#completely based on an entirely different interaction in a fanfic

[arrowmaker15]

(Jason Todd meeting the Titans after his arrival)

Jason: So, is anyone gonna say anything?

Wally: We missed you?

Jason: No, you didn't. If you did, I'd have a statue. And as I pointed out to Tim when I broke in and beat his ass, there isn't one.

Donna: I did.

Jason: Don't doubt that for a second.

Roy: I obviously missed you.

Jason: We were on a team together?

Roy: Right.

Victor: I didn't.

Jason: At least you're honest.

Dick: Jesus Christ, Jay-

[radcowboylad]

I think that actors being super involved in the fandoms for franchises they’re in is truly the ULTIMATE marketing tactic that I don’t think the actual creators really take notice of.

As someone who reeallly only gets deep into franchises based on the fandom, these actors are like the fucking backbone of them. Not even exaggerating on that. They unintentionally bring more content for fans to thrive on and keep them involved with the community a lot longer than usual which is absolutely fantastic for people like me who are tired of fandoms dying so quickly because of how short our attention spans have become (thank you tikTok and thank you Streaming services for releasing content all at once instead of one episode per week, totally didn’t completely backfire on your longevity)

For example, let me talk about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2022) Ghost, Soap, König and Horangi:

Initially, Ghost had started appearing on tik tok when the game released sometime around October or November, and because this character was sexy as fuck, he brought in a HUGE AMOUNT of fans from an entirely different demographic (more women, more lgbt people, more mask kink people too lmao) which is so vastly different from its stereotypical community (being males who are often insufferable, sexist, homophobic and transphobic)

But the interesting thing is, once Neil Ellice (Soap’s actor) started showing up and involving himself within TikTok after That One Interview, his character’s popularity BOOMED, while Ghost kind of just remained the same level, despite both Neil and Samuel being present in that interview. I think this is because Ghost’s actor (Samuel Roukin) never really took too much interest in social media’s or the newer cod fandom, and his reactions and responses to questions in the interview never seemed (to me at least) that he cared too much or that he didn’t want to be there. (I don’t think it was intentional though, but it’s hard to know for sure)

After a week or so of the game release, König started to win the hearts of the new cod fans as soon as players started to unlock him in DMZ/multiplayer; people were obsessing over him, despite not being a story mode character (all we had was his character backstory written in his bio)…. And then his Voice actor (Jim Boeven) suddenly made an instagram story reply to someone and either unintentionally or intentionally made a remark in regards to König that came off as homophobic. This actually kind of killed the König fans temporarily; it felt awkward and uncomfortable to express liking König for a while because a lot of the homophobic fans or even just other regular fans would reply to fan art and comments and edits saying “but he’s straight/but his VA is homophobic and calls himself an alpha male unironically” etc. it was also interesting to see how the lgbt fans would actually start rejecting Jim and fully separating him from König in attempt to “reclaim” him and say “Jim isn’t technically his creator/writer, therefore the things he says in regards to König is irrelevant and not canon”, but when Neil would say something about Soap, those same fans would treat it as canon despite it being just as true as the heterosexual König remark Jim made.

I wrote an extra paragraph for Horangi but I accidentally deleted it all ugh I didn’t know adding a link would replace the entire paragraph with the preview and disappear let me do a tldr I don’t know much about Horangi because his character popularity increase is extremely recent OR because I kinda fell out of the fandom briefly until a week ago but essentially I think that Nick Martineau (horangi VA) interacting with the fandom on Neil levels is definitely reviving some cod fans and making player’s interest in COD last just a bit longer.

Anyway the tweet I was gonna link was him talking about joining AO3, the fanfic writers were FREAKING OUT and scared him out of it

I think this really shows how much effect these voice actors & actors have over these characters outside of professional work. Fandoms are a slippery slope so of course, if an actor puts a negative input on ‘their’ character, it’s going to have a negative response or effect from some of the fandom, and vice versa. It needs to be treated with respect and open mindedness.

I guess also the beauty of not having actors involved is that you can avoid this issue all together. You can’t really stop actors from “tainting” characters outside of official media because their words outside of it doesn’t make it official or canon at all

But anyways, Old fashion interviews can be nice too. but it’s different. Interviews can easily seem too professional and insincere, that the actor doesn’t actually have to have any passion for the franchise/character, can only be there for the money or because they have to be there, etc even if that’s not always the case… so it’s truly on another level when an actor has a lot of passion and love for their community and interacts with fans outside of interviews. The casual-ness, it feels more personal, and there’s a lack of need for censoring for company image or whatever and those factors name it so easy to become more attached to the character AND the actor themself.

It feels so special when the art, memes, projects, edits, and even fanfics you make can have an unprompted response from an actor involved. i think it’s normal when you see their reactions and it put you on a small high + silly bragging rights even if they comment on a lot of things.

Even if the actor is not like their character (let’s be real, actors are very rarely anything like the characters they play) it still sort of feels like that character is still alive in them, even if the character has died and the show has ended… it fills me with so much happiness especially when these actors react like their characters or answer questions on behalf of the character, or give their opinions on silly discourse, headcanon’s, theories and ships. The fandoms FEAST on this shit for a good while and it becomes the talk of the week!

Oh boy and let me tell you more instances where actors have completely amplified my emotional attachment to franchises!!! (Warning: irrelevant rambles you don’t need to read)

I was hyperfixating HARD on rdr2 a few years ago and obviously it’s just so easy to fall in love with the world and the characters in that amazing game on its own, but when I discovered Roger Clark (Arthur Morgan), Robert Wiethoff (John Marston) and Peter Blomquist’s (Micah Bell) instagram accounts, I had so much fun seeing their involvement in the fandom (despite it being little in comparison to mw2), seeing how Peter would make his instagram captions allude to not being human and kind of just acting as a Micah parody, seeing Peter make (hilarious) dad jokes (that I steal to this day) and build a fucking chicken coop on live it just makes it SOO SPECIAL!

One moment that was super special to me was when Roger Clark voiced a western audiobook and gave out some copies for free on twitter and I was a winner. I was able to have a chat with him, and after a while I made some doodles of the book characters and he saw them and ended up following me back 🥹🥹🥹 (STILL SAD THOUGH BECAUSE I NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO THE ACCOUNT)

Oh oh oh and TF2, those voice actors are quite literally carrying TF2 more than the actual fucking devs GENUINELY! It’s actually kind of upsetting how these actors really openly want to do more official things with the game but valve is sadly dead as fuck these days… Medic’s voice actor especially (who I think streams occasionally? I’ve never made it to one before) makes the fandom much more livelier and so fun, doing lines in medic’s voice and the fans creating funny sfm’s and comics from them!

Actually, one of the hugest impacts an actor has made on me definitely has to be Bill Moseley. I’m sure most of you probably have no fucking clue who this dude is so let me tell you all about him

I first discovered Bill Moseley in the movie Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (still my #1 favourite film) and he plays Chop Top, the brother of Leatherface. Sadly that character is only in that film though but oh my god, Bill Moseley did what no other actor could ever do…

I fell into a rabbit hole and discovered that Bill Moseley formed a band called Cornbugs where he essentially roleplays/sings AS CHOP TOP and it also had fucking BUCKETHEAD in it (I believe he’s one of the musicians who has made the most albums (435) in the world) and he is an absolute guitar legend and genuinely amazing music despite his silly iconic look (you guessed it he wears a bucket on his head)

Although it sounds…. Extremely unique, to say the least, I am lucky enough to be one of those people who actually enjoys all kinds of music (yes, even country, before you roll your eyes. Don’t underestimate my tastes) because most of the songs are extremely silly and fun but would probably sound… too interesting to the average person. Most of the appeal to me initially was how in some of the songs it was pretty explicitly about chop top, bubba and Drayton and my hyperfixation thrived for so so so so much longer than it should have purely because of that music career.

It also doesn’t end there though, he has an even Niche’r band that is active currently (unlike Cornbugs bc it got dispanded after buckethead got bored and left I think) called Spider Mountain that has music that genuinely surprised me. These songs are actually so good and underrated even though they are also silly (and definitely would be more appealing to Normal listeners in comparison to Cornbugs) but even though it’s about completely disconnected to chop top, I’ve noticed that the lyrics in a few of these songs seem to be about some family members and himself, like Maple Men which is an extremely silly but catchy song, and they just fill me with so much glee. Like this dude is just a dad having fun in the studio!! Making songs about silly and random topics like Goose Steppin’ Down Broadway, incredible shrinking man, and stupid life of a mom eater LIKE THEYRE JUST SO SILLY AND FUN AND CHARMINGGG these types of passionate actors increase my lifespan and when they go far and wide for the franchises they’re in its so magical.

