#and then the fanworks would often just...? not engage?

[serpentinegraphite]

in the same vein as having characters always sound like they're trying to get a good grade in therapy, a common thing in fanworks that gets on my nerves is like how in a fandom where realistically one might expect the characters to experience some trauma as a result of canon events (even though it's not shown in canon), there are only ever like the most extreme trauma responses. it's full on panic attack in the face of a trigger and brutal, unending nightmares, and like nothing else.

I just want to say for anyone out there who isn't aware, not every trauma response needs to be turned up to 11!some days a trigger might hit harder than others.

sometimes a character's trauma response should say something about them! a character who hates being vulnerable and seeks a constant control might react to a trigger with anger!

a character who is great at repressing might "This is fine!" themselves all the way through a triggering and unpleasant encounter rather than show any outward distress! dissociation is a real and common trauma response.

aside from the complete homogenization of trauma symptoms being boring as shit, it's often a weirdly consistent Moral Purity signifier. there's never a chance for a nuanced or complicated or shitty response to a trigger, it's always straight into the harshest panic response, thereby inviting only unconditional support from the audience. (nevermind what this kind of weirdly narrow anxiety rep does to people in the audience who actually have anxiety that doesn't fit the One Kind Of Anxiety characters are allowed to have)

[du-buk]

Hi! I appreciate the nice comments and support, especially on 8/11 day! 🦭💙 this is the 3rd, or 4th year of its release. (I should know this lol). However, I still wish to make some statements ⬇️

Thank you to everyone who support one guys work; ME! 8:11 is a huge passion project for me, and while I’m shy and never know how to react to compliments; just know that I appreciate all the support! The amount of fanart, fanworks, positivity, and support given towards me warms my heart. 💙🦭

I am often asked if the series will continue; it will, I am just a bit slow on the progress admittedly^^; financially it’s difficult to make time for it, and I’m working through a lot of my trauma in therapy at the moment. It’s what helps me create works for 8:11, like shown here!

(I also have to keep my eye in good health. Safety comes first!) however, I would appreciate if people listened to my mods+I when we ask people to refrain from breaking rules or being rude to my mods.

Please be patient with my mods and I.

I understand speaking in English can be difficult for some. I try to be accommodating for everyone, but excessively arguing with my mods about it stresses the team out. And we just want to have fun! Let’s all hold hands okay?

I want to create a fun environment for all 811 fans, even those across oceans and mountains. Let’s be kind to each other and if you see any nice fanworks, leave positive comments to encourage artists/creatives!

Thank you for all the support thus far again. And to make it clear; 🗣️ I hate p*dos, zoos, inc*st!!

🗣️Block and look away from those things. Don’t engage internet battles guys. I cannot control what some people create fanart of 8:11, I’m just one guy, and it’s best to just ignore what you don’t like seeing online.

🗣️ I stand with palest1ne, Ukraine, Sudan, human rights, and the environment!!!! Especially our earth and creatures that cannot vocalize their needs!!!!

[carlyraejepsans]

my friend thinks that undertale is a game about pacifism and was talking about how pacifism doesn't work. i feel like that's not what it's about at all, but i don't know how to say it. do you have any thoughts on this?

undertale is not a "game about pacifism", it's an RPG game that deconstructs the violent tropes inherent to its genre. the pacifism undertale deals with isn't the political action, it's the kind that questions the "fight and grind endless enemies with no personality to make yourself stronger" mechanics of its predecessors. and the way it does that is by acknowledging diegetically the power disparity between player and game/NPCs through yet another mechanic through which the player interacts with the game: SAVE files and replayability.

while it's logical for fanworks to explore these types of IRL issues, especially in post pacifist or pre-canon settings, something else that's important to note is that the human and monster dichotomy do NOT represent a realistic, real world conflict between races/ethnic groups. if they were, it would be a white saviorist fantasy to rival james cameron's bluest, wettest dreams... but they're not. they are once again an analogy. a symbolic metaphor for the power dynamic the game plays on, and it would be unfair to criticize Undertale for its handling of a topic that it's just... straight up not engaging with to begin with.

in a lot of battle RPGs, fighting is not an option: it is the only way you are allowed to engage with the world, and often goes unquestioned. undertale gives you not only an alternative, but DOZENS of reasons why a peaceful resolution to the conflict is favorable withint the story. It also gives you a chance to see what happens anyway, with (nearly) no lasting consequence attached and plenty of secret lore you would miss by playing nice. Now are you going to do the "right" thing by these characters and treat them like your friends... or will you treat Undertale like a game. Its characters like characters. Grow detached to your actions. Like the source of entertainment that, at the end of the day, it is.

That is what Undertale is about.

[bakuhatsufallinlove]

How do you feel about the fact that Katsuki’s apology and his death are not brought up again? I was really sad they never talked about it all. Do you have any headcanons for when/how/if they ever talk?

Dear anon, you've activated my trap card.

By which I mean you've asked me about something on which my feelings apparently vastly differ from those of most people.

To answer your question, I did not expect nor even want a scene addressing the apology again in-canon. Neither did I expect a scene where they discuss Katsuki's death, though I was less opposed to that.

But let me specify this right off the bat: there is a distinction between what I would enjoy seeing and what I think has narrative weight.

And I think that's fascinating to talk about. You asked me how I feel, so get ready!

When people say they wish Katsuki and Izuku had talked about his death, what are they wanting?

Do they want to see Izuku get vulnerable and choked up over Katsuki, shed tears for him? Do they want to see Katsuki see him like that, and watch him soften and let Izuku open up? Do they want to see him take Izuku's hand and comfort him, reassure him that they won, that it's over, that he's still here, and no one is gonna keep him from getting back up again? With the implication that getting back up again means standing at Izuku's side and helping him win?

I sure as fuck do!

But do I think that kind of scene does something for the story, themes, and development of them as characters that what we actually got doesn't do? Not necessarily.

See, stories are not driven by what the audience wants to see.

Stories are driven by what the characters need.

Not what they want, what they need. Often, characters are denied what they want because it does not align with what they need, and this is the very premise of their struggle. Katsuki is a great example of this, because at the start of the story, he wants to feel superior to Izuku, but what he needs is to accept his own admiration of him.

