#like even if it wasn't my story I'd find that super weird in a fandom this big

[eleanorfenyx]

For the ask game:

What is the perfect environment for you to write in?

Do you prefer to write AUs, canon divergence, or canon-compliant fic?

Is there a trope you haven’t written yet but really want to?

What is your most underrated fic?

What is a line/scene you’re really proud of? Give us the DVD commentary for that scene.

What’s your favorite minor character you’ve written?

♥ Thank you for sending something back! Also in order of asking (and with the numbers of the asks fixed as promised lol):

(here's the link to the askgame for anyone curious)

5: Perfect environment to write in? - I wish I could say it's something nice and healthy-sounding like at my desk with a cup of hot chocolate yada yada yada but it is, unfortunately, in the dark in the middle of the night writing furiously on my phone to get my insomnia to be quiet and let me sleep. There's just something about that perfect storm of circumstances that leads me to bang out thousands of words at a time, thumbs flying, even if I'm super stuck every time I open my laptop when I could get so much more done so much faster if my brain would cooperate. So weird!

9: AU's vs. canon divergence vs. canon-compliant? - I've written all three and I really love them all in different ways at different times, but I think my favorite right now is AU's. I've been doing ones inspired by other media as well as just straight AU's (i.e. my Pacific Rim 3zun-centric AU vs. my ensemble/multiship 90's Strip Mall AU) and they're both super fun. I really really love getting to the point where I feel like I know characters well enough that I feel like I can pluck them up out of their source material and redesign their world to something new. Plus I get a really big kick out of people commenting that my characterization still feels realistic to them even when the circumstances are so different from canon.

12: A trope I haven't written but want to? - I think I'd really like to do something with identity porn/mistaken identity/shenanigans. I'm a big fan of miscommunication (done well, not just to draw things out unnecessarily [I have noped out of so many dramas for committing this crime against my sensibilities]) and I think that identity shenanigans can play into that really well. I read a lot of them and I think they're really fun, so I think I'd enjoy doing that sometime. Either that or mind-reading stuff like Cherry Magic AU's and the like, that also seems like such a good time.

16: My most underrated fic? - Hmm it's a bit of a tough choice. I think right now I feel like my ongoing 3zun-centric Pacific Rim AU 'Soldier, Poet, King' isn't getting nearly as much attention as I'd thought it might when I first started writing it. Pacific Rim AU's used to be everywhere back in the day and people ate that shit up like it was candy, and I suppose I'd expected that same excitement to still be around because why wouldn't people be excited about giant love-powered robots fighting aliens? I also started writing it while there was still a lot of really active buzz about Xiran Jay Zhao's fantastic 'Iron Widow', so the timing felt right and I'm really proud of what I've done for it so far, but alack alas it (feels like it) is going largely ignored. (Even accounting for the fact that 3zun is a much less popular ship than Wangxian, it still feels weirdly quiet)

18: A line/scene that I'm proud of and some commentary for it? - Two years ago almost to the day, I wrote/posted some of my first fic for CQL. It's a relatively short re-imagining of the Jingshi scene in episode 43, when Wei Wuxian is realizing that if he has no one else he still has Lan Wangji, and he comes in out of the cold to sit with his zhiji. They have a brief conversation about the time Lan Wangji spent waiting for Wei Wuxian and mourning him, and have this brief exchange:

“What if I had never come back?” [Wei Ying] whispers and the quiet heartbreak that shatters through Lan Zhan’s stoic facade steals his breath straight out of his lungs.

“I would have hoped for another lifetime together to be kinder to us.”

I'm still really proud of this even though it's so simple and I've written just shy of 800k other words, according to my AO3 stats. I think it really sums up Lan Wangji and his love for Wei Wuxian. If given no other choice but to wait then that's what he'll do, and he would have done it hoping that he and Wei Wuxian would be given another chance one day, because one lifetime just was not going to be enough. Like it would have hurt and he would have been in mourning until the moment of their unknown second chance arrived - and probably after too - but he would have seen no choice but to wait and hope. I feel like I hit the core of Lan Wangji's characterization (in the ways I want to write him, anyway) so it still colors everything I do with him in it.

