#is popular across a lot of media lol

[rollercoasterwords]

loved new chap reminded me of sorcerers stone

honestly understandable however i will share that the actual inspiration 4 this ch was ‘fablehaven: secrets of the dragon sanctuary’ which is book 4 in the children’s fantasy series fablehaven which i read at least 3 times growing up bc i loved it so much <3 book 4 is actually the only book i own from the series bc i thought it was SO fun that i needed my own copy….contained a plot twist that shook 11 year old me 2 my core etc. & it features the protagonists going into this underground structure w a series of traps 2 get a special magical item at the very bottom <3 anyway ty glad u enjoyed <3

[polkadotpatterson]

Rules: Make a poll of your favorite female characters (no limits - as many or as little as you want) and see which your followers like the most!

inspired by @waveridden! thought it would be fun to do an entirely blaseball version :)

[just-antithings]

So I saw this tiktok the other day, the algorhithm took me here accidentally I believe:

https://imgur.com/sacHJb3

Image description: person is dancing happily behind a wall of text that reads "how it feels to only watch movies and shows with happy endings, no incest, no glorified SA, no brutalization of women and minorities, and the animals live - instead of "good" movies that just make me feel shitty and uncommon"

The automated "search" option underneath is just "the boys show" and the majority of the comments on this video are about "this is why I don't watch The Boys uwu I hate The Boys and GoT too" each with a sense of better than thou high horse.

Now... I understand that The Boys or Game of Thrones is not for everyone, but we live in a time where there is actually an unprecedented amount of ~soft core media focused on, discussing, and representing women and minorities (and animals lol?), + sexuality and relationships in a positive light. The Boys and Game of Thrones are outliers in popularity because they famously break a LOT of taboos right off the bat, ( = meaning, they are a quick outlet to society's frustrations) and because of that they are too interesting not to get a hype train by journalists and critiquers and whatnot.

But the outrage is fake. The outrage is fake, you are arguing with a strawman. Nobody is forcing you to watch R rated stuff and nobody is saying only R rated stuff is "good". R-rated action/drama shows and movies have never ever been liked by everyone. Not in the 80s, not in the 90s, not during the Hays code, not after it, not now. Nobody is saying those are the only "good" movies (as implied by the phrasing of this person), and nobody ever has. Growing up, in our household, the TV was always on. And guess what, even our little family of 5 have always argued about whether to change the channel to an action movie with Stallone, a scifi/fantasy, a period drama, or a sports anime... good times.

All that to say, I guess this might just be a little whimsical post about how you prefer to watch 'happy' stuff, but it comes across as if the majority of media out there has incest and SA in it now, and ?? it doesn't. It just doesn't. I DO have to go back to the 80's in my 2000+ media archive (spanning the last 60 years in audiovisual entertainment) to find stuff with glorified SA. But, today? How do you guys keep finding that content? Is it that you are misunderstanding glorification? Or is it that you are digging that deep and traumatizing yourselves on purpose all the time? Sheesh.

Posts like this come across as virtue signaling and kind of like being a pick-me-girl in the sense that "I'm happy and carefree because I only watch pure stuff uwu so you better follow my example or you will be miserable and condemnable". "stop watching stuff that makes ME uncomfortable because that fact in itself just makes it bad in all contexts imaginable!"

In 2011, the "coOoOol" people said they do not and will not ever watch Game of Thrones, and now the song is the same with The Boys, except now it's sprinkled with this 'anti' flavor. I guess the "nah I just don't want to watch that much sex and blood" was also a factor back with GoT, but I never felt that it reached these heights in morality panic.

Am I conflating this? Or do you also feel this tinge of anti attitude in there?

[lambergeier]

it's been like truly anthropologically fascinating mainlining 200,000 words of dick grayson fanfiction over the past week. it's an enormous fandom and i'm mostly finding stuff by hopping through bookmarks, which can easily lead to getting stuck in certain circles of writers, so what i've read is not necessarily representative of all bat fic, but based on what i HAVE read--i've never met a fandom so committed to overwriting. like, paragraphs of narration between each line of dialogue. worst in fics written around 2013, as with all fandoms lol, but it just doesn't go away the way it did for everyone else. we're talking 80k fics that should have been 35k. 30k fics that could have been executed in a tight 14k. the prevailing popular style just does not tend toward brevity to like an incredible extent. never seen anything like it!

and then, another batfic quirk, it really doesn't help how repetitive most fics are across the last decade lmao. i say this with a lot of sympathy for the authors, like i get how this happens: you have 80 years of canon, only 1% of which anyone wants to write fic about, but it's this overwhelmingly popular property that is constantly drawing in new fans bc there's always a new piece of media coming out, so people keep showing up and there's still only like a handful of runs that are coherent enough to do anything with. constant reboots. constant bad arcs. so you have a whole lot of people writing about a functionally very small amount of canon, and everyone's talking about it all the time, so fanon becomes extremely dominant, and popular fanons are nearly always homogenizing/kinda boring, but there's just not that much interesting canon to supplement with, or there is but it's based on a 30yo run no one else liked, or can't be assed to read, or it got retconned, etc etc etc. idk if this happens much in eastern fandom, but i feel like this is basically unique in western fandom and BOY does it make it hard to find interesting fic!

[darkfictionjude]

I definitely think there's sexism at play with Nia (although not quite as overt it was with Carmen), people are less forgiving towards female characters across all types of media. Especially ones who aren't humble/modest, morally good, supportive of or even subordinate to male characters (especially if the protagonist is male), conventionally attractive (I know Nia is, but just making the point generally), etc.

But in this specific instance, I think it's also because Nia is the only one with a prior positive relationship with the MC. I could see the MC feeling more strongly about Nia's actions than Lorcan's (who they never had a positive relationship with) and Imre (who they didn't even interact with or care about lol). With Nia, the MC has actually lost something, one of the few positive relationships they had. Maybe the only one if you consider Sally's to be “positive” but unhealthy.

