry…

Are people really buying fanfiction of copyrighted works because the covers are aesthetic?

Let’s take a look on the definition of copyright, since so many people seems to not be fucking aware of it :

“A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives the creator of an original work, or another right holder, the exclusive and legally secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Some jurisdictions require "fixing" copyrighted works in a tangible form. It is often shared among multiple authors, each of whom holds a set of rights to use or license the work, and who are commonly referred to as rights holders. These rights normally include reproduction, control over derivative works, distribution, public performance, and moral rights such as attribution.

Copyrights can be granted by public law and are in that case considered "territorial rights". This means that copyrights granted by the law of a certain state do not extend beyond the territory of that specific jurisdiction. Copyrights of this type vary by country; many countries, and sometimes a large group of countries, have made agreements with other countries on procedures applicable when works "cross" national borders or national rights are inconsistent.

Typically, the public law duration of a copyright expires 50 to 100 years after the creator dies, depending on the jurisdiction. Some countries require certain copyright formalities to establishing copyright, others recognize copyright in any completed work, without a formal registration. When the copyright of a work expires, it enters the public domain.”

-Wikipedia (29/02/2024).

(Link here)

So, again. Do NOT sell fanfiction anyFUCKINGwhere. And yes. The swearing is important, it doesn’t even BEGIN to express the pure bafflement I had when I started to have videos on my TikTok about this exact thing.

What are people thinking ?? There aren’t enough videos about bookbinding 101 to your taste? You HAVE money for an ILLEGAL copy of an “ILLEGAL” piece of writing, mostly socially accepted because people don’t charge for it? So, I’m guessing you have money to buy the products you need to book-fucking-bind YOURSELF!!

What. The. Fuck.

People are becoming way too comfortable with fanfiction, this is crazy. Have we learned nothing since the Anne Rice vs. Fanfiction ? Or, and despite her flaws, the J.K. Rowling vs. Dimitri Yemets lawsuit?

And I know, I know, that laws change depending on the country, the state, provinces, etc, but still, people. Have some restraint.

“In addition, fanfiction may be legal in the UK following passage into law of an exception to copyright for the purpose of caricature, parody, or pastiche.”

-Wikipedia 29/02/2024

(Link here)

‘But the author of the fanfic and/or the creator of the art gave me permission…’ I don’t fucking care! Hell, I don’t want to hear it. They should NOT by the ones giving you the rights to SELL materials that are not copyrighted TO THEM.

Maybe you have lawsuit money, doesn’t mean that the actual authors of the fanfiction that you are selling do! And it’s not actually you who you’re getting in trouble by selling things. Hell. It’s one of the laziest scam I’ve ever seen. Yes. Some of the covers might be really beautiful, but ultimately, they are making profit out of something that are not theirs to make profit about.

“But I really want to have one and don’t have the talent…” then either learn or make really good friends with someone who is talented for it enough for them to GIFT you a bookbinded copy.

This is not only making the lives of those fanfiction writers whose work you stole difficult, plus having the chance (negative connotation) of maybe being sued for the selling they most probably didn’t do themselves. But you’re also ruining the experience of thousands of reader all around the globe as writers are pulling their work out of the sites because of that.

Seriously, learn to think about the big picture and stop only thinking of only yourself. Self-care should stops when you’re starting to hurt others while doing it.

I’m leaving here various post to educate yourself further on the matter, or just to feed your curiosity, plus videos of Tiktoker that graced my FYpage all this week.

[isnorted12pixisticks]

Hi pokies, as someone who’s been in the fandom for a hot sec I have some opinions

So buckle up or just scroll past because this is a long one it’s just me word vomiting into the void at this point

Burner account because some of y’all scare me 😘😘

‼️‼️THESE ARE JUST MY OPINIONS ‼️‼️

Ocean

————

1. Wtf is y’all’s hate boner with her?

2. I have no clue where y’all got the idea that ocean parents are like these horrible abusive people. Like neglectful? Definitely . But I don’t think that Mr and Mrs offers their kid to take a hit off their bong are going to be incredibly strict and physically abusive towards her.

3. Ocean just a shity person with a superiority complex and that’s ok. she doesn’t need horrible stuff happening to her to justify that

4.Ocean was a bad friend to Constance, she was constantly putting her down through back handed remarks and talking over her “ she has self esteem issues why wouldn’t she?” “ do we really need another organ donor?” And not to mention her say that she believed that Constance did nothing with her life.

Noel

————

1. For the love of god stop making him an uwu soft boy twink <- this is not directed at people who just draw/ Write him with more feminine traits I do the same. I’m talking about those who infantilize him as the helpless soft boy who just needs a big strong man (Mischa) in his life and suddenly everything will be ok

2. I hate The Noel is Talia through either a code name or straight up catfish theory

A. The catfishing theory is problematic at best. Yes let’s take the single openly gay character and have him prey on another man character for his own satisfaction. Idk if Mischa’s cool with it in your fanfic it’s still weird

B. To me at least, Talia as a code name for noel just takes away the whole meaning behind her character. Talia is Mischa’s last connection to Ukrain. We see throughout the musical he was constantly trying to text her meaning they spoke constantly. She was his one and only lifeline, something for him to focus on and push through his shity situation to get to

Mischa

————

1. I beg of y’all stop himboafying this man, I get he’s big and strong but he’s not dumb😭

A. Mischas smart guys!!!! I get alot of actors portray him struggling with English at times but y’all got to remember fluency ≠ intelligence gance. it’s like his 3rd language cut him some slack. he speaks Ukrainian, Russian, English, and even some Dutch ( not even the Dutch speak Dutch)

B. Just look at his saw6 monologue! Man had an in-depth video essay explaining on a horror movie just ready to go when ocean put him on the spot

C. Mischa can be incredibly eloquent with his words when he wants to be. Ex his Talia monologue/ when he tells Noel he knows what clichés are

2. Listen Im obsessed with Gus halper so I get it we love his mischa BUT DONT COMMENT ABOUT HIM ON NON GUS MISCHAS

Talia

———

1. Stop 👏 hating 👏 on 👏 Talia 👏

A. I’ve seen so many people make Talia just a straight bitch in fanfics to justify Mischa not being with her and that feels weird to me

2. The amount of people I’ve seen straight up hating on Talia for doing absolutely nothing but “stand in the way of nischa” is wild. Like I don’t get how you can look at her, a character who doesn’t even have a single line and be like ya no fuck you

Ricky

————

1. I revoke my previous statement , I’ve seen some people ( mostly rp accounts) be weird ableist to not only Ricky as a character but his actors and I don’t need to explain why that’s gross

Jane

————

1. Honestly I don’t have anything to say here I haven’t really seen anything granted it is pretty hard to mess up a character who’s whole point is shes a blank slate

Constance

————

1. I think a lot of the fandom is guilty of seeing constance as just the “ sweet nice wholesome mom friend of the group” when (to me at least) the whole point of Constance was that people thought she was this, was because the never bothered to get to know her past that .