I have to stop here now but im just about done talking about this anyway, my phone is starting to lag from my hyperfixation rambles. I’ve been writing this for 3 hours.

I’d also love to hear about whatever experiences that any of you have with actors amplifying your experiences, or just general thoughts about this recent trend that’s happening with them!

[finitefall]

https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/house-of-the-dragon-female-gaze-sex-scenes-queer-rhaenyra-1235462483/

They are writing their own book at this point, I’ve read better fanfics on twitter. The whole interview is completely brainsick. Thinking of Fire and Blood with a 15 years old Alicent and a 6 years old Rhaenyra and seeing this is just laughable. Who the hell are these characters ???

Dear God, there’s so much bullshit here... I’m only gonna mention Rhaenicent with the quotes from Emma, Olivia and Sara.

“I can definitely understand that it's hot watching complex female characters who have agency and who are trying to navigate the world and understand themselves. Like, that is hot. And is very different from, I suppose, more two-dimensional portrayals of female sexuality.”

Emma, you seem to be a good person, but you’ve already talked about the “erotic energy” between Alicent and Rhaenyra and now you’re like “it’s hot, it’s hot, it’s so hot”. Where? And where have you seen Alicent and Rhaenyra being complex female characters with agency? Alicent is Queen but reduced to a victim of men, Rhaenyra is crying over the page her former BFF kept for 20 years like that’s more interesting than her reaction to her daughter’s death and to the Greens’ treason.

“I guess what’s alluring, and quite scintillating, is that they all live in quite close proximity to each other. Stealing these loaded looks with someone that you fancy and that’s forbidden, that’s hot. It’s all hot.”

Again with “it’s hot, it’s all hot”, where? There’s nothing, Olivia.

“There’s an element of queerness to it. Whether you see it that way or as just the unbelievably passionate friendships that women have with each other at that age. I think understanding that element of it sort of informs the entire rest of their relationship… Even though they’re driven apart by all these societal, systemic elements and pressures and happenings, at the core of it, they knew each other as children, and they loved each other and that doesn’t go away.”

Sara Hess with her wisdom, again. Love can definitely go away, especially when one of the two commited treason against the other.

“Olivia has told me she believes — and this is her headcanon — that they at some point kissed or made out or had some kind of physical interaction that Alicent’s mother found out about and forbade. And that was Olivia’s head story, ‘Oh, I can’t do that. That’s not right.’ And that’s the background for her in their relationship going forward. I would be 100% down with that.”

This is absolutely ridiculous. I kissed friends too, get over it. But wait: they’re both 14 in the first episode. Alicent’ mother was dead. They had both forgotten about any physical interaction apparently, so what, they made out when they were 10?! No wonder Alicent’s mother wouldn’t like it, Faith of the Seven or not.

“I happen to be a queer woman, but I know straight women who had ‘Heavenly Creatures’-esque, romantic friendship with their best friend at that age. That’s something that I think, probably — I don’t want to stereotype anybody – but it seems to be more a phenomenon with young women than it is with men, probably because whether you’re queer or not, society cares less if you’re physically intimate with each other or hugging or touching each other. You can have sleepovers and sleep in the same bed and nobody cares.”

Heavenly Creatures is an amazing movie, based on a true story, and one of my favorite movies with Kate Winslet. I highly recommend it if you haven’t watched it. You’ll also be able to see that there’s absolutely no reason to mention it in an interview about this show. Now, it’s true that society cares less with young girls that young boys, but nobody cares? Not true at all.

I totally understand that as a queer woman Sara Hess would want to have wlw representation. But there was already one heavily implied in the book, between Rhaenyra and Laena. Also, instead of making up queer ships, write a new one in another show. We want to see this (well, perhaps not written by Hess). I want another f/f ship, a new one, no queerbait, no fanon: a new, original canon f/f ship between two women who are actually complex characters. Give us that, not Rhaenicent. We don’t want it because you’re just rewriting what happened and totally missing the point of the Dance here, not because we don’t want a f/f ship.

[the-bad-batch-baroness]

Hi!! I’d love to hear 1, 6, and 11 about A Man’s Worth!

Freeeeeeeeeee, thank you for asking about my Tup fic 🥺 I am having so much fun writing "A Man's Worth" and it will probably be my first series fic I actually finish, lol 😅

1. What inspired you to write the fic this way?

As a preface, I love to write more unconventional themes and realistic subjects. Perhaps there is a better way to put that, but it's the best explanation I have. I like to explore things that are difficult to talk about, that are dynamic, and have multiple layers. I enjoy diving deep. Sometimes it's fluff and sometimes it's angst.

With all of that said, this fic started with the bingo square "obsession" from the clone x reader bingo game. I mulled that square over for a couple weeks and finally landed on a stalker themed fic. It's tough subject, but one that I have experience in, so I felt comfortable exploring it.

Then I had to decide on which clone to abuse use. This is going to sound absolutely horrible, but the decision was based on which clone could provide the most emotional damage, whether that be to the audience or to the other characters in the story. Which is how I landed on Tup. That poor baby.

What people may or may not have realized yet, is that this fic isn't about the reader. It's actually about Tup. The reader plays and important part, but they aren't the main character. The whole premise of the fic is built around the idea of "self-worth" and what that looks like, which is where the fic's namesake comes from.

Not to give too much away for Chapter 3, Chapter 4, and possibly Chapter 5, but there are heavy themes of "life after trauma" and what "normal" looks like after a traumatic event. It's a reality that many face in the real world, and not something that is discussed at length, which is the type of thing I like to tackle in a fic.

It's meant to make people feel uncomfortable, emotional, and tug at their heart strings. Some of it may be difficult to read, but that's how it's supposed to be, because their is nothing glamorous about trauma. Diving into the mind of trauma survivor is a terrifying experience, and I say that as a trauma survivor myself.

6. What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

All of my fics are unique and special in their own way. See my previous explanation from this post. This particular fic is unique because it's the most violent fic I have ever written. I don't know if it would border on "horror-esque" but it's not an easy read, that's for sure. If I can finish this series, it will be my first completed series I have ever written, so that also makes it different.

11. What do you like best about this fic?

What I really like best about this fic I can't actually talk about because it would be spoilers!!! If I had to choose the second-best thing I like about this fic, it would have to be Hound and Jesse. If you haven't read Chapter 2 yet, then I won't spoil it too much, but I gave Hound a personality that clashes with Jesse from the get-go and they have some interesting interactions. It's also the only comic relief in the entire fic, followed closely by Tup's terrible mini-golf swing mentioned in Chapter 1 😂

P.S. CHAPTER 3 DROPS TOMORROW!!!

Fanfic writer asks

[cometchasr]

fic recs from many fandoms (MILD SPOILERS)

these are based off my likes personally and are in no way any form of review i suck at reviews

WoF

the dragon and the scavenger by wobblywyvern. one of the first fics i ever read. unfortunately unupdated since sep 2020, and im still crying over it. cliffball best ship.

finding peace by warrior of spectra. another one of the first fics i ever read. finished, very good, raging over cliff/peacemaker not being real but thats me.

different threads by firehawk1100. darkstalker/indigo. i like it better than shadow of the mind (his other fic, winterwatcher). just. beautiful. i suck at reviewing but its good trust me

diamonds fall and fates change by fabokraken. our first ao3 fic, woo!! the others except finding peace are also on ao3, but i found them on ffn and thus that site goes first. its adorable. its fucking adorable. i love arctic and foeslayer so much. i love not-evil darkstalker. i love everything. darlie is my beloved.

wings of fire: changing seasons by fatespeaker. actually a whole series. winter, therefore automatic win. the characters and the plot just... interact so well. the intrigue. it all.