20: Favorite minor character I've written? - MO. XUANYU. But particularly my Mo Xuanyu from my time-travel fix-it universe that was begun in my first ever longfic and has now spiralled outward into a much bigger universe than I'd originally thought it would. So basically Mo Xuanyu in this universe had the chance to grow up in Koi Tower from a young age, but a Koi Tower in which Jin Zixuan is the Sect Leader and Jin Guangshan is already dead. So he gets a very large, loving family who supports him and loves him for his oddities and his gender fuckery - that is 100% my self-projection - based solely on the fact that he was known in canon for wearing makeup. Like I took that and RAN with it, and now in my universe he's essentially a full-time feminine cross-dresser, though he identifies as both masculine and feminine and isn't too fussed about picking one or the other. He's everything I wish my gender fuckery could be, and I love him and want all good things for him, so I'm very attached to him. The very close runner up is my Lan Jingyi, both in that universe and in a more canon-compliant setting, so I feel like it's no wonder I got it in my head that they should be together in my fix-it universe lol.

[captainsophiestark]

Super Surprises

Harley Keener x Reader

Masterlist - Join My Taglist!

Written for my personal fic writing challenge for 2024, Sophie's Year of Fic! Featuring a new fic being posted every Friday, all year long :)

Fandom: Marvel

Summary: Harley's SO shows up earlier than expected to his apartment and discovers he leads a slightly more interesting life than the average MIT student

Word Count: 1,781

Category: Fluff, Humor

Putting work into an AI program without permission is illegal. You do not have my permission. Do not do it.

"Harley! You'll never believe the email I got from my professor! I mean, I'm not complaining, since it meant I could get out of class early and grab some food for us before coming here, but-"

I stopped short, frowning from the kitchen of my boyfriend's apartment. Normally, by now, he would've come out here to join me, or at least acknowledged me from somewhere else in the apartment. But I hadn't heard anything since I'd walked in the door.

Granted, I'd shown up much earlier than he'd been expecting me. My professor had canceled class about five minutes after I'd sat down in the lecture hall because he couldn't find parking, had been trying for twenty minutes, and was fed up with the whole ordeal. Still, there was no reason Harley shouldn't have been here. His lack of response was odd.

"Harley?" I called, tentatively heading towards his bedroom. I heard a hushed commotion and some shuffling from inside, then a muffled bang before total silence. I reached the knob, starting to feel a little concerned for the wellbeing of my boyfriend, when he flung the door open a moment before I could.

"Hey," he said, fixing me with a delayed version of his usual grin. "Sorry, I was just... cleaning something up."

"That's okay..." I said, narrowing my eyes a little and trying to look past Harley into his room. He shifted in the doorway to block me, and I raised an eyebrow at him. He grinned at me, trying to look suave, but I wasn't buying it. I ducked under his arm and moved into the room, looking around with my hands on my hips.

"You, uh... you said you had a story about an email from your professor?" asked Harley from behind me. I just hummed without turning around. He was acting weird, and I was determined to figure out why.

I scanned the room, but I didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Other than my boyfriend, that is, who hovered behind me radiating a nervous energy I never felt from him every time I took a step. I started moving around the room, and Harley looked so nervous I thought he might fidget so hard he hit his head on the ceiling. I walked past the window and his bed with no real effect, but the moment I started heading for the closet with purpose, he sprang across the room to jump in front of me.

I put one hand on my hip and fixed him with a look.

"What's in the closet, Har?"

"Nothing."

I snorted. "According to my sources, that's a load of bullshit."

"What sources?"

"My common sense. Come on, you're never this jumpy, especially not around me! So what's in the closet. I know you're not hiding a secret lover in there, so just tell me. What is it?"

"It's... a surprise," he managed, not even half as convincing as he would need to be. I just rolled my eyes and took another step towards him.

"Harley Keener, you aren't fooling anybody. You are, however, starting to worry me. So come on. What's in the closet?"

Harley's eyes darted around the room, scanning me and our surroundings, and I could see his brain working a mile a minute. Finally though, he sighed, the restlessness draining away from him as he settled his stare on me. He looked like the normal, slightly tired, sarcastic and blunt guy that I'd fallen for so fast in one of our physics classes again, and relief washed over me.

"You want to know what's in the closet? Fine. I was working up to telling you all this shit anyway, so why not now?"

I raised an eyebrow, but Harley just turned around to open the closet door a crack. He had a harsh, whispered conversation with someone apparently hiding inside, and my mind started racing, trying to come up with possibilities that would tie into this whole situation and actually make sense. Before I could come up with anything, Harley stepped back, and someone stepped out of the closet.