2. In her monologue it’s heavily hinted at that Constance was suffering with depression leading up to the cyclone.

A. Ontop of this we can see throughout musical she was self deprecating “Lost her virginity in a crap box in a crappy town, why of course she did.” you should always laugh at guys jokes otherwise they’ll think your a cow” AND PEOPLE DONT TALK ABOUT THSI ENOUGH

3. Also I dont get the “mom of the group” thing. Like she was nice to everyone and ocean mentioned that she baked but that’s about it

4. I don’t thinks it’s acknowledged enough that Constance was SAd. I don’t care if she wanted to loose her virginity, shes under aged and by Constance’s own emissions the carny was in his 30s

The fandom

————

1. Listen I love some angst as much as the next person but there’s a difference between angst and just some straight up hurt p*rn (especially with ocean, again wtf is y’all hate boner for her) I’ve seen literal SA fics written about her wtf

2.This one goes out specifically to you rtc rp accounts😘😘😘 (both on and off this app) there’s a time and a place to rp guys

A. If you're talking to other rp accounts then pop off. But That being said I’ve seen a lot of rp accounts bleed over into non rp post/ videos, while this is normally fine I’ve seen quite a few accounts pushing their head cannons on other non rp accounts as if their facts or an authority on the matter. Again nothing wrong with rp accounts / sharing your head cannons, just time and place guys

3. Look I get it plenty of the actors/ actresses that have been in rtc are attractive but some of y’all need to remember the characters themselves ARE CHILDREN

4. On the topic of the actors/ actresses some of y’all need to learn what boundaries are 

5. I saw someone try to pull some pro ship bullshit with the characters once and it haunts me

Rtc

——-

Listen. I absolutely love ride the cyclone, I’ve been hyper fixatingon it for the past years now that being said I’ve seen more than enough productions to get my fair share of opinions on it

1. Real Ukrainian war footage in Talia

A. It feels in very poor taste at best and just strange up gross at worst to the situation at hand. I get it Mischa’s Ukrainian and that’s a very important part to his character but that doesn’t mean you need to throw real war footage to the end of the song.

B. Talia and mischa story as a whole is tragic enough as is. You don’t need to add in the fact that on top of Talia possibly not even being real we’re now throwing in the possibility that she died in the war? It just seems like over kill to me.

2: Ricky’s disability being written out of the script was really gross. Like I get it they wanted to avoid another yannick situation but this like the worst possible way to go about it

There probably more but I’ve been at this for like 2 hrs (I’m going to update this as things come to me so stay tuned)

[pearl484-blog]

Things you Can do with Senti-monsters

I am not a fan of the senti-monster theory because I feel as though it detracts from the realistic depictions of abuse done to Adrien from Gabriel. It’s rare to have such realistic depictions of abuse in media, especially done to one’s own biological child and not step-child, adopted child, or child who is under your care but not legally yours. 

That being said, it is very popular in fanfiction and might be the case in Miraculous Ladybug. Unfortunately, most of the stories I see are the traditional “angst over not being a real person” stuff I’ve seen a thousand times in Star Trek and other materials incolving artifical life forms or a new version of Hawk Moth/Gabriel uses an akuma to brainwash someone fic. That’s not to say that there aren’t dang good ones out there, Buggachat’s Drowning in Plain Sight or Wackus_Bonkus’s One Does Not Love Breathing are both amazing, but I’d like to introduce some variety. Here are some ideas you can use with senti-monsters in your fanfics. 

1. Adrien (or another senti-kid) was once alive and was recreated as a senti-monster using the creator’s memories after their death/dissapearance/etc. Here’s something interesting. How different are the people you know from the people you know them to be? Everyone has a warped view of everyone around them no matter how well they know them because they’re fundamentally different people. You never know exactly what is going on in someone’s head, and you’ll frequently forget or mess up small details about someone if you try to describe them with as many details as you can. 

I’ll be using Adrien in this example since he’s in the story more, and I feel as though I have a better grasp on his character than other senti-kid canidates. So imagine Adrien is a kid, and he tragically dies. Gabriel and Emilie can’t take the grief and make a replacement kid rebuilt to every single one of their memories of the kid. Using as many videos and photographs and momentos as they can. 

But, Adrien’s their kid. They’re most likely going to see their kid through rose colored glasses. Especially if they’re greiving. This kid is going to be different than the original, fit more to Emilie and Gabriel’s perception of Adrien, than the reality. After he’s replaced, he’s going to be different, act different, feel different. He won’t know the original Adrien’s secrets, and the people who knew the original Adrien might realize that he’s different, which could lead to them treating Senti!Adrien differently or they may not notice at all, which would really hurt the main Adrien if he isn’t dead.      

If Senti!Adrien realizes that he’s not the real one, he’s going to get curious about the original one. It doesn’t have to be in a “I’m not the real one” way. It could be in a “who was my father?” way or a way to find some way to find an identity different from the original. 

1a. If the original Adrien is alive, it’d be good to see how they diverged, the original Adrien from the senti-monster born of perception. How did Human!Adrien’s disappearance affect him? How does he treat his senti-monster? Does he accept him? Is he curious about the senti-monster? How does he feel about his senti-monster? Does he regret the life he didn’t live or feel a need to protect the younger more idealistic creation? Is he angry about the warped vision his parents had of him or does he empathize with their grief? Does he transfer his feelings about his parents’ actions onto Senti-Adrien?

1b. If the original Adrien is dead or otherwise does not appear in the story, how does Senti-Adrien realize that he’s just a collection of memories? Does he find a hidden secret of Adrien’s that he doesn’t know? Does someone he’s close to reveal it to him? Is it a slow reveal or a sudden revelation? Is he intially scared of the revelation and turn away or is he drawn in by the allure of figuring out the original Adrien? Does he grieve the original Adrien, a boy he never knew? If so, how does he honor his memory? ==========================================

2. Senti-monsters feel empty and unmotivated without their amok

This is more of an introspective angst piece, but you could make it so that senti-monsters basically have their “hearts” be their amoks. They may actively crave their hearts and feel different than other people without it. They have no strong emotional connection to anything and will follow the traditional “rules” they feel they should until instructed to by their amok. 

They may feel weak or no emotions, but may think this is normal and how most people are. They don’t get why people are so passionate and showy about their weird emotions, so they decide it must all be an act to communicate how much time and effort you are putting into/have put into a task and how much certain things inconvienance you. 

So, that leaves their amok, which lets them care. You could do the emotionally manipulative amok, where they love following orders from their amok -no matter how much it goes against their “normal” personality and may contridict their previous goals- because it’s something that they actually feel a legitimate passion and desire for, no matter how much they may “logically” recognize that their actions are stupid and against their own self-interest. Or you could do the physically controlling amok, where they are obedient and mostly apathetic, and only feel when they have their amok back.

With these types of senti-monsters, you can make it so that their relationship to their amok is complicated, because people’s relationships with their feelings are complicated. After all, it’d probably be scary to go from feeling almost nothing to suddenly feeling the most intense heartbreak you’ve ever felt over minor inconvienaces, and in that state even joy, pure simple joy can be terrifying. 