Warriors

tinystar's beginning by twilidramon. i havent read this one in forever but. scourge!! my beloved. its good, i remember.

second chances and a scourge upon fate by deerlyqueery. more scourge!! we love our edgy boi. and we love making him gay!!!!

a spark from starclan, rusty's skyclan and collars and claws by salmonfang. theyre completely separate, and you should read their other works too, but these are the ones i read (albeit in diminished form because. lazy ykyk). there is, something. about this writing. beloved

blackfire: book one by xenonex. theres art, its adorable and fluffy, its also filled with drama, rarepair, everything

exile by mallowstep, aerial-jace and kudossi. something that holds terrible and beautiful memories for me (personal reasons). but just, the whole idea. the emotion, the vibes. the it all. this is the one that spawned the way i style my works, because i fucking vibe with the vibe so much, and ive turned it into a very different beast, but here it is. the core, one great part of my writing story. read it its so good

The Dragon Prince

(only 2 because ive read about zero tdp fanfics, it doesnt actually have any dragons smh)

the devil you thought you knew by strangefake. aaravos. AARAVOS. MAGIC EXPOSITION. PHILOSOPHY. BLURRY GOOD AND EVIL. DELICIOUS. wonderful as hell holy shit

sun fueled rage by photoniccyclone. sol regem takes over the world and we have to stop him. ungodly long chapters, lots of scenes, angst, angst, angst, angst, angst.

thats it but i know newt wouldnt let this list go without me adding my zanrex fic, the stars were forever bright for us, which im actually somewhat proud of. the cracks are showing, but they always do. also, you, the reader of this post, make some tdp dragon-centric fanfic. we're fucking starving.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon

the history of this fandom and its works is long and expansive and storied and i have so many recs i would never be able to fit them here (mostly because i havent read like all of them). needless to say, we've started making our own content in overdrive at the lack of new shit.

the entire pmd writer's union collection. im in this server. fics are top-notch, environment is top-notch, except when it isnt for me and me personally. if one wishes to join i may or may not be allowed to give you a link. anyways, the ones ive read are down below, and are all in the collection (duh!)

warped skies by team ion. linked is the arc 1 rewrite, the original is here. its beautiful. its a trainwreck of emotions, and i havent started on arc 3 yet (thats the good shit). the chapters are extremely long, the characters are extremely good, i shill it everywhere, i love this fic and i havent even gotten halfway through. its the other main influence on my writing, although more in ambition and inspiration than in actual style like exile. hell, i started DoP because of it. the post is out there somewhere. its just. it is. it is, it is. i think you can see a common theme with my ineptitude at describing fics, but. read it. read it. masterpiece

daily life in pokemon paradise by kitsu-19. gates slice of life. beautiful characters. the moguls and swift and it all. its. its so interesting, and full of life, and you fall in love with the characters. it feels so much more alive. i cannot describe shit. read it, youll get what i mean.

royal replacement by turkeyuwu. gay. politics. legal document(s?) (just the one so far). great masquerade. untrained alolan vulpix uses light that burns the sky. plot inspired by a chinese webnovel, so you just know its gonna be batshit insane and ridiculous. i find myself incapable of describing shit at the moment. read it

My Little Pony

fuck it, we're going all in.

equestria at war, by EaW dev team. unlike all the others, this one requires about $200 to fully unlock. its a hoi4 mod, and its beautiful. griffonian empire best.

changing expectations by kkslider. buggos!! buggos!!!!! more importantly, actual mlp fic with gay in it! long, so many plottwists, phasma is our beloved slightly traumatised changeling king, actual history and lore, alcoholic celestia, pictures!! READ

afraid of the light by binibean. celestia trauma from all that bullshit. angst. somethings not right. i love these stories.

night wing by gravity012. guy gets SIed into a big immortal magic birb. stuff falls apart, he goes on adventures with celestia and luna, changelings and thestrals are very cuddly. so fluffy. until it isnt.

then it becomes very sad.

(also he freezes the tree of harmony for making nightmare moon happen. badass)

this is a fucking long list.

UPDATE: I FORGOT TO GIVE A LINK TO BLACKFIRE @xenomane FORGIVE ME

[uselesstaroth]

About to post a very long wall of text about how I wrote my Lego Monkie Kid fanfic that I love very much which is this one:

Minor spoilers (I think), if that matters to you.

The entire premise of Azure Wings came from this

Story editor David Breen has said on Twitter that while Lady Bone Demon doesn't tell lies, she does see the world in absolutes

So I thought about if that was something diegetic, that is a part of her being in-canon, that she never lies.

And I had a character from an original story that was a goddess of truth: she did not perceive or say any lies and it was a very different existence, that helped her feel properly alien as I like my deities.

And I started to think about them interacting and came to the conclusion that LBD's deal of "sinister villain that never lies" doesn't work if someone can see through lies, it takes away a lot of the punch.

So... It didn't work. The goddess's abilities had no effect on Lady Bone Demon, and that kept the sinister side of her not lying while also giving her more oomph in the interactions.

I started writing about that but I realized that I didn't like these characters from a different story that so far only exists in my head interacting with a pre-established character.

So... I adapted it. I imagined a character with that same ability that fit in the world of Lego Monkie Kid. That's how the feline with bronze fur came about.

The impetus for making them the child of the brotherhood trio was actually Azure Lion himself, and how badly he reacted to criticism in the show.

Give him a child whose criticism is cosmically true, and he'd lose it.

After that, the story almost starts writing itself.

Almost.

I had so much trouble putting this story into words.

Originally the Azure Winged Lion was going to find the Skeleton Key in an open field after Macaque just ditched it. (This was before they were a fan child)

This version was much more carefree, sang sea shanties, and was mostly just distasteful for the lies they heard constantly and how dishonest everyone was and had no issues with their truth powers.

I didn't like this version. There wasn't much emotion behind it nor a personal investment.

At some point, I had the Azure fan child idea, and that gave them a lot more personal investment into the world, and then came the motivation of wanting to get rid of/control the truth powers.

But something was still missing from that.

And then for some reason, I tried writing them as a reader character, and then the story wrote itself.

And it makes sense too. If a character's worldview is based on how they see the world completely differently from everyone else, make their perspective the only one.

I didn't realize what their relationship with Lady Bone Demon was going to be until I started world building backwards from that. That this character is tailor made to be an advisor

Like Lady Bone Demon.

I had created a character that lent itself very well to finding LBD very relatable, and, since being immune to her possession was something I had in mind from the start, had to obey her by choice, out of agreement, and, in a weird way, companionship

And that was super fun to write.

And it still is! And I can't wait to write more!

Later...

I need a break...

[baejax-the-great]

hiiiiiii for the fanfic asks!

8. shortest completed fic you wrote this year

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write

18. current number of wips

25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read

8. Cold Fish! It was the first thing i posted this year, too--ancient Achilles learning about the hobby of ice fishing and being deeply unimpressed. It is based entirely on my SIL, who is from a very warm country and who thought we were all playing a practical joke on her when we explained why there were tents on iced-over Lake Monona.

14. Chintz. I actually don't read/watch/interact with most media that has to do with substance abuse, so I never would have imagined writing a story about it. But once the idea wiggled itself into my brain, I couldn't stop writing until I had it down. I also really didn't think I was actually going to go through with writing the follow-up, Agua Caliente, and I had no idea it was going to be 70k words when I did.

25. Hmm. This is tricky because people have followed me for very different reasons/fandoms, hah. I have a rec post scheduled for Friday which is fics I read this year, so I'm going wider. I think Cantata (Mass Effect fic) by @swaps55 is still one of my all time faves, and more than that, it made me think about writing and what makes it compelling. Swaps's writing is so active, which is a quality I personally enjoy a lot, and every time I read her work I find myself wondering how I can make my own fic more active.

End of year fic asks

[theunrealinsomniac]

Hey, thank you so much for answering my question about when did you start shipping NaruSaku. But that inevitably also made me curious - when and how did you start shipping NaruIno as your #2 ship? I'm interested in your answer since it's completely different case, they almost don't have any interactions in the series and honestly most of those they have unfortunately are probably anime fillers. So unlike NaruSaku their potential is almost entirely fan made (basing on their canon matching personalities of course, but still, unlike NaruSaku, they don't have these moments of their chemistry in actual series)

So I'm really curious to know when and how you came aboard this ship.

Not a problem, I love answering questions!

Especially when they are about my work. Cos it helps with the impostor syndrome I suffer with every day lol.

And you're quite right, there's actually less interaction between Naruto and Ino in Canon than most characters. Other than the fight against Kakazu I don't actually think they're seen together when both of them are conscious lol.

However, filler gonna filler and I can tell you the exact moment my interest was piqued lol.

This filler was delightful. And the understanding it gives Ino about who Naruto really is ... was pretty much the starting pistol for me on this ship.

Plus when you read as much fanfic as I used to ... you need to get amenable to different ships lol. NaruIno just kinda hit me in a way most didn't and it stuck.

Though honestly, being a multishipper, this ship is far from my weirdest and cracky Naruto/Girl ship lol.

Thanks for asking!

[pofatrgwf]

Okay, but what WAS Axe up to?

A spinoff fanfic based around Axe (the Fraxure, now Haxorus) from pofatrgwf, and what he's been doing.

Chapter 1 link on AO3 below

Summary: "Axe died thirteen years ago. He was the first human to arrive in the Pokemon world. So what WAS he up to?"

