#i also know that it's a fairly small active fandom

[echo-bleu]

Just finished the second part of this piece, I think it's my most complex artwork to date... Now I'm scared of posting it because everything lately just kinda flopped :'(

[ID: Screenshot of Procreate, on a detail of a digital painting, showing marble statues of Celegorm and Huan, Caranthir and Curufin.]

[irrealisms]

i've seen a lot of people talk about mcyt as a constantly burning library of alexandria recently, and to some extent that's true. people are constantly deleting their blogs, going scorched earth with animatics, fanfics, etc., that they made. but i've also seen people (three in the last few days!) make this claim about VODs, when talking about large fandoms like DSMP and QSMP, and.... guys. that was true in 2020. that's not true anymore. archivists have been working tirelessly for years now to make sure that isn't true.

the dsmp VOD masterlist is here. in november 2020, it's missing 16 VODs, if i am counting correctly--which is still a fairly small minority, but it's a lot, and it sucks!--but in november of 2021, it's missing one, and that's because the cc of that VOD does copyright takedowns, not because the archivists didn't save it. no one in the archivist project is deleting VODs off youtube with no backups the way people are deleting fanfics. three months ago, one of my dsmp archivist friends finished coding a tool that let them reconstruct VODs out of twitch clips, and reconstructed six tubbo dsmp VODs from 2020. not only are we basically not losing VODs anymore, we are actively gaining VODs that have been lost for years, that were thought to be lost forever. the library isn't burning anymore; it's being rebuilt.

the qsmp VOD masterlist is here. it is usually a month or two behind the present day, to give creators time to archive their own VODs, but... look at it. in january of 2024, every single qsmp vod was archived. the same is true of december of 2023, and november, and the vast majority of months for the past year.

i'm not going to say that there isn't a problem. just a few days ago, i realized that a lifesteal VOD from last year was missing--that its youtube upload was messed up somehow, and no one noticed and it wasn't mirrored on the internet archive and the person who uploaded it deleted the original file. and now it's gone forever. this made me super sad! like i said: i'm not going to say that there isn't a problem.

but... look at the lifesteal VOD masterlist here. lifesteal's a smaller fandom than qsmp or dsmp. open the 2022 tab and you'll see months and months of lost VODs, of no one's VODs being saved, because there weren't any archivists saving them. then open the 2023 tab and see: they lost four VODs, over the course of a year. even in smaller fandoms, archivists are working. they're making progress. they're saving VODs. in 2024, lifesteal archivists screenrecorded five streams on tumblr live to make sure they would not become lost media. mcyt may be a constantly burning library of alexandria, but the people with fire extinguishers are dedicated. they're making incredible progress. i know people with petabytes of VODs saved, who have spent money on extra storage for this. i know people who are constantly running up against their storage limits as they download/upload to the internet archive/delete for space/rinse and repeat. a decent fraction of the time, my internet at home is slow because it's downloading VODs.

and these aren't the only mcyt fandoms with archiving projects! the outsiders smp VOD masterlist is here. origins smp VOD masterlist is here. smp earth VOD masterlist is here. rats smp VOD masterlist is here. there are so many others that i just don't happen to know about. the older and smaller a fandom is, the more likely it is to not have an attached archiving project, or for the archive to be missing a lot of VODs. but... guys, we've saved a lot. there are people out there, working tirelessly to save even more. yes, mourn what we have lost--the archivists i know are also the ones mourning the most for the VODs that are, in fact, forever lost media. but don't dismiss how much people have saved. we are making progress. we are losing less and less every month. the vast majority of the dsmp and qsmp still exist, i am not going to say they're the same experience as watching live because they're really not, but.. they're out there. people have put in a lot of work to save them.

if you have publicly available VOD masterlists or other mcyt archiving projects that aren't on this post, please add them in a reblog. i want this post to serve as a reference for how much archivists have saved in this community; unfortunately, i'm not super connected to every community. but i know that--for every person deleting things, there are people working, tirelessly & with little external reward, in so many different mcyt fandoms, to save things. and we should appreciate that more often.

[samwisethewitch]

What Non-Pagans Need to Know About Fiction Featuring Pagan Gods

In light of Marvel's Loki show dropping a second season and a new Percy Jackson series on the horizon, I want to say some things about how fandom spaces can be respectful of real-life pagan religion.

Let's get one thing out of the way: literally no one is saying you can't enjoy fiction that uses pagan gods and heroes as characters. No one is saying, "Stop writing stories about our gods." In fact, many ancient cultures wrote fiction about their gods -- look at Greek theater or the Norse Eddas. The act of writing fiction about the gods is not offensive in itself.

But please remember that this is someone's religion.

The gods are not "just archetypes." Their myths are not "just stories." Their personalities are not a matter of artistic interpretation. For many pagans, the gods are very much real in a literal sense. I don't think Thor is a metaphor or a symbol -- for me, Thor is a real, autonomous spiritual being who exists outside of human perceptions of him, and who I have chosen to build a relationship with. Even if you are a hardcore atheist, I would hope you could at least be respectful of the fact that, to many modern pagans, the gods are both very real and very important.

When authors are not respectful of this fact, they reduce the gods, these very real objects of worship, to fictional characters. And here's the thing about fictional characters: they are fundamentally tools for authors to use to draw a desired emotional response from an audience.

Dracula's personality and behavior is wildly different depending on who is writing him, because different authors use Dracula to create different reactions in their audiences. In the 1931 film starring Bela Lugosi, he's equal parts alluring and disturbing, a symbol of America's mixed desire and disdain for foreigners. In Nosferatu, he's more strictly frightening and disgusting. In Francis Ford Coppola's movie, he's a tragic, romantic figure clinging to the last scraps of his humanity. In Netflix's Castlevania, he's an incredibly powerful being who has grown bitter and apathetic in his immortality. All of this is Dracula, and all of it is fine, because Dracula is not and never has been a central figure in anyone's religion.