They might even reject their amoks, which might confuse the humans they interact with, because why wouldn’t you want to feel? Why wouldn’t you want your heart? Why wouldn’t you want to control your own actions? 

Even more complicated, they might draw the ire of other senti-monsters who want their amoks and are possibly keeping their own. These senti-monsters may not sympathize with the senti-monsters rejecting their amoks, because the rejections set a bad precedent. What if a human sees that and thinks that they shouldn’t give a senti-monster back their amok? They may see the rejection as a sign of weakness, immorality, or as a disgusting act. 

It’s a complicated mess, and therefore one that’d be interesting to explore. 

=========================================

3. Adrien’s upset when he finds out he’s a senti-monster for unexpected reasons

Typically, the story goes that Adrien is angsts about whether or not he’s a real person when he finds out that he’s a senti-monster. But honestly? Considering his reaction to Sentibug, I don’t think that’s what he’d be upset about. So here are some alternatives:

3a. Adrien is upset because he may have been repeatedly unknowingly violated for years This is the most obvious option, but a good one. If you found out there was a handy dandy device that your parent had that made you obey your every order, you’d be rightly suspicious that they may have used it. Especially if that person is the control freak Gabriel Agreste. But you can go deeper than just having Adrien question which decisions of his his decisions were his father’s. 

3b. Have Adrien question whether or not he has ongoing commands, and try to decide whether or not he wants them rescinded, and how he would do that. You could just have a straight “don’t obey your father anymore”, command, but even that can have consequences as anyone rebelling can tell you. because sometimes, your abuser has a point. So, you can get creative and explore that possible consequences of it, and possible self-destruction as a result. 

3c. How much of Adrien’s personality is actually his or just the result of an order? It’s sort of like the conundrum of the brainwashed for the greater good or those brainwashed into loving their brainwashing. How much can they change without being someone entirely different? How much do they want to change? 

=========================================

4. Have Marinette give Adrien a command for his own good

This is a prompt that should be done with caution as it could easily devolve into a salt fic, but you could easily create an entire fic where Marinette tries to help Adrien by essentially speedrunning him to whatever point she thinks he needs to go “for his own good” of course. She is a well-intentioned control freak who would naturally want to heklp her friend stop hurting, even when he needs to process what’s going on. 

Examples of this could be her making him forget a traumatic incident, or making him get over his angst over the trashfire that is his life, like by telling him to forget Gabriel is Hawk Moth if it isn’t publically exposed, or trying to comfort him about a death by telling him to “forget about the bad things they did and remember the good”, or telling him not to worry about Chat Noir and Ladybug after his father’s defeat. Then explore the consequences of that, as Adrien follows that command to his own detriment and Marinette’s peers discover what she has done.  

=========================================

5. Senti-monsters are magical creatures

Alright, so let’s say that someone is a senti-monster. This is usually played as human but with an off switch, but why not switch it up a bit? Why not play it up as a magical monster shaped like a human? What does this mean in practice? Why the senti-monster would have different traits than a human, of course!

For example, let’s say that senti-monsters are more physically durable than their human counterparts and immune to mind-control spells (because only the amok can control them), but you’d need a counterbalance. For example, you could make it so senti-monsters get increasingly anxious when more and more people get brainwashed/have their emotions manipulated, making brainwashing/mob akumas even more dangerous than usual because you’ve got to keep the body count low. Or you could have them react more strongly to magic in the air, getting more unreliable the more magic there is around them, making longer fights more hazardous.  My favorite counter-balance with magic is madness, or perhaps you could call it fairy-tale logic. They concieve of the world in an entirely different way than most of the world and don’t seem to understand that what they are afraid of and what a human is afraid of are two very different things. 

IE. If Chat Noir is a “dark type” senti-monster, he might be extra observant of rituals about the dead, refusing to walk over graves (which considering the catacombs may be a problem), getting easily distracted by funerals, or pick fights with people who want to bring back the dead, but might make mistakes about human physiology that get him into trouble, like underestimating damage and recovery time or overestimating the average human’s capabilities. 

Just remember that as a general rule, for every strength, it’s a good idea to counterbalance it with a flaw, other wise you run the risk of unbalancing the character towards with too perfect (ie, no flaws to latch onto and relate to) or too flawed (nothing likable). If you go this route, it’s a good idea to decide the traits beforehand and write them down where it’s easy to quickly reference for consistency. It’s also good to look up traits of magical creatures to use as a template and/or make a list of beliefs (and why they exist) in a madness balanced monster. ===========================================

6. Senti-monsters are magical robots with a sliding scale of sentience/sapience

This may sound a bit counter-intuitive, given my opening rant, but please understand, I was trained in both psychology and computer science (it was a requirement for my psych degree, go figure). I also have a personal bias as this is what I’m doing with my senti-monsters in my fanfic Replay. 

So, as a brief starter, sentience is the ability to be self-aware, understand your surroundings and situation, and have an opinion about it. If I go into Skyrim though, and talk to an NPC, they will soon prove to me that they are not sentient. They are designed to only do a specific task at a specific prompt. So if I go and push them into a wall, and then try to sell them something, despite the fact that their entire torsos are stuck inside that wall, they will not notice and buy all my junk. They also will not notice any abnormalities in their shop and investigate unless programmed to, no matter how odd it is, so I can happily place a bucket in front of them, fill it with dragon scales and dragon bones, and throw it at their apprentice, and they will neither react or investigate, 

A squirrel though would most certainly notice being squished into a wall and let me know their opinion swiftly, and it would react immediately to me putting a bucket in front of them and scamper away before I could even begin to do anything else. It is sentient, even though I doubt a squirrel is comptemplating the meaning of life as it scampers up a tree, minding it’s own squirrely business.

Sapience is an even higher standard. It is the abilitiy to think and have wisdom. Unfortunately for our squirrel friend, squirrels have not yet demonstrated the ability to gain wisdom, and only humans fit into this category in the real world. We can solve puzzles, think abstractly, and communicate ideas that other creatures can’t like: “Tomorrow, I wanna go out to eat” or “When I was younger, I liked that, but I’ve outfrown it now.” (The ability to talk about times other than now is something that is either very rare or unheard of in any animals besides humans).   

So how would this relate to senti-monsters? Well, robots are a pretty good analogy to the sliding scale of sentience. We have everything from your standard automated machine that does literally one job over and over again like in an automated factory which has no sentience to a character like Data, from Star Trek: the Next Generation, who despite his struggles was an incredibly relatable humanoid and we even have robots that are almost indistishable from humans unless they are damaged in some way. 

Let’s have senti-monsters have the same range, with their sentience level ranging from “does a task on command or when certain predetermined conditions” to “can pass as completely human” similar to robots. Although unlike robots, there’d be a few differences. As a creature made of emotions, it would likely have an easier time determining the spirit of the instructions given to it instead of the typical stupidity a normal robot would, but it’d likely be tricky to get the exact amount of precision of a robot could, and may have unintended side effects from an unfocused mind or be influenced by the hidden desires of the wielder/creator. 