Generally readers tend to feel protective over MCs against characters who hurt them. Sometimes to the extent that isn't viewing the situation fairly/logically, or giving the same grace to other characters as you do for the MC. I've seen authors receive hate over that for characters that are gender selectable too (e.g. Infamous). And this MC is an unreliable narrator and we haven't gotten an explanation from Nia yet or seen what she's seen firsthand, we didn't get a full conversation with her until recently. I think these factors make it harder to judge the situation and easier to view Nia negatively, because as the reader we're missing important pieces of the puzzle right now.

It also could be that what Nia did (distancing herself, ending their friendship, not seeming to care about them anymore (before the end of this chapter)) is something that's more relatable to real life and might even be something people have personally experienced. I see people hate bully characters more than outright murdering villains, because the latter doesn't feel real to most people, whereas there are a lot of people online who have experienced bullying at school. And whilst I understand that Nia doesn't actually like or respect any of that popular group apart from Imre, she's still willingly associating herself with people who are bullying Crown, someone they were friends with for most of their lives.

(I'm saying all this as someone who's looking forward to my MC and Nia rekindling their friendship. But I can understand why some people feel sour towards her, even if her actions are understandable and justified from her perspective. I would probably do the same thing as her tbh, probably even earlier on when she first witnessed a violent outburst. But even if you're being reasonable, your actions/words can still hurt someone else, and I don't think it's unreasonable for that person to feel negatively towards you as a result.)

Like I’ve said many times before I understand the anger over the abandonment, I think it’s extremely valid. My issue is with how the boys are given more grace in everything they do. It just seems hypocritical to be angry at Nia but then coddle the boys as if they’re little babies who don’t understand right and wrong

Imre is friends with those people too, he’s the king of the bully group and even though he doesn’t partake he associates himself with them willingly. Like I really appreciate you writing this all down, and I agree with it it’s just any form of media I’ve always hated how women are held to higher standards than men who are sanctified when all three of them aren’t that great. You want to say “fuck you” to Nia? Good. Deserved from the POV of Crowny. But like there’s no point in twisting the narrative to make it seem that anyone of them is worse than the others when all of them have issues and have not treated Crowny the best

[autistichalsin]

Don't know if this helps but I think a lot of people (esp neurotypical ppl) see multi paragraph responses as hostile or confrontational, bc length = very strong feelings. Ppl (subconsciously) emotionally view them as ranting. I blame the fact most ppl communicate online through social media that favors short, punchy/glib comments. Even multi tweet threads are a bunch of short comments in a row; nobody talks on forums where conversations span weeks anymore. I think that's why I don't see long essay response chains on Tumblr as often as I did pre 2018.

Oh, also, ppl not understanding a lot of non-neurotypical folk's communication where you prefer to make absolutely sure you're both getting across the point you want to make and saying everything you want to say. And since the only way to do that is use words (which are such terribly misunderstood things) you use as many as you need to. And then ppl see multiple paragraphs and instantly get defensive.

I still don't think that means you need to change the way you communicate though. Someone can always ask you to clarify your intent after all. Just thought maybe I could offer insight on that one part you questioned. My best friend is autistic and we actually had to have a long conversation about communication bc I was misinterpreting her verbosity for irritation, so it's something I had to think a lot about. Anyway! The tone indicators can probably help, hopefully.

(Tone: appreciative/thoughtful)

That's a good point too, because it has become less popular (and suspiciously right at the same time TikTok became the preferred socmed site). I remember when multi paragraph responses were just kind of the standard. Like I'm a Fandom Old, I've been around since Livejournal and I was one of the first 10,000 users on AO3 (on my first account).... this is all new etiquette.

TOTALLY agree about the autism thing like. Using a lot of words makes it less likely I'll be misunderstood... until now I guess lol.

I appreciate you very much, thank you for this ask! I won't change how I communicate PER SE, though I am probably not going to be posting disagreeing posts to anyone but moots again for a while because uh... there are definitely people reading my stuff in bad faith who will be waiting for their next chance to twist my words lol

[remusawoooo]

anon here, excited to read the essay! i asked you because i really like your takes and i see people in the more canon-adjacent parts of the marauders fanbase to complain about the extremes of the fanon one, though personally ive never really seen anything Too extreme, tho thats probably just tantamount to how well i curate my spaces i suppose (ive seen people say that fanon makes remus really “alpha” or makes sirius “bimbofied” and while ive seen hints of those extremes here and there, mostly it looks like it varies from person to person. ive just seen remus be more assertive than he probably is in canon, or sirius being more dramatic and “fem” than he probably is in canon). from what i know people like exaggerating events (the prank, etc.) or shifting some personality traits, but i dont really think thats a bad thing - i personally enjoy it. as long as they dont completely turn characters into stereotypes (though its a pitfall of every fandom, i fear), then whatever its just camp.

people are allowed to criticize stuff like that though, not taking that away from anyone, i personally just dont really care enough to be totally accurate esp since this hyperfix is kind of the bottom of the barrel for me LMAO. but i ask mostly bc im just curious to see what other peoples opinions are, and bc i think - especially in a fanbase like this - that its incredibly important to be at least a little critical with your media experience and reflect on it. saying “oh fuck canon we’re just having fun” is fine and all, i dont think anyone is stopping you, i think the personalities people have made up for characters that have zero screen time are super fun and the little ships are not everyones tea but like its fine. but even still, people should be way more aware of what characters theyre dealing with and from what franchise, and like reflect on any biases you may have. if youre making shit up for a random DE character, or retconning some sutff, okay, whatever, but be sure to not defend or like suddenly turn to really weird rhetoric. idk i think its the bare minimum in a fanbase like this

i definitely rambled way too much here, super sorry op! i hope this doesnt bother you, feel free to reply or feel free to not. i just really like hearing peoples thoughts on things, and i like your takes and your blog so i hope i didnt catch you by surprise. i really am just an outsider trying to look in LOL

hello anon, I'm sorry I lost your ask. I was writing on my laptop and saved the draft (but apparently had to press on alt, and didn't do it) so I basically lost your question and half of my initial response. Ty for sending in another ask!! Not a bother at all, i find this very lovely :D 

I was mortified to find that someone who isn't really a part of the fandom was perceiving me while I was complaining about fictional characters ahahaha. still, thank you for validating me and asking my thoughts on the mischaracterization of marauders!! I do talk about it daily, unfortunately, and without any prompt too. I'll try to gather all my thoughts here. I don't necessarily come across fanon as much as I did when I reentered the fandom and honestly, I can not be more with you about curating your space !! at the end of the day, I am just here to have fun, and really, pointing out these issues is not a good time at all! But I do post a lot about these, I can't be bothered to bottle up any thoughts lol.