Let's take a look at what happens when authors give this same treatment to real gods:

In Hellenic polytheism, Apollo is one of the most beloved gods, both historically and today. Apollo loves humanity, and humanity loves him back. He is the god of sunlight and of medicine, but also of poetry and song. He is one of humanity's most consistent defenders when one of the other gods gets wrathful. And while he does have dangerous or wrathful aspects of his own (he's also the god of disease, after all), he's also kind and soft with humanity in a way other gods often aren't, at least in some historic sources.

In the Lore Olympus comic series, Apollo is a villain. He's characterized as an abuser, a manipulator, and a violent man child. LO!Apollo is downright hateful, because the author wants us to hate him. Lore Olympus is a retelling of a myth about an abduction and forced marriage. Lore Olympus is also a romance. In order to get the audience to sympathize with Hades and root for his relationship with Persephone, Rachel Smythe needed to make someone else the villain. Apollo is the most obvious and extreme character assassination in Smythe's work, but several other gods (notably Demeter) also get the asshole makeover to tell the story Smythe wants to tell.

Here's where this becomes a problem: Hellenic polytheism is a fairly small religious community, while Lore Olympus is a massively popular webtoon with 1.3 billion views as of August 2023, print books available from major retailers, a TV adaptation in the works, and a very active online fandom. Rachel Smythe currently has a MUCH bigger platform than any Hellenic polytheism practitioner. Smythe and other authors are shaping how modern culture views the Hellenic gods, and that has a very real impact on their worshipers.

This means "Apollo is an abusive asshole" is becoming a popular take online, and is even creeping into pagan communities. I've personally seen people be harassed for worshiping Apollo because of it. I've seen new pagans and pagan-curious folks who totally misunderstand the roles Apollo, Hades, and Persephone play in the Hellenic pantheon because of Lore Olympus and other modern works of fiction.

There are tons of other examples of this in modern pop culture, but I'll just rattle off a few of the ones that annoy me most: Rick Riordan depicting Ares/Mars as a brutish asshole hyped up on toxic masculinity; Rick Riordan depicting Athena as a mother goddess; Marvel depicting Thor as a dumb jock; Marvel depicting Odin as a cold, uncaring father; DC depicting Ares as purely evil; whatever the fuck the Vikings TV show was trying to do with seidr; the list goes on.

All of these are examples of religious appropriation. Religious appropriation is when sacred symbols are taken out of their original religious context by outsiders, so that the original meaning is lost or changed. It requires a power imbalance -- the person taking the symbols is usually part of a dominant religious culture. In many cases, the person doing the appropriation has a much bigger platform than anyone who has the knowledge to correct them.

When Rick Rioridan or Rachel Smythe totally mischaracterizes a Greek god to tell a story, and then actual Hellenic pagans get harassed for worshiping that god, that's religious appropriation.

Religious appropriation is a real issue. This isn't just pagans being sensitive. To use an extreme example: Richard Wagner and other German Romantic authors in the 19th century used the Norse gods and other Germanic deities as symbols in their work, which was a major influence on Nazi philosophy. Without Wagner, the Nazis would not have latched onto the Norse gods as symbols of their white supremacist agenda. To this day, there are white supremacist groups who claim to worship our gods or who use our religious imagery in their hate movement. We are still reckoning with the misinterpretation of our gods popularized by Wagner and other German Romantics almost 200 years ago.

Again, no one is saying you can't enjoy fiction based on pagan mythology. But there are a few things you can do to help prevent religious appropriation in fandom spaces:

Above all else, be mindful that while this may just be a story to you, it is someone's religion.

Recognize that enjoying fiction based on our gods does not mean you know our gods. You know fictional characters with the same names as our gods, who may or may not be accurate to real-life worship.

Do not argue with or try to correct pagans when we talk about our experience of our gods.

Don't invalidate or belittle pagan worship. Again, this mostly comes down to recognizing that our religion is totally separate from your fandom. We aren't LARPing or playing pretend. Our sacred traditions are real and valid.

If you see other people in your fandom engaging in religious appropriation, point out what they are doing and why it isn't okay.

Please tag your fandom content appropriately on social media. Always tag the show, movie, book, etc. that a post is about in addition to other relevant tags. This allows pagans to block these fandom tags if we don't want to see them and prevents fandom content showing up in religious tags.

For example, if I'm posting about Athena from the Percy Jackson books, I would tag the post #athena #athenapjo #percyjackson #pjo. You get the idea.

And if fiction sparks your interest and you want to learn more about the actual worship of the gods, you can always ask! Most pagans love talking about our gods and trading book recs.

If you are writing fiction based on real mythology, talk to people who worship those gods. Ask them what a respectful portrayal would look like. If possible, include a note in your finished work reminding audiences that it is a work of fiction and not meant to accurately portray these gods.

[herejusttosufferalong]

At this point, I feel like academic papers need to be written regarding PR and fandom culture, because it truly is getting to be an incredibly toxic and taxing thing that social media is just making worse.

Yes, LN is a real person who should be able to live his life and have a girlfriend he has been very explicit at times to refer to as a “loved one” or part of the stuff he keeps private that he cherishes. But at the same time, he went 6 months on promo that pushed the girlfriend off to the side (either or partly by his own choice) while very much embracing and amplifying a very affectionate and close relationship with his costar/friend all in an attempt to gain attention for a show, playing up attention from a very vocal fan base that is extremely invested. It isn’t just a piece of media for those fans, and PR def knows that. Unfortunately, actors are in a really delicate position because as much as they are themselves, they are also the most visible and therefore real part of their character, and people can’t always separate that. This is all to say that if you’re going to benefit from mixing/playing into the relationship between the actors and the characters, it should also be recognized what costs/considerations that will have.