So in that way, you can explore the similiarities and differences between senti-monsters and robots and then use that to explore when a senti-monster is sentient/sapient enough to deserve the rights of an animal/person.  ============================================

[lampmanliveblogs]

Ah, I see The Collector used his space magic to summon a book filled with the completed version of all the fanfics I’ve never finished. I know I always say it’ll be a miracle if I ever get all my ideas written down, but I didn’t think it’d take an actual miracle.

You guys might think I’m exaggerating, and I am for comedic effect, but not by much. Just today, I started jotting down yet more notes on my phone while eating lunch at work. What if Masha discovered that they had psychic powers? I have so many unfinished first chapters, short snippets of dialogue, and premises for stories written down on my computer, phone, in various notebooks, pieces of cardboard, and reciept paper lying around. It’s honestly a bit ridiculous.

Oh wait, the pages are stone slabs? Or maybe they’re supposed to be clay tablets? That’s kinda cool actually, brings to mind the earliest stories written down by man in our own world. You know, like the Epic of Gilgamesh.

…hold on, I gotta go get myself a drink to dramatically spit out in shock and disbelief, give me a sec.

…

”Right, now where was I?” I say as I sit back down with a refreshing beverage. I rewind the video by a few seconds and hits play as I take a sip of my drink.

”Collectors live long, we watch things pass.”

”Pfft!” I spit out my drink in shock and disbelief, spraying my computer screen with liquid. ”What!?” I exclaim between coughs. ”Other Collectors?

I mean yeah, sure, The Collector is a child of the stars and whatnot, I kinda figured there’d maybe be some subtle hint at a larger pantheon out there, but, uh… I guess we get it confirmed right here, right now. I was even thinking of including a joke about The Collector’s parents being Mother Nature and Father Time, I just couldn’t figure out how to work it in.

Alright, calm down Lampman, think…

Based on this short summary, it appears that the collectors are if not gods, then at the very least god-like beings. They travel the cosmos and collect specimen of various lifeforms to preserve them in their collections. That in and of itself doesn’t sound all that horrible… but, ah… that second paragraph is a bit concerning.

Should the mortal beings they collect begin to meddle in the affairs of the Collectors (like, oh, I dunno, maybe NOT wanting to be turned into a collectible), they’ll scorch the planet and wipe them all out. Which… yeah that sounds about right for gods of mythology.

Our little Lord of the Fireflies doesn't like that mentality though, they’d rather play games and have fun and make friends (though evidently, The Collector still don’t care too much about what the mortals want).

Right of the bat, this does make me wonder something: is it possible that The Collector we saw in the Owlbeast’s flashback in Knock, Knock, Knockin’ on Hooty’s Door wasn’t THE Collector, but another collector? Cause that’d explain why that one didn’t look a whole lot like this Prince of Plastic

It also makes we wonder if maybe The Collector ISN’T the Grand Huntsman worshipped by the Titan Trappers, but rather, another collector (or several of them). Indeed, we see at the bottom of the page, three collectors looming over several worshipping humans. Because’s I’ve been wondering about that; aside from calling King’s dad a bully for putting him in divine time-out, The Collector really didn’t seem to have much against Titans from what we’ve seen thus far. Heck, he was super excited to meet King. So could it be that The Collector was not the one responsible for wiping out the Titans, but rather some other collector?

What I’m thinking right now is that The Collector is the divine equivalent of a kid that ran away from home. And their family either doesn’t care, doesn’t know, or enough time has not passed for them to notice.

(hm… a kid that ran away from home because they didn’t fit in with their peers… where have I heard a similar story before…?)

(the book mentions that the collectors would scorch the air… the demon realm planet is covered in a boiling sea… perhaps scorching the air is a more poetic way of saying ”set off a bunch of volcanoes”? In real life, the worst mass extinction event known was caused not by the meteorite that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs, but a massive flood basalt taking place about 251.9 million years ago, colloquially referred to as ”The Great Dying.” Volcanoes are good at killing stuff, is my point. and undersea volcanoes spewing out lava would explain why the sea is always boiling)

I mean, look at this face. Does this look like the face of someone who could wipe out a race of giants? Look at him! He couldn’t hurt a fly.

Except Belos, but he doesn’t count.

And I guess they did turn an island’s worth of people into puppets and force them to play along in their games, hmmm…

[namor-shuri]

Alright *rubs temples*

One of the biggest things that I LOVE about fandom is the way that it can bring so many people together through one interest/outlet. People share their artworks, their edits/videos, their stories, their knowledge and inventive takes, etc all enriching this one collective that begins to form because of an idea.

One of the biggest things that FRUSTRATES me about fandom is the blatant disregard for those same people and what they create. Countless times I have seen people reshare an artist’s piece without crediting them or their page, editing down someone’s edit on YouTube and posting clips of it without linking that original video/editor in any way, screenshotting a part of someone’s fanfic and posting it because “this one paragraph is so hot” without stating the title or who wrote it in the first place. The list goes on! And unfortunately we see this countless times where people aren’t giving others their flowers and paying dues where credit is owed, which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Why would you bite the hand that feeds you? It’s counterintuitive and honestly lazy, especially knowing it costs $0.00 and takes 2 seconds out of your day to bring credit/traffic back to that original creator/person.

I really appreciate the people that take the time to call out this behavior, make examples out of others to prove a point, and combat this through their own engagement on the internet. I know that can be scary and uncomfortable sometimes, but you are speaking facts and it’s something that needs to be done and clearly shouted on top of a mountain because people still don’t get it?? And unfortunately with the rise of social media and our growing desire for constant output and winning dumb prizes of “creating a hit post”, we step on others in the process to achieve this.

I run this Namor x Shuri blog [and have run other fandom blogs in the past over the years] where I edit and make visuals for shits and giggles, but as an actual artist in real life who makes a living off of my other artwork/profession, this can be VERY discouraging. It makes you not want to participate or contribute to fandom because you witness this incessant behavior and start to form trust issues of whether or not people will be respectful of you, your efforts/time, and your work. Let’s be real, at the end of the day the internet will always internet. People will do and say whatever they want to do, regardless of how it effects you individually. We all understand inherently that there is a risk that naturally comes with putting yourself and your stuff out there online BUT that still doesn’t excuse this type of negligence. There is still a responsibility we all have to 1. making a conscious effort to better our experience with fandoms at large and 2. protecting creatives while we promote, indulge in and support their contributions to the world [fandom or not]. Because if not, what are we doing this all for?

To the people that perpetuate this type of engagement online, STOP. You are discouraging others from wanting to share their ideas/concepts. You are pushing the same people away who actually foster our experiences and excitement with the stories we consume and grow to love. I can’t tell you how surreal it is to go online and see something you created posted on someone else’s page with no credit to who you are or what you made. I’ve seen people make edits of mine as their Twitter banners without even having the decency to ask me, take other people’s artwork and post that as their “fanfic artwork” without asking, all to promote their own story, take clips from compilation videos and post them to TikTok as if to say they edited that video themselves. It’s very frustrating and truly disheartening. As creatives, we appreciate your enthusiasm, but it’s damaging in the way that you are expressing it and you need to do better.