Never in a million years would I have been able to come up with the guess "Spider-Man is hiding in my boyfriend's closet".

My mouth dropped open as the beloved hero of New York stepped further into the room, Harley at his side. I just stared, trying to get my brain working again. I wasn't having much success.

"What... how... why-?"

"Remember I told you I met Tony Stark once, in Tennessee? When I was a little kid?"

I nodded, shifting my attention to Harley again. He had his hands in his pockets, and the usual casualness in his posture seemed a little more forced than usual.

"Well, I didn't mention that I saw him again. Regularly. He's kind of... adopted me, I guess, as a science kid who helped him fight off some bad guys one time. I actually go visit somewhat regularly, and Spider-Man's Tony's other science kid."

I blinked a few times, looking between the two people before me, my brain still trying and failing to play catchup. Spider-Man gave me a little wave, which didn't really help.

"That's... Harley, that's insane! Why didn't you... why didn't you tell me?"

He sighed, his shoulders slumping a little as his gaze fell towards the floor.

"I didn't want to tell you before we got serious. It just felt weird, like I was bragging or trying to get you to like me based on who I know. And I didn't want you to go out with me because of it, either. And then when we did get serious, it had been long enough that I wasn't sure how to bring it up. I was trying to figure it out, but I guess that's not a problem anymore."

He shot a look at Spider-Man that only a sibling could, with all the annoyance and irritation possible communicated in a single second. I couldn't help smiling.

"Well, I'm glad I know now," I said, crossing the room to take Harley's hand and give him a soft kiss on the cheek. "I love you, Har. I'm always happy to hear about you and your life, even when it's... unexpected."

He smiled at me, then leaned in and gave me a real kiss. I didn't let it go on for more than a few quick seconds, since we still had a guest in the room, but it was still nice. A little reassurance for us both.

"So..." I started, finally turning to the masked superhero in the room. "It's nice to meet you, Spider-Man."

I held out my hand for a handshake, which he returned.

"Yeah, it's nice to meet you too! Harley talks about you all the time."

I grinned, and I could see Harley shaking his head out of the corner of my eye. Spider-Man's voice made him sound way younger than I'd thought he was, but I decided not to comment on it. At least, not right now.

"So... what brings you to my boyfriend's dorm, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Oh! Well, I'm working on this case, and there's this technology that I think can help me track down the bad guys I'm looking for, but I can't figure out how to hack into it, and Mr. Stark's super busy-"

"Yeah, just gimme the drive," Harley interrupted, holding out his hand. Spidey obliged, then Harley glanced back at me. "Are you okay with this? I know we planned to just hang out together and do some studying..."

"Har, you're involved in superhero business. I'm not going to tell you to drop it, especially when it doesn't really have an impact on us." I turned to Spider-Man. "Luckily for you, I even brought extra helpings of food from Harley and I's favorite place. Although, it might be kind of hard to eat it through the mask."

Spider-Man turned to look at Harley, who completely missed it because he was staring at me.

"I never agreed to share my food with him. How could you offer that?"

I just smiled and shook my head, nodding in Spidey's direction. Harley turned to him with narrowed eyes, but his expression quickly changed when he saw something in Spider-Man's body language or otherwise that had his eyebrows furrowing in concentration. Maybe Spider-Man was secretly telepathic or something.

After a few long moments where Harley and Spidey were apparently managing to have a silent conversation despite the mask, the superhero turned back to me. Harley took my hand in his, a small smile on his face, and then a moment later, Spider-Man whipped off his mask.

A baby-faced teenager stared back at me with a beaming smile, and I instantly got hit with the most irrational surge of protectiveness I'd ever felt.

"Hi! I'm Peter," he said, giving me another little wave. "Peter Parker. Harley trusts you, and I trust him, so I figured... I could probably share this with you."

I smiled, reaching out to lightly squeeze Peter's arm.

"Thanks, Peter. I'm glad you did. And not to be dramatic, but I'll take your secret to the grave."

Peter's eyebrows shot up, and I heard Harley snort from next to me. I grinned at them both and headed for the kitchen.

"Now c'mon, you've got a case to work on or whatever and I have a ton of upper div calculus homework. None of us has time to waste."

