#fandom holidays

[akakumoeteru]

Mid-Autumn Festival 2023! Hope everyone has a lovely day and gets to eat some delicious mooncake!

[oliverplague]

[secretmellowblog]

People who try to analyze what happened on Tumblr on November 5th, 2020, often really overstate how much it was actually “about” Supernatural. As someone who has never been in the supernatural fandom ever but dID join in on the hysterical destielposting—it was really more about the stress of the pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.

The two biggest Youtubers I’ve seen try to dissect “what happened that November 5th” in video essays both weren’t American—- and I think that explains why they both tried to explain the hysteria primarily via analyzing the Supernatural fandom/the original show, rather than through the lens of the election. And while those videos are cool, valid, informational, and make lots of really well-considered interesting points— I can tell you that me and almost all my mutuals had literally no knowledge or interest in the fact that “oh supernatural had made nods at the ship in the past but the creators were adamant that I wouldn’t be canon” or etc etc etc etc. the first time I learned about any of that context was way later, watching videos where people claimed that fandom history context (that I did not know anything about) was the actual reason for the hysteria.

But the reality is that people latched on to the Destiel stuff because it was a piece of big useless inane zero-stakes fandom news in a time when we were desperately waiting for serious high stakes election news. We were latching onto a “positive “ piece of inane stupid fandom news in a time of great stress, with all the desperation of a drowning man who latches onto whatever piece of wood will keep him afloat.

The core of the hysteria was that Americans (who make up a huge chunk of tumblr’s userbase) were currently glued to their laptops watching the live presidential election vote counts come in. These vote counts were taking an extended amount of time due to the pandemic causing high numbers of mail-in ballots, resulting in a constant state of Election Day Stress for multiple days straight.

This was also during the height of the Pandemic. People had predicted Trump’s presidency would be bad; no one had predicted it would be this apocalyptically bad. No one had predicted pandemics and lockdowns and hospitals overflowing with bodybags. remember Trump spreading Covid lies and conspiracies?? There were so many Qanon conspiracies about democrats being Satanic child traffickers who had to be put to death, and coup threats were mounting from the right wing side. It seemed like this election was a choice between ‘centrist democrat’ and “apocalyptic right wing conspiracy theory authoritarianism,” in the midst of pandemic conditions that people feared would never ever improve— and it seemed like a close election.

Another major point was that Trump voters were more likely to be antimaskers/Covid deniers, while Biden voters were more likely to take the pandemic seriously— so Biden voters were more likely to send in mail-in ballots instead of risking the in-person voting crowds, which meant their ballots would take much longer to count. And so, in many state electoral vote counts, it would initially seem like Trump was very far in the lead— only for Biden to slooooowly build up an agonizingly small lead as the mail in ballots came in, and then defeat Trump at the very end.

So you’re just watching these news sites giving live election updates, refreshing the page every 2 minutes to see if you’re going to live under a spineless centrist democrat or a literal Qanon Dictatorship. And then you go on tumblr to distract yourself, and there’s more election posting, and more agonizing over the votes, and more stress and despair—-

And then it’s been days and we’re right at the crucial tipping point where it’s anyone’s game and the next few hours will determine whether Trump will win, so you need to keep your eye on the vote count, because the next hours will determine the future of the pandemic and your country and your plans for your entire life—

And then stupid Destiel becomes canon! And it becomes canon in the silliest way possible!

If Destiel had become canon at any other time, it would have been a big goofy tumblr celebration? But we wouldn’t have gotten the insane explosion of hysterical interaction.

The entire core of it was the contrast between the inane meaningless stupidity of fandom news vs the actual stressful election news you wanted to hear! It really is best conveyed in that meme where Castiel says “I love you” and Dean indifferently responds with a piece of important election news.

It’s about the contrast between the low-stakes inanity of fandom and the massive life-destroying stakes of a terrifying election. There really was no reason it had be Supernatural specifically, except that Supernatural was a thing everyone knew basic things about from dashboard osmosis— it could’ve been any other equally huge silly fandom ship news about a ship everyone *knew of* but might not necessarily be invested in (ex. Stucky becoming canon, Johnlock becoming canon, Kirk/Spock becoming more canon somehow, etc etc etc.)