To the people who are enriching our fandoms with their works/ ideas, PLEASE CONTINUE. We appreciate the time that you take out of your day to do what you do. Let’s be real, without you, there wouldn’t be a fandom to engage with in the first place. The biggest piece of advice I can say to you is to always make an effort to protect yourself and your brand [if you care to do so]. Watermark the artwork /videos that you want to be credited for, post a line somewhere on your page/blog/site roughly stating “don’t share/repost my work without my permission” or “credit me if you share my work”, etc. This goes for any type of creative, whether you partake in any fandom or not. There will always be someone doing the wrong thing, so it takes a group to counteract them and do what’s right. With any positive effort, allyship is always needed. IT TAKES A VILLAGE! If you see someone posting someone else’s work and their name/site/blog is nowhere to be found, say something. It doesn’t always take a huge rant, sometimes a subtle response can be just as effective. Under a post you could say “I know right, I love that piece! [artist’s name/link ] did a great job” or “that video is hilarious! The full clip is here [artist’s YouTube/page]” I’ve even seen someone on Twitter recently do something where they post a screenshot of an artist’s piece, cover it up with emojis, post a link to the work and say in their post “this is amazing, you should check it out here”. I think that’s honestly brilliant! They are doing two things at once: sharing the artist’s work/name while also bringing traffic back to that original person. You don’t have to do it that exact same way of course, but it proves the point that there are many ways to engage positively.

Fandom is supposed to be an oasis, where people can seek and find community in their distinctive interests. It should be a place for people to be and express themselves freely and positively. The level of how rewarding a fandom can be is all dependent on YOU. When you do anything, you are always influencing and inspiring someone else, for better or worse. When your sharing someone else’s artwork, are you making a conscious effort to say who made it? Are you asking the artist for permission in the first place? When you are posting a clip you saw from an entire compilation video on YouTube, are you taking the time to say who made it or link the original video [or for that matter, not editing someone else’s fan edit in general]? When you are sharing someone’s story they wrote, are you making an effort to say who wrote it or linking their A03/wattpad? Trust me, it’s the little choices that make the world of a difference.

And finally, to the people who get it who have been doing this and are out here fighting the good fight, we see you. May your pillow always be cold, your acne forever cleared, your day always bright, the head you receive always 10/10, your gas tank always full, and you get a random onion ring every time you order fries. Your efforts do not go unnoticed and are very much appreciated. To the people who still don’t get it or choose not to and continue to make fandoms uncomfortable for the people WHO LITERALLY ENRICH IT IN THE FIRST PLACE, I dedicate this part of this song to you, beloved. Have the day you deserve!🖕🏾

[ao3wasntenough]

Hehe Friendship is magical! Right back at ya Sam anon! 🫶

Chatter again happy to share some hcs on Ultra Magnus or Mags as Rodinus calls him. He a large mecha and I feel at times he can be intimidating to others even if it’s not his intention. He has seen so much and as Optimus second in command/ leader of the wreckers. The fact he briefly in some transformer series was leading the war on cybertron while the autobot on earth.

Shows a great deal of respect. I enjoyed how in transformer prime series, when we first introduce him, he comes across as in charge and doesn’t want slacking or familiarity. This could be because he lost so many soldiers. He not one to get close to others, this is him coping as for so long it’s been war.

I love the hc that he from the same batch as Optimus hence their similar frames and that they are batch brothers or bonded brothers. He not afraid to raise his opinion or concern.

He more that stoic silent guardian type, but he observes eveything. He the sort who does paperwork to get his mind off things and a way to show he cares. It would be little things like perhaps taking some reports off a bot or taking them off duty. He also very very patient.

For his interactions with bot!Sam I believe he would take a similar role like Prowl did to Sam with providing him tasks/jobs to get him better intergrated into the autobots and for a way to Sam to better get use to his new body (he won’t take dad prowl rights tho). Ultra Magnus possibly hadn’t met Sam as a human so with that prospect he easily over looks.

But he cares for the next generation of his species so Sam unintentionally is a mascot to show there is a chance for Cybertronian to not go extinct and have a future. Mags would also try to take on a teaching role, he feels the need to if he sees other bots like Optimus doing it.

Most of my view of Mags comes from Lost light and Mtmte comics, they can be found for free online and I fully recommend them! Tho warning they are absolutely spark wrenching and wholesome.

That version of him happens to be very intriguing which I won’t spoil in case you read the comics but let’s just say he could understand Sam on the smaller level.

Contrary to belief Ultra Magnus does indeed have emotions, he just doesn’t show them in a usual way. He basically the strict military leader who prefers to address in formal terms then personal ones.

I believe I mentioned Turning point as a good fanfic but I forgot to mention that it is decepticon Prowl redemption centric. But still a great read.

I love so far how you’ve done his character. So just some little thoughts.

I do recommend a YouTube video about Ultra Magnus it’s the Tfp version but it’s cool if you’re interested. It’s called ‘TFP Ultra Magnus Has Emotions. The channel called Emperor Kumquat. He seems to do deep dives into different characters to give perspectives on their personalities.

The idea He lets prowl or Sam’s many parental candidates because that means he basically gets to be the fun uncle now is amusing to me. Like he doesn’t want one of his own but his brothers kid? That’s his kid too, sometimes you know? Gets to return him to whoever so he can go back to his own mess

I know he and Rodimus are often portrayed in the same materials which feels kinda funny that I’ve come full circle from my first cybertronian Sam ideas being him reborn on cybertron during Rodimus era. Strange ways you always happen to find yourself back where you started in some way.

So I’m just imagining he often invites himself along if HotRod or any of his common team are a hanging with Sam so they don’t play a game “how high can we get Sam”

[evansbby]

Hello, hope am not bothering you.

I've seen a video on tik tok that contained some.. questionable writing tropes. I've decided to ask what you think of them because one of them reminded me of your fics hehe.

1. Really nice guy who hates only you

2. Too many beds..???

3. Dating your enemy's sibling.

4. ..accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss..

Personally? I don't think that's exactly possible, like if you are a mafia boss you have to be smart you wouldn't just let idk, someone snatch you, but let's say the mafia boss would be idk drunk or anything, maybe even drugged? (Ew), then I think the kidnapping would be possible.

Once the person who did it finds out they kidnapped a mafia boss..? Oh well..

5. Academic rivals expect it's two teachers who compete to have the best class

Honestly my favourites gotta be 1, 4 and 5. What about yours? Have a nice day/night 🎀

You’re never bothering me, especially not with fun questions like this! Okay lemme go through this list one by one and give you my thoughts.