Fanworks exist to give the audience what they want, in a vacuum, totally separate from the linear structure of the narrative. You can just pop into a scene of Izuku crying and have Katsuki kiss him better and that gets us every time, doesn't it?

But in the manga, for a scene like this to exist, there has to be a need for it to address. So, what would that need be?

I think people ask for these scenes because they are under the mistaken impression that Katsuki doesn't understand how Izuku feels about him. And I cannot tell you how much I disagree with this.

If Katsuki didn't understand that Izuku cares deeply for him, then a scene like what I described would probably be intended to tell the audience that he needs to understand how Izuku feels and, up until now, he hasn't.

But that's not true.

Katsuki knows Izuku cares about him.

At the start of the manga, Katsuki is convinced Izuku looks down on him.

Chapter 10

We the audience understand this is projection. Katsuki's admiration of Izuku makes him feel inferior, so he rejects his own self-critical feelings and assigns them to Izuku. No matter how many times Izuku shouts that he thinks Katsuki is amazing, Katsuki's inferiority complex is unfazed.

He utterly ignores it, it doesn't even register for him.

Chapters 10 and 119

Instead he doubles-down on his own frustration and dissatisfaction with himself, engaging from a point of competition, as though Izuku had insulted him rather than complimented him.

This tells the audience that the problem does not lie with Izuku, but with Katsuki himself. Izuku cannot resolve this situation with words, we've seen him try. Instead, Katsuki needs to change his own perspective.

After Deku vs. Kacchan 2, Katsuki accepts—begrudgingly and with great discomfort—that Izuku does not look down on him.

Chapter 120

Even though Katsuki reconciles this, that doesn't change the fact that he is weak. He needs to grow as a person and as a hero. Now, his struggle is not just about his self-perception, but also his real progress.

Chapter 209

We joke about Kacchan being a tsundere, because he is, but part of the reason he rejects Izuku's appraisal of his progress is because he still hasn't met his own standards yet. Katsuki admires Izuku and All Might so much; he knows what they are capable of, he sees the gulf between where he is and where they are, and he is fighting like hell to close that gap.

He won't be satisfied until he does.

Chapters 362 and 409

I've seen people talk about this moment like it is a revelation for Katsuki about Izuku's feelings.

Chapter 359

And, first of all, lemme just say that no villain has ever said a damn thing to Kacchan that he didn't already know.

Chapter 358

ShigAFO's comment does not exist to confirm Izuku's feelings to Katsuki. It exists to signal to Katsuki (and the audience) that ShigAFO knows how Izuku feels, and he is prepared to use it against them.

This is a threat. This is about instilling horror in us and bringing to painful fruition Katsuki's fears about being a weakness people can exploit to hurt Izuku.

But let's not bury the lede: Katsuki would not have these fears if he didn't understand that Izuku cares about him.

Chapter 82

Look at his face and tell me he doesn't know with every fiber of his being that Izuku would die for him.

You could argue that because Katsuki understands Izuku's heroic nature better than anyone, perhaps he doesn't consider Izuku's protectiveness of him unique. Maybe he doesn't understand that Izuku loves him specifically and, to him, this is simply an expression of Izuku's selfless, save-to-win mentality.

But that I counter with two points:

Katsuki is not dumb, guys. He is our most emotionally intelligent and self-aware character. We are shown on numerous occasions that Katsuki can read between the lines and understand someone's feelings without being told (unlike Izuku, who's a damn nerd).

The story arc of Katsuki and Izuku's relationship is predicated on the fact that Katsuki rejected Izuku, but they are both unable and unwilling to truly disentangle themselves from each other. This means that their interactions, across the whole of the series, generally focus on Katsuki accepting Izuku and his own feelings, thereby restoring their relationship. To do this, he needed to both accept himself and better himself.

As a result of the second point, the focus is not on Izuku demonstrating his love for Katsuki as the bridge of change. The fact that Izuku loves Katsuki and wants him in his life is indeed highlighted frequently, but it is often treated as a given.

I've said it before: Izuku's feelings are not the ones that change the most, Katsuki's are.

Now you might say, "Maybe Katsuki doesn't need to hear Izuku's feelings, but Izuku might still need to say them!" And you're right, that is a possibility! Even if it is a given to the audience, there could be something that suggests Izuku saying these feelings out loud would be significant or change something between them.

But that's not what the series tells us.

Izuku does not hold back about the way he feels for Katsuki. Whether he is calling Kacchan a stupid jerk or saying he is amazing, Izuku is not subtle about what he thinks—in fact, these are often his most raw, unfiltered character moments, and they are significant.

Chapter 119

The only significant time Izuku does not tell Katsuki how he feels is his image of victory moment at the end of DvK2.

Chapter 120

My conclusion about this is that Izuku has felt conflicted about his own behavior and thinks Katsuki would reject him if he knew about it, so he chooses not to bring it up.

However, there is still a narrative purpose of showing us this thought, and that is to demonstrate that while Izuku may feel conflicted, ultimately he still accepts his own feelings. Regardless of whether Katsuki accepts him or not, the way Izuku feels won't change, and he's not sorry about it.

This moment exists for a lot of reasons, but chief among them is so that we the audience can see the true shape of Izuku's heart.

And what we see is that he loves and admires Katsuki, no matter how he acts or even what kind of person that makes Izuku.

I liken it to Katsuki's All Might card moment.

Chapter 362

Listen, I would have loved to see my explody boy get his autograph, but the greatest impact of this scene is not in the question of whether he will get one, that's just the tragedy lying on the surface as we witness his death.

No, the most meaningful part of this moment is in how it makes the audience truly understand that he still longs for it, even after all these years.

I wanted Izuku to tell Katsuki he is his image of victory, but the fact that it doesn't happen signals to me that Izuku ultimately didn't need to say those words out loud for that moment to matter. Izuku reconciled the discomfort he felt about admiring Katsuki and embraced his positive feelings for him, and that's pretty damn important.

I can and will indulge in fandom to meet my heart's desires, and that's excellent. But rather than simply feeling disappointed by canon material, I think it is more interesting to allow both what happens in the story and what doesn't inform my understanding of it.

I have been planning an in-depth post about the apology and what I think people are missing when they say Izuku "didn't respond" to Katsuki, but let me just lightly touch on my objections to that line of thinking.

Many people in the English-speaking audience appear to have a very narrow range of actions they consider a "response," and allowing someone else to act upon you for some reason does not seem to count.