There was a human child named Axle. Even though his family struggled financially, he was happy in life. But he never interacted with anyone else. His only friend was the family pet Fraxure, who he considered more as an older brother. Despite a language barrier, the two completely understood each other. In fact, Axle was very good at understanding Pokemon. To him, there was no difference between humans and Pokemon, both were people.

When Axle was 7 years old, some armed burglars broke into his family’s apartment. He hid under a table and saw his parents get killed. His older brother tried attacking the burglars, but ended up getting shot in the chest. He saw Axle under the table and told him to run. Axle then dashed out from the table and ran to the door. But suddenly…

BANG!

The next thing he knew, Axle was in a blue void. And his head hurt. A LOT. He rolled on the ground, screaming in pain. There was a voice trying to talk to him, but he was in way too much pain to listen. A few minutes of screaming later, he calmed down. The voice started talking again.

“Axle. Your life has been cut short. Too short. I would not usually do this, but I have decided to make an exception for you.”

Axle looked towards the source of the voice and saw a large white Pokemon.

“Arceus??” Just seeing Arceus shocked him, but then Axle realized what he said. “I’M DEAD??”

“Unfortunately, yes. Normally, I would simply let you pass on, but I've decided to give you a second chance at life."

"ok"

"You're… fine with that? No questions asked?"

"My entire family died right in front of me, it's not like I have anything to come back to."

Then the floor underneath him revealed the sky. And then he fell.

----

Axle had already been through enough pain in one day to last a lifetime, so when he hit the ground, he just lied on the floor, too tired to even feel pain anymore. But that wouldn't stop him from crying.

A few hours later, a Nidoran found him asleep. He dragged him all the way to his house, and waited for him to wake up. When he did, Axle was lost in thought, not moving a muscle.

('Today has definitely been the worst day of my life. I don't think it could get any worse than thi-')

Axle's thoughts were interrupted by the Nidoran poking his face. He'd actually been poking him for a while, but Axle just noticed now. He decided to ignore him.

"Dude, are you okay?" asked the Nidoran. "You're not even reacting to my pokes. You dead inside or something?"

Axle sat up. "Considering that I actually, legitimately, really died, for real, like a few hours ago, maybe."

"what"

"Look, today's been possibly the worst day of my life. Dying really hurts."

As Axle turned his head to sleep on his side (again), he accidentally smacked the Nidoran's head with his tusk. "Oh, sorry about tha… Wait a second." Axle then looked down at his body and realized he was no longer human, but rather, an Axew. "I die, then become an Axew… how fitting…"

"You're pretty weird. Anyways, what's ya name?"

"It's Axle. Yours?"

"Nido. N-I-D-O. For some reason, everyone keeps saying 'Needle' instead. It's Nido. So, Axel-"

"It's Axle, not Axel."

"I… said that?"

"You said Axel, not Axle."

"But, that's the same thing?? I can't tell the difference."

"I know, but I can tell you're spelling it wrong. It's A-X-L-E, not A-X-E-L."

Nido sat down completely dumbfounded at the fact that Axle could somehow tell how he was spelling his name, even though they were talking outloud.

"How do you feel about nicknames?"

Axle only shrugged in response.

"Okay… Axe… where 'ya from?"

[yasashiiku]

10, 16, 18, and 20 for the munday meme!

10. Would you be friends with your muse if they were real?

I'm very loveable between younger boys for a reason (cousins, neighbors, my lil brothers' friends-) so I think I'd get a long with Shou & Shigeo & tlp :'), lots of mothering and berating involved, I'm not the eldest daughter for nothing x'D Kyojuro and Uta are too extroverted my introverted ass is SCARED Σ(°ロ°) Aoi shares a lot of traits with me I can see the both of us cleaning up an entire idk castle then having tea ...

16. Favourite trope?

Anything & everything that involves exploring the vulnerability of one's self, breaking down characters to pieces then putting them back together v neatly ! :] I like that a lot, I also like writing ambiguous morality, I can write a whole bunch of goody two shoes but slowly you'll see how everyone is kind of fucked up in their own way, sometimes it's harmless, just there- sometimes it has really great weight on the characters and how they interact with others. All in all, I'm a sucker for darker themes with little rays of light here and there! I try to make sure it's perfectly balanced as all things should be uwu

18. Are there any AU’s you’d like to explore but haven’t had the chance to yet?

Oh my god, you've opened a can of worms, and it's mostly Shou brain worms- but yES I have SO MANY AUs. Starting with kny I always loved the modern demon hunting AU, I know it's literally the same story but like modern but no, THE VIBES would be sooo different, so neat, the corps having tech that's more advanced than the regular masses?? demons would actually be much less in numbers and less known to people, demon slayers going to school & simple jobs & hiding their demon slaying careers, secret missions, nosy citizens & media, and everyone in suits cuz im insane, that's the good stuff.

As for mp100 I have way too many ideas and this post would get so long so I'm just gonna write 2, first is an AU I like to calll "foul & fair" based on a fic I read once, where Shou is a man of no woman born, intead he's a being completely made of the core of his father's psychic energy, impossible & unnatural & innocent & literally his father's biggest fear on earth and Shou doesn't even KNOW, there are too many possibilities, how'd he go about knowing, how are other psychics handling it, how Shou lives between humans when he can't call himself one- it's a very fun AU i love it sm i die. Idea number 2 is amnesia au set after the events of confession arc, I'm gonna avoid spoilers and just say Toichiro sends his son flying as a means to protect him, Shou gets head trauma & forgets everything ever, no one handles it well, some are guilt ridden, some want to support him but don't know how, his mother is devastated, but it also gives so much room to explores so many new dynamics & have Shou process all his past & present trauma in such new light. I'm also devastated :)

20. How do you overcome writer’s block?

I don't. lol

jk jk, I like reading fanfics, I like reading fanfics a lot especially one shots cuz they explore a single idea in few words and offer a lot of inspiration! other than that I dive into pinterest and get drowned in fanart and quotes and then im ON FIRE again in no time !

[catboii]

(( hi to anyone who forgot they were following this DEADass blog!!

I've obviously not been on here, or on any RP blog at all, in forever. I'm gonna put this weird update(? more like a note to myself) under a cut, in case it gets kinda long... I might add updates to it later because there's alot I want to say. but I doubt anyone who would've been interested back when I was active, is still around (not to be negative! I don't expect them to be, I hope everyone I hung out with is living their best life!!) but I don't really know where else to collect my mess of thoughts on this character (I only sort of use twitter atm? and char limit lol), so for now, I'll post it here, and if I ever wanna link back to it, it's all neat and together...

if you've forgotten what this blog used to be since I changed URL and icons etc the last couple times it was active, it was Catboii, then before that SolicitorC. I have no idea if this character is actually dead, or if it is still out there somewhere, living it's best life (hopefully) maybe one day I'll tie up the loose ends, and finally set it free.... who knows

the reason I'm here, thinking about this character so fondly again, is I've actually been tentatively thinking about. writing things. again. I've been reading Homestuck fanfics again recently (i know right? in 2023?? what the shit) I doubt anyone who followed me on this blog knew me back on my other RP blogs, where I occasionally mentioned my fanfics (from 10 years ago aparently, mostly 2013 wow)..... most of which I'm embaressed about today so some I've orphaned, but the experience and practice was good in the long run

but the point is I've been thinking about writing something in my spare time (which I don't have much of, and I have multiple mental things that mean I have to re-read and correct and rearrange things I write like a million times. so far I've taken nearly 2 hours <now nearly 4 including eating and moving from upstairs to downstairs back upstairs...> to write and re-read this post, and I'm nowhere near done yet.... I'm gonna try to not be so anal about how this lays out because I've moved some paragraphs around and it sometimes doesn't make sense, but it literally doesn't matter! this is mostly just so I can look back on it in the future and be like, "oh yeah, I did that...")

I was thinking about trying to write some original fiction about one particular set of fantasy characters I have, and I like to remember the inspiration for their origins, so here we are.....

people who actually know me know I'm a HUGE slut for recycling characters. I have OCs who've been in literal hundreds of AUs, with either the same characters as always, or some different ones. and alot of my OCs, surprise surprise, started off as Tumblr RP muses.