I think the major issue I have with current interpretations is the underlying bigotry that comes along with it. There is a lot of unchecked problematic content that doesn't sit right with me.

Flanderizing characters in fandom interpretations is not limited to marauders fandom obviously. any popular media will face this because so many of us want to interact with one character so their traits are simplified for easier consumption and to find a common ground. this is also not limited to new marauders fandom. even in the older era, leather jacket-wearing, motorbike-driving quintessential bad boy siruis was a thing. so I won't nitpick on silly simplifications.

I just want to say that this isn't about me wanting everyone to have the same interpretations as I do about the canon. I follow so many lovely people and I don't agree with all of their posts. But, we all just simply share the love for these characters in the text and form an imaginary community. So, if we were to remove all the issues I will mention, it is still very well possible to have different personal takes.

Here are some of my issues:

Queerness, Gender roles, and misogyny:

My biggest problem is the representations of queer relationships. the fandom packages these couples in a strange and obvious heteronormative mold where the individuals fit into male and female gender roles. mlm and wlw are now an “f/m”* stereotype and characterization gets affected by the ships. Heterosexual relationships shouldn't have these limitations either, anyway. There is no one way to be a woman or a man. With queer relationships in particular, we have reclaimed the word queer now but it was used to describe the unconventional weirdness in the relationship. We didn't fit into the normal portrayal of a loving relationship. So, it really bothers me, even in fiction, that queer ships are popularly consumed in a way that represents a traditional template. (*this is not about gender itself but the gender roles! f/m can very well be queer!). 

Let's take the biggest victim in this fandom: sirius.

Sirius’ portrayal concerning his gender and sexuality has heavily changed his characterization in the fanon. We have a character who is popularly headcanonned as trans and is it a coincidence that all their traits have changed from the og material? Sirius is suddenly vain, whiny, and dumb. Canon doesn't suggest this interpretation, it has to have stemmed from somewhere. It's the implicit bias. Sirius becomes a caricature of what a woman “should be”. When we focus on sexuality, there is the suddenly short twink sirius who has the same new traits- proving the point of fulfilling gender roles. These characteristics are a stand-in for the “female” role of the traditional relationship and it becomes more clear in the example of new age wolfstar. Remus is now the big alpha stoic manly man- the obvious stand-in for the “male” role. I could go on, it is apparent in the way you can see remus becomes a caretaker and sirius is taken care of.

The point I am trying to make is not to discourage gender/sexuality hc. I love them, keep them coming. But, why is female sirius not tall suddenly? It is not inherently bad at all to have a feminine and masculine pairing! But why do we need to change the constitutions of these characters to consume their relationship?

I'll keep dropping disclaimers because I hate being misinterpreted: I don't obviously mean every single person is doing this or that doing one of the things means doing the other too. 

Race:

It is related to the point above. I was personally so excited to see the popular desi james hc. Even in fanon, I have never seen such a prevalent and encouraged brown rep, it was quite sweet to come back to that. But the problem is the change of characteristics that comes with race hc. Desi james is also a manly dude who is big and buff as opposed to the white petite and delicate regulus within jegulus ship. The melanin is directly proportional to the manliness here. 

This is a propagation of race stereotypes. Maybe jegulus was a bad example because usually there are seen as blank templates. I will raise the argument that this can't be all we can come up with for blank canvases then. Either way, my point about race still stands when you repeatedly design interracial queer relationships so they fall into heteronormative roles. Anyway, same issue with wolfstar when there is a brown remus.

Canon, JKR, and hypocrisy:

Refusing to engage with source material is funny when we are picking characters out of it. the interpretations of the characters will be from their book. otherwise, they are just original characters with the same name. you can add onto the traits and a lot of the time fandom comes to a consensus regarding a few things! This is common in every fandom but I don't think I have seen such reluctance to not only critically engage with media but also shame others who do. We are surely in special circumstances with this fandom but I really do think jkr and how we navigate the fanon should be two different things.

Most of us don't condone jkr or even remotely agree with any nonsense she spews on the daily. Most of us can see the problematic nature of even consuming this media and staying in this fandom. It is one of the reasons I even left the fandom. Most of us are simply doing our best to engage carefully while distancing ourselves from her. So, it is quite laughable when some love to take the moral high ground for rejecting canon while still engaging with the same characters. (the rejection of canon in question being sirius’ height, lol)

(Sirius' height is quite a polarising fact apparently. Unfortunately, the point about height is also discussed so disingenuously. When I talk about sirius’ height, it is not really about him being 6 or 7 feet. It will not really impact my life. It is about what it represents. He is bimbofied as he becomes short. It's an issue of "WHY" again.)

Of course, this isn't an accusation of intentional bigotry from everyone here. The problem with this fandom is that the people in it tell themselves that it is progressive and to run away from the problematic creator as much as possible. We are not progressive if all we do is co-opt queer and racially diverse identities on such a superficial level. The bias manifests in subtle forms. I just wish we check ourselves from time to time, that's all. 

There is a lot of hostility when we try to discuss issues in the fanon. Things are interpreted in the most misguided way to just win the argument. Like I said in the beginning, we all just want to have a good time. That also means creating a welcoming space for vulnerable groups (especially when the same identities are used to pat yourselves on the backs for inclusivity points). I didn't even cover everything btw, I just wrote about the issues that concern me. queer and poc also partake in biased representations, I also probably have some biases that I didn't identify yet. I just think it would be super neat if everyone tried to make an effort to unlearn and engage with media without hurting anyone. 