If you frame interactions only by what Character A does to Character B and see Character A as the only active participant, you are missing out on a lot.

For example, Katsuki catches Izuku, and we see that as a demonstration of his love, as we should.

But how is Izuku allowing himself to be caught not an action that expresses his feelings? How is the fact that he responded to an apology with his own apology not indicative of how he wants to connect to Katsuki in this moment? How does it not convey what he feels for Katsuki, what he has always felt for him?

Furthermore, I see a lot of people take for granted how silence is a choice, and it carries meaning. Much like with what does and doesn't happen in a story, there is meaning in what people say and what they don't.

Japanese as a language values indirectness; it is not a bug, it is a feature. This is partly to avoid forcing yourself onto others and causing them discomfort, but another part is trusting others to understand who you are and how you feel without beating them over the head with it.

But you'll have to wait for my full post to hear the rest of that idea.

I dunno if this is what you were expecting out of your question, anon, but I hope you enjoyed the ride all the same!

[alastors-antlers]

Being someone who sees a lot of talk about shipping Alastor (sexually, romantically) in fanworks, I just want to take some time to talk about both sides of the issue. It's long, I know - please, please bear with me until the end, and I hope you'll understand what I mean in a bit.

I hope this helps someone, but as an aroace person who understands the frustration and hurt, this is often how it feels to me:

Alastor, being one of the limited cases of aspec rep that I've seen and one of even fewer which I actually enjoyed, means a lot to me.

That being said, his canon rep establishes that he's aroace but not much about how this factors into his life or relationships at all -- and when there's a gap in canon, I turn to fanfiction, which tends to spotlight characters' queerness even when the source material doesn't or can't. Don't we all want to see ourselves in the media we engage with?

When I pull up AO3, there are already a good number of fics about him. Great! Some of them are definitely incredible; but as I read on, it starts to seem like a lot of fics I see acknowledge that he's asexual or aromantic in some way but don't really factor that into the story. It reads like you could have written the story without keeping his queer identity in mind, and it would've come out the same.

Even when representation that does resonate with me exists, it starts to be exhausting to pick through the slash tags to see which ones are written in an aspec-coded way, so I wonder if it would be easier to not read anything with slash at all. On the other hand, when you filter ships out completely, only a tiny fraction of the fanworks are left.

People often respond that aspec people can have relationships, and I think we tend to know that. They can have sex, some can experience sexual attraction in select situations, they can romance others beyond romantic attraction -- any combination of things. But some aroace people don't want either, and sometimes we're struggling to see ourselves in how Alastor is typically portrayed.

Out of all of the fics, sex-repulsed, totally aromantic Alastor isn't seen much. And when Alastor's limited canon seems to be pretty supportive of a reading where he is those things...

Sometimes, you start to feel lost. If fics were evenly distributed along the aroace spectrum of experiences, wouldn't you expect more fics of him being the "totally uninterested" brand of aroace? But there aren't. People seem to have a preference toward seeing him in relationships. Even if they mean well, it can make you think: what does that say about how we view asexuality/aromanticism as a whole?

Is there something less interesting about Alastor, when romance is taken out of the picture? Do others find him less appealing as a character if they can't see him dating, or in love, or having sex or wanting it? Why do we need romance, when romance is already everywhere else, when it doesn't even feel like he was originally really interested? It brings to mind a struggle to be societally accepted, even today.

Even when it's not technically wrong to write Alastor as you see him, being told that we should all be able to ship him however we want can feel like this:

It brings to mind people who try to swing in with misinformed good intentions, telling us "oh, you're aromantic? but you can still have romantic relationships, right? so you can still be normal." when all we want is to be okay outside of the normal.

Or trying to find a partner who can be with us, out of everyone who tells us "I know you don't enjoy sex, and that's okay, but I can't have a romantic relationship with you without it." and being so tired of hoping for someone who gets it.

Or talking with peers, and hearing them all commiserate and fawn over their experiences with love, then telling them about someone you like non-romantically and getting "aww, it sounds like somebody's got a crush!" but not being believed when you tell them it's not like that at all.

Alastor is not a big deal, not really, not in the grand scheme of things. But in an allonormative world, it can feel like a sudden splash of cold water when we were expecting a warm fire to sit around. Even within this ecosystem, we squint to see ourselves reflected.