I think it’s true that people who weren’t paying agonizingly close attention to the American election news got swept up in it, and that non American Supernatural fans also were extremely excited for purely fandom reasons — but the entire reason it blew up to an unprecedented degree was because of that core of stressed out terrified Americans glued to their computers watching election results and suddenly receiving stupid fandom news instead, and deciding to just hysterically parodically hyper-celebrate this absurd useless zero-stakes news.

I think it was also all elevated by the fact that, as I said before, this happened at the crucial “tipping point” of the election where the next few hours would determine the winner. The fact that Biden began to slowly develop a lead in the hours after made it feel, hysterically, as if the hours after Destiel became canon was somehow the turning point where he began to win; so celebrating Destiel felt like celebrating that slow turn towards victory.

The tl,dr is that it’s so important to Remember the Fifth of November …..in preparation the inevitable hysteria that will happen in the presidential election on November 5th of next year. XD. Personally I’m rooting for Johnlock or Frodo/Sam to somehow become canon in the eleventh hour right before the democrats win

[cartvage]

Noelle wearing a big hoodie

[funkyposs]

quirky teenagers

[orobeori]

I was going to add more panels of a synchronized strangle attack by team broppy, but decided that enough was enough...

Anyhow here's how I think the battle at Mount Rageous should've gone, with the lovely happy trolls using the hair as weapons of destruction </3 I know that Branch is in his healing era but I still think he would've resorted to his more violent methods somehow (this time with Poppy's full support).

Also, the reason why Viva's still using the sticky hands is because of this one hc I saw that the Putt-Putt trolls lost the ability to stretch their hair due to malnutrition :D

[smoosie]

Heart-to-heart

[heohl-art]

Are you ready for the ineffable holidays?🧳✈️✨

Ineffable Husbands at Heathrow Airport🩷

"Come on, dear! We still have four souvenir shops to see!"

"Now I get why you forced me to arrive at the airport three bloody hours earlier..."

In three days I'll be in England for a two-weeks roundtrip, can't wait✨

ps. did you notice that Bentley also came along?🤭

🩷

[magnetothemagnificent]

As we enter the Christian holiday season, just your friendly reminder that "non-Christian character discovers the magic of Christmas" is not a trope you should be writing for a holiday themed fic. Cut that shit out.

[d0d0-b0i]

goobers

[akakumoeteru]

Happy 2nd (donghua) wedding anniversary!

[reigobun]

obligatory suselle

closeups

[suntails]

knighted

[iwasbored777]

Only true Trolls fans love this baby girl, y'all can't call yourself Trolls fans if you hate her

[copperbadge]

Time To Build The 2023 Fandom Small Business Shopping Directory!

Every year I put up a poll asking small business owners, artists, and crafters to share what they make and where they sell it, so that our fannish (and fandom-adjacent) community can shop “local” for the holiday season, supporting their fellow creators. 

If you make things to sell or run a small business where people can shop, fill out the form linked above to tell us all about it!

Above and beyond the usual sorts of things you'd give as gifts, feel free to include services you think people would wish to give as gifts (eg tarot readings), and authors should feel free to link to their book sales pages. There are also ways to indicate that you take commissions, so don't let the fact that you are commission-only stop you!

Shoppers who want to see the directory can go here to find out who’s selling what, and where.

Both shoppers and creators, please feel free to reblog this to your readerships or tag folks who might benefit.

Sometimes google polls and sheets can be very special, so if there are any access issues let me know. Also if you filled out the form but something needs correcting, feel free to get in touch via my asks or copperbadge@gmail.com and I can go in and fix it for you. 

I'll be reblogging this a couple of times in the next few weeks so both sellers and shoppers have the best chance of seeing it. The results sheet is stable so you can also bookmark that if you know you want to shop but want to wait and see what people are adding.

Happy selling, happy shopping! 

[lunarkyoz]

Some Miss Holiday doodles （´υ｀）