I have other issues but they are all just super subjective opinions and smth I can ignore when others do. ex: I really don't like giving tragic backstories to bigots in the story. Not every supremacist loser has a trauma that forced them into oppressing people! There is also "tropeyfication" of all major ships. Just an overall issue in the reading world I think, though.

Anon, I didn't mean to make it preachy in any way btw. You probably asked for a silly little rant and I went full lecture mode, so I apologize for the tone shift!! I mentioned these because every other issue can be brought down to these imo. Like you said, I also don't have any fixation on everything being canon-compliant. I only complain by asking about the thought process behind certain kinds of changes, if that makes sense! I hope this wasn't a drag really and you can see where I am coming from. If I misspoke anywhere, pls lmk. Thanks for sharing your opinions too!!

This is a long long rant, anyone who read everything, you are wonderful and patient. Thank you for taking the time. This huge post and the content can make you think, “who cares this much?” or “it's not that serious” and yaa it really isn't that serious. The characters aren't real but we all are. the identities projected are real. so, it does matter to talk about this.

Everything said this is a fun place to be once you find your own corner in the playground.

[torahoes]

(IDOLiSH7) Touma Inumaru - An Idol's Daily Life Rabbit Chat: Part 1 - Send-Off with an Idol's Smile

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Please note that I am not a professional translator. If you come across any mistakes, feel free to let me know and I will make the necessary corrections.

Tsumugi Takanashi: Inumaru-san, good work. Thank you very much for appearing as a guest on MEZZO"'s radio show today!

Tsumugi Takanashi: Both of them seemed very happy and said they had a lot of fun talking with you about various topics!

Touma Inumaru: Good work today, Takanashi-san! I love music and often listen to MEZZO"'s radio show, so I had a blast too!

Touma Inumaru: I was so caught up in the deep conversation with Sougo that I forgot I was at work and got really fired up lol

Touma Inumaru: So much so that when Yotsuba kept asking me stuff without hesitation, I wanted to share so much with him, but time flew by too quickly.

Tsumugi Takanashi: You all were chatting in the waiting room after it ended too! And thank you so much for the King Pudding you brought for him!

Touma Inumaru: No problem at all! I was really glad that he was so happy! His eyes were sparkling when he went, "Can I eat all of it!?" It was adorable.

Touma Inumaru: Although Sougo immediately stopped him, saying, "You can't eat ALL of it" lololol

Tsumugi Takanashi: He said he planned to eat one tonight and one tomorrow morning. Lol

Touma Inumaru: I did that when I was a kid too. Whenever I bought a box of ice cream, I always wanted to eat several at once.

Touma Inumaru: I didn't think anyone would notice because there were so many, so this one time I secretly ate like three at a once and ended up with a stomach ache lolol

Tsumugi Takanashi: Three at once…? That's enough to freeze your stomach...

Touma Inumaru: I was dumb lololol. My mom found out immediately and got mad, so I started planning when to eat them over the week.

Tsumugi Takanashi: When you're a kid, you take snack times really seriously, don't you? Lol

Tsumugi Takanashi: It wasn’t ice cream in my case, but when my dad bought me a tin of cookies, I would get excited and carefully choose which one to eat each day.

Touma Inumaru: So you actually stuck to the plan? That's impressive!

Tsumugi Takanashi: Well... sometimes I couldn’t resist and secretly ate two at once… > <

Touma Inumaru: We're all the same lolololol

Tsumugi Takanashi:

Tsumugi Takanashi: By the way, I saw on the morning show that you're going to appear in the "Send-Off with an Idol's Smile!" segment!

Touma Inumaru: Thank you! I'm just a guest for a week, so I'm going to do my best to leave a good impression.

Tsumugi Takanashi: It's a popular segment, so I think it will have a big impact…!

Tsumugi Takanashi: I often hear how people are thrilled to receive a "Have a great day!" from their favorite idol right after the weather forecast.

Touma Inumaru: I heard it gets a lot of buzz on social media with tags like "Today's XX-san" trending!

Tsumugi Takanashi: Yes, they make posts with the "I'm off now" tag right when the idols say, "Have a great day" on the show. It trends every morning!

Tsumugi Takanashi: I'm sure when you’re on, "#Today's_Inumaru-san" will be a hot topic.

Touma Inumaru: I'm looking forward to it, but I'm also a bit nervous lol

Touma Inumaru: Honestly, when I got the offer, I was really surprised. Like, me? Seriously? The people that come on this show have a fresh image that fits the morning vibe, so I wondered if my smile would be a good fit.

Touma Inumaru: The other day, I offered my hand to a kid who fell in front of me and he started crying lolol

Tsumugi Takanashi: Maybe he was just startled > <

Touma Inumaru: I don’t have a friendly face like Haru or Mina, so maybe I scared him. I was also wearing a hat pulled down low and a mask.

Tsumugi Takanashi: Perhaps it was because of that disguise...!

Touma Inumaru: Now that I think about it, I was also wearing sunglasses, so that might be it lol

Tsumugi Takanashi:

Tsumugi Takanashi: Riku-san also said that he feels he would be energized being sent off with Inumaru-san's smile.

Touma Inumaru: Rikuuuu!! He’s such a nice guy!!

Touma Inumaru: I’ll send him a Rabbit Chat later!

Tsumugi Takanashi:

Touma Inumaru: Actually, I wanted to thank you, Takanashi-san!

Tsumugi Takanashi: Eh, did I do something!?

Touma Inumaru: When you sent MEZZO" to the booth saying "Have a great day," it felt so fresh and warm. I thought it was really nice.

Touma Inumaru: I was like "I definitely have to learn from this!" and made sure to take mental notes lol

Tsumugi Takanashi: I’m honored you would say that > <

Touma Inumaru: Do you have any tips?

Tsumugi Takanashi: I haven't thought deeply about it, but I always try to convey a sense of "Do your best!" when I send them off.

