#fan discourse

[thehumdai]

Real talk time, Kastle fam: how likely do we think it is that we will get any progression in Frank/Karen’s relationship in DDBA S2 and/or The Punisher special? A friend of mine asked why I thought Kastle was such an interesting dynamic and it got me thinking (planning to make a huge post about why Kastle is so good sometime in the future).

Give me your theories, thoughts, feelings, 5 page-double spaced-MLA format-style essays. I want it all.

My nagging feeling is that they have acknowledged Frank and Karen’s connection but will now leave it at that and (for some reason) fully lean into Matt/Karen. While I think it’s not as likely, Kastle’s last scene could also be interpreted as a goodbye/bookend for their relationship. Karen was interested in what Matt heard in Frank’s heartbeat, but she told Matt in the next breath that her heart did the same thing when she saw Matt again. I know a lot of people want to pretend that moment didn’t happen, but it did. At best, she loves both of them.

Jon and Deborah’s chemistry is literally lightning in a bottle. Nobody foresaw how good these two characters would be together and how fucking great their dynamic is. I’m just afraid it’s going to be wasted in service of Matt and Karen’s relationship (as an aside, I’m a diehard Claire/Matt shipper and that boat has been dead in the water for a long time).

What do you guys think?

[themuskrater]

Y'all want smoother animation? You want better lighting and shading? THEN DON'T BITCH AND THROW A FIT WHEN THE SEASON TAKES MORE THAN A YEAR TO COME OUT!

How do you idiots not put 2 and 2 together? Faster seasons equals rushed animations. They have to make up that time SOMEWHERE. Decide what's more important to you: flawless animation or new seasons every year. You can't have both, you stupid mother fuckers.

[gofancyninjaworld]

hungry fans

It sucks to be an OPM fan with a keen interest in only one or two characters. Because ONE will make sure that there's enough of your favourite characters to give you a feast and hook you, and then he'll move on and you're left starving for ages.

So far, I can identify several hungry tribes of fans:

A: The Sam Fam Crew

Recently been fed, so they're not weeping too much. But unless Iaian finds a way for them to stick around now that Atomic has declared a training camp from hell, they'll shortly be tightening their belts again.

B: The Nin-Nins

A few appetizers here and there, but nothing solid of late. True to their nature, the ninjas are proving elusive.

C: The Absolut Zeroes

Ah, Drive Knight, when shall we see your black and shiny shifty-eyed self again? You left so suddenly and quite broke our hearts.

D: The GrooGroos

Now ONE has been known to drop characters like a needy friend when he's done telling their story. With Garou still having work to do to understand himself and actually do better, this tribe got its hopes up of seeing Garou regularly. So far, this is the last he was seen (a full year ago):

There are many other smaller tribes, but these are the loudest ones on the internet, bravely boycotting new chapters until they get what they want.

Me? I may have my favourites, but I love them all so I'm always fed. :) OPM doesn't work without a large cast of well-realised characters.

[sjbattleangel]

Me whenever a character I care about gets the dreaded "Ron The Death Eater" treatment.

y’all ever see a piece of fan content about your favorite character that is so horrifically different from what you personally believe and you just

[shyjusticewarrior]

At some point "fanfic can be as good as professional writing" became "fanfic should be as good as professional writing" and that's caused major damage to fandom spaces.

[001x456]

no you have to contribute to your fandom if you don't want it to die. most fandoms die because people say 'it's so sad watching the fandom die when the hype dies' without doing anything about it. I'm not saying you have to push out 100k word slow-burn fic, I'm not saying you have to make fan art or gif sets or edits or anything. I'm just saying we as a community should contribute to our fandom if we don't want it to die, and by contributing, I'm talking about giving kudos, commenting on your favorite fics, reblogging your favorite art and just talking about your favorite characters. that's enough to keep a fandom alive. that's the most effective way to keep a fandom alive in my humble opinion.

fandoms die because people stop talking about it, fandoms die because people stop engaging with fan content once the hype is gone. what I'm saying is, mainstream media's hype may be gone, but our fandom can stay alive and thriving if us as a community don't let it die.