Both boys followed after me, and within a few minutes we were settled at the table in Harley's apartment. Harley and I sat shoulder to shoulder, legs pressed against each other. Even though we were working on separate things, we were completely together, which made everything so much easier.

Every once in a while, I'd look up at Harley and Peter working over the same laptop. Whenever one of them noticed me, we shared smiles before returning to our tasks. We'd moved past the whole Stark-superhero thing pretty quickly, and I was okay with that. It didn't really change my impression of Harley or who he was, it was just another interesting aspect of his life. But I didn't miss the significance in Peter sharing his identity with me.

He wouldn't have done that, and Harley wouldn't have given him the silent yes, if Harley wasn't incredibly serious about this relationship. I'd become more and more convinced over the past few months that Harley was the one, and this told me he was most likely on the same page.

Of course, we'd have to have some conversations about that at some point in the future. But for right now, I was just happy to be working next to him, perfectly comfortable together, even in this new aspect of his life. Shoulder to shoulder through shitty classes and superhero drop-ins alike.

****************

Everything Taglist: @rosecentury @kmc1989

Marvel Taglist: @valkyriepirate @luv-ghostie @songbirdcannabe @infinetlyforgotten

[unforth]

I've been trying for ages to figure out how to put something into words about The Youth In Fandom and I still don't think I've quite got it but I did reach an insight about it that I think is valuable enough that I'm gonna take a stab at writing it.

For starters, I want to make it clear, there is no "The Youth In Fandom Problem." Based on my efforts running the art sideblogs for danmei fandoms, I can say with a fair degree of confidence that a vast minority of people of all ages are antis, purity wankers, pro-censorship, ageist, etc. Even among people who mark their bios with their age, it's a shockingly low percentage of people under 18 who are being super weird about this stuff, and I think that's something a lot of older folks bemoaning The Younger Generation could stand to know and be reminded of. This isn't a majority, it's just a vocal minority, and tbh...that vocal minority has always been there, at least in my own fandom experiences.

That said, I've personally been the target of "y r u in fandom, old woman? Go take care of your kids!" bullshit, and yes it's definitely real and yes it definitely happens. (I am not old, I am not a woman, I was here before the people who said that to me were born, and I spend all the rest of my time taking care of my kids, so...).

All that introduction is to posit a theory:

The kinds of people who say "you should grow out of it, you're too old for fandom, etc." don't actually really...like what they like.

I know that sounds batshit. They're here blogging about it 24/7, of course they're obsessed! But I really genuinely find myself wondering...like...are they actually obsessed? Or are they just performing obsessed because that's what their peer group is doing? Are they just following along with their friends, mimicking their friends' enthusiasm, going with the flow because they're scared of what will happen if they say "actually I didn't think that show was very good"?

I ended up with this as a theory to posit because is to arrive at "you should grow out of it," you have to start with "I will grow out of it." And to get to "I will grow out of it," you have to start with "I may be into this now but I will definitely Change." And to get to "I will definitely Change," you have to start with the base assumption that loving certain types of media isn't just part of who you are, but rather a temporary persona you've assumed overlaying some deeper Self that will be revealed with time - or that's already been revealed and that you're deliberately masking for whatever reason.

Lemme put it less abstractly (but more longwindedly, lmao).

When I was 16, I was fucking terrified. There were all these things I loved - Star Trek, Hercules and Xena, Babylon 5, Slayers, Evangelion, Fushigi Yuugi, the Wheel of Time, many others - some I'd been into for years, some I'd only just discovered. And I looked at the adults in the world around me, who didn't sleep with stuffed toys, who got into long-term romantic and sexual relationships, who settled into careers that they stuck with for 20, 30, 40 years, who had heaps of responsibilities, and it was so frightening I literally had trouble sleeping at night. My senior year of high school, I trained myself to sleep with a pillow instead of a stuffie because "what would people in college think if they saw me snuggling a stuffed wolf?" That was something I was prepared to sacrifice to be An Adult (tm), something I was (irrationally) ashamed of, something that wasn't so much a part of my personhood that I couldn't give it up. When I left home to go to school at 17, I left my wolf at home. (I brought him with me a year later, and he's now on my bookshelf. Less disposable than 16-year-old me thought, as it turns out, but that's another story.) But there were things about myself I wasn't prepared to sacrifice to fit in during college. I still wore my Star Wars shirt. I still hung my anime posters. I still listened to J Pop. My roommate might judge me. My classmates might judge me. My professors might judge me. I didn't care. Loving those were part of who I was, and I wasn't prepared to give that up.