Touma Inumaru: I see, so it's all about conveying that feeling. That's important!

Touma Inumaru: I hope I can send off the viewers with a feeling that energizes them too!

Tsumugi Takanashi:

End of Part 1.

[nicosraf]

hi! :3 I’ve been thinking about the angels (and demons) a lot recently.

I’m unsure how much influence earth and human actions/development would have on hell or the demons quite yet, but from a fashion standpoint, do you think the demons (particularly lucifer!! his wardrobe comes across as very curated and stylish, can’t forget the nipple piercings lol) would be influenced by the humans’ evolving fashion over the centuries?

Same could be said about technology — do you think any of the demons would care to have a tv, phone, computer, etc. or would it be just another human invention that isn’t very interesting? for some reason, i can picture baal with a modern phone very vividly lmfao

I do think so! I think demons would have strong opinions on human fashion regardless of how close they live to them, and I do think they'd be influenced by it. It'd take a long time to get them to adopt pants after billions of year in tunics though sksks. I imagine pants still aren't super popular in their hell. They also probably find modern fashion brands very fun; I can see Lucifer in a Gucci cape and Louis Vuitton sunglasses.

I imagine most technology doesn't work where the demons are. They'd find trains very helpful though, and I think they'd love planes (it makes them remember what the air above the clouds looks like; now I'm thinking about demon involvement in the invention of planes....)

I have this idea in my head that I may explore in the third book about demons immediately being fascinated with technology, especially as something to use against God — but their thoughts would start to change once the development gets too quick and feels aimless, and I think they'd have a discourse among themselves about, say, atomic bombs.

For the less serious part of this question though, I do think they'd own phones / tablets / laptops, but they mostly use them when they're on Earth's surface where the wifi is. I can imagine Rosier playing candy crush with an iPad. Baal spamming Lucifer with heart emojis. Asmodeus tweeting recycled discourse on Twitter just to make people mad. I think a lot of demons have social media profiles, but Lucifer asks them to hide their demon side ofc.

thank u for the ask! :)

[liesmyth]

Weird question but you're the only person that's come across my dash that admits to being italian. I'm trying to learn the language for my partner and their family and was curious if you had any good recommendations for italian dubbed media. The internet only wants to seem to give duolingo clones or the same generic list of common words

Ok first of all I absolutely love the phrasing of this ask... “admitted to being Italian” <- me me ME.

tbh I primarily consume Italian media in Italian and English language media in English so I'm not very familiar with dubbing for the most part, but the dubbing industry in Italy is very popular and nearly allforeign films and shows that get a local release are dubbed. all of them are pretty solid, so I'd just suggest whichever media 1) is available to you and 2) is more relevant or accessible in term of vocabulary.

(This is assuming I've actually understood your question and you're asking about media dubbed INTO Italian. If I've totally misunderstood the question pls lmk!)

If you're looking for media that's originally in Italian: there aren't many Italian language films on Netflix afaik, but if you have a VPN (or your partner's family login info lol) then you could access Italian Netflix and especially Raiplay, which is free and includes most of the programming aired by the Rai channels. I would just recommend against media that has dialogue in strongly accented Italian — shows like Montalbano or My Brilliant Friend or Suburra are very dialect-heavy and I wouldn't recommend them for language learning.

If you prefer podcasts / youtuber some of the recommendations here have been useful to a friend of mine! in general reddit is a lot more useful than google when you're looking for resources, ime, especially for hobby stuff

I hope this helps! pls if anyone has any recs, feel free to chime in

[your--isgayrights]

You have written at least 1 No Scenarios AU before, so what do you think would happen to ORV KDJ if the scenarios never happened? In your wall fic, KDJ gets a stable job and a still ongoing story about YJH but at around the same time in the novel KDJ is about to be unemployed while WOS is coming to a close. Do you think ORV KDJ would be able to find another job (maybe like in your wall fic) or stay in contact with YSA or be fine without WOS? I’ve seen others say that KDJ might contemplate suicide again, or that he would never come to terms with his mom and his past in a No-Scenario event. What are your thoughts on the possible differences between this KDJ and your wall fic’s KDJ?

Hmm that's a good question... I think most important to whether or not Kim Dokja contemplates suicide again is whether or not WoS ends in the same way it does in cannon and how he reacts to it without the scenarios. My feeling is that when Kim Dokja survives his first attempt, he goes online and searches something to the effect of 'How to survive in a ruined world' and stumbles across a page publishing WoS, and he follows it for all these years because he is still looking for an answer to that question. I think a lot of people can relate to that drive for media consumption that is like... 'please, I just want to feel different after this, I want this to mean something.' WoS is a story about what happens to a man forced to survive the apocalypse over 1800 times and this is analagous to KDJ who endures the sisyphusian burden of being a regular guy with no friends every goddamn day lol. KDJ has been waiting for WoS to tell him what it has all been for. An important part of WoS's construction is that HSY knew KDJ's future while writing it. In this way, WoS was like a promise to KDJ, 'please just keep living, we're coming soon, the people who love you will appear, please just wait for them a little longer..'

In a world where this future doesn't come to pass, the original ending of WoS would lose a lot of this meaning. we get a bit of a preview of this reality in the sort of... Oh... That's it? Moment KDJ has after reading 'the end' at the start of ORV and then there's his messages with the author. So with this as the starting point I will say I find it likely KDJ could work himself up to another attempt just based on the ending of 'surviving 1863 times was for nothing because reality is limited and there are no true heroes' bc his internal just like YJH moments would end up depressing like 'doing all this work for nothing in the end...' but like you say there's more fun options if you get our ORV ladies involved. For instance, I could see KDJ disbelieving the ending or wanting a better conclusion for YJH and messaging the author about such things. Imagine that as One True Author HSY is fading, 26(?) Yo HSY wakes up to see she has a weird alternate account she's typing on? What? And looking at her computer history she realizes she sleep wrote this novel? Wow her genius knows no bounds...