1. Really nice guy who hates only you. I like this one and I’d totally write it! Mainly bc it’s so obvious that the guy likes the reader and he’s trying to deny his feelings by hating on her😂 I love writing emotionally stunted males bc honestly the male species is so weird and interesting to write about. I could totally imagine writing this trope from the guy’s point of view, and he’s getting angry at himself bc he’s supposed to hate reader but he keeps daydreaming about her, or he freaks out when she accidentally brushes against him and can’t stop thinking about it… But then outwardly he’s like “hmph. fuck you” lmaooo. this is kinda like the poyt prequel which I wrote in Steve’s pov haha.

2. Too many beds. Idk about this one. I feel like I’m not creative enough to write a story based on this trope and actually make it interesting and sexy. All I can imagine is reader and Steve just hopping around on multiple beds playing “the floor is lava” 😭😭 which is like… not sexy. OH NO WAIT, as I was typing that, I got an idea. What if you and a few other friends are on a road trip, and you stay at one of their houses for the night. There’s more than enough beds, but not much heating. You get cold very easily, and Ari (oldest and sexiest in the friend group ofc) notices you shivering and offers to get in bed with you to keep you warm. “Cmon honey, I’m warm like a furnace and I don’t bite. It’s not a big deal, we’re just friends, right?” 😭😭😭

3. Dating your enemy’s sibling. I’m already writing one like this 😭😭 it’s rough, rugged and mean boxer!Ari who humiliates and beats down his arch nemesis opponent in the ring before setting his eyes on you, his opponent’s little sister, looking all cute and worried and completely out of place in the front row wearing a cute little sundress. Ari knows he’d eat an innocent little girl like you alive, and he also knows he’d have to chase you to get you, bc you’re his enemy’s sister and you hate him for beating up your brother so badly. But Ari loves a challenge 🥵🥵 (I’ve written like a few pages of this hehe I’ve been working on it for a while)

4. Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss. Okay so I would NEVER write this 😭 only bc what kind of pathetic, beta male, lame, loser mafia boss allows himself to get kidnapped? That’s if Andy Barber was a mafia boss! As yall know, I need my fanfic men to be as manly and as badass as possible, which means I would never write a mafia boss getting kidnapped 😭 it would make him look weak and then I wouldn’t find it sexy anymore 😢 Although you suggested the mafia boss could be drunk… that could have potential but honestly… to me it’s an ick when a man is so drunk he can’t keep his wits about him bc BRO?!? You’re literally meant to be in control 😭 how can you control me if you can’t control yourself???? Anyways… I wouldn’t write this one sadly. I’m not creative enough to make it work I think.

5. Academic rivals except it’s two teachers. This could be cute to read maybe but I wouldn’t write it bc teacher stories give me such an ick idk why. Like anything with a teacher in it, and I’m immediately bored but that’s just me! Although tbh the rival classes and trying to one up each other sounds cute, and the whole time their students would ship the two teachers together lol.

[scuderiahoney]

https://www.tumblr.com/scuderiahoney/748213781119877120/as-a-long-time-fan-of-shane-ryan-since-the

I find this discussion kinda hypocritical coming from anyone in the fanfic community. A community that in the last several years has continuously put more and more content behind paywalls like Patreon for a similar amount, of commissions. When the entire point of fanfic has always been about a free and inclusive community. And when those of us that even have the nerve to say hey, why are we paying for fics this doesn’t seem right. Were told to shut up and support artists or don’t bother commenting. At least what Shane/Ryan are doing is an original idea, and has a business to support. That’s their main source of income. I’d be more likely to pay for their content than fanfic. So if you view what Ryan and Shane are doing as a money grab, you have to extend that same energy to authors who are making money off of fanfic

hmmmmmm okay! i can sort of see where you’re coming from with this. here’s where i disagree.

first: they ARE making money already. they make money off of YouTube ads and sponsor deals and any of the other ways YouTubers have been making money for years. fanfic can’t be monetized in that way- we don’t get money from ads on tumblr, and god knows there’s no ads on ao3. you could maybe say the money they make on youtube isn’t enough, or that they’re trying to grow the company, except that they stated in their own video that they’ve hired 25 people as the company grew. and from their personal instagrams and the things they talk about doing, money doesn’t seem to be a struggle for them. who knows, maybe it is- i’m unaware of their personal lives. but THAT’S where i’m coming from when i call it a money grab.

second: when we talk about fanfic writers putting things behind paywalls, at least from what I’ve seen, it’s almost never all of their content! it’s, as you said, things like commissions, which are reserved for when someone has a specific request for a specific story. as a writer, requests are HARD! others might reserve specific content for things like a patreon. which is something i’m pretty sure watcher was already doing?? & i support that method whole heartedly. i think it’s a great model. i’ll admit that a lot of my feelings on it earlier were based on the statement that they would be pulling all of their old content from YouTube, which they have since retracted (but it WAS in the original variety article). that part felt like a huge money grab to me. content that we have watched for years and supported (& in the case of shows like too many spirits, been a part of) was set to be put behind a paywall when it wasn’t originally. it rubbed me the wrong way.

third: this is just my opinion on the situation! you’re entitled to yours too! but i’m sort of unsure why you’re bringing it to me specifically- I’ve never had a patreon/ko-fi or anything like that. i fully support authors who do! fanfic can take some serious work & some people out here create wonderful masterpieces & i cannot blame them for asking to be compensated for it. the recent conversation i’ve seen around patreon etc for fic has come out of having works repeatedly stolen and reposted, which is NEVER okay. also! there’s a cost of living crisis. things are tough for a lot of people right now. we are making ends meet however we can. the guys at watcher, frankly, don’t seem to have that issue.

i’m finding myself really frustrated by the sentence “at least what Shane/ryan are doing is an original idea”- maybe i’m reading too much into the tone here, it’s hard to tell over the internet. but that feels a little rude to fic writers, honestly. there is plenty of fanfic out there that consists of original ideas, and this feels like a bit of a slap in the face to include here.

idk. i’m frustrated by this ask bc i try very hard to create a inclusive place here on tumblr, and i see a TON of my fellow creators on here doing the same. i can understand that we have different opinions on this, but i hope you can understand where i’m coming from too when i say parts of this ask felt unnecessarily mean spirited towards fic writers. i really have loved the content watcher has put out- and i feel i’m a bit of an outlier, here, when i say this goes for all three of the guys: Ryan, Shane, and Steven. but right now i’m feeling not thrilled about the whole thing.

[aceredshirt13]

1917: A Movie Review

(I created a Letterboxd account specifically to review WWI movies so you can find the review there if you want, but I had no idea reviews got buried so fast so I figured I'd put it here for safekeeping, too.)

Hot tip: if you, while making a movie about the futility of war, ever had to stop and think to yourself, “Okay, but are Germans, like, actually people, though?” then I can only both recommend you kindly consider not making a war movie, and pray for your speedy recovery in the hospital after I have beaned you with a chair.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The rest, which contains spoilers, is under the cut.