I actually have a new version of this character, completely off tumblr or any other platform as of yet. although now he's completely diverged and I've created an entirely new timeline, new history, some actual lore of where he's come from and WHAT HE IS (finally) and how some of my other characters fit into the "universe". and I'll be honest, I did take some inspiration from some chatacters we met along the way. they have different names, I've changed their personalities somewhat, some are just loosely based off of the "concept" of a character we met, or the kind of relationship or interactions they had with my/other characters around,,, and they may not fit together with each other in this universe the way they did on Tumblr because they're not them, but the inspiration that I got from the interactions our characters had, had a big impact on the way this character has evetually turned out. I have BPD and "favourite people" reaches to more than just actual real life people for me, it reaches to characters, and I did have some "favourite muses" that really stuck with me, even if my muse wasn't a fan or they didn't really interact. there were also characters that my muse was really into, that I personally wasn't a fan of, but still mean alot to me and our progression

I obviously don't wanna just straight up plagierise someone else's character, and that wouldn't make sense anyway.... I can't copy someone else's character, and even if I COULD, they were probably fandom muses, which wouldn't work here in our new world. I can make up new characters, self indulge for the purposes of progressing my other character's stories... but that feels empty and pointless. these characters STILL hold a special place in my heart? and so some kind of weird tribute, without actually telling the person who made them, just makes sense to me I guess.... I wasn't gonna out mysef like this tbh, because to some people it might sound bad, I have alot of other characters who I've basically done the same thing with, took some loose inspiration from some OCs/fandom muses someone else made, and put some bits and pieces of them together in a completely different character of my own. I have a couple who are still mildly reminiscent of the originals, or are a very close paralell (with my own quirks), which I actually did get permission from the original creators to use and change... sometimes I think about actual TV or book characters who these smaller characters remind me of, and other RP blog characters or OCs, put bits of these characters together, then pick them apart, thinking about how they grew up, their family, friends, how that would've formed them as a person... frankensteining them together into some kind of guilt-free brain baby. this is essentially how you make characters, right? they're even initially inspired by real people, or real people's traits or personalities... then you squish them up and mould them into something else? it's not like I'm profiting off someone else's hard work and creativity... idk I don't really know how I feel about it.

for me, making characters is more than just "welp I need someone to be this guy's friend for a few chapters", they're a big part of the story, each one of my characters need to have some kind of background. even if that background is that we don't know anything about them for whatever reason.

anyway... back to the point I was getting to.

Tii, or Kiity, started off as... sort of a weird social experiment (at least that's what I'm calling it as a joke) on how out of character I can make a "normal" homestuck AU character, and not feel even the slightest bit bad about it. until I did.

the full timeline from when I was actually active is here but if you're not into long rambling explanations, here's, something..... (spoiler this turned into way longer than the timeline page, but this one has actual me in it, and my thoughts, rather than a sorta,,, emotionless list) if you DON'T wanna read the full timeline, but would like to read about my NEW character, I'll put this between these squigglies, and you can just skip it

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

homestuck stuff (so if you don't get HS then I'm sorry!): he started as just a normal post-game Sollux but he was god tier, didn't remember anything from the game or where his friends were, but couldn't die! fun! while he'd had the blog he got one of those pesky magin anons which turned him into a literal catboy, which he was actually really into bc people gave him alot of attention, so we made it permanent, there was some stuff with an Alternian uprising, human troll experimentation, he had his own lab, did experiments with parasites, especially brain worm type deals, I think this Sollux (I've had a few) didn't have Psionics? bc I'm a sucker for broken bois, it's been such a long time that I don't remember much myself. there was a phase with quadrant prostitution, hence the blog title "Solicitor". the first URL is where the nickname Lit came from. totally accidental but "it's Lit" was a great tag line. there was alot of memory loss in here, a universe's Signless manipulating Lit's memories to his own advantage... I have a terrible memory myself, and forgetting important things is a big fear of mine, so I thought I'd vent it out as a plot point, again, fun! it was also a handy plot ploint to let Lit forget muses who went inactive, rather than waiting around for them to return (since he was clingy but I'm realistic and have no problem if someone has a real life)

no more homestuck: there's a climax point where Lit was manipulated by a demonic creature called Kreed, which mostly happened off-blog. partially because I was too cringe thinking "lol demons" to actually go very far with it publicly. but in the end it worked out in my favour, because the story was getting REALLY DEPRESSING, and it was sorta going stale... this is where I dropped fandom and made Tii an OC, I was sort of feeling weird about the whole fandom thing since the character didn't feel like the actual canon character at all, with the memory loss and the manipulation. it was totally in character and it was story/character progression, but it didn't feel right calling it Sollux anymore, and honestly it was a little restricting.... it wasn't out of place though, because other people were making their fandom characters OCs around this time, rather than just starting up a whole new blog for the OC, having to get followers/interaction from scratch... you know, the grind.

there was a while at this point where Tii thought it was happy? but honestly no, it wasn't, and it was dragging me down a bit, which is why I kept dipping out, and I made a couple of ther blogs around this point. in general the blog experience was good, most of the interactions were great, but I'd put too much,,,,, brain? into emotions and the afterthoughts. I got too in my head, and in Tii's head, about the past. there were toxic muses that Tii dwelled on, and even if I tried to erase the memories, they would still pop up on it's dash and it would start a spiral, there would be posts on the vent blog regarding these people and Tii would be like "WHO DIS??" which was partially funny, but in the end exhausting.... it turned out, what I was *hoping* would be a superpower (forgetting traumatic events) turned out to be Tii's downfall.... I decided to go no-contact with my own character at some point. mostly I was just genuinely too busy, but I started to pop back on every now and again on mobile to see how things were going, say hi to a couple people, but eventually it would all start spiralling again, and it just wasn't enjoyable. I tried making another blog for an OC, which I don't think I even finished setting up before I decided I just didn't have the time or energy to start up.... but that's not Tii stuff, so nevermind that

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

today, Furui is a Nekomata (with some shapeshifting abilities), in a world where maybe 2% of the population is some kind of fantasy creature, living in hiding. most can blend in with general society, so humans think it's WAY less than that, although they know they're around...

I have a few "main characters", including Keisuke, who was a boy who grew up at the family temple/shrine (I'm not too familiar with Japanese culture, and I'm not about to pretend I am, so I forget which it is) where Furui lived back when he was an actual, literal cat. he frequented the site, even though his family told him not to go alone as the ghost of a black cat haunted it. it was actually just a Yokai. so much better... the Yokai grew quite fond of Keisuke, and hung around him, let him put a handmade collar on him so he could hear the tinkling bell when he was around. although Keisuke moved abroad to study when he was older, and when he returned after several years, the cat was gone. at some point, Furui, not understanding human language, so thinking Keisuke had just forgetten about him (even though he did try multiple times to say he was leaving,,, )and other humans pestering him and trying to chase him out, had gotten fed up, and turned into a malevolent spirit, burning down the temple/shrine, and killing several humans who'd tried to harm him

on a lighter note, fast farward a couple years, there's some goofy intro where Keisuke meets Furui in a human form, but he's an absolutely terrible human impersonator. they somehow end up being buddies and Keisuke teaches him how to person etc etc story things.

there are other main characters like Lyric the sweet but secretly manipulative Siren, or "Lyra" to humans. then there's Denali the reluctant Werewolf who I've actually toyed with being the protagonist. they have a complicated relationship where Lyric doesn't want Denali to be so self destructive (drinking and sleeping around), and doesnt actually know that he's a literal werewolf. because he won't tell her. he's worried she'll absolutely freak out about him getting hurt or hurting people... what he doesn't realise is she's just using him and has got him wrapped around her little finger, because she thinks he's just another stupid human. he, of course knows she's NOT a human, but think he's special, and she would NEVER use her powers on him.

Furui and Keisuke move abroad to [wherever I decide this takes place] where Lyric, Denali, and a bunch of other characters live. Furui quickly befriends Lyric because he can smell non-humans, being a cat and all, meets Denali and finds out he hasn't told Lyric his secret, so (as he's not a human, so doesn't have human values of trust and camaraderie, and is... not a nice person in general) threatens to out him if he doesn't play along with his games.. those games, being he's been the dark creature slowly picking off the werewolf packs roaming the streets killing people. one of those packs, being Denali's own. Furui takes great pleasure in making the guy choose between his relationship with Lyric, who he thinks he feels more than just platonically for, or his pack. this of course has alot of ways it could go, and I haven't fully decided.... but it's fun to theorise.

originally, Furui had a huge crush on Denali (which was gonna end in some kinda violent throwndown between him and Lyric), because in my mind he started out as this huge confident wolf boy, and who doesn't wanna fuck a werewolf, but as time's been going, he's been showing his vulnerabilities, and Furui will absolutely not be into anyone who is scared of anything, especially if it's not tangible... he's a ilteral spirit, he can't die or be killed. he toys with death on the daily, and I have a couple of quick little drabble scenes written up already (to get it out of my system) of him being absolutely annihilated, only to grotesquely and noisily pull his dislocated/broken limbs back into their sockets, and raise up from the ground gushing blood and bits of his insides all over the pavement.... you can't be second guessing your words in case you hurt someone's feelings around someone like that, if you want them to respect your physical prowess. on one hand, I like big confident scary Denali, but I also like confidence being a front, and secretly vulnerable doggo boi. it's a hard life.

anyway I'm just ranting now, and it's been.... like literally over 5 hours. I started writing this at half 4ish? and it's 10pm now. I feel better though, like I got something out of my system, and I got some of my story thoughts down, instead of just letting them swim around in my head then be forgotten.

if anyone did read all this for whatever reason, then I hope you have a great day, and thankyou for sharing this with me ...