I found solace by looking at the adults in my life who hadn't had to give up their "childish fancies." I looked at my mother, who introduced me to Star Trek, and thought if she didn't have to stop loving Star Trek to be An Adult, then why should I? I looked at my grandfather, on whose bookshelves I first found the Lord of the Rings, and thought if he didn't have to give up LotR to be An Adult, then why should I? They might not wear fandom shirts, they might not go to conventions, they might not engage in the same way that I did, but they still loved these things, and it gave me hope.

When I was saw adults who still did fan things, who dressed how they wanted, who had cool hair styles or colors, who had tattoos, I thought "wow, what a cool person. I hope I get to grow up to be like them. I hope I'll be that comfortable in my own skin when I'm that age, because I'm sure not that comfortable in my own skin NOW."

I'll have to change in some ways - find A Career, figure out this "attraction" thing everyone keeps fucking talking about, buy a house, all the rest - but I'll be able to love the things I love.

I will still be "me" when I'm an adult, just Me-Plus-More.

I wanted to grow up to be that adult. I was prepared to take figurative arrows, to fight, to slog through, to retain the part of me that felt most valuable - my ability to love the things I loved without apologizing for it. And I knew I could do that, because I already had. Man, the shit people gave me in middle school for being an out-and-proud Trekkie? smh. It was baaaaad.

Time passes. Now I'm 40, and yes, I have changed. I've had more than one career. I got married. I figured out I never did have to figure out that "attraction" shit because I learned asexuality existed and. uh. Oh. I had children. I bought a house.

And I still have a bookcase of manga and I still have a Tumblr blog and I've found new fandoms - many, many new fandoms - nearly all for franchises that didn't even exist when I was 16 and so so scared that I used to literally break down and cry over the prospect of "having" to "give up childish things."

I got myself through on the belief that I'd still be me, and I was right. More than 20 years later, I AM still me.

And that's what leads me back to "why do The Youth think they'll age out of fandom?" And it leads me back to "I can only assume their fandom participation is mostly performative." Because look. This is who I was when I was 10 and read Lord of the Rings, and it was who I was when I was 12 and I started watching Star Trek when Voyager debuted, and it's who I was when I was 17 and I pulled an all-nighter to watch the second season of Fushigi Yuugi, and it's who I was when I was 21 and spent my birthday totally sober and gaming with my friends, and it's who I was at 26 when I got buried up to my eyeballs in Supernatural, and it's who I was at 37 when I watched The Untamed and knew as easy as breathing oh my god I've found the next obsession.

If it's an embraced, realized, adored part of your persona, there's absolutely no reason to think it's going to go away. And there's no reason nor need for it to. There are always gonna be people who judge others for having passions, and there are always gonna be people who embrace others for having passions, and you just gotta identify and avoid the former and find and adore the latter. If you're young, and you love fandom, and you're afraid you, too, will "have to" give up childish things...congratulations! You've got nothing to be afraid of! You never have to change that aspect of yourself!

But...I know these teens on Tumblr who are bullying others already know that because they can see us everywhere. And instead of going, as I did, "oh wow, those older people who still love the things they love are cool! how reassuring! I can be like them!" they think "EW OLD PERSON NOT ALLOWED THIS IS MY ROOM DO NOT ENTER."

And that's weird. When I try to think, "What kind of mentality would lead someone to feel that way, act that way, etc.?" I arrive at: being in fandom is something that they're embarrassed about. Something they're ashamed of, that they think is shameful. Something childish and therefore only for kids, even when the media they're a fan of is entirely made for and by adults. Something they think is made for them in that moment but that they'll be able to easily discard when they move on to more important parts of their lives. Something they know in their heart is transient. Something they're just doing because their friends are doing it.

That's when they'd think "why would an adult still do this?"

When it's something you "know" will be "just a phase," you don it like you don the identity of "high school student," something that'll get shucked a minute after graduation.