Is this all out of hand at this point? Yeah. Do I think we would have always seen people lose their shit post S3 simply because they went SO HARD on promo for so long that suddenly not having content was gonna be like a detox? Absolutely. But some of this could have been avoided if they hadn’t made the personal so much a part of the promo, and figuring out how to handle that better should have been something PR teams worked on, even if not for the fans sake, but the actors themselves.

I saw someone comment that basically do people expect him not to have a life and I think that is a valid point, but also ignores the fact that at least part of his real life was very much a part of the promo. For a lot of fans, they aren’t at a point where they can compartmentalize that actors are doing a job and what we see isn’t really always them. It isn’t really fair to him, but that’s basically/realistically part of the deal they made taking on a role like this and promoting it how they did. If having to maintain the illusion for a bit after in order not to cause issue wasn’t explained to them, then that’s a fairly shit job on the PR teams, because I even saw that coming.

Ultimately, this whole situation feels rather shitty, uncomfy, and honestly really avoidable, and something that is just going to keep happening with shows with big followings. I shudder to think of what might have been if the Glee fandom was at its peak today.

There is a lot I could say here but atp it is really just beating a dead horse. However....

"But some of this could have been avoided if they hadn’t made the personal so much a part of the promo,"

I want to address this because I really haven’t yet and there were so many ways the personal bleed over affected perceptions.

My biggest complaint is this:

As much as I love the content we got out of Ireland I think it was a HUGE misstep for the press tour.

It was way to personal and setting a narrative while actively blurring lines.

It also made the tour feel one-sided. Luke and Nic didn't feel like co-stars.

We didn't have a stop in Brighton for Luke. They could've had a small screening there like Galway.

It seems like covertly Nic was placed more as a lead and Luke more in a supporting role by Netflix/Shaondland.

There could be a myriad of reasons for this, I mean look at how she carried a lot of the press tour.

Which brings up another issue I have...

Watching back interviews you see why she carried a lot of them, the majority of the questions were directed to her.

I also get that she is a more well known actress and is operating with more star power.

This hurt Luke honestly.

He doesn’t have a commanding presence when paired with people during interviews and especially not with Nic.

This is then where I have a major issue with his team, they should have been actively trying to play to his strengths during the promo tour.

Contractually he may have been restrained in certain areas but there is so much that he could have done to step out of Nic's shadow during the tour.

Because he was not giving S3 lead during the promo tour and it sucked to watch.

And for the weirdos out there, I am not blaming Nic at all, so please don't come to me with that shit.

[ihopesocomic]

I promise, if you know what to look for you can trip and fall over 17 different roleplayers on any given website and some groups I know are nigh constantly looking for new ppl 😭 granted if you're rping fandom characters that's trickier but I've also never seen people do that outside of really small friend groups (maybe it's an amino thing?)

Yeah, roleplaying is not just strictly an Animo or Discord thing. Both of these apps didn't appear until the mid-2010s so we had to make do with things like forums and what-not in the meantime. A number of these are probably still fairly active.

I did written roleplay almost religiously on the same sparklewolf RP forum from 2010 - 2017 and a lot of these forums do network and have links to each other so, like you say, you are liable to just stumble onto a lot of these places without really trying. There's also ARPGs on DA nowadays too. - RJ

[fantastic-nonsense]

Hi! Can you please point me to the 1990s Clark/Bruce zines you mentioned in a recent post? Also, do you know anything about the Superbat fandom history in the pre-tumblr/ao3 era? I’m really curious about it but I haven’t been able to find great sources. Thanks!!

Unfortunately I've never been a huge Superbat reader and actively participating in the pre-internet zine era was before my time in fandom, so my knowledge on that front is limited. You'd be better off contacting and searching through the University of Iowa's Special Collections Fan Culture Preservation Project (which has its own Fanlore page and is sponsored by Ao3's parent company, the Organization for Transformative Works), the University of California Riverside's Fanzine Collection, or trawling through old Livejournal communities tbh.

In terms of fandom history, the very short version is that it was fairly popular in the Silver and Bronze Age (partially as a result of the World's Finest comics), briefly went largely dormant in the late 1980s/1990s after the initial post-Crisis status quo was that Bruce and Clark weren't close friends (and then Clark was dead for a hot minute), and came back with a roaring vengeance in the 2000s after Morrison's+Waid's JLA runs did the legwork of making everyone friends again and Superman/Batman started publishing, and hasn't left fandom consciousness since. Adaptationally, it suffered a small hit in overall popularity when Smallville was big (caving to the Clex shippers) but was still fairly popular in DCAU fandom circles at the same time. There's an interesting Superbat history retrospective here, if you're interested, which mostly traces Bruce and Clark's depiction in comics from the 80s until the 2010s but also provides some personal commentary and notes on fan speculation+letters to the editor that appeared in those older issues.

Sidenote: a major reason that you can't find fandom histories on DC the way you can on Marvel is because their archives aren't open to academics and the general public the way Marvel's are. There is no DC equivalent of Marvel: The Untold Story, for example. We have quite a bit of knowledge on the Golden Age era because of external sources, and there's a lot of information about the post-internet fandom, but unfortunately there's just not a ton of internal or fandom-centered sources for the in-between. And the documentaries we do have usually focus on official/company-centered events rather than fandom ones. I happen to anecdotally know some of that history, hence why I felt confident correcting people on that post, but you're right that there's just not a lot of "good" sources to be found on the issue outside of old blog posts.