[enigmasandepiphanies]

what if old fanfic or fanworks (including pre digital zines) were preserved in a library—not just catalogued, stored but treated with care as part of our cultural memory? maybe with special access, maybe fully open. on one hand, institutional preservation means stability, infrastructure, and long-term access and let’s be real: digital content disappears all the time. fandom histories vanish overnight when sites go down or links rot. but platforms like AO3 and dedicated fan archivists work incredibly hard to fight that loss, to build infrastructures on our terms. so then the question is: do fanworks gain or lose something when they’re taken under institutional wings, can big informational institutions like big libraries and archives then control something unruly, resistant, ours? would you want your fanworks archived like that? and then there are the big ethical questions copyright laws, the right to pseudonymity, how will they be catalogued etc. basically can we have fanfic in the library? should we? hellsite users, need your most honest and unhinged opinions here

[dusknoir-whump]

A lot of self proclaimed dark fiction lovers ruin and destroy any and all discussions about dark media because their only understanding of media is as something that exists for their consumption. Their position is one that's filled to the brim with vapid consumerism and a remarkable inability to engage in any form of analysis or reflection of the things that they consume. It's gotten so much harder over the years to find communities of people who love dark media and disturbing stories who aren't just glamorizing it or doing it for some kind of aesthetic or because they find it arousing but because they have a genuine intellectual interest in the media or have lived experiences of horrific things and thus knows how flawed and corrupted the world is.

A story that glamorizes everything that happens and pretends abused kids and brutalized women are happy instead of showing their suffering and pain will never understand the depravity of man and thus fail to invoke any amount of true emotion or move the reader in any way whatsoever. Your work and the works that people pretend to love so much will be forgotten.

I remember how Killing Stalking got over ran by fetishistic straight women who just wanted to see two men fuck and they basically devalued and ignored the author and artist and instead bastardized her brilliant work because they were incapable of grasping the meaning or importance of the story itself. A story that tackled the way gay victims of domestic violence are far less believed and aided, the way fucked up mentally ill people can be taken advantage of by someone who is way more horrific than they could ever be, and the way that abuse can warp your mind, as well as why a victim may defend their abuser. I wish I could have seen people discussing the in depth themes and the suffering that happened. I wish people cared about the actual plot instead of wanting to see only the graphic scenes of assault and getting mad that there's plot. Killing Stalking was a psychological horror and as a horror and disturbing book and comic enthusiast it genuinely breaks my heart that so little people are able to care about these things.

A similar but different situation I can point to as something that just grinds my gears is the book Haunting Adeline and all those who obsessively defend it. Haunting Adeline is a book that tries and fails to tackle serious subject matter and instead continues to perpetuate myths, stereotypes, misinformation, racism, and antisemitism. I don't care that you find the idea of some hot man ravishing you to be excitable. I don't care if you get off to those fantasies but the problem is the target audience is the exact kind of people who would buy into bullshit QAnon theories. The kind of people who like Haunting Adeline are the same kinds of women who claim a water bottle on their car is a sign some scary evil brown man is going to kidnap and traffick them. This is a continued whitewashing of trafficking and trying to make it into a random act that anyone is subjected to when trafficking is a very systemic issue.

I was trafficked as a child and very likely my mother was the reason. I was raised in a cult and the youth group pimped out the kids. I was one of the kids this was done to and my mom was close with my main traffickers. I was a deeply neglected kid and since my dad was away from work for long periods of time I was easy to get to with my mom dropping me off at the cult every day. I wasn't trafficked for being white or white passing, I wasn't trafficked by chance or accident, I was trafficked by trusted adults close to me because I was so severely neglected I didn't know what normalcy was. Others get trafficked often because of issues with immigration and traffickers getting a hold of their papers, or they're targeted because their POC, especially with native women and girls getting trafficked because it's known the police won't do shit for native people.