And while I found the idea of giving up fandom terrifying, I again can only assume that for these type of person, NOT giving up fandom becomes something terrifying. "Of course this is transient. Of course I'm going to change. I can't wait to change, I hate who I am now! Why did these so-called adults not change? Changing to not like this kind of thing is a sign of Maturity and Adulthood that I am eagerly waiting for, because I believe there's something wrong with being this way, and therefore I assume the adults I see doing this are immature, have something wrong with them, are childish, cannot be Doing Adulthood Right, because they didn't give up the thing."

"I know, in my heart, that I can't WAIT to change, so if they don't want to change, if they haven't changed, something must be wrong with them."

And don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is the only reason. People are way too complex for there ever to be One Explanation Of All. I'm sure some of the teens who engage in ageist bullying just think they're ~cool~ and ~different~ and their name is Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way. Others are just uncomfortable with adults, with or without cause, and think "you don't belong in the same space as me." Some surely have drank the conservative kool-aid even as they've tried to change and are pantomiming the bullshit they were fed by those around them in new and unpleasant ways. Some think "this media was made for people like me and anyone who isn't like me can't possibly be engaging it in the Correct And Proper Way."

Some will grow out of it - out of fandom, or out of thinking that being an adult in fandom is wrong/bad/inappropriate/immature/whatever.

A few especially unpleasant ones...won't.

Unlike young!me, who looked at fannish grown ups and thought "wow, I could grow up to be like them, they're so cool!", you think "ew, I hope I don't grow up to be like them, they're so weird!"

And if that's you...why are you here?

If you don't actually like who are you when you're in fandom, that's okay. You don't have to stay. If you lose your friends because your interests change, then those friends stink and you didn't need them anyway; people who actually care about you will always keep by your side even if your interests and theirs diverge. But just cause YOU are performing your interest in fandom...doesn't mean the rest of us are. Some of us genuinely like it here. And you might think that's fucked up of us, but it's honestly none of your fucking business. You do what you gotta do to grow up, and leave the rest of us already-grown-ups alone.

And if you do genuinely love it and you're just scared because you think you'll have to change - that you'll reach some mystical age of majority and suddenly wake up a different person...you won't. For better and for worse, you'll still be you, so if there's things about yourself you don't like, it'd be better to start working on unpacking that psychological baggage now, because there's never gonna be a miracle point where you Feel Better And Like An Adult unless you put in the effort to change.

Teenagers...you will not grow up to be a new person. You will never give up who you are. You will grow up to be You-Plus-More.

And if that's something you hear and go "omg that's great news!" then I'm glad to be the one who told you. Take heart. There's hope. You can be you and that WILL be okay. You can face up to and grow from the things about yourself you don't like. You can learn more about yourself. You have time, and you will be able to improve yourself, to become more like the parts of yourself you like and less like the parts you hate.

And if that's something you hear and go "oh god no that's the worst" then you need to stare that reaction in the face and understand that the only way change is coming is if you make it happen for yourself. No one is strong-arming you into being a fan. If it's not for you...then stop. It's literally that easy. But don't take out your uncertainty and fear on other random people who are more comfortable with themselves than you are. Most of us are not here because of fear. We're here in the face of our fear, as a fuck you to our fear, because we also grew up being told we'd have to give up so-called childish things to be An Adult, and it turns out that was a pile of bullshit and we can have careers AND anime posters. And we can afford more anime posters, cause our parents are no longer telling us how to spend our money.

If your participation in fandom is primarily performative...just stop performing. Be yourself, and find your OWN passion, and stop shitting on the people who have managed to be more true to themselves and their own interests. You're not cool and edgy and different; you're just an asshole and a bully, and I pity you.

Anyway as you can tell from this rambly mess of a post, I haven't really gotten my finger on my point yet, but idk. I've been thinking about this and I think there's something there???

[lavend-ler]

you're literally so real and based about the misogyny in the onceler fandom like none of the plot would've happened without audrey or norma (although i am a bit biased when it comes to norma cause she's my fave), and mrs wiggins helped A LOT and everyone just ignored them. also the vitriolic hatred towards the onceler's mom (yeah she sucked but still) is kinda weird where is that treatment towards the rest of his family

thank u dear anon 🙏

I posted my post out on a whim from my drafts but lemme elaborate - the lorax/onceler fandom is incredibly misogynistic. from the fact that ppl make fun of younger often girls having fun and being attracted to Once-ler. I was also a young girl when I first joined this fandom and I could completely feel the mockery over the years. all bc I dared to have fun abt one of my fave characters. and over the years I feel like the nature had become even more so hostile against fans, esp abt women who just join

my another glaring issue is with the fact that this fandom completely overlooks female characters. as u've said, the plot wouldn't have happened without Audrey and Norma. and when u join the fandom discussions u see ppl complaining abt how thinly they are written, the fandom does nothing to expand on them