You also have to understand that until the 2000s and the rise of modern fandom culture, "slash shipping" in most fandoms (that weren't Star Trek, anyway) was basically all underground, so the histories we do have are largely oral histories from oldfans and zines that have survived from that era. Slashfics were also regularly deleted from fandom archives at whim whenever content crackdowns happened (said content crackdowns were one of the major reasons AO3 was created and eventually became the main internet repository for fanfiction, btw). So unless you have access to the zines or those authors have uploaded/re-uploaded their work to somewhere that hasn't been subject to purges, site takedowns, or the general ravages of time...a lot of that history has been lost, unfortunately.

I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help!

[toboldlymuppet]

cranky fandom wank hours

It sucks that this is my post after a while of not updating art here but I have to say something about it. The level of vitriol and hate I’ve gotten as an Izzy fan (why yes, that fictional little pathetic man over on that little queer pirate show that speaks about kindness & acceptance, of growing past your trauma & toxic mentality, That One) has been 10x as worse than in any fandom I’ve been in, and I’ve been in fandom for more than a decade now. I’ve modded a fairly large game discord (at 100k+) and even then, I haven’t had death threats lobbied at me so aggressively until I got into this show. I was never shy about my anti-colonialism stance, my Filipino heritage, my sexuality or gender identity, especially having recently realized that I fall into the nb spectrum. Or all my stances on shitty IRL things that are both morally and legally reprehensible. And yet, the number of “racist/pedophile/rapist/colonizer/abuse apologist” I’ve gotten in my dms has pushed me enough to close my twitter dms & asks here, something I haven’t done at all (most especially on twitter where I’ve kept it open since 2014). People I know who enjoyed staying in our own lane & enjoying one rat bastard has gotten hate and death threats, we’ve had someone doxxed, many of us fear doxxing, I’ve been thrown into a list of ‘known rapists/abusers” for daring to do fanwork of my current favorite pirate. A lot of us fans are POC and trans and nonbinary, or somewhere around that spectrum, and yet we’ve been constantly drowned out by people who think that fandom = activism? Who act like surely it’s just a conglomerate of white cis fans who flock around Izzy. Nice, way to fuckin misgender and act like a white savior to us, oh wait, we POC/non-cis Izzy fans don’t exist, do we? Even then, so many fanwork of other POC characters on the show are by Izzy fans. Roach & Frenchie fanworks, iirc, where they’re not relegated into the side or disregarded, where they’re main characters in their own right, are primarily by us fans. We show the crew a good amount of love, and even then, if you don’t find the fanwork of a character or ship you’re looking for? Don’t attack the fans enjoying our own thing and do your own, commission an artist/writer, cultivate your own circle instead of attacking others. Izzy Hands is by far the least morally decrepit favorite I’ve gotten in many years, he’s nothing even remotely close to being ‘unredeemable’,  to apply morality to him & his fans, despite being a pirate in a fucking pirate show, totally known for their Goodwill To All Men and Upstanding Code of Ethics, is ridiculous and full of bad faith criticism. Also, can people stop tagging hate in his tag, what the fuck happened to fandom ethics or consideration, stop airing out your dirty laundry for the fans to see where we’re just here to have a good time and Stay In Our Lane. Anyway, I have a shitload of more to add but it’s 6am and I’ve frankly never been this exhausted by fandom before. This is why I’ve never done G/B stuff lol, despite having done so many wips on my initial watch. Is it cringe to have an entire vent about a sad small fictional man? Yes. But is it even cringer to focus all your time and energy into hating that guy & his fans? Also yes.

Good morning.

[ceranovis]

Some musings to do with this celltw pic

As a fandom I feel like we could be doing So Much More with Other Side Elements being canon + all the connected Ordem worldbuilding it introduces by association.

Canonically, Cellbit chose to align himself with the knowledge element. So I hopped on over to the ordem wiki page for Knowledge to look for things to put in the paperwork on the table. Then I realized there's a memory alteration ritual (accidentally pulled the wrong ritual circle image for the art though oTL ...let's just pretend Cellbit identified the right one at some point).

The [Change Memory Ritual] can erase all or only some specific memories of the victim. In both cases, if the victim comes into contact with people, places and certain objects that were part of this past erased, it will begin to gradually recall some elements and have quick flashes of some moments, being able to recover its memory completely after a while.

Now listen. If there's one thing I think of as core to q!Cellbit's character, it's that as far as he's concerned the ends always justifies the means. This includes doing things he knows people he loves will hate him for because he thinks it will be better for them in the long run.

In the regret arc letters, he told Tazercraft he loved them, that Cell was dead & he didn't want them to think he was reverting to that type of monster. While there were a few moments where he brought up clearly unresolved feelings of anger and betrayal/abandonment regarding how things went with Fuga, I do think at that point he cared for the Favela crew as a found-family, and was making decisions he felt were in their best interest (usually without consulting them, or like...running those ideas by anyone else ever...)

If he discovered a way to erase specific memories, I could fully see him using that to 'make things better' for Pac. I doubt he'd try to erase all the Fuga memories (especially as he'd have to also erase Mike and Felps) but I also don't think he'd feel like he had to go that far anyways.

Earlier on in the Quesadilla timeline, Pac seemed to think of Cell as basically dormant and was relatively comfortable with having a fairly close and positive relationship with Cellbit. He only grew paranoid about Cell re-emerging when he saw signs of Cellbit snapping, and he first responded by actively trying to keep Cellbit in a headspace that wouldn't lead to that. There have been multiple instances of Pac extending a bit of grace, an unspoken offer not to forgive or forget but to move forward. He wants Cellbit to be a good man, not a monster.