Society isn't built for us. It can be exhausting to be reminded of that.

~~~

I hope to support people writing Alastor as any variation of aspec, or not even aspec at all. At the end of the day, I think that fanon is really whatever you want it to be, and everyone has their own reasons for writing what they find enjoyable. They should be allowed to do so, and I want to believe that people do what they do with good intentions.

They want to imagine scenarios with the templates of characters they love, and that's okay; even beyond sexuality/queer identities/etc., fan interpretations of characters can be incredibly, wildly different from who they really are in the story anyway, and that's what I try to remind myself. But still, I also can't help feeling disappointed about the aroace representation we could have seen.

(Is Alastor canonically sex-repulsed? Uhh, maybe. If I had to guess, that'd be my top guess, but this might be a hot take: I wouldn't really say there's enough to go off of considering that this view is supported by Angel propositioning him both times, and it's not like Alastor is a particularly big fan of Angel at those points anyway lol)

To my fellow aroaces struggling with Alastor's fandom rep: if you need a break from it all; if you need to block the tags that you hate; if you need to talk to someone about how you're feeling; that's okay. It makes sense that you'd want more representation in a way that helps you feel seen and validated and less alone. I can't speak for everyone, but I think I get it.

I don't have any solutions for how you're feeling, because sometimes I'm feeling the same way. I understand that you want others to get your position and you have the right to express your feelings, but even if you're correct, often being angry or frustrated won't help change others' minds, so let's try to save our energy and take care of ourselves.

Something that helps me to think about is that even now, asexuality is gaining more visibility. We're gaining support. Real change is happening in the world that's helping incredible amounts of aspec people feel freer to be themselves. And maybe one day, we won't be reaching to protect our scraps of representation.

Let's fight until that day together <3

[mysterycitrus]

Hey there, Happy New Year! Sorry if this ask seems confusing.

I've really come to enjoy your blog as someone who is kind of new to navigating the world of comics and how to read them and you seem to be one of the people that's more vocal about all the fanon and canon differences and how that damages people's perception of characters. I'm just a bit confused in what you consider to be the difference of headcanons and fanon, I know fanon is a more of something that a big number of people believe, but if someone headcanons something that isn't covered in canon, would that be "bad" or fall on the fandom category?

Hope this doesn't sound mean or anything, I'm just a bit confused

hello!! welcome to batburger!!!!

wrt fanon vs canon my issue is this — parts of comic fandom are very vocal about not engaging with the source material. deciding what fanon is “good” vs “bad” isn’t the point because im not interested in policing peoples fandom experience. however there is a point where i don’t understand what exactly some people are fans of, because what they talk about is so disconnected from the original text.

imagine meeting a hunger games fan, and when u ask about their favourite movie or book, they instead tell u that they’ve never read or seen any part of the series, exclusively read fanfiction, and then inform u that they believe president snow is peeta’s grandfather and that actually haymitch was the authoritarian mastermind behind the hunger games. that doesn’t make any sense, and has no basis in canon. it’s a very extreme hypothetical, but i wouldn’t really take what they say about the hunger games seriously. it also reminds me a bit of the hp marauders fanworks that exist almost autonomously to the books (while still containing the same issues as said books).

most fanon enjoyers (and this is particularly pervasive with batfam fans) enjoy characters and relationships that simply do not exist. that alone isn’t a problem (crackships and headcanons have existed since ye olde star trek zine days) but the issue is that these fanon interpretations are loudly asserted as being the correct way to engage with the characters. i do not believe it should be controversial to prefer characters in their canonical text, or to ask why some fanon content is taken as gospel, especially when so much of it is racialised.

this lends into a wider trend where these headcanons are respected more than canon despite often being actively reductive, accidentally demeaning, or just plain bad faith interpretations. it’s much harder to combat the racism present in conversations about damian wayne when the people in question aren’t grant morrison or judd winick or scott snyder, but instead a nebulous group of people on twitter.

flatly, i encourage people to read the source material. there are a lot of comics, but googling ‘[literally any character] reading list’ has literally never been easier. start by consuming the movies or cartoons or films or shows or the one volume graphic novels, then pinpoint what u like and start from there. people are discouraged from reading comics — and they shouldn’t be!! especially for popular characters there are very accessible starting points!! u will find characters to love with rich history and lore!!!! support queer artists and artists of colour who are actively changing the industry!!! i guarantee that the fanon version of that male character u love is actually originally from a female character with a great miniseries written by greg rucka!!!!

[prismatoxic]

a lot of posts defending non-canon ships tend to take the road of "fuck canon, canon doesn't matter", and while i do agree on a very basic level (you can do whatever you want forever), canon actually does matter to me.

shipping is my favorite way to engage with fandom. i enjoy doing it a lot. that said, it's not something i seek out in canon, with very few exceptions. when a romance i don't care for is canon, i generally work around it in fanwork, like finding a way to break them up or doing an AU; when it's optional or never canonized to begin with, i feel more comfortable disregarding it entirely. so in that sense, i absolutely agree with canon having no control over what i ship. 99% of the things i ship aren't canon, and i like it that way. i like making a relationship out of what i understand of the characters involved.

and that leads me the biggest part of canon that matters to me: characterization.

i will always defend people's right to do whatever they want, but i also don't engage with fanwork that veers too heavily into OOC territory. i need a character to be recognizable, because that's why i'm here: i already like this guy. i cannot be sold on just an interesting dynamic or idea with characterization disregarded. i'm more than happy to dip into OCs if i wanna see guys i don't already know do stuff.

i love changing things about a character's body or life or even the setting they're native to, and then making that work by utilizing their canon personality to sell the idea. that's the fun of AUs for me, and often the fun of fanwork in general: putting guys in new situations and making it believable by having them act accordingly. that's what i built pretty much all of my fanfics on. it's a core pillar of what fanfic is.

and when it comes to wanting to make a character do something that, devoid of context, would be OOC, there are still plenty of ways to make it work. it's as that one post said: instead of he would not fucking say that, ask yourself... what would it take to make him say that? what would it take for this character we all know to act in a way that would be unusual for them?

"in character" isn't strict canon compliance. it's informed by canon, but the point is to take their personality and mannerisms to new places. you can even have characters grow and change and have it be so believable that people still leave comments about how IC everything is. this is what's fun about fanwork for me, and it's why i'm never going to enjoy instances of my faves being portrayed like they're entirely different people. that's just... not what i'm here for.

[avale-reves]