I should preface this by saying that I am not an expert on cinematography by any means, and I also watched this movie on an airplane, which means that I wouldn’t have good opinions on the cinematography even if I were an expert on it. I also had not seen any other World War I movies before this one - the only experience I’d had with WWI prior was in the form of books, half the fourth season of Blackadder, an episode of The Twilight Zone, and the occasional spectacularly dark Jeeves and Wooster fanfic. But I had grown interested in learning about the horrors of the war, and had heard much about 1917 and its portrayals of them - so after finishing Barbie on the same international flight, I decided to do a Great War spin on the Barbenheimer formula and give 1917 a whirl.

In terms of horrors, the movie certainly delivers. I will probably never forget Schofield accidentally plunging his hand in the chest cavity of a rotting corpse, or having to crawl to a riverbank over a row of bloated cadavers. Being forced to relive the memory of these scenes actually made me sick to my stomach just now. It is not as much of a visceral waking nightmare as the 2022 version of All Quiet on the Western Front, but it is, without question, awful to see. Gory imagery, however, does not a good war movie make - for that is the burden that the writing must bear.

It’s a pretty simple story. Two very young British privates are given an insanely dangerous mission to travel over enemy lines and deliver a message to call off an attack that will end in disaster, and because one of them has a brother in danger of dying if they don’t succeed, travel they do. Blake (the one with the brother) is chatty, good-humored, and naive about the realities of war, while Schofield (not the one with the brother) is reserved and cynical, traumatized to the point of amnesia from his service at the Somme. Their friendship is endearing, and is unquestionably the best part of the movie. We then follow them through many quiet, almost video game-like journey sequences across No Man’s Land, occasionally interspersed with conversation, mishaps, and near-death situations they help each other out of. Then, not even halfway into the movie, tragedy strikes, and Schofield must make the rest of the journey alone - through more quiet, video game-like journey sequences that sometimes suffer from pacing problems due to the lack of either interpersonal interaction or enough things going on save for walking to keep the viewer engaged. (I actually began to find myself wishing the latter part of the movie was a video game, so I could at least take the exploration into my own hands.) At the end of it all, he reaches his target a bit tardily, but is ultimately able to convince the captain that the push should come to an end, and Blake’s brother is, for now, spared an untimely death. The film ends with our surviving hero leaning back against a tree, gazing at a letter his mother gave him that reads “Come back to me.” before the screen cuts to black.

Now, I’ve been watching WWI films with a friend of mine who is more well-versed in war media than myself, and they let me know after watching this movie on their own that the “pushing past people in the trenches so that you can give a message to call off an attack” segment is the plot of the final scene of Gallipoli. I do not plan to watch Gallipoli, mainly due to the immense degree of historical inaccuracies fabricated to paint British colonial attitudes in a horrible light (which is something that could have very easily been done without erasing the massive losses of an entire section of the British Army that was supporting the Australians), so if you do, you might want to skip ahead to the next paragraph. But if you don’t, well, my friend also let me know that unlike in 1917, where Schofield is too late to completely stop the attack but not too late to spare the elder Blake’s life, in Gallipoli the attempt fails, and the main character’s friend is killed. So not only does 1917 come off as a touch derivative, but it is actually softer than the predecessor it derives from. The captain’s speech about the futility of Schofield’s efforts in the face of future attack orders rings true, but in the end Schofield fulfilled his promise to his dead friend, completed his mission, and lived to tell the tale. Perhaps it was so audiences wouldn’t be disappointed or dissatisfied, and feel the efforts weren’t all for nothing (the Dawn Patrol movies, though more successful at their message than 1917, are a bit guilty of this), but isn’t the entire point of anti-war cinema that it is always, always all for nothing? Shouldn’t you feel miserable, and angry, and dissatisfied?

Well, I did actually feel miserable, and angry, and dissatisfied at the end of this movie, but not for the right reasons. I would be willing to forgive pacing issues and a slightly-too-bright ending, because there was a lot in the movie to like, particularly in regard to the frightening imagery and the relationship between Schofield and Blake. The most compelling scenes in the movie, in fact, surround the aforementioned tragedy that results in two becoming one - but ay, there’s the rub. 

Because remember how I said that their friendship was the best part of the movie? Yeah, well, the way that friendship ends is the worst.

So Blake and Schofield are walking along, and they find a barn. They happen to find some milk, and are enthusiastically drinking it while a dogfight takes place overhead - and suddenly a German plane comes careening into the barn in flames. The pilot survives, but is on fire and in terrible pain, so the pair pull him free and pat the fire out. Schofield suggests they put the man out of his misery, but Blake protests because the pilot is begging for water, and asks Schofield to get some for him from the pump. And as he does, the injured German pilot - a man who has just been saved from an extremely painful death by two of his enemies who could have killed him on sight or abandoned him to burn - stabs Blake in the stomach.

I could go on about how shocked and devastated I was at Blake’s subsequent slow and painful death from blood loss, and how Schofield is at his side taking care of him until the very end. About how Blake asks him to take the picture of his family out of his pocket, and show it to him, so he can look at them as he dies - about how after he’s dead, Schofield tries to take his body to a field of blossoming trees, because Blake had spoken earlier about how much he loved them, and how his mother taught him how to identify the flowers, but is picked up by another detachment and forced to abandon his friend’s body where it is. That last bit was, to me, the most affecting and sad part of the movie. But beneath it all, I had one thought, and that thought was “this movie had better have some good German representation to make up for that”.

So I waited, patiently, for the movie to let me know that that was just one man - that that did not represent the entire German army. It’s certainly unlikely for the person you save from death to immediately betray you, but not unheard of - perhaps the pilot was particularly nasty, or prideful, or patriotic, motivated by a hatred of the enemy so powerful that he would rather die than be taken prisoner. Certainly a fair share of real-life RFC pilots were possessed of a complete lack of empathy for and a murderous loathing of their German enemies, so it’s just as certain that the inverse was true. All the movie had to do in turn was show that a German soldier could be just as capable of kindness as poor Blake, or show that a British soldier could be just as heartless as the pilot. And when Schofield later runs into a German soldier - one so babyfaced he looks even younger than himself - and spares his life in exchange for keeping his presence a secret, the opportunity to humanize a German soldier by showing him frightened, and grateful, and letting him go, seems like a total given. Easy and inevitable for an anti-war film, right?

Wrong. The guy betrays him and rats him out immediately. And is killed by Schofield for his trouble. Because German soldiers, God forbid, can’t act like the terrified children they were, crying or vomiting or hesitating or begging for their lives like in 2022’s All Quiet - no, the only emotion burning in their breasts is passion for the Fatherland. (I haven’t seen German characterization this bad in my current WWI catalog outside of the Biggles movie. Do you seriously want the bar to be the Biggles movie?) Never mind that Schofield, an already-bitter character who just watched his friend die by sparing a German soldier, is somewhat unlikely to have even done this in the first place. We can’t show the hero doing something cruel - just like we can’t show him being racist toward the Sikh soldier in the van, or ragging on the Germans like the other white soldiers in the same. No, Schofield, the traumatized, cynical soldier surrounded by death - he must stay kind, and faultless, and pure in the face of that nasty Boche horde. Christ alive. I am mad at this movie.