So I think Cellbit would use the ritual to smooth over events that put a strain on their current relationship. Things that made Pac scared he was turning back into Cell. And he'd probably justify it as 'helping' Pac, but there's also a selfish element there too, of him desperately trying to keep hold of this new start and family he probably doesn't deserve but somehow got anyways.

It's small things at first-- just wiping away little instances that put Pac on edge around him. Pac is prone to glossing over Cellbit's red flags anyways, so even if other people remember what Pac doesn't, it wouldn't set off immediate alarm bells. Nobody would catch on to the manipulation.

Pac himself would write off most of the weird, vague flashes he gets sometimes. It feels sort of like deja vu but with an extra helping of uneasy dread. He's not very self-confident when it comes to his brain; he's just being unreasonably paranoid because of his memories of Cell-- those half-memories are so foggy because his brain is panicking and conflating the past with the present, right? More importantly, wants to trust Cellbit.

Now, there's a clip of Pac (which I can't find now but it lives in my head rent free) where he implies that, if Cellbit and Roier hadnt been introduced, he and Cellbit would have been together.

There are a few points in the canon timeline where guapoduo could have been derailed. Cellbit may never have even gotten to that point with Roier if he and Pac were already a little bit closer. If he was fucking with Pac's memories in a way that made Pac less cautious of him, I think it's entirely possible their relationship would have had a chance to develop in place of guapoduo's.

Cellbit didn't start erasing memories with the intention of getting Pac to fall for him though. He wanted the olive branch Pac extended. He wanted Pac to not be terrified of him. But it never occured to him that Pac might be capable of falling in love with the man who ate his goddamn leg. So it completely blindsides him when Pac does, in fact, very deliberately step over the line between platonic and romantic in their relationship.

It feels a lot more morally dubious to be manipulating Pac's memories once that happens. But he's in too deep. He knows Pac would hate him if he found out the truth. But isn't it better this way anyways? Pac, somehow, impossibly, wants to love him-- it's not like he's forcing Pac feel anything about him, right? He knows how terrible betrayal feels-- and he doesn't have to make Pac feel that way, doesn't have to hurt him like that! All he has to do is omit the truth. It's not even a lie, really.

He wants Pac to be happy, wants to preserve the warmth Pac looks at him with now, and if holding his tongue is what assures that... well he can swallow down the guilt gnawing at him and bear that mental burden for both of them. Theres so much in their history for him to feel guilty about anyways, what's one more thing?

Unfortunately for Cellbit, he's never used the ritual on people prior to this, and the books he got it from were light on details as to how it works. He has no idea that the locks on Pac's memories start to slowly erode as soon as he encounters a trigger. And since all of the erased memories are of Cellbit, their time together is just speeding up that process.

Eventually, Pac regains a memory he can't just brush off. And he has to come to terms with the fact that something is very, very wrong between them even if he doesn't understand exactly what's happening to him. He'd figure it out eventually, go through Cellbit's notes in secret and piece things together. When he does he's horrified and angry and heartbroken. But he's torn too because it's not like he can just forget the relationship they've built either, even if he now knows the foundation is half rotted.

He still loves Cellbit, despite every fucked up thing Cellbit has ever done to him.

The question is really whether Pac loves himself enough to pull the plug on this unhealthy dynamic.

[uriekukistan]

Something I've been thinking about in the past couple of months is what current fans of JJK will think of the series in the future: 1, 5, 10+ years down the line after it ends. I don't think it's a secret or anything that fans are really divided and have during opinions about where the series is going and how it might end, but I'm curious about what it's legacy will be. Do you have any thoughts about that? (Also hi I hope you're having a good day!)

oooh interesting ask, thank you winnie :D hope you're having a good day too !!

hhhhh im not sure im smart enough to conceptualize this kind of thing fairly, but im gonna do my best 🤞 sorry in advance for the essay omg

one thing i wanna touch on really quickly is that i feel like the lifespans of fandoms are decreasing. im not sure if this is a fair assessment, but it seems like people move on quicker that they used to and migrate to new fandoms quickly as series end. i think it has to do with the increase in the amount and accessibility of new media, plus the trend of "consuming," rather than enjoying. part of a growing problem of rapid consumption and accelerating trend cycles.

that being said, jjk is still ongoing for who knows how long (allegedly finishing this year), and has to be animated after that. so depending on how they break the series up, and how hard mappa decides to push their workers, could be up to 5 more years of releasing content, which means retention of old fans and acquisition of new fans. i also think it will be impacted by the ending of the story.

the other two fandoms i participate in are 10+ years old (death note is 20+ at this point...) so im gonna use them as reference points

i was like...1-5 years old when death note was actively releasing, so im not sure how ppl were reacting at the time. but death note has become a "classic" anime/manga that new fans are constantly discovering and appreciating, keeping the fandom going. a lot of people still love death note, and from what i've seen, it's generally less divisive. people like death note, generally. everything has flaws and can/will be criticized, but as far as anime/manga goes, people are generally able to come to a consensus that death note is good. it has interesting characters and interesting themes and comes to a satisfying conclusion- that no man can be god. because of that, it still has a large and active fanbase that has enjoyed much longevity.

in contrast, tokyo ghoul is very divisive, and its aggravated by the fact that the anime completely diverges from the manga, and creates its own story, so the reviews are always mixed. it's wonderfully tragic or it's edgy. it's beautiful or it's boring. it has great themes or it's incoherent. it doesnt help that the mangaka was seriously burnt out towards the end of creating it. despite the fact that tokyo ghoul was one of the most popular anime/manga at one point, its fandom, while very much alive, is also pretty small. im either oomfs or oomfs-in-law w pretty much everyone here. i think the amount of criticism tokyo ghoul got (which dont get me wrong, some parts are very much worthy of it, but that's not what people were saying) affected the longevity of the fandom.

that brings me back to jjk. i think there's two camps of people in the fandom right now: those who are only interested in a "happy ending" and those who are interested in whatever ending may come, so long as it suits the themes and the character arcs feel completed. so i think the way jjk ends will be the deciding factor of its legacy and the direction the fandom takes.

personally, i'll be happiest with the second option, i mean im a tragedy fan if nothing else, and i love the thematic aspects of jjk. but i know most people will be looking out for a happy ending, at least based on what i see people saying. the fact that so many people are back to saying jjk is good after last night's leaks is proof of that to me. i think if the manga ends happily, whether it suits the story or not, people will be more likely to stick around than if it ends in a way that is less happy, but suits the story perfectly. if that makes sense.