[sonorous-strings]

Are there characters you wish you could write?

What are some fandoms you were in before?

What ship do you wish you could write more for?

Are there characters you wish you could write?

There are plenty of characters I wish I could write. I could even list off a couple! Eddy, from the EEnE show, Coop from Megas XLR (that blog was fun. I just couldn't get any traction with it and the blog sorta died.)

It turns out I have a real knack for writing other people's characters. I wrote a Yu-Gi-Oh fanfic once and was pretty happy with the characterizations. Now, they were based on the 4Kids characterizations, and we all know how good 4Kids was with characterizations... they did Tristan/Honda so dirty early on. Shudder Old shames. Never linking that fanfic, by the way. Ever. Not even sure I can find it now, anyway.

Only problem with me writing multiple characters is that I lose steam real fuckin' fast. Losing steam, among certain other things, was one of the big reasons I kinda fell off of Tumblr for a while. So many "verses" of the same character to keep track of. Sometimes Sonar was almost completely different! And then when I tried branching off into other characters, other blogs, I had trouble splitting my attention.

Turns out I am not a guy that likes to have his attention split. Makes me wonder if I could actually do a multimuse blog. Probably not.

Occasionally writing characters with Sonar in posts is way fun, though.

Writing a character with preestablished attitudes and backstories to work with is way easier, though.

What are some fandoms you were in before?

Are we talking RP fandoms or game fandoms? If it's RPC fandoms, it's been Sanic, Sanic, Sanic, baby. I am comfortable with sticking in one place and going with it until it's run into the ground. Kinda like Twitter, HA The aforementioned Megas XLR blog isn't really a fandom since that show is a dying light in a multimedia supernova. Seriously, for what a great show it was almost nobody I know even knows about it.

I'm also something of a filthy casual when it comes to movies, shows and games, and combined with my inability to maintain multiple characters, it's kind of an obvious reason why I've stuck to one fandom. I guess it's two, technically, considering Sonar is literally just a Mobius hedgehog living in Avalice for reasons. I'm gonna be honest, though, the world of Avalice and Freedom Planet is way more interesting than Sonic and Mobius/whatever passes for Mobius in IDW these days.

What ship do you wish you could write more for?

MUSICAL TEA IS LOVE MUSICAL TEA IS LIFE MUSICAL TEA IS LOVE MUSICAL TEA IS LIFE MUSICAL TEA IS LOVE MUSICAL TEA IS LIFE---

Okay in all seriousness... if I had to choose, and totally wasn't committed to Musical Tea, considering I'm sticking to Sanic stuff... I don't know, to be honest! Again, I am a filthy casual, so the typical answer would be SonAmy or ShadAmy.

Always gets me that people go "Ew, Shadow's like 50" and I'm just sitting here wondering why people can't tell the difference between biological age and chronological age. It's not like he was actually conscious for the entire time. He was the same as he was when he was unfrozen. I'm not the kind of guy to just go "Oh wow, their interactions are clearly shippy", about people though. But I can kind of see Amy falling in with Shadow? Not so much in an "ooo shiny" sense but more like spending more time with him and... well, y'know. Finding out that there's more than meets the eye. But that's fandom shit.

MUSICAL TEA IS LOVE MUSICAL TEA IS LIFE

[sortagaysortahigh]

, i'm curious. how did you get into writing fanfiction? or what was your inspiration behind it? i have tried to get into writing fanfiction but i feel like i'm just so unexperienced and straight-forward and like not poetic at all, bc in most fanfiction i've read they describe everything so beautifully even if it's the nastiest thing ever. idk i just love your writing style

Honestly I've been writing fanfics for a really long time, and I just established my writing style this year and realized that I prefer writing in third person and using detail, grammatically incorrect dashes, commas, even some good ol fashion run on sentences (which ppl love to tell me about). A year ago I was still writing fics in second person and I realized that I hate it because I hate the way my fics sound when I overuse the word 'you' or feel like I'm stuck writing for one character and i found it difficult to describe the other characters or even the entire interaction and scene from second person, so I gave third a try and now I'm never going back to writing in 2nd person. I think the biggest thing about writing is knowing that we all start somewhere, I used to write shitty marvel fanfics about steve rogers when I was fifteen in second person and lemme tell you, they were so bad that I deleted everything before i deactivated that old blog.

I started writing because like many other fic writers, at a baseline level I'm a nerdy bitch who hyperfixates a lot. I gain a lot of my inspiration from ofc the shows/media that I write characters from, but also from music, movies, and even every day interactions I've seen or experienced. I'm like hey yk what this song kinda hits fr, but imagine an entire love story based on this song??? or when I watch a movie like 10 things I hate ab you I'm always like, a fic based on that poem or this concept would HIT and then if I wanna see it, I write it. A lot of writers write fics they'd want to read, or fics they think should've been written already and havent been, and that's the beauty of writing, your inspiration should always lie in what you enjoy and what you'd want to consume as a reader.

I think a huge misconception new writers have is that they should have an established writing style, or they should use a specific perspective (first, second, or third), or that they need to be poetic in their writing and use a ton of detail and describe every single bit of the characters appearances, actions, etc, but the truth is-you don't have to do any of that shit to write a good fic. Sure some people might appreciate it, and hell over time you're probably gonna become more comfortable doing that and exploring the realm of writing and expression through writing, but you don't need to be good at any of that off bat, nor do you need to include everything into your fics.

A lot of the popular fics you read or even the fics you see that you fall in love with on this hellsite or any other hellsite are written by writers who dont know what the fuck theyre doing half the time and anyone who denies that hasn't been writing for a long time. I literally second guess myself and my writing to the point that I don't read my entire finished fics ever, and if I do it's because I'm writing a part two or a series and I'm cringing the entire time like "bitch be fucking for real you deadass wrote this???" which is completely normal! You may not enjoy your first few fics that you've written and hell you might be incredibly insecure or even nervous about posting them, but like I always say-POST THEM. You will ALWAYS find someone who's willing to read what you've written, and you have a community of writers who are here to give you advice if you want it and if you ask for it. Not to be a broken record but everyone starts somewhere, and we all grow as writers the more we write, if you're afraid of sounding too straight forward or not poetic THATS OKAY! because this is where you're starting and the more you try different things w your writing, the more comfortable you get and then eventually you'll find your writing style. It took me YEARS to figure out mine, and even now I'm still changing some things up and trying new ways of describing things, people, actions, scenes, ect because we're constantly growing and changing as writers!

I hope this incredibly long spiel helped bby, just give it a try and don't lose faith in yourself by comparing yourself to other writers

[sineala]

How would you say fandom culture has changed over the years? What are some differences you notice between older and younger fandom folks?

I’ve been thinking for a while about how to answer this, and I’m not sure I have a really good answer, but I’m going to try.

I’ve been in fandom since approximately 1995. Maybe 1994. At that point, the world wide web was a relatively new part of the internet, and the fandoms I was in had most of their activity on privately-hosted mailing lists (predating eGroups/OneList/Yahoo Groups) and on Usenet newsgroups, with fiction beginning to be available on websites as part of either fandom-specific or pairing-specific archives as well as authors’ individual pages. Fanfiction.net did not yet exist. LiveJournal did not exist. AO3 definitely did not exist. If you wanted real-time chat, there was IRC. I was coming in basically at the tail end of zine fandom; zines were no longer the only way of distributing fanfiction, as fandom started to move online. So I have a selection of zines from 90s-era Western media fandoms but even by then zines weren’t where I was doing most of my reading.