Haunting Adeline had so much potential and I'm genuinely angry that it could have been a really good story. It could have tackled how a lot of vigilantes turn around and commit the same or similar crimes. Having a predator/traffickers hunter who brutally predates on a woman could be a very impactful story showing the juxtaposition of how he's perceived by others and who he truly is. If you actually handled trafficking realistically instead of bullshit QAnon blood libel and demonizing POC, and actually made the narrative have Adeline best friend have a realistic reaction to finding things out and be horrified but potentially forced to go along with things because of Zade is her boss- it would be so much more impactful. You could still call him morally grey. But of course it has to be for mass consumption it has to be for the white girlies who think they're the most oppressed people ever. It has to be appealing to them and we have to live in a fantasy world because accepting what trafficking actually is and portraying it well requires research and effort and actual care.

I don't want to talk to people who only like dark fiction because they want their hot book boyfriend who's incredibly evil but they justify every action for. It's okay if you do see yourself as having a hot book boyfriend or girlfriend. I fucking love self shipping. But when you use that to shut down conversation and analysis and throw a hissy fit every time someone points out the flaws of a media or ways it could be improved you're annoying and I want nothing to do with you. I also can't stand people who justify their attractions to characters by trying to pretend they're not bad.

Yeah I liked Hisoka and was attracted to him as a character, I still am in part attracted to him. He however is a monstrous character who is CANONICALLY a pedophile and obviously his actions are horrible. That's the point of his character. It's understandable that I, someone who has a massive history of being predated upon, would find a character with a similar behavior to my various abusers who groomed me in my childhood attractive. That to me just shows how well written he is because he hits those similar boxes. I can accept he's a fucked up guy and in a relationship would likely be an abuser. (To be clear Hunter X Hunter is not disturbing media, I just am using him as an example because it's a popular character)

All of this is to say. There's a reason I don't label myself by fandom labels they're too connected to this kind of behavior and attitude. I am obsessed with disturbing media, I am on and off into splatter punk. I am the least likely person to take issue with fucked up books and stories- but I also want them to be good. I especially love books for their whumpy elements because I'm into whump (shocker with this url).

[frontmansdefender]

shaming and making fun of people for still engaging in fandom activities once they reach a certain age is so embarrassing because why are you giving yourself an expiration date of time you have fun? why are you not-so-indirectly saying you will stop having fun once you reach a certain age? or do you really believe you have to stop engaging in fandom activities and having fun once you turn (x)? do you not think you will, what, live that long and turn that age too? do you think fun will suddenly stop for you and life will all of a sudden lose its meaning once you reach a certain age? how sad to be giving yourself an hourglass and just waiting for your time of having fun to run out.

adults can and should engage in fandom activities if it's what makes them happy.

adults can and should continue doing whatever they like doing as teenagers if it's what makes them happy.

age is just... part of life. it's a part of me and it's a part of you. shaming people for something you will have to go through (unless you don't think you will live that long) is such a loser behavior. indirectly saying you will stop having fun once you reach a certain age isn't the flex you think it is. it doesn't make you look "cool and edgy", it makes you look miserable.

[comicbookhyperfixationtime]

This post confuses me so much, because I’ve literally never seen anybody wrongly accuse a mainstream comics writer of being an [insert shitty thing here] because they didn’t like their work. I do very much wonder what prompted this.

I have seen people point elements of writers’ works that could rightfully be called shitty for whatever reason, or point out shitty things that person has done in real life. Oftentimes the person being called out is disliked by the poster, but I’ve seen just as many people criticize writers they love. Hell I myself have criticized some of my favorite writers of all time (like Claremont and Simonson) for writing works with elements of sexism/rapeculture/homophobia/racism/pedophilia etc. And considering how art reflects the artist, yeah I think it’s perfectly valid to speculate an artist who consistently writes certain things with seemingly very little awareness on how shitty they are may agree with the shitty things they’re writing. Also sometimes we know when people have done shitty things in real life because it was like, news.

Comics are a messy, messy industry with a long and messy history. I think it’s our duty as critical consumers and intelligent people to call out nasty things when we see them. I’d argue that’s precisely what “criticizing bad writing” is.