[silvertrashpanda]

i know the nanbaka fandom is small but for any new fans looking for a place to talk about it, come join the discord

it’s pretty epic and the perfect place to meet more nanbaka nerds as well as talk about the anime + manga. it’s fairly active and everyone there is super welcoming so you got no reason to join!

https://discord.gg/7YQMEyavXT

if you don’t use discord there’s also the nanbaka amino which i’m in charge of! not as many are active there anymore but everyone is free to post whatever nanbaka related content they have on there ❤️

[luna-rainbow]

Got curious about fandom trends so pulled some data from AO3.

Like a good scientist, going to start with Limitations:

Polyships not included. Ships list is also by no means exhaustive.

Not filtered for OTP:true so same fic may feature multiple ships that may not be the endgame

Also doesn't reflect which ship is centered in the fic as opposed to mentions

Obviously deleted fics won't turn up in the count, but it would be interesting to know real historical numbers for these fandoms

Quite a few fics have been backdated, given AO3 was only launched in 2009 and several fics are marked pre-2009. It's possible other fics have also been backdated but I think the numbers are small enough to be non significant.

I did not filter out between MCU and Marvel comics for the ships

(Addit for something new I noticed) Fics that have been updated on 2023 will disappear from earlier numbers i.e. if a fic was started in 2022 but is still being published in 2023, it will not show up in 2022 numbers.

As always, keep in mind AO3 has relatively higher slash ships than other fanfic sites

AO3 doesn't necessarily reflect the size of the fandom, only how many people write for the fandom on AO3 (duh). Other activity - discussions, meta, fanart etc doesn't always correlate to fic production.

RIGHT axis scale applies to the MCU area only - this is the overall number of fics being written for the MCU over the years.

Observations:

Stucky took a while to catch attention. In 2011 when CATFA came out, there was only 61 fics, but that jumped to ~400 and ~600 for the following 2 years.

Avengers (2012) made Stony into one of the first juggernaut ships of the MCU with around 3000 fics that year.

2014 CATWS vaulted Stucky into the stratosphere, going from less than 600 fics in 2013 to just shy of 6000 in 2014. SamBucky and SteveSam both started then, but SteveSam was the bigger ship at the time (500 vs 150 fics)

2016 CACW gave a boost to both Stucky and Stony, as well as a boost to SamBucky.

Curiously, SteveSam did not receive the same boost from the movie, and its numbers dropped in following years and stayed around 300

AC, starting in 2015, gave the first real boost to Steggy. Prior to this its numbers stayed around 200, with a small uptick in 2014 with CATWS to 400.

Clearly, lots of people were happy/unhappy/had things to say about EG, because that was when Stucky, Steggy and Stony all peaked, while SamBucky also had a big boost. This peak is also mirrored in the overall number of MCU fics produced

Big spike for SamBucky as expected from TFATWS in 2021, nearly breaking 5000 and overtaking Stony for the year

2021 was also the peak for overall number of MCU fics per year, which I wonder if it's partially due to Covid lockdown. Other franchises released that year were Loki, Black Widow, Shangchi, Eternals and Spiderman.

SteveNat and BuckyNat have stayed fairly constant ships (of around 500 fics/year) with a small boost from each movie. Staron has remained a small with around 100 fics a year.

[lo-fi-charming]

I love all ur jaisy stuff, its so good!! I was wondering, do you know anyone else in the fandom who also makes stuff centering around them?

thank you!! and aaaa unfortunately not really? there are definitely folks who like them, but the jaisy enjoyers are few and fairly quiet, especially this long post-finale

funny i get this ask today, though, since it's the start of July and i actually host a jondaisy week event. it's usually a pretty small output but it's always nice to see people are still interested in the ship enough to participate! i intended on making a post about it today

that'd be at @jondaisy-week btw, if you'd like to see who has done stuff in the past. like i said, there aren't many ACTIVE jaisy enjoyers these days (myself included, ive just been turbo busy lately), but you can poke around to find more old works to enjoy :>

[roslynwrites]

Hi there!

I found you from your beautiful, stunning, nothing short of perfect fic, Incendiary! Apologies if you don’t want new fans/ commenters (feel free to ignore this message if it’s a lot!)

But because reviews were turned off I just had to let you know how amazing the fic was - somehow! This is not an attempt to ask you about your next chapter status or anything like that but to really applaud you for the work you’ve given us for FREE. I think zutara fans in general have felt alienated by the community (esp when creators of the show have openly mocked us) so finding like minded people & quality fics are seriously one of the things that make me so happy.

My brain rot with Zutara died a few years again & then I started watching the live action … saw the infamous scarf scene and well spiraled right back in. Last time I was obsessed with the pairing, was before your fic. So when I stumbled over it this round I ate it up within 2 days … despite having to be up early haha. It was such a master piece even as I write this comment I’m in awe. I wanted to leave detailed reviews on each chapter but honestly the way you built the story, woven canon elements into it & structured the dialogue was breath taking. You brought back so many details and even though it’s canon divergent - everything made sense. It’s not one of those ‘it’s outrageous but for the sake of the fic whatever’, it actually worked WELL.