I think for an author like HSY, having a single dedicated reader to converse with who takes the story to be as important as it is in your head is a really big thing, and her popular web novels never have anything like that. So when she has this account that's this one way channel with KDJ she's like oh haha fuck this guy what a loser he likes this webnovel that doesn't even have a good ending like mine did... I could write so much better of an ending awake than I did asleep... So she starts writing extras at KDJ's behest. Except her style is totally different and very fanservicey, except she doesn't understand the fan she's serving very well yet?

On KDJ's end I think maybe YSA takes concern after he reveals he doesn't have a position lined up after his contract ends and starts sending him any and all opportunities she sees around. At first he awkwardly thanks her and doesn't pursue them right away, but while WoS is ongoing again in this weird new direction, he starts applying around. He either gets another office job or honestly I could see him working at a convenience store or something (maybe he has a system where if there's a fly in the store a certain bug net carrying kid can catch it for candy rewards...).

While HSY is writing WoS extras, KDJ is constantly complaining and it eventually shakes down to a long one on one conversation between the two of them about why WoS and it's ending matters so much to KDJ. He wants a happy ending that he can Believe, not just a 'happy ending' standard formula, because those exist for a different Type of person than YJH (KDJ) is. So HSY doggedly works at writing and revising it until KDJ could possibly be satisfied... But maybe comes to the conclusion that there's no way WoS could end and satisfy KDJ so they decide to write a sequel that only HSY snidely sees as a KDJ self insert fanfiction of the original work so HSY is writing RPF of random guy who read her sleep-wrote novel ending up in her sleep-wrote novel and that's ORV. I like to think that somehow ORV would become popular even though WoS itself would remain in obscurity like people would think it was made up just as the premise for ORV and not look for the actual novel lol. Then I think HSY and KDJ could be very Established online friends and maybe even meet up in person to talk shit. As for his mom, she'd get out of prison but I don't think she and KDJ would meet up again unless maybe HSY coached him or his mom reached out first. I have some more specific ideas about how it's going to go in Wall fic I wanna keep close to the belt for now.

But yeah without WoS or any of the IRLs' intervention, KDJ's story is def one of that passive suicidality that comes from not even being able to imagine a future worth surviving for. Without a driving motivation to keep living, KDJ becomes unemployed, food becomes scarce, he might drift through some systems for a bit before reaching the end. I don't know if he'd still take action himself, but he'd definitely be another person just sitting around waiting to die. Of course, even for such a person there are avenues to keep living. Like I said, low level job at a convenience store or something could be pretty okay. It's a close knit team with a small group of customers and he doesn't have to care too much about the job to get it done. He could do little niceties for people like he likes to do and just have it taken as good customer service. But he would still definitely be Waiting for whatever next thing would come along, be it a new novel or like a robber coming to kill him lol. I could imagine him getting held up and being like... Do it. Take the shot. I'm a 30 yo working at a convenience store do you think I have something to live for. And maybe he'd get promoted to manager.

[saltynsassy31]

Since you’re a Sonamy fan I might as well ask you this.

Why do you personally ship Sonamy? What got you into Sonamy? What’s your favorite moments between the two?

Hope you’re having a wonderful day!

OH GOODNESS I WAS SUPPOSED TO REPLY SOONER BUT I GOT SO BUSY 😭😭😭 between packing and catching my flight at 4am, it was hectic!

This has been sitting in my drafts for so long man fkskaka I am so sorry 😅

But, oh buddy, i don't....I don't know, or, more accurately, probably don't remember XD

I've shipped them for so long, i can't remember when or why I started doing so. But I do have some guesses. And I think the culprit to my obsession would have to be...Sonic Boom!

Growing up, I didn't have a lot of access to Internet stuff aside from YouTube, in my home, the only channel I knew to have access to was Discovery Kids and Gloob. BUT, my grandma did have access to other channels like Disney XD, Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network!

Which is where I discovered Sonic Boom 😌 and I'm pretty sure it was where my love for Sonic began. And because that show hammered in Sonamy so much, I guess I just became inclined to like it? I remember an episode talking about fanfiction and I went to look up what "Sonamy" was and stumbled across an artist (who is still active to this day! To my relief) who did a lot of Sonic Boom sonamy and it just became a comfort ship!

No why do I personally ship them is hard to answer. Probably just for comfort? No, no, I think it goes a little deeper than that. One ship from another franchise that I can compare it too is Zelink! (Zelda x Link).

They are the "practically canon straight ship" and sort of the "obvious" pick, which sorts ends up making them the less popular to the fandom? Lol which is also a shame. But there is so much more to them just being the "practically canon straight couple"! There is obviously a lot of thought put into their dynamic and relationship that reflects in the games and other media.

I tend to look at the smaller details and all the hints the creators drops between them!

Which leads to my favourite sonamy moments, which is when Sonic is the one showing the affection, albeit subtle, towards Amy. I don't have one moment, it's all the times he's like that, but one I can pull up right now and the only one I can remember after only 2 hours of sleep is I Prime, when Sonic is describing his friends and when he reaches Amy he just sighs this love strucken sigh and says "Sweet Amy".

Thay practically sent me rolling!

Another one in Prime is when he is talking to the forest guardian Amy I forgot the name, and she asks about his Amy and he describes her and she says "she sounds pretty cool" or something and, again, with that sigh of admiration says "you are" and--

GAH I JUST LOVE THEM TOO MUCH!!!!

I could talk about them all day man, I want to, I want to have more people to talk about them. Even if I'm not well versed in the Sonic franchise just yet, I love them so much I wanna just- talk about them!

[e-vasong]

ooooh 🧸🍬🦴 for the writing ask game!

🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual?