sometimes you get this refrain with fanworks, and it's meant complimentary of course, of "THIS is what should've happened in canon!" i always feel a little weird about these things because i don't think of myself as trying to 'one-up' canon or 'do it better than they could've'. (and often like the thing in question literally would not work in a high budget game anyway so lol)

I think kh fandom, while oddly revering canon over fanworks, still also kinda just simultaneously doesn't really like canon either a lot of the time??? so when people do venture out and explore fanworks its almost in a weirdly adversarial lens sometimes. where it's like people are engaging with it on a level of "fanwork vs canon" where only one can "win".

either the fanwork was good and it should've been what happened. or the fanwork was bad and canon reigns supreme.

but like we're not in competition with canon as fans, nor are we simply passive recipients of it... we're in conversation with it.

[the-golden-vanity]

💚 for the Terror. 💖🧡 and 📖 (but chapter(s) instead of entire book(s)) for Moby Dick

💚: What does everyone else get wrong about your favorite character?

Ooh, it's time to make some enemies.

I really, really dislike the popular fanon characterizations of James Fitzjames. Depending on what particular flavor of queer a fanwork is depicting him as, the kind of... shallow femininity that gets forced on him makes me MASSIVELY uncomfortable. It often comes across as somewhere between homophobic and misogynistic caricature, personality stripped away and replaced with a pretty dress.

I can see where this started, though—the pre-Carnivale dress scene is something that's very important to a lot of Terror fans, and perhaps something that endeared them to a character whose Empire-loving, glory-hounding, "the atrocities I've committed are fun table conversation"-believing ways are (hopefully) unsympathetic to a modern audience. Still, I'd like to see more fanworks engage with that side of James Fitzjames—the tool of an empire that can never love him back.

This isn't to say I don't love queer or trans readings of Fitzjames! I just want to see the character still be a glory-hounding veteran of an imperialist war, and someone I can still believe would shoot rockets at bears.

💖: Already answered here!

🧡: What is a popular (serious) theory you disagree with?

I had to think about this one for a bit. I'd say it's the take that I see floating around on the Internet a lot that Moby-Dick is cosmic horror. If we're taking cosmic horror to mean the horror of the incomprehensible, the impossibly alien, the Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, then there is exactly one chapter that fits the bill—"The Castaway", which includes maybe my favorite passage of the whole book.

However, almost the entire rest of the book is our narrator-protagonist making sense of the whale, as if knowing everything he can about it is his way of coping with the devastating trauma of losing everyone he spent two years of his life living with.

It's almost reverse cosmic horror—rather than a sane man going mad from coming face to face with an incomprehensible monstrosity, our mentally ill (traumatized/depressed/bipolar/open to interpretation) protagonist makes meaning for himself by learning to comprehend the monstrosity.

📖: If you had to remove one chapter from the book, which would you choose?

Ooh, that's a good question. And a hard one.

Moby-Dick is, rather famously, full of chapters upon chapters of whale facts, some of which are even true. I will not be getting rid of any of those. Those are load-bearing whale facts. You pull them out, and the book collapses into a respectable revenge tragedy, rather than the earth-shattering psychological epic that it is. The whale facts represent both the fact that for long stretches of a sea voyage, nothing particularly exciting is going on, and you have time to contemplate things like the immense scarred brow of the whale, and also that this story is being told by a traumatized man who's going off on tangents because he really doesn't want to get around to the part of the story where he loses everything and all of his friends die.

If I had to get rid of one chapter, it would probably be "The Town Ho's Story". Of all the ill omens and tales of woe that the Pequod's crew encounter on their fateful final voyage, this one drags out longest and (to me) was one of the less memorable. However, I'm sure it's probably someone's favorite chapter. Many of them are.

Thank you so much, @georges-chambers/@alienmythologist! You gave me much to think about.

Ask me for my unpopular opinions about boat stories!

[lenievi]

TOS-tober day 6 (triumvirate prompts)

Favourite romantic duo?

My doorway to mckirk was the bar scene between them in Beyond. That was the first scene I saw from AOS, and only after that I watched the films in order. Because it was the their "final" AOS dynamic that I fell in love with, I feel it's only logical (lol) that I would also like everything about their TOS version because Beyond is the closest to TOS in feeling and characterization (even though I'd still say it's closer to TOS films rather than the show itself).

Yesterday, I said that the spones dynamic is the most engaging, and it is. But Kirk and McCoy's relationship has always been my favourite. It took me a bit to cross the line into the romantic nature of it, but I'm embracing it fully now~

When it comes to Kirk and McCoy in TOS, their relationship is the most quiet, in a way. Their most important scenes are at the beginning of s1, and when you don't get on that train early, it's easy to just miss it imho Not that there aren't good scenes as far as s3 (but they're mostly part of the triumvirate scenes, and Spock-McCoy overshadow the Kirk-McCoy angle), and then the films are just full of mckirk scenes, but at that point, I feel like most people are just focused elsewhere. The lack of fanworks doesn't help either, unfortunately.

But from early on, you know that Kirk and McCoy are close friends. McCoy approaches Kirk in a way no one else does, and Kirk lets his guard around McCoy down. He shares his doubts with him, and he's often willing to listen to McCoy without telling him he doesn't need to be psychoanalyzed. Even though there's literally no need in 90% of cases, Kirk will take McCoy with him on most missions. The show itself even acknowledged how neither of them were necessary in landing parties, but Kirk's need for exploration include McCoy around and giving McCoy opportunities to study things. Which is then again reflected in TMP, where Kirk just needs to have McCoy with him and pesters an admiral to grant him that need.

At times, McCoy sees Kirk through rose-coloured glasses and he cares about him so much, but he's also afraid that Jim will push himself (and also others) above his limit. Kirk is someone who is 100% dedicated to his job, his ship, and his crew, and McCoy is afraid that it will consume him one day - stress, duty, regulations, pressure. He's afraid that Spock will enable Jim to continue on a path of cold logic and forget himself. Destroy himself. And so he makes sure that he can always try and pull Jim back. And Jim? Jim would be lost without McCoy. (McCoy is so important to him.) He might not acknowledge it, but he needs to occasionally hear what McCoy has to say. McCoy is his connection with a world outside of "command" - McCoy specifically isn't welcome in that world. He can question Jim himself, but he can't question Kirk's command decisions. It's not his place.

They're both genuinely fond of each other and they understand each other. And they can hurt each other the most because they know where it would hurt the most. They have a strong emotional connection that isn't diluted too much by professionalism and the chain of command, but it's still an important part of their dynamic.

All of this works for me as a basis for them as a romantic ship where I can exaggerate some of it and mold it into something that I enjoy, that can be a little bit messed up. In a way, "I need you. Damn it, Bones, I need you. Badly." & McCoy killing a living being twice because of Kirk is an important part of the way I ship them.

But at the end of the day, I love Kirk and McCoy's relationship in any way, and I honestly don't know how to properly describe what their friendship in TOS means to me. And it's all thanks to one youtube video of their AOS versions having a drink together in a dimply lit bar.