I think your confusion perhaps lies in confusing critical media analysis with moral Puritanism. When I or any other blogger say that a certain writer has written some shitty things, or even that a certain writer is a shitty person, I’m not saying “and therefore nothing they have done nothing of value whatsoever and you should never read anything they write and you should certainly never like any of it because if you do you’re a bad person too.” I’m saying “so next time you read this author’s work, think more critically about the narrative they’ve constructed. And if they really suck, maybe also find ways to engage with their works that won’t directly put money in their pockets.” If you believe that any Problematic work should never be engaged with, that’s on you and I highly recommend rethinking that worldview.

Also I don’t feel actually have access to my local skinheads and MAGAhats, and I certainly don’t have access to Trump and Lady Moldy-Butt (whoever she is) so I think I will have to satisfy my urges for moral crusade by pointing out the biases in 50 year old comics, thank you very much.

[caseylovefics]

The last few days have been upsetting and a chance of reflection for me personally. Unfortunately, after some thought, I have decided I will also be locking future fics. It's sad what has happened and the blatant disrespect for artists work is probably the most frustrating part. Even though my works are limited and not that popular, it doesn't make them any less important or impacted by what happened and other artists have a right to want to protect their work regardless of the recognition it receives.

However, this experience has left me determined to continue to share my work and do what I love. I know artists who have years, if not decades, of work on AO3 are potentially going through a difficult time so if you have a writer you are particularly fond of, I encourage you to share your support with them and support them by making an account if you haven't already.

Just a heads up that I have locked all of my fics on AO3 today and you are no longer able to read or access them without being logged in.

I did not wanna do this, I wanted to keep my fics open and readable to those who do not have accounts because before I started writing myself, I only read as a guest for years.

But with the latest AI-fed scraping done to public fics, I am just beyond pissed. I don't want my creativity, passion, and art to be used for an AI without my permission. It's unethical.

Please, if you're a reader of mine, make an account on AO3 right now. It might take 2-6 weeks to get it (as AO3 has a queueing system for new accounts) but I can send you any new chapters privately while you wait for your account. Just DM me (on Tumblr, Bluesky, Discord) and I'll keep you updated on my fics during the waiting time.

You deserve to read them for free. And I deserve to have my works protected from the stealing AI.

[bebx]

[bvcktommy]

what do you mean 911 just gave us arguably one of the most well written, well directed, and well acted episodes of, at the very least, the last few seasons, if not the entire damn show, and all a certain group of people can talk about is how it's not worth anything because eddie diaz wasn't in it

[glitter-stained]

"why does fanon love making Jason care about his goons when he kills them in canon" I'm sorry to tell you that Jason's Robin run is a significant work for his characterization. And that Willis Todd was in fact a goon. Like, that's a significant thing that happened.

(jaybin fans exist not every Jason fan is a hardcore UTH fan who thinks everything about Winick's writing is pure and just and the right way)

[apieters]

Ragetti: Well, you see, Jones is now part cephalopod, so he needs to be in contact with water anyway in order not to dry out. He must draw it into himself through his feet. Pintel: 'E's only got one leg. The other 'un's a crab leg. I ain't 'eard of no crab what sucks up water through its legs. Ragetti: Wait--if he can't set "foot" on dry land, what if he stood only on his crab leg? Pintel: 'E'd fall, over, that's what! (whacks Ragetti on the back of the head, knocking out Ragetti's wooden eye). Ragetti: The eye! Pintel: Told you you should've nicked a new one made of glass back in Singapore.

the funniest thing in the entire pirates of the caribbean series is definitely that one scene in At World’s End where they have parlay but davy jones is part of it, and rather than have him stand in the shallows or something they get a big bucket of water and have in stand on it on shore

who thought of that idea? who thought “put davy jones in a bucket of water” and had the guts to suggest it aloud? and then who went “hey that sounds like a great idea!”

at some point someone told davy jones their idea was for him to stand in a bucket of water and he agreed to it