Easy peasy. I just followed you :) This is technically my sideblog, even though I use it as a main, so the person who just followed you whose URL starts with r? That's me. To actually answer your question: The quickest way to become my mutual is to chat with me about a shared fandom, whether via headcanons, exchanged fic ideas, thoughts on specific episodes/events!!! For instance, I just looked at your blog and, uh... YOU 🫵 YOU WROTE THE OLYMPICS AU!?!?!? (Or co-wrote!! Hello!) I read it a couple days ago and have been meaning to comment! Equestrian Edwin is just inspired. I've been obsessed and am eagerly awaiting any further DBDA projects, should you choose to write them. :)

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

Good lord. Are you trying to get me shot? Lol. I guess...take two - a safe unpopular answer and one that's probably actually unpopular. Re: Edwin's reaction after Charles attacks the Night Nurse. I've seen a lot of people attribute his reaction ("that was...extreme") to disapproving of Charles' temper/actions. And while I do think he does disapprove, at least a bit, I think this is more an issue of Edwin's awful self-expression coming out to bite him. He doesn't mean "that was extreme, jesus fucking christ." He means "that was extreme (for you), is something wrong?" But he's not the greatest at expressing concern, and Charles is in an awful place, so it comes across (and is received as) judgment, when in reality, it's worry. Now the actual unpopular opinion: I don't...necessarily think the show should bring Monty back. 😬 I actually quite like him! And I wouldn't mind maybe one episode where they can help him out and give him a fair send-off, but I think the show has four lead characters already, and to be honest, that's already really pushing it in the streaming-era hell of 8-episode seasons. I'd rather get more time with Crystal, Edwin, Charles, and Niko, especially since we will be unbelievably lucky to even get a second season, and - maybe I'm just a cynic - I suspect that a third season is not likely at all.

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing? 

No singular piece of media, unfortunately! :) Anytime I read something good, that is usually my brain's reminder. Like: "Hey, you love writing! You should get back to work on that project!" That includes fanfic! I can't count the number of times that I've read a really good fic and gone: "Yeah, this slaps supremely. I want to make something too."

Thanks for sending in an ask from the game! :D

[itscubetime]

Honestly, I fee like a lot of Osemanverse fans treat the books rather unequally. Let me explain.

I'm going to make a ranked list of all of Alice Oseman's books/series in order from most loved to least loved (based on my observations in social media and the availability of different books). I hold no biases in this list, since I have read/watched all of them. Only observations and some opinions.

Heartstopper. I'm pretty sure most people who have heard of the Osemanverse heard about Heartstopper first. You can find elements of this series everywhere, from all the webcomic platforms like Webtoon and Tapas, to the physical books in bookstores and libraries, to reposts of favourite moments, to the piles upon piles of fan-art and, of course, to the Netflix adaptation, which had immaculate casting and has already been green-lighted for two more seasons. I think this series deserves to be high up on the list - after all, the representation is casual and exemplified in the right places, nothing feels forced, the love story is healthy, but no so perfect that it's entirely unrealistic and the characters all have their spotlight moments. However, I feel like the series sometimes overshadows the other books, which I find interesting, considering this is the only book/series that is centred around a romantic love story.

Solitaire. This is probably the most well-known YA novel for a couple of reasons. One, it is the debut novel, the one that is praised in the front cover of every other Oseman novel, with the familiar phrase 'The Cather in the Rye for the digital age', so most Osemanverse fans have heard of it. Two, it's the novel that ties in with the Heartstopper story the most, by far, especially considering that the main character of Solitaire, Tori Spring, is the older sister of Charlie Spring, one of the main characters in Heartstopper. Three, its depiction of mental health issues, particularly Tori's implied depression, is healthy, realistic and educational. Overall, it deserves the love it gets, especially considering how dark it can get compared to Heartstopper.

Radio Silence. Honestly, I think that this could be tied with Solitaire in some cases - it was, after all, the book that first introduced me to the Osemanverse. It doesn't link with the Heartstopper universe as much as Solitaire, but it does focus more on Aled Last, one of the side characters in Heartstopper, and one of Charlie's friends, although it appears that the two drift off before the events of Radio Silence. I absolutely love this book for two reasons. One, the amazing relationship between Frances and Aled, the two main characters, never goes beyond anything platonic, showing that a boy and a girl don't have to be in a romantic relationship to thrive together. Two, it's the first book in the Osemanverse that shows explicit ace rep - better yet, demi rep - for Aled, which was so nice to read even before I began questioning if I was aspec. I love the cameos it gets in Heartstopper too, especially with Aled in the same shot lol.

Loveless. I'm so mad that this book is so far down the list, but I understand that's because it's the latest one. Firstly, PLEASE READ IT!!!! It follows the first-person perspective of Georgia Warr on her journey to discovering that she is aroace. This book has done wonders for the aspec community in giving them awesome representation and increased attention from the rest of the community, because yes! we exist and yes! us being aspec doesn't mean our lives are sad and lonely and YES! not all love has to come in romantic form!!!!! The fact that Oseman was alluding to their own uni experience in this story is just so amazing! Secondly, it deserves so much more attention in the Osemanverse fandom. Oseman put her whole heart and soul into this book and we are gonna love it like it deserves!!!

I Was Born for This. And now, we come across the book with the least amount of copies sold, available in the least amount of places and talked about the least in the fandom, despite it literally being about the fandom (eyyyy). This was the only novel I had to buy because it wasn't at my library (edit: it is now but it wasn't before) and none of my friends had it, but it is so good and criminally underrated. I understand every other story has something going for it. Heartstopper has impactful rep, Solitaire is the debut novel, Radio silence has Aled and the Universe City and Loveless has aroace rep. However, this book deserves love too!!! It focuses on the chaotic mess of fandoms and the impact it can have on the* artists behind the content, because gaining fame doesn't automatically make everything better, in fact it can make thing worse, like with Jimmy's anxiety. The story also having a muslim MC is also really awesome to see, especially since I haven't read many books with prominent muslim MCs (should probs change that soon lol). Anyway, this book is so so good and you need to read it somehow aaaaaaa!

Anyway, this has been sitting in my drafts for a year now and everything beyond the *asterix has been written today, but most ideas in this still stand. Most of the low-ranked books focus on queer people just existing without the plot being carried by a love story (no hate to the latter but i would like to see more of the former too). Anyway, it's time for the post to be brought into the world, especially considering Heartstopper season 2 coming up in August (yayyy!!!).