[prompts]

[waytooinvested]

Fandom creators tag game

1. What sort of content do you create, and what is the thing you’ve made that you’re most proud of? Mostly I write fanfiction. Sometimes I make little needle felted character dolls. Over all proudest is probably still The Hands I Used to Touch (Call the Midwife), but for my current fandom (Supergirl) it's Forgotten, Not Forgiven, as that is my latest big project and home to all the fluffy supercorp that I need in my life (okay not in the published chapters but IT WILL BE EVENTUALLY I PROMISE)

2. What fandom(s) do you create for? Right now just Supergirl, and I have only written three fics for that one so far (but hopefully more to come!) Before that it was Call the Midwife.

3. What is your current favourite ship (or brotp if you prefer), and how controversial is it? Supercorp, ie Kara/Lena for Supergirl (I know, I’m so quiet about it on this blog you would never have guessed). It occupies an interesting space of being simultaneously entirely non controversial in that it is by far the biggest ship I have ever engaged with, while also being extremely divisive, both within and beyond fandom spaces. But I arrived here LONG after most of that had happened, and am now just happily playing in the sandpit of creative space while the bones of drama stay *mostly* buried. Always a bit of a shock when one rises up to try and kick down your sandcastle though (yes, I am aware that that is a mildly horrifying visual)

4. For your answer to question 3, are they canon? They are not (TECHNICALLY), but there is enough raw material in canon to build The São João Baptista, and that is enough for me. That and the 21,302 (and counting) fics with their relationship tag on AO3.

5. What was your first fandom, and how old were you? The first I actually engaged with other fans over was Call The Midwife in my early 20s, and that was because I snapped after seeing one too many tv lesbians get hit by a car.

6. What is your most unhinged fandom creation to date? Unhinged is not really my brand so I don't really have anything good for this one. Is Kara gets accidentally miniaturized unhinged? Or a bait and switch Lena "villain" arc? I think probably not really to either, but that's the closest I've got for this fandom so far...

7. Do you remember what started you off creating fandom content, and if so, what was it? The aforementioned incident between Delia and a car, which left her with amnesia and taken away to Wales mere moments after she and Patsy had moved in together. But I’m over it. Honest.

8. Do you let people you know in real life see your fandom creations? Not usually, I get shy about it. The exceptions are my wife (but we met via fandom so that one maybe doesn’t count) and on occasion my best friend, who talked me round by being an enthusiastic sweetheart.

9. How do you feel about fanworks of fanworks? Has anyone ever made something based on a thing you made? A few people have made fan art for my fics and it felt like the absolute highest compliment that could be paid to my writing. It was amazing to know that something I wrote meant enough to people to inspire them to go and create their own thing from it, and I loved getting to see other people’s takes on the version of the characters/story I had created. I think it's one of the best things about fandom communities! But I do understand why other people might feel differently about something they have poured so much of themselves into making, so I guess the main thing is trying to be respectful with it, crediting the source, and accepting people's boundaries. Basically I think we should all just be kind to each other and have fun.

10. What feeling do you most often try to evoke with your creations? I'm generally seeking my own catharsis through writing fix-it fic for painful things that happened in canon, so I guess a certain amount of pain followed by the eventual fluffy feel good satisfaction of resolution, but honestly I consider it a win if I can evoke a whole spectrum of emotions along the way.

11. Has someone ever paid your work a compliment (in any form) that has stuck with you, and what was it? Someone once liked my fic so much that she married me about it, so it’s hard to beat that haha. But on a more usual level, people making fanart for my fic was a HUGE one. And also just when people have left particularly in depth comments, commented on every chapter, told me they're rereading or that a fic of mine was their favourite etc... Basically just knowing that something I made has really meant something to someone gives me all of the warm fuzzy feelings, and I am very grateful to each and every person who has taken the time to tell me so!

12. What’s your favourite thing someone else has made that you’ve seen in the last 24 hours (and link it if you can find it again!) Originally I had the bouquet toss ficlet by @fazedlight here, because it just captures the characters so beautifully, but then I left this sitting in my drafts and it is now more than 24 hours ago that I saw it, so I'll add this adorable art by @awaitingrain, because LOOK AT IT! They are so cute??! Also I relate to gentle nomming as a display of affection XD

13. Give a small sneak preview of something you’re working on right now (eg a couple of sentences of fic from a WIP, a gif set theme, a small piece of a larger picture, whatever you feel happy to share) "Lena Luthor was dangling from the side of a cliff, nothing between her and the vast chasm of space below but the small jutting nodule she was clinging to to keep from falling.

How the hell had she ended up here?

Well. She knew how of course.

Kara Danvers was how."

14. Have you ever seen/read anything made by the person who tagged you? If so, what was it and what was your favourite thing about it? (pick a favourite if there are several) SO MANY!! it’s hard to pick a favourite of hers honestly because she is a RIDICULOUSLY good writer, but I’m going to go with The Next Best Thing by @cynicalrainbows. I don’t tend to read many kidfics but this one is the absolute best I have come across, she captures the child perspective fantastically well while also being incredibly engaging and entertaining to an adult reader. It is what successfully pulled me into reading Six fanfic despite (at that point) never having seen the musical. Even if you haven’t either, I wholeheartedly recommend checking it out. Or go and read her new Paperdolls fic and help grow that fandom, which I think currently has all of two people in it!

15. Do you leave comments on fandom works, and if so how would you describe your comment style? I do! I know how much I love it when people do it for me, so I try to leave comments on every chapter of the fics I read (or add tag notes for tumblr art/fic reblogs), and give specifics about what I like about it. Sometimes I just fully liveblog the fic reading experience, which is always fun. I also find it makes you engage and appreciate the work more because you’re taking your time to really think about it, AND it makes an author happy to receive (at least so I hope), which makes me happy.

16. How many works in progress do you currently have? Will you finish them all? Not counting a couple of dump documents of ideas and snippets, technically 3, I guess? One is Forgotten, Not Forgiven (Supergirl) which is my big one and will definitely be finished. The others are less certain – Storybooks and Siren Suits (Call The Midwife) is the one kidfic I have ever written, and is both my longest story at 151,020 (published) words, and also the one I am least likely to finish, because it has been stuck on the same chapter for around 3 years now. The other is Small Problem… (Supergirl) which could be counted as a finished oneshot, but I will probably end up adding further Adventures of Tiny Kara at some point.

17. what’s the longest it’s ever taken you to finish a fandom project?Well, see above re: 3 year stall on new updates. For actually fully finished and published stories I think it was around 6 months.

18. Describe the thing you made most recently in a way that is technically true, but also completely misleading. Link the thing if it’s published! Lena discovers Kara in Lex’s bed, then decides to lure her into friendship under false pretenses. Alex helps her do it. Forgotten, Not Forgiven.