I think in terms of generally “what it was like to be in fandom,” the big-picture stuff hasn’t changed. Fandom still produces creative fanwork and likes to, y’know, get together and talk about fandom. Also, almost every fight or complaint that fandom has about something is a thing that has been going on for actual years. People complain that, say, the kudos button is ruining comment culture because back in the LJ days the only way you could comment on a story was, well, by leaving an actual comment, or sending an email on a mailing list, and this might mean that people who would have otherwise commented have left a kudos instead. But back in the LJ and mailing list days, people were complaining that commenting was going downhill since the days of zines, when in order to comment on a story you had to write a real paper letter and mail it and because you had to do that, the quality of feedback was so much better than you got nowadays because people could just dash off a quick email or comment. You get the idea. Top/bottom wars are not new either. Pairing wars are not new. If you’ve been in fandom a while, you will pretty much have seen all the fights already. I think one thing that is new, though, is the fandom awareness of things like privilege and intersectionality and various -isms, as well as things like “providing warnings might be nice” (do you know how much unwarned deathfic I have read? a lot!) and I sure won’t say we’re perfect at any of this now, but I think fandom is trying way way more about all that stuff than it used to.

There are some fights we actually don’t have anymore, as far as I can tell. I feel like it’s been years since I’ve seen the “real person fiction is wrong” battle, but also I don’t hang out in a whole lot of RPF fandoms, so it’s possible that’s still going and I just don’t see it.

There also used to be a recurring debate about whether gay relationships that were canonical were slash or not. When slash started, obviously this wasn’t a question because there weren’t canonical gay relationships in fandoms, period. But as gay characters began to appear in media, people started to wonder “does slash mean all same-sex relationships, or does slash mean only non-canonical same-sex relationships?” Now, you may be reading this and think that sounds like an incredibly weird thing to get hung up on, but that’s because what appears to have happened is that the term “ship” (originally from X-Files Mulder/Scully fandom) has, as far as I can tell, come up and eaten most of the rest of the terminology. Now people will just say, “oh, I ship that.” For any pairing, gay or not, canonical or not. Fandom seems to have decided that for the most part it no longer actually needs a term specific to same-sex relationships as a genre.

Similarly, there are a few genres of fic that we used to have also pretty much don’t exist anymore. There are also plenty of genres that are well-entrenched now that are also extremely recent -- A/B/O comes to mind. But there are some kinds of fic we don’t write a lot of now. Like, I haven’t seen smarm in years! I also haven’t seen We’re Not Gay We Just Love Each Other in a while. There was also a particular style of slash writing where you’d basically have to explain, in detail, what made you think that these particular characters could be anything other than straight. You’d have to motivate this decision. You’d have to look at their canonical heterosexual relationships and come up with a way to explain why all those had happened in order to reconcile how this one guy could have romantic feelings for another guy. When had he figured out he wasn’t straight? Who might he have been with before? How does he interact with people in ways that make you think he’s not straight? That kind of thing. You had to, essentially, show your work. And these days a lot of fanfic is just like, “Okay, Captain America is bisexual, let’s go!” It’s... different.

Fandom also used to skew older, is my sense. A lot older. I don’t know, actually, if it really was older, but I get the sense now that there are some younger people who are surprised that adults are still in fandom. I have seen people saying these days that they think they’re too old for fanfiction because they are not in middle school anymore. And I think a lot of this has to do with the fact that the barriers to access fandom are a lot lower than they used to be. You used to basically have to be an adult with disposable income (or know an adult with disposable income who was willing to help you out; but even then if you were reading explicit fiction you also had to swear you were 18+, usually by sending in an age statement to whoever you were buying the zine from or to the mods of the list you wanted to join, so a lot of fandom was very much age-gated). Internet access was not widely available. Even if you had internet access, you maybe didn’t have your own email address, so you couldn’t sign up for mailing lists; free email providers didn’t exist. If you wanted to buy zines, you had to have money to buy them. If you wanted to go to cons, you had to be able to afford the cost of the con, travel to the con, et cetera. If you wanted to have a website you had to know HTML. Social media did not exist. You want to draw art? Guess what, you’re probably drawing it on paper! You might be able to upload a picture to your website if you have a digital camera or a scanner, but both of those things are expensive, and also a lot of people don’t have the capability or the money to download pictures from the internet (some people have data caps with overage charges, and some people have text-only connections!), so they won’t get to see it. Maybe you can sell your piece at a con! You want to make a fanvid? We called them songvids, but, anyway, you know how you’re doing that? You’re going to hook two VCRs together and smash the play and record buttons very fast! If you want anyone else to watch them, you are either making them a tape personally and mailing it to them or bringing your vids to a convention. Maybe you can digitize them and upload them, but it’s going to take people hours to download them!

(Every three hours my ISP would kick me off the internet and I’d have to dial in again. If it was a busy time of day, it might take me 20 or 30 minutes to get a connection again. And that was assuming no one else in the house needed to use the phone line. Imagine if your modem went out every three hours now.)

And now, for the cost of my internet connection, I can read pretty much whatever fanfiction I want, whenever I want it. I can see all the fanart I want! I can watch vids! Podfic exists now! Fanmixes exist! Gifsets and moodboards exist! If I want to write fic I can write it with programs that are completely free, and as soon as I post it everyone in the entire world can read it. If I want to draw or make vids that may require some additional investment, but I may also be able to do it with things I already have. Do you have any idea how good we all have it?

There are a couple of kinds of fan activity that don’t seem to exist anymore, though, and I miss them. I know that roleplaying still goes on, but I feel like these days most people who do real-time text roleplay have switched to things like Discord. I know that in the LJ days, RP communities were popular. But I really miss MU*s (MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, MUXes..), which were servers for real-time text-based RP with a bunch of... hmm... features to aid RP. There were virtual rooms with text descriptions, and objects in virtual rooms with descriptions, and your character had a description, and they could interact with the objects as well as with other characters, and you could program things to change descriptions or emit various kinds of text or take you to different rooms, and so on. Just to, y’know, enhance the atmosphere. It was fun and it was where I learned to RP and I’m sad they’re pretty much gone now.

I also don’t think I see a lot of fanfiction awards in fandoms. Wonder where they went.

Going back to the previous point, the barriers to actually consuming the canon you are fannish about are way, way, way lower now. You can pretty much take it for granted that if right now someone tells you about a shiny new fandom, there will be a way to read that book or watch that show or movie right now. Possibly for free! Of course you can watch it! Why wouldn’t you be able to?

This was absolutely, absolutely not the case before. I’m currently in Marvel Comics fandom. If there is a comic I want to read, I can read it right now on the internet. I have subscribed to Marvel Unlimited and I can read pretty much every comic that is older than three months old; the newer ones cost extra money. But I can do it all from the comfort of my own home right now. I was also, actually, in Marvel Comics fandom in the nineties. If I wanted to read a comic, I had to go to a comic book store and hope they had it in stock; if they didn’t, I had to try another store. Not a lot of comics were available in trade paperback and they definitely weren’t readable on the internet. I used to read a lot of Gambit h/c fic set after Uncanny X-Men #350. I never found a copy of UXM #350. I still haven’t! But I did eventually read it on Unlimited.

Being in TV show fandoms also had similar challenges. Was the show you were watching still on the air? No? Then you’d better hope you could find it in reruns, or know someone who had tapes of it that they could copy for you, otherwise you weren’t watching that show. It was, I think, pretty common for people to be in fandoms for shows they hadn’t seen, because they had no way to see the show, but they loved all the fanfic. The Sentinel had a whole lot of fans like that, both because I think it took a while for it to end up in reruns and because overseas distribution was probably poor. So you’d get people who read the fic and wrote fic based on the other fic they’d read, which meant that you got massive, massive amounts of fanon appearing that people just assumed was in the show because it was a weirdly specific detail that appeared in someone’s fic once. Like “Jim and Blair’s apartment has a small water heater” (not actually canonical) or “Blair is a vegetarian” (there’s an episode where his mother visits and IIRC cooks him one of his favorite meals, which is beef tongue).

Like, I was in The Professionals fandom for years. I read all the fic. I hadn’t seen the show. As far as I know, it never aired in the US, and it certainly never had any kind of US VHS or DVD release. I’d seen a couple songvids. I eventually saw a couple episodes in maybe 2003, and that was because my dad special-ordered a commercial VHS tape from the UK and paid someone to convert it from PAL to NTSC. I didn’t get to see the whole show until several years later when I got a region-free DVD player someone in fandom sent me burned copies of the UK DVD releases and then I special-ordered the commercial release of the DVDs from the UK myself. But if I were a new fan and wanted to watch Pros right now? It is on YouTube! For free!