The characters would do those things had it been a more mature show, aged up, different circumstances. I love that. I also appreciated the lack of focus on kataang and having Katara be more than just a trophy - she felt so true to her essence. I’m not sure what I was even looking for scrolling absentmindedly thought Ao3 but finding your masterpiece was really not something I’d dream of. I did think loosely of a forced proximity, marriage trope for them and you executed in such a satisfying way. I can say that I am so so happy for coming across this. I think I’ve learned alot from the way you write as well. You did such a good job with some of the sequencing and ahhh just a true delight and joy to read.

All this to say I’m so very thankful for your contribution to zutara nation!! You gave the fandom such a priceless gift I know incendiary will be a fic I come back to often to reread and marvel. I hope everything is well with you🫶🏼

This ask made me tear up a little with happy tears; thank you so much for coming here to send this to me, you wonderful person <3

It's interesting you mention the alienation of the zutara fandom in relation to other parts of the fandom, it's actually something I ponder a lot. Fandom dynamics are so interesting in general to me, and every fandom is a little different. I am not a Zutara veteran by any means, I sauntered in quite late to the party and I don't really interact much with other parts of the fandom nor in any discourse, but even to reclusive old me I think it's fairly obvious that the creators deciding it was a great idea to essentially declare open season on personally insulting a large portion of the fandom based on fictional shipping tastes had a pretty large impact on how the atla fandom interacts lol.

Which is, of course, a shame, but cultivating fun, relaxing spaces is still thankfully possible, and I do think that the loud troublemakers (regardless of ship) are a small percentage of fandom; the chill people are usually just quieter and have to be actively found. I am sooo glad my fic could deliver some joy and feeling of like-mindedness for you :)

[cookinguptales]

actually, talking about that fic that I wrote for a fandom over a decade ago made me remember the only time I think I've actually had a true fandom nemesis. the fandom was fairly small at that time, though it blew the fuck up later, and everyone kind of knew everyone.

this was also when AO3 was just sort of starting to get its legs, so I was still primarily posting to DW first. I usually posted it to the ship community first, and then a few days later crossposted it to AO3. it was more of an afterthought, honestly. a place to archive my work for later, not the primary place that people went to read stuff.

but because of that habit, I ended up encountering a truly annoying person lmao. this person... idk if they were actively trying to copy me specifically or if they just regularly got inspired by my work, but no less than three or four times they ended up writing something that was the exact same idea as what I'd just written. and I don't mean a vague trope like "bed sharing" but fairly complex (sometimes bizarre) plots. sometimes even the dialogue was only slightly different.

and while I would post my fic to DW first, they would post theirs to AO3 first. which meant that if you looked at the timestamps on the fics, it looked like I was copying them.

broooooo

I hated them lmao

like I haven't even thought about it in years, but I used to get so irritated. especially because their version was, imo, not that great. obviously they were writing them really quickly, so I guess that's not surprising. but because their fics were "first", they'd often get more traction on AO3. I even had someone call my work derivative once and I was incandescent lmao.

to this day I don't really know what all that was about! years later, my versions of the fics were the ones that showed up on reclists and got fondly remembered, but like. still! at the time it was just so bizarre and irritating.

IIRC, it's actually what made me start simultaneously posting to AO3 and DW lmao. like this was what made me realize that some people only read AO3. and I guess these days, it's the only place I post.

so uhhh hey what the fuck was that.

[everlastiingiimmortals]

AUTHOR PORTRAIT

Get to know the author behind the blog! Repost, do not reblog

Basics

NAME: Willow. AGE: 22. PRONOUNS: she/they. YEARS OF WRITING: I've been making up my own stories since I was incredibly small, and I think writing since I was... oh, around 8 years old? In terms of roleplay, I first started out on Tumblr at the poor young age of 14 (yikes, I know), and more or less haven't left aside from a 2-3 year hiatus after the 2018 purge that caused a lot of people to leave, during which I instead wrote on Discord for a spell.

Reflection

WHY DID YOU PICK UP WRITING? Being a 13 yo starved of Mega Man content naturally drew me to Tumblr, I think, where at the time there was a fairly lively roleplay community and a fair amount of fanart being shared. I'd already been familiar with roleplay due to warrior cats LARP and private interactions with people I managed to connect to once I wormed my way into the fandom, so it was only a matter of time before I dipped my toes into the MM RPC after reading the way that people wrote with each other. And then I never left! Many of the friends I made at the time are still really good friends of mine now! I wanted to write because telling stories was something I'd always done, whether it was in my head, or to my younger sister before bedtime, or drawing little comics. It was a logical jump, especially with such an open ended franchise as Mega Man. And now I'm here. DO YOU HAVE ANY WRITING ROUTINES? Yeah, I'd say so. Lately I've found myself kind of picky with the time of day that I write. Maybe I never noticed it before, but I like to block out a good chunk of time while it's bright and sunny to write and find somewhere quiet where I can put on some music and have a nice lil drink. I can write during the night, and regularly have and still do, but something feels better about writing earlier in the day, or even in the morning. Probably because I'm not so drained then. The kind of music I listen to while writing depends largely on the muse and the mood of the thread I need to encompass. For my more sorrowful replies I have several go-tos that I tuck away into the respective muse's playlist, as well as some universal Sad Bops, but I use other songs too! I tend to need to listen to a song on repeat while I'm writing until the reply is done. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE PART ABOUT WRITING? Definitely the click when a muse hits just right. I like to think I'm plenty capable of writing any sort of character if I put my mind to it, but there's only certain muses that really spark a connection that I resonate with, and stumbling upon a muse like that is my favorite because it allows me to really enter a muse's mind. The best examples of that on this blog are definitely Jing Yuan and Ratio, which is why they're my most active muses. When I'm able to feel what my muse feels and truly understand why they work the way they work, that's my favorite moment.