19. Do you ever engage with fanworks for a fandom you’re not in? Which one(s) and how did you get into it? See above re: getting into fanfiction for Six!

20. Recommend a fan work from your fandom to your followers That’s tough because there are so many amazing ones, but I think I will go with I Guess I Live Here Now by @fabulousglitch, because it was both the first fic I really got into for supercorp and also contained everything I wish the characters could have had in canon. I know I am several years late to the party so if you are in the supercorp fandom you have probably already read it, but if you haven’t read it GO READ IT, IT’S SO GOOD!

Suggested tag list, but there are no rules here, follow your heart.

A mutual you have never actually spoken to but think seems cool @nottawriter

The most recent person whose content you engaged with (eg read a fic, reblogged art, whatever form you feel best fits) @sideguitars (and I still owe you a comment on AO3 for that!)

Someone whose content you saw via tags/reblogs and you followed them because of it @sssammich

Someone in your fandom that you think makes cool things @fazedlight

Someone in a different fandom that you think makes cool things @havaamina

Someone you always tag on things like this @cynicalrainbows

Someone you have never tagged before @thatonebirdwrites

Someone you would like to get to know better @thecasualqueer

Someone who makes art you like @pea-green (I don't know if you still do fandom drawing/writing these days, but your commissioned art is still up in my house/in my profile picture and I love it so much)

Someone who writes fics you like @fabulousglitch

[thebreakfastgenie]

1 free coupon for sharing an unpopular opinion 🎫

Okay I wanted to use this coupon well (thank you) but I've been mulling this.

I don't agree that there is "no downside" to identity headcanons. Sometimes a character empathizing with and fighting for a group they're not part of is significant and meant to send a particular message. The first example I can think of is that I think Sam Seaborn getting worked up about gay rights means more if he's an ardent supporter working in the White House in the 90s than if he's a closeted gay man himself. I also think a straight White House staffer supporting gay rights is supposed to communicate a certain message to a mostly-straight audience.

Now, that's not to say a read with Sam as a gay man isn't interesting in its own right, or that there is no value in it. There are some things gained with that read. There are other things lost. I think that's fine. But fandom has a tendency to say identity headcanons are always better in every way. And I understand why, because of the history of resistance to them, but I think it's worth considering what an author was actually trying to say. Giving a straight character a storyline about gay rights or a goyish character a storyline about Jewish issues isn't necessarily just a default.

I think seeing Hawkeye Pierce respect and celebrate Jewish traditions with patients and people he works with tells us something important about the character: not that he's Jewish, but that he's empathetic and more than tolerant of other cultures and beliefs. I don't think those episodes mean as much if he's participating in his own culture. Maybe you get something else out of it, but I don't get anything that makes up for what is lost.

A lot of the time, gay headcanons also fundamentally change canon relationships in ways that are not necessarily for the worse, but definitely not inarguably for the better. I don't mean by making a relationship between two men or two women romantic, but by making a relationship between a man and a woman not romantic, or a closet situation.

I think this is part of the larger "fanon is not always better than canon" point, but this particular piece of it feels controversial to me. I very often engage with and produce fanwork using identity headcanons, but I'm very aware that I'm making a trade-off. I think fandom would be more interesting if we all were and if we talked about it.

[unfilteredcurse]

This is probably gonna sound weird, but is it really possible that one's perception of a fictional character character can be changed through fanwork, both for better and for worse?

The reason I started wondering about this in the first place is because of my position as a fanartist/fanfiction writer and an active member of the Tekken fandom. From my personal experiences, as well as my mutuals stories and opinions, I realised that the Tekken fandom is not very nice. There are numerous reasons for that, ranging from toxic dudebros to rabid insane fans and so on.

It's very easy to be exposed to some opinions that will offend you and you will naturally feel the need to stand your ground and engage in debates. And often times, this includes your favourite characters.

It's easy to understand why someone would get upset when their favourite characters are degraded into something disgusting or mistreated and misinterpreted so bad that it starts to hurt and just ruin one's perception of those characters overall.

Recently, I have become more active here and became mutuals with people who I share a lot with, in terms of art, headcanons, stories and fandom members. I am well aware that there are some characters that I love that are hated by others, and for good reasons, mind you (I totally respect those people, as I have no ill will towards anyone). However, from a recent convo with one of my mutuals and friends, I have come to conclusion that their perspective and opinion on one specfic character, who is one of my faves, has started to change because of the way I interpret them in my artwork (if you can guess who, then you get it). This has been explicitly said by my mutual and I was both a bit surprised and delighted to hear that, regarding that their opinion on my fave has been changing for better, in the context.

While I do not expect people to change their views, as that's very difficult and everyone is free to be entitled to their opinions, I have to say that I am actually very happy to hear that my art, headcanons and overall interpetation of one of my favourite characters has been able to change one's view on them, and in a positive way - which is one of the greatest forms of honour for me that I can think of.

And I want to thank you all for supporting me and my work, I am indeed very grateful and happy to hear that! And I also want you to know that I support you and your work as well, because that's something we should strive for as a fandom and a community.

I am once again happy to know that my art impacts people in a positive way and I hope that it can continue on being that way. I am trying my best to be a decent person and friend, as well as a mutual in the fandom space. I have my opinions that I stand by, but I absolutely respect yours 100%, as long as those opinions are not forced and therefore yours truly, as well as that you are not pushing your opinion onto everyone and presenting it as a gospel.

Thank you so much for reading this till the end! ❤️

[fansplaining]

I'm currently an undergrad at UCSB doing an autoethnography on fandom and my solitary consumption of it. I just listened to your guys' episode 8 and was hopeing to get some more information. A big question I still have is can you be in a fandom with out producing and interacting with others as long as you consume the content that fans create.

Hi onionhairs! Elizabeth here. So the first thing I'd recommend is probably checking out more episodes—that was a very early conversation (we are now on episode 193!) and definitely one we've been building on a lot throughout the past seven years.

But tl;dr what I would say is 1) "being in fandom" is about self-definition (if you say you're in fandom, you are, regardless of what you "do" as a fan and 2) discussing what "counts" as fandom is contextual, and it's very important to define that context.

If you're talking about "participatory fandom," for example, a lurker who doesn't engage with other fans in any way might not "count." Scholars and industry researchers often look at participatory fandom because those are the fans they can see—they can't write a paper or report on the thoughts or feelings of lurkers, because how would they know what they are? Deeper into the industry side, someone might define "fan" as a person who spends money on a ticket to a thing: it doesn't matter if lots of other people think of themselves as fans, because your only metric is a fan's monetary value. (This is reductive, but as the saying has historically gone in Hollywood, it's all about "butts in seats.")