Like, the war’s over, dude. It’s been over for a hundred years. Do you really still think that all Germans are evil? Is that propaganda poster of the gorilla with the Pickelhaube framed above your bed? Sure, yeah, there’s a brief scene where the leads traverse an old German bunker and find a photo of a soldier’s kids, but that’s not exactly enough of a balance to pat yourself on the back for giving your movie some Big Boy Nuance. That gorilla with the Pickelhaube probably had kids, too. Pickelhaube gorilla kids. I’m drifting from the point.

The point here is that showing Germans have kids they love is not enough, because you have shown that while our British heroes are capable of compassion for the other side of the war, the Germans are in possession of no such thing. Not only are they never shown being empathetic to the enemy, but every bit of empathy they receive from the enemy is repaid with violence, betrayal, and hatred. The British? They love everyone! The Germans? They loathe everyone save for their own! Sounds a bit like the creators mixed up their world wars in terms of ideology, eh? Not that that would have even been true of the average foot soldier in Nazi Germany, because of the apparently radical notion that Germans are human, but the application of this to a war that didn’t even have one Nazi in it only makes it even more infuriating and absurd.

On the subject of Nazis, not even the twist of the traitorous spared German is original to this movie. The same exact bullshit happens in Saving Private Ryan, where (spoiler alert) a German soldier in WWII spared from a cruel and unethical death by the compassion of a kindhearted poet “repays” his kindness by murdering his Jewish comrade later in the movie. And what do both of these movies convey as a result? Certainly not an anti-war message, for an anti-war message proves that war is needless and futile. How can your movie show war is needless, when Germans are depicted as ontologically evil - when kindness toward them is depicted as a flaw and a weakness? No amount of gore and sadness will fix that leak, because all you’ve told us now is that war is terrible, but completely necessary. That it’s just the awful burden our Good Righteous HeroesTM must bear to fight off the forces of evil. You know, Kantorek-from-All-Quiet shit. Do you really want to be spouting Kantorek-from-All-Quiet shit? Of course you don’t.

But do you not want to because of his ideology? Or do you just not want to because he’s German?

I wonder.

(P. S. This isn’t directly related to the movie, but it’s mentioned in the reception section on Wikipedia that this movie is historically inaccurate because it features some black British soldiers mixed in with all the rest - a demographic claimed to have been “negligible”. Now, I’m not a historian, but given that there was more than one black officer in the British military during the war (including a known former cricketer and an RFC pilot, among others), I think it’s probable that the section was full of shit. No documentation in the British Army existed on whether or not any given enlisted soldier was black, so there are no exact numbers to prove anything one way or another, but the existing handful of officers suggests the portion of black enlisted men was likely much higher than that. There may not have been a lot of black British soldiers in WWI, but there’s absolutely no way there were none at all. So like, good on 1917 for having black soldiers, at least. Wish they were in a less frustrating film.) (P. P. S. If you want to see a piece of Allied media do in a paragraph what this movie couldn’t do vis-a-vis Germans in a two-hour-plus runtime, I recommend playing the game Over the Top on the Canadian War Museum website. Yes, really. Check it out. It’s free, it’s not that long, and it’s worth it. The Dawn Patrol movies do a good job of humanizing Germans, too, and go out of their way to do so when they didn’t need to to serve the plot - and those were only made two decades or less after the actual war. If they could do it, why couldn’t 1917? Embarrassing.)

Edit: Having now watched Grand Illusion, I am even more mad at 1917. Grand Illusion, aside from the many other ways it humanizes both sides excellently (and doesn't shy away from flaws, either), has a section involving two French escaped prisoners being given shelter by a German war widow and her young daughter, and they spend a brief amount of time getting to be a sort of makeshift family despite it all. It brings to mind the only major plot detail of 1917 that I didn't mention in this review - Schofield encountering a frightened young woman and a baby while traveling through the burned-out shell of what he thought was an abandoned village. Upon seeing her, I remember thinking "Oh, thank God. A hiding German woman. This movie finally remembered Germans are in possession of souls. Perhaps, together, they can share some scrap of kindness, even as the war rages around them."

Nah. She's French. The baby isn't hers, either - she just found the baby and is looking after it. Because you know how the Jerries are - razing villages and endangering innocent women and children! It's just what they do! Never mind that Grand Illusion - which, like the aforementioned Dawn Patrol movies, also came out around twenty years after the First World War and right on the cusp of the Second - could acknowledge mutual humanity. That's just what the Germans want you to think.

[jannlitos]

Hey Maryna!

I’m Rach, a fellow tennis fan and janlitos/sincaraz enjoyer and I’m sliding into your asks to see if you’d be up to beta-read some RuRu writing… I know this probably comes out of the blue but I’ve been reading your blog for a while and I absolutely love your vibes!

I’m mainly looking for a general grammar check (I’m not a native English speaker and could use the help since I haven’t written in English in a while), but some brainstorming about the plot (it’s still a wip) and potential changes would also be gladly appreciated.

Let me know when you receive this. I’m open to talk about the story in depth and giving you more info 🥰

Hi Rach!!!! Thank you for the question 🥰

Sorry for responding the question a bit late but I was at the uni 😅

Well… I’m most a janlitos/sincaraz fan so I read more fanfics of them. However, I’m also more and more into the ruru ship and I've read some fanfics about them, mainly on AO3.

To begin with, I am not a person who knows how to write stories, fanfics or the like; I'm more the person who reads them. Likewise, right now, I'm very interested in reading books or fanfics (in this case, tennis fanfics or some football fanfics).

Regarding the brainstorming for a new ruru fanfic, I've been thinking about some ideas that I wish other writers could write about. One of those ideas is to write a enemies to lovers about the development of their relationship since the incident at Roland Garros and now in 2024 (like in the UTS in Oslo or in Acapulco) they get along wonderfully. Also, I can send you some videos and photos of them smiling to each other, getting along well or hugging for some inspiration.

Another of the ideas I have had about them is from several Thai bls series that I have seen and that have that enemies to lovers dynamic; and that maybe I am falling a lot into that dynamic for the ruru relationship. For example, one of those series is the first one I saw called TharnType The Series and I don't know why, it reminds me of them and has that enemies to lovers dynamic. This happens because the plot of the series is somewhat similar to their relationship (Type is a tall and handsome rookie. Although he is a warm boy, he is homophobic because of things in the past. His life is turned upside down when the new year of college brings a very interesting person in his life, a gay roommate, Tharn. Tharn, is a very handsome music student with light skin and mixed features. He is also openly gay. With a gay boy and a boy who hates gays , who have to share a small space for the rest of the year). Therefore, based on the plot of that series I think you could get a very interesting fic, plus there are moments where several plot twists occur.

These are the ideas that come to mind at the moment, I hope it hasn't been too heavy and I hope it helps you write something. I may come up with more ideas in the near future about ruru fanfics. I also have many or even too many ideas for janlitos/sincaraz fanfics. If you are interested in it too, I can tell you some 🫡

Thankssss Rach!!! ❤️❤️