Three things you like about your writing

Oh boy, let's see. Is there anything notable about my writing???? LORE. I definitely put a lot of effort into defining my characters based on the available lore in the game and external research I do on my own. As an academic, especially one in STEM, I have a lot that I have learned and can apply to my muses. The most prominent example of this is probably Ratio and all I've babbled about ecology with him, but I've done it for Jing Yuan too with his electricity. Pulling from mythos and history is also something I find a lot of fun and pride myself on doing. BODY LANGUAGE. With muses that prefer silence and/or subtlety over conversation over the years I've learned to portray a lot of their mental and emotional state through body language and expression rather than speech. It's hard, and certainly something that's been a huge learning curve for me as a yapper who never shuts up, but I like to think I've gotten good at communicating that subtlety! There's always room for improvement though, and I'd definitely love to have more threads and interactions where I can continue to practice. EVOKING EMOTION. I like to think that I'm good at evoking strong feelings with my writing, particularly when it comes to sorrowful and tragic threads or interactions. There's a delicateness to the kind of burden and grief I love to portray, and I imagine I do a fairly good job of dancing along it and pulling others into the state of mind of my muses! (Full disclosure, I hesitated on putting this here because I simply have no awareness of the impact of my writing ever, but after having it affirmed by multiple friends I guess it's cool and definitely not arrogant--)

A question for the next person

DO YOU HAVE A CERTAIN TYPE OF MUSE YOU ENJOY WRITING? Oh gosh, I think looking at the muses I have here on this blog alone kind of answers that! They all follow the theme of compassion and selflessness, though the degree to which and how they apply it differs wildly between the four. I do love writing villains, antiheroes and asshole characters too (and I've written plenty in the past!), but there's something about a noble, pure soul driven by compassion that just hits so good for me. Gestures at Jing Yuan, Ratio, Robin, and Stelle. Honestly I'm impressed I've been able to give them such distinct voices despite their common trope haha. NEW QUESTION: If you were to pick up a muse that would challenge your skills and push you out of your comfort zone the most, what kind of muse would they be and why? Do you have any examples?

TAGGED BY: @duelmarks (ty!!) TAGGING: @etherealguard @celestial-narwhal @celestial-sword-dance @spaced-out-muses and anyone else who wants to do this bc Tumblr limited tags :(

[icemankazansky]

Being a newbie in the TG fandom is hard. There's the burnbook, the callouts blog, there're people lurking to start shits everywhere, all I want to do is to discuss characterisations and ships with someone and to post my works. And I do look up to the elders of the fandom because I think you guys are cool, I enjoy your fics and edits, I know maybe it's just the overthinker in me but sometimes it feels like the likes of me are not too entirely welcome for some weird guts feeling reasons.

I want to say first and foremost: You are entirely welcome here. I can only speak for myself and the pre-TGM Top Gun fans who I know personally (which is most of them), but we are thrilled you are here. We want to talk to you about characterizations and ships. We want to see your works! We are very excited to have new people with whom to share this fandom we love, and we are so, so fond of so many of the new people we've met already.

But I will also say: I understand how you feel. I have been in fandom for a long time, and honestly, I have never seen anything like this. Honestly, I think it's a tiny part of this fandom who are running these nasty blogs, starting these fights, and terrorizing people on their blogs and in their asks. But they're LOUD. It was a complete surprise and very upsetting when this stuff started. It was kind of like this: The Top Gun fandom was this small, old neighborhood fairly removed from major cities. We knew all our neighbors; some of us lived there for over a decade; some of us helped build the neighborhood. It was very peaceful, warm, and inviting. Then we heard they were building some big suburbs nearby, with all the things that come with it: New schools, shopping complexes, chain restaurants, automatic car washes. It was going to be a change, but we were excited to have new neighbors, and we welcomed them. They moved in, and for a while everything was nice. There were growing pains and more traffic, but there were fun, creative new people to meet, and Starbucks and big movie theaters and cupcake boutiques.

Then things began to shift. Some people in the big, shiny new suburbs began to look around this huge city they had built up all around us, and decided, "You know, this town is great, except for that old section. It's an eyesore, so rundown, dated ... it's affecting our property values, and it's the cause of everything that's wrong around here." And they didn't just whisper about it between themselves. They held town hall meetings and posted public declarations about it all over town. (It wasn't just anonymous people bitching about us on those cruel, cowardly burn book blogs. They were in the tags on their private blogs talking about how the older part of fandom was ruining everything, how there had been no good fanfiction written before TGM came out... They named us individually in hate posts. They came in our asks and left harassing comments and death threats.) And we're just sitting here in our cozy little cottages where we've lived for years, like ... you don't need to come here. You can stay in your shiny suburbs and just ignore this part of town, instead of throwing bricks through our windows and graffitiing our houses. But they don't. They haven't.

And so we've had to put bars on our windows and hire a neighborhood watch. I understand that, as a newcomer to fandom, it can be intimidating to see fandom elders making posts addressing new people in fandom and asking them to respect our neighborhood. But we're addressing a very small percentage of fandom who are actively terrorizing us, who are actively working to make this fandom a negative place. That's not you. You are welcome here. We want you here. Please post your work. Please come talk to us. We will help you find your way around if you like. We'll introduce you to our friends and good restaurants. We are happy you're here.

This is an open invitation to you and anyone who needs it, but please always feel free to send me an ask or message me privately if you feel unsure about how to make your way around this fandom, or if you just want to talk about Top Gun or anything else. Honestly, I am so happy to speak to you, and I want to help in any way I can.

Carly