Speaking as a person who lurked in fandom for about 15 years, I think you're well-positioned to write about these paradoxes, and about feeling like you're part of a community even though it's totally one-sided—you really feel like you're in the room, but nobody knows you're there. Or at least that's how I always felt! It's a hard thing to talk about with folks who've never lurked—especially because the "participatory fandom is the only fandom that counts" argument can be delivered very loudly—and harder still to find other lurkers to relate to, since they are usually still lurking.

The classic internet community ratio is 90-9-1: 1% creators, 9% commenters, 90% lurkers. Anyone who creates fanworks can see this imbalance in their stats. The idea that "fandom" is only the people in that 10% has never been true, at least as long as fandom has been conducted in digital spaces where people could lurk. And I think the answer to the "can you still be in fandom if [x]" question is always "yes"—the real question here is what does it mean to be "in" a community when you aren't communicating with anyone else?

[olderthannetfic]

Wait I’m genuinely curious about the mechanisms of this - so I know about ao3 and copyright law, but what about zines? I think the earliest are from the 1970s but how have they, as a media form, survived for so long if they’re also technically breaking the law by profiting off an IP? I get a lot are for charity and companies would be reluctant to sue projects for charity but I’ve seen some being sold that aren’t?

And also what about authors who post early updates on patreon or have patreon exclusive fics? That surely has to break copyright law?

Possibly answering my own question but maybe it’s because companies don’t care about this but I also did live through Nintendo viciously taking down let’s plays because they thought it breached their copyright by disincentivising people from playing the games?

Companies can be really strict about their IPs, so I’m really curious as to how this is happening and how people are protecting their works.

--

Getting away with shit and shit being legal are two very different things. ;)

And, to be fair, shit being illegal and companies threatening you with legal action are also very different things.

The oldschool ones were not for charity. You could make a fair use argument, but most zines survive simply because rights holders don't bother to go after them. Small print runs of physical objects are often not seen as significant enough to bother with. Zine makers often argue that they're only charging because they need to cover the printer's bill. Some prices on old zines bear this out; others don't.

Plenty of zines did get shut down by rights holders, however, from big-for-sff-publishing names like Chelsea Quinn Yarbro to Hollywood types like George Lucas. The reasons ranged from "My historical figure vampire is super original and your random-ass zine is endangering my copyright" (Fuck you, CQY. I'm never reading a page of your crap!) to "I just don't like Luke/Leia for some reason but won't tell you why" (LOL). I hear Lucas went after horny zines in general too. I wasn't around for any of this, obviously, but there are writeups online, including on Fanlore.

I presume modern zines benefit from the greater awareness around fair use and around bad press from suppressing fanworks, but they could still be in danger from big rights holders. Being legal or illegal is less important than who has the money for lawyers. Sometimes, a fan can get a big corp to back off by brazening it out, but you have to tell them your legal name and go "Come at me, bro!" Who wants to do that?

Fic Patreons are not only on shaky legal ground, but Patreon does not allow that use of the site. It's a private company, not a public service, and it can pretty much do as it pleases. Here are the guidelines in part:

Restrictions We don’t allow creations and benefits that violate our terms or policies. You can learn more by visiting our Community Guidelines and Benefit Guidelines. A high level summary of those rules is that we don’t allow:

illegal creations or benefits;

creations or benefits that are abusive towards other people;

creations or benefits that use others’ intellectual property, unless you have written permission to use it, or your use is protected as fair use;

or creations or benefits with real people engaging in sexual acts.

If your fans include people under the age of 18, then please remind them that they need their parent’s or legal guardian’s permission to purchase an offering or membership subscription on Patreon, and that those under the age of 13 cannot use Patreon. We are not required to allow any particular person or group of persons to be a patron or otherwise access Patreon services.

Now, yes, they do make an exception for fair use, but I doubt they'll side with the majority of fanworks creators on their particular Patreon works counting as fair use. (Actually, they might be more lenient on RPF. That "real people" rule is about porn starring live actors, not about RPF.) They might rule in favor of the person selling their fic on there, but they very well might not, and even if you were willing to fight it out in court, you probably couldn't since Patreon would be denying you service on their site, not suing you. They can deny service to whomever they want any time they want.

I don't advocate tattling to Patreon simply because I don't think there's any social contract around respecting Patreon's wishes, nor are Patreons I don't back super visible and in my face. Patreon is built by people who get paid to do that; the extra ethical issues present on AO3 are not present here. I don't really approve, but I'm also not going to go out of my way to rat on people. However, I'm sure that fandom enemies of BNFs with Patreons do tattle. I'd advise anyone monetizing this way to have other contact info for their patrons in case they suddenly get kicked off.

--

Basically, people are flying under the radar, and then periodically, there's a big drama where a rights holder or hosting site destroys everything.

[lesbianfakir]

Not saying anything I haven’t already said but it’s 2 in the morning and I have feelings about this!! I want more queerplatonic art and interpretations in the tutu fandom sooooo bad. I keep coming back to how it’s so rare to have a show of this genre where the boy and the girl stay friends without any pressure to make their relationship “something more,” and that really resonates.

It’s not a bad thing but it’s a little sad to me that the tag is so focused on romantic shipping when there are so many other ways to explore the relationships in the show. I would love to see more people engaging with the text in ways that don’t fit in with the conventional relationship script.

Duck feels she is lacking in some fundamental human quality, a narrative that is so very often, an aspec one. For a show that’s so entrenched in amatonormativity I connected with the narrative of tutu in a way that I do with so few shows because it feels so fundamentally aspec. And I want to explore the shit out of that!!

The way the show develops it’s central relationships really resonates with me—rather being built upon some nebulous attraction the foundation of many central relationships come from a place of deep admiration. There is no expectation that that admiration must blossom into romance. At the end of the day, the world is saved through a friendship. There’s no NEED for it to be anything else because that love is complete just as it is. There’s no lack felt—only the strength of what’s already there.

And that said, I feel like when engaging with fanwork that quality is often missing. The idea that these relationships hold the same strength and validity whether they’re platonic or romantic doesn’t always carry through. And don’t get me wrong, I love to see a cute couple. But I wish there was more exploration of the weird nebulous up to interpretation not-quite-romantic, not-quite-platonic relationships the show gives us. It can go either way so it’s so strange to me that fandom tends to gravitate towards only one outcome to these options

Anyways, this is my rallying cry, JOIN ME IN QUEERING PRINCESS TUTU