I think also one of the things about fandom that’s not immediately evident to new fans is the way in which it is permanent and/or impermanent. There are probably people whose first fannish experience is on Tumblr or who only read fanfic on FFN and who have no idea what they would do if either site, say, just shut down. But if you’ve been in fandom a while, you’ve been through, say, Discord, Tumblr, Twitter, Pillowfort, Imzy, DW, JournalFen, LJ, GeoCities, IRC, mailing lists. And sure, if Tumblr closed, it would be inconvenient. But fandom would pack up and move somewhere else. You would find it again. It would, eventually, be okay. Similarly, if you’ve been in a lot of fandoms, if you’ve made a lot of friends, drifting through fandoms is like that. You’ll make a friend in 1998 because you were in the same fandom, and then you might go your own ways, and ten years later you might be in another fandom with them again! It happens.

But the flip side of that is that I think a lot of older fans have learned not to trust in the permanence of any particular site. If you like a story, you save it as soon as you read it. If you like a piece of art, you save it. If you like a vid, you save it. Because you don’t know when the site it’s on will be gone for good. I have, like, twenty years of lovingly-curated fanfic. And I feel like people who have only been in fandom since AO3 existed might not understand how much AO3 is a game-changer compared to what we had before. It’s a site where you can put your fic up and you don’t have to worry that the webhost is going out of business, or that the site might delete your work because they don’t allow gay fiction or explicit fiction or fiction written in second person or fiction for fandoms where the creator doesn’t like fanfiction, or whatever. Because all of those things have absolutely happened. But, I mean, I still save pretty much everything I like, even on AO3, just in case.

So, basically, yeah, fandom is a whole lot more accessible than it used to be. I think fandom is pretty much still fandom, but it’s a lot easier to get into, and that has made it way more open to people who wouldn’t have been able to be in fandom before. There is so, so much more now than there ever was before, and I think that’s great.

[zeeboomblebee]

I think one thing that makes Ninjago so appealing is the versatility.

I’ve met and talked to so many Ninjago fans over the years, and what never ceases to amaze me is how so many of us have entirely different versions of the show and its characters in our heads. Fanfics, fanart, headcanons, character dynamics, theories, they’re all so different from one another, and you can get an entirely different interpretation of a character or a scene depending on the fan you talk to. 

The show lends itself very well to this unique flexibility in a number of ways. Since all of the characters are lego figures, it leaves us the opportunity to interpret those characters in very different ways. I mean, practically all of us have at least slightly different height, build, and skin color headcanons for each ninja from one another. The ambiguity of the their ages also helps. A single character could be drawn in an infinite amount of ways, and each of them are just as accurate to canon as the next. I can’t think of many other shows where this is the case. 

Since this show is over a decade old, it has also gone through so many changes; changes in animation, lore, plot, themes, and tone. As a result, you can zoom in on a season, pick one aspect of that season, and compare it to another season either down the line or in the past. It is very likely there will be some sort of difference in the aspect you investigated. As a result, fans may base their content on one season’s particular “flavor,” and, combined with their own interpretation of the scene, can create a completely original piece that can’t really be compared to any other work in the fandom. Even fics, for example, that explore some sort of relationship between two characters, can be so different from one another since these characters have been developing, changing, growing for so long. As a result, there is so much interpretation of a character’s motivation for a particular action that one can make. 

With each character having so much personality and plenty of character interactions with the rest of the cast, unique AUs also have the opportunity to thrive. You can take these characters from the show, their personalities and dynamics, and absolutely nothing else. And create a completely different spinoff with an entirely different world, plot, concept, etc. I suppose in a way even Ninjago itself acts as a lego set, free to take and build in a way that follows the prescripted concept, but also having a foundation that is more than capable of being shaped into something entirely new and original.

The show also balances on a fine line between childishly humorous and more dark and complex themes that allows fan content creators so much flexibility to create so many different types of works for the show. It’s beautiful, and again, the sheer range is something that can rarely be found in other pieces of media.

Idk where I was going with this, I just think this is one of the coolest parts of the Ninjago fandom. It appeals to such a diverse community, and makes the experience of being a fan interacting with the fandom that much more of a richer experience. Not to mention, I’ve personally found this community to be very open and friendly to one another even with such differing opinions (which obviously isn’t always the case). It’s very fun to talk to people with such different perspectives and I believe it makes us a stronger community as a result. It’s one thing I hope never changes about Ninjago despite the constantly evolving nature of the show.

[hello-nichya-here]

i've been seeing many posts recently about how Azula was sexualized by the show and how some people make her play the role of femme fatale in fanfics, especially towards Zuko, and i want to know how you feel about it since you like to defend Azula from bullshit but you're also an expert on the weird side of the fandom.

Do you think the incest subtext was something the writers created to show how evil Azula is? Do you think people would still ship Zucest if it wasn't there? Do you think people would still think of her as a femme fatale if it wasn't there?

This is gonna be a long one, so let's get the easy part out of the way: Azula could have been a villain for literally one episode, have no interaction with Zuko or any other guy, and be wearing a burka the entire time and there'd still be people shipping them AND writting stories about her being a femme fatale. Fanworks, smutty and otherwise, are about taking aspects of canon and adding your own twist - that ranges from absurdly "loyal" to canon, to just loosely based on it with characters that have the same names, same faces, and slightly similar personality as their canon counterparts, but that are basically a completely different person.

The problem is that the ATLA fandom really sucks at differentiating canon from fanon. Many of the fans, especially those who like the Femme Fatale!Azula and/or those who assume Evil Lady = Slut, will look at actual proof that Azula is NOT that type of character in the show, and respond with "But she acts completely differently in a porn parody!" or "But the Evil Seductress trope is really popular!" and not realize that they're bringing up something that is completely irrelevant to the conversation because there's a big difference between a kink/trope and an actual character.

By far the episode that contradicts the Seductress!Azula idea the most is The Beach. That episode makes it canon that Azula doesn't really know how to interact with people her age, let alone flirt with a boy, and we literally see her first kiss happening. When she uses her "We'll dominate the earth" line it shows that she has no idea how to mask her real self to look more appealing, which is a key aspect of any female character that "uses her sexuality as a weapon." Girl couldn't play that role if her life depended on it. Honestly, even if she could, I don't think she would. Azula is paranoid about losing control and of letting others get too close because they could betray her. She's just not that type of character. At all.

Now, let me make a distinction very clear here: There is an incestuous subtext in the show - Grey Delisle (an adult woman who used to be a narrator in trailers for porn movies) literally said she voiced the bedroom scene seductively. And there are other scenes that feel weird, like Zuko's dream of Azula as the blue dragon, which literally has him thinking of her as the embodiment of temptation (sure, temptation isn't always sexual in nature, but it's hard to miss the obviously implications, especially when combined with "Azula" asking Zuko if he plans on going to the bedroom any time soon). It's there. I don't think the writers ever intended on actually fleshing out that "plot", they were just toying with ideas, kind of how there was a fuck ton of Zutara bait in the show, but the plan was obviously to make Kataang and Maiko happen.

However, while that subtext is there, the "Femme Fatale" thing is basically non-existent. When Azula lied to Zuko about Ozai wanting him home and then when she actually gave him the chance to be a prince again, there was no "seduction" (in a romantic/sexual way) involved. He wanted his honor, his country, his title and his father's approval, and that's exactly what Azula offered. Nothing more, nothing less. She was also nice to him on The Headband and on The Beach without any ulterior motive. Hell, the "Azula always lies" line is incredibly ironic since the event that made it come up was Azula telling Zuko a terrible truth he did not want to believe.

Even their infamous interaction in The Awakening doesn't really fit since Azula only threw him under the bus because he (accidentally) did that to her first by not telling her in Ba Sing Se that Aang could have survived, and when he confronted her she told him why she did what she did, and then never did anything against him after that until he changed sides. Again, Grey voiced it seductively, and the animators sure as hell helped the scene look suspicious as fuck, but they obviously were using it as fanservice, not as something that they were planning on ever having mean something or affect the story in any way - though that certainly doesn't mean that people won't use it to demonize Azula some more.

Again, the one time she is truly playing the role of evil seductress luring Zuko in just to stab him in the back later is in Zuko's dream. That scene tells us literally nothing about Azula since she's not even there, but it shows that either Zuko internalized the mysoginistic idea that "evil" women and "slutty" women are one in the same, or that he is repressing some attraction that he considers immoral and dangerous - whether he is even aware that he is doing it or not is a completely different story.

And notice how this happens BEFORE Azula acts in any way that could be considered even remotely inappropriate towards her brother, yet many fans that picked up on the subtext are 100% sure that if there are any incestuous feelings there they are either completely one-sided (with Azula being the "sinful" one, of course) or something she has to "manipulate Zuko into wanting"? Funny how that works, huh?