#and about this fandom

[maidenvault]

Not “Only my reading of canon is correct” or “Interpretations are subjective and all valid” but a secret third thing, “More than one interpretation can be valid but there’s a reason your English teacher had you cite quotes and examples in your papers, you have to have a strong argument that your interpretation is actually supported by the text or it is just wrong and I’m fine with telling you it’s wrong, actually.”

[miiilowo]

phenomenon

[p0tat0-g0ddess]

I haven’t platonicposted in a while

[marisatomay]

People will claim to be a fan of some thing and then hate all of the themes and motifs and story lines and plot lines and protagonists and antagonists like man I don’t think that you actually like it here

[allisondraste]

Acknowledging that “critical thinking” means “thinking about things in a thorough way from different perspectives” and not “finding every flaw in a thing and fixating on it until all the joy is gone” is so liberating.

It’s supposed to be about intellectual curiosity, not about finding ways to devalue things that aren’t perfect or that we personally dislike.

[rollercoasterwords]

pet peeve is when a fellow hater conducts their haterism such that they leave the hater community vulnerable to attack. “i think characterizing Character A in x way is boring and annoying” = beautiful, flawless, unimpeachable haterism. no one can tell u that u aren’t allowed to find a certain characterization boring. “it is morally/objectively wrong to characterize Character A in x way” = sloppy, reactionary, overcommitting. you have left our eastern flank open to attack girl what the hell….now my dedicated hater troops are taking fire from YOUR enemies fuckkkkk

[some-pers0n]

I'm always entertained by people doing those "canon VS fanon" memes where both are misunderstanding characters to such a violent degree 'cause like

[wardensantoineandevka]

is that piece of media actually bad, or is it just not following the blueprint you projected onto it? is that work actually not good, or are you just demanding something from it that is absolutely antithetical to its themes, genre, tone, and narrative goal? is that story actually poorly written, or do you just dislike that it is not the specific things you wanted from it that it never set out to be, never was, and never is going to become? is it actually bad, or is it actually well-executed and you just dislike the story it chose to be because it isn't catering to your specific desires and expectations?

[gotta-bail-my-quails]

"died and came back wrong" nah, died and came back an entirely different guy. like actually, that's just some random other dude. where did you get him

<this post is about the show 'To Be Hero X'. You can derail but like, just be aware of that. and also join us I'm begging>

[lgbtlunaverse]

To me the most fun part about fix-its is placing dominoes.

Tragedies often consist of escalating series of actions and circumstances which, in isolation, were not clearly leading to the tragic end but form a chain of cause-and-effect directly towards it in hindsight. In equal but opposite fashion, I love starting with small inoccuous changes to canon that in themselves do not obviously fix everything but start a new chain that leads to a better ending.

It's kind of impossible for fix-its to feel fully natural– the reader by definition knows what the original ending was and that this ending will be happier because the writer wants it to be– but it is possible for them to not feel contrived. A big deus-ex-machina, or a character breaking with their pre-established tragic flaws to suddenly make all the "correct" decisions almost always feels unsatisfying to me.

But a few carefully placed small domino pieces slowly knocking over bigger and bigger tiles until the entire story has radically changed? That's a lot more fun.

It recquires the author to both correctly identify the original chain of cause-and-effect and understand the characters well enough to know how they'd react to different circumstances. Because if the story feels like it's fixing the wrong problem or the characters don't act like themselves the magic is lost. But when it works? When it clicks and the reader sees the domino chain laid out in front of them? It's beautiful.

[16th-of-a-twigg]

He's just sleeping he's just sleeping he's just sleeping he's jus

Ko-Fi

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[miggylol]

The good news: you get to pick your new soulmate! (You can define "soulmate" however you want: platonic/romantic/partners in crime/etc. But they will be in your life, constantly.)

The bad news: you don't get to pick where they come from.

Spin this wheel until you get a fandom with characters that you recognize. As soon as you do, stop. One of those people* is going to be a constant presence in your life, whether you like it or not. So choose wisely.

*broadly defined

[queerofthedagger]

mutual pining simply never misses. the yearning. the stupidity. the desperation while also thinking themselves alone with it. the rattling relief at the revelation. the way it works in so many scenarios— friends to lovers? a banger every time. casual hook-ups/friends with benefits while they both want more? show-stopping, spectacular, incredible. enemies who are so deep in denial it just makes them madder at each other? utterly unmatched every single time. slow burn, fast burn, burning while already fucking. mutual pining really just is that girl like truly who does it like her

[theheartmold]

‘She wasn’t a good mother’ great are we evaluating this character trait as one of her many facets or are we just damning her for not being the most maternal womanliest woman who ever womaned