What did we learn today, kids?

Give all of a creator's work a chance, not just the most popular one! You will discover many gems!

[novemberthewriter]

Hi! Thanks for the reblog! 🤗 You mentioned being into writing that explores the "meta part" of fanfic - YES!! Are there other people who do this/fics you can recommend?

yes indeeeed. below are works surrounding this topic i've really enjoyed over the past decade:

-> TRAD PUB. BOOKS

Carry On by Rainbow Rowell [link to NPR review] this came out when i was finishing high school + starting to get disillusioned w HP (for story reasons & 'the author is Unforgivably Shitty' reasons lol) so i was very intrigued with how this book worked as a metacommentary abt HP (seriously, it felt like the book was deconstructing a lot of the issues fans had with the o.g. canon) while being a cute fantasy in its own right. i haven't checked out the sequels yet

New Waves by Kevin Nguyen [link to LA Times review] i read this a year or two ago and enjoyed what it had to say about online vs IRL friendships, grief, hustle culture, and creative identity.

-> FANFIC PROJECTS

running after two hares by chaparral_crown on ao3 this is probably my favorite fic of all time. no exaggeration. i have the whole thing printed out on 200+ pages of copy paper bound with comically large binder clips. and it's not even finished! there's this fanon concept called HEU (Hannibal Extended Universe) where people consider all of the different characters that the main actors played outside the show (in other shows, film, etc) to be connected to the showverse. for some reason i've never been able to suspend my disbelief enough to get into a lot of HEU content. i'm picky about fic just as i am with any other creative writing i engage with -- i have been for most of my life. THEN. i come across this author's insanely popular HEU fic, and i've read non-HEU stuff from them before that i adored, so i figure 'why not' ... and this 'crack treated seriously' quickly became one of my fav things ever. the prose alone is so masterful. and it's such a DENSE read, like, you really gotta slow down to appreciate all the introspective asides and jokes and commentary about the text (show) and metacommentary about how unusual pairings thrive, inside and outside of fiction.

Starsky & Hutch Virtual Season [link to Fanlore wiki] i got into S&H fandom in 2012. i remember how intrigued i was at the concept of the Virtual Season, which had its heyday a decade before i got into the online fandom. this kind of fan activity is the precursor, imo, to stuff like people calling installments of their webnovels 'episodes', the concept of a 'dream season' (ex: how hannibal ppl talk about how season 4 would play out if the show hadn't been cancelled), etc. people weren't just writing serialized fic, they were cultivating a really unique Experience

-> COMMENTATORS / ESSAYISTS

Shipper's Guide to the Galaxy (has not updated their channel in years but has such a huge backlog of thoughtful content about the relationship between media and its fans, including entire segments dedicated to fic recs)

Fionapollo (discovered them recently! i used to watch a lot of art commentary channels that preceded this one, and i'm obsessed w this channel because they focus more on the philosophy of creative practice & cultivating community between fans and media, rather than feeding into toxicity for views. they cover negative topics sometimes, yeah, but not in a sensationalist way at all. super refreshing)

[ap0stle]

WIP questionnaire tag game

THANK U FOR THE TAG @astramachina

umm the wip in question is TMNTDT aka Tell Me Not to Do This aka teenage mutant ninja turtle...dookie time

What’s the first part of your WIP that you created?

oough that was back in like... 2016? 2014? and i started with the first chapter right away which ended up being the fourth chapter and then became Nothing At All because i have wrecked this thang beyond recognition <3

If your story was a TV show, what would the theme song/intro be?

definitely Burn a Church by Coma Cinema bc it's been in my mock-soundtrack playlist for years and fits the vibes really well :3 the playlist in question is kind of a mess and old as hell but i'll link that too just in case ^_^

What are your favorite characters that you made? Why?

curtis definitely, i think i get caught up on the details of everyone but he is the most wholly developed and also umm. very similar to me so i love him dearly. he is the worst.

What other pieces of media do you think your fanbase would share?

if you like weird indie movies about young mentally unwell people that may or may not be queer and/or on da spectrum... you will enjoy my garbage and such movies as I Am Not a Serial Killer, As You Are, Super Dark Times, etc. ALSO magnus archives fans maybe bc of the whole Mold Cult thing that is still under development

What has been your biggest struggle with your WIP?

settling on a format was and is still my number one struggle lol. i have switched between a book, comic, videogame, screenplay, website... i have like 50000 drafts scattered across different websites and applications and if this thing ever comes to life i think i will actually fucking ascend

Are there any animals in your story? Talk about them!

ssssssssssort of. there are a lot of dead animals. and fungi. and mold. there have been some minor pet ideas thrown around for the more. Safe Environment characters but for the time being no actual lovable creatures :/ maybe eventually!

How do your characters travel/get around?

Juno's car because mr. dumbass dumped his murder truck into a river ^_^

What part of your WIP are you working on right now?

....yes. in all seriousness i have so many different versions in different POVs and tenses it's a toss up as to what i work on and if it will even make it to the next round of editing LOL

What aspects (tropes, maybe?) will you think draw your audience in?

its not quite explicitly queer (in the latest version) but heavily HEAVILY implied and i feel like the stories that are sort of ambiguous about their queerness tend to draw more people in ?? or they're more popular anyway LOL. so trope: queerbaiting ????

deeply unwell man who has not slept properly in 600 years. the ladies love that shit

^ unreliable narrator ?

religious horror sort of?

bury your gays except. is he actually dead?? .....

What are your hopes for your WIP?

to settle on a fucking medium LMAO. i cannot for the life of me stick to one, or a point of view, OR a tense so um . makin a goddamn decision would probbaly make the writing process like 600 times easier

tagging UM. shaking my brain for writer mutuals ik ive tagged yall before but i cannot think rn so @hammity-hammer @aether-friskets @xxdrowninglessonsxx @deviantartidentitydisorder

anyway if anyone else wants do this just pretend u have been personally tagged ily THANK U AGAIN MITCH ♡♡♡