I'll start with Norma bc she's my absolute fave too - u can barely find anything with her these days. yes I love Normaler but it doesn't have to be all there is to her. if u don't like Normaler, why can't u make Norma be Once-ler's friend? why aren't u exploring her life as a young woman, single mother and then a kind and upbeat old woman? why can't u pick up the pieces in canon abt her spunky but lighthearted nature, love for stories, enigmatic but understanding personality, nostalgia towards different times but still living in the moment, even affection towards things as gentle as nature and as extreme as sports? she fckin drives a crane all by herself! Norma is such a fantastic character to explore but this fandom just doesn't want to. and then when ppl DO explore her character it's dismissed as a self-insert fantasy for girls. even if so, so what? are we circling back to hating young girls for having interests?

Audrey is a similar case. she's either used as a mouthpiece, side piece for Ted or fucking shipped with an adult. why don't u explore her life beside this? why won't u talk abt her being an artist, softspoken dreamer and an introverted character who has to make choices? I love when ppl make her more active but she can also be passive, not everyone has to be an adventurer. and if u make her active, she could make a fantastic protag. all I'm saying is, do better

I'd argue the story of The Lorax also couldn't have happened if it wasn't for Mrs. Wiggins. she's such a fun character too, lovable and sweet and energetic, but also no nonsense and stands up for what she believes in? when I read this ask to my bestie they looked at me and said "Mrs. Wiggins has more personality than Ted" and I AGREE. she deserves more spotlight as a single woman who tries her hardest and balances her life all around. she's so so good

as for Once-ler's mother, she is a total bitch but like........so is his whole family. yes, she's the abuser but everyone else enables her abuse so they're also guilty. like fuck them. I do totally get hatred for Once-ler's mother but she's also a pretty good antagonist. her manipulative behavior and mood swings are very well written in a realistic way. why can't we even say that a woman is a good antagonist? besides, she can also have her past (which does not excuse the abuse ofc, just makes her a deeper character). I see a lot of potential and it's just wasted a millionth time

can I also say that female OCs in this fandom are super scarce? I remember there were a lot of times when fem!Once-ler blogs got deactivated bc they were relentlessly bullied. all for the sake of shipping two mildly different flavors of the same guy. and u don't have to make them side pieces to ur Once-lers. women deserve their own stories to tell. when I was developing my Lorax OC Felicia, her relationship with Once-ler was the last thing I thought of

anyways, it's a total tangent at this point but I wanted this to be an ode to female characters of the lorax/onceler fandom. they deserve their stories and they deserve to be treated with respect. do better

[duhragonball]

Duhragonba11

(That title looked cooler in my head for some reason.)

Hi, I'm Mike, and on December 21, 2012, I made the first post on this blog. It's nothing special, just a fandub video that always amused me. I didn't have any particular agenda with this thing, which is why I went with the name I chose.

I signed up for tumblr in 2011. Livejournal was dying, I had just moved to a new place and I was kind of looking for a fresh start. My main blog, @sodiumlamp, was my half-assed attempt to do a cool science themed blog. I thought you had to have a moody aesthetic on this site, because a lot of popular tumblrs posted black and white photos with wistful poetry and shit. I was burned out on """fandom""" and wanted to try to write something focused on a more general-interest topic. To be honest, I still want that, but it took a back seat as my priorities changed.

I created a few sideblogs, and decided the only thing I was missing was one for anime nonsense. It feels weird that I waited so long to go through with it, though. That first year or two on tumblr, I was kind of wary of the site, like I didn't know what to do with it, and I was worried I'd screw something up. Anyway, I broke my leg in the fall of 2012, and I spent about five months laid up at my parents' house. It was on the evening of December 20 that I made up my mind to set this thing up. Maybe I just couldn't settle on a name for the blog, or I wasn't sure I could post enough stuff to it to make it worth the trouble. My sleep schedule was a mess in those days, so it doesn't surprise me much that the first post was made in the middle of the night.

What really made this important for me was a post I made a few days later. I decided to just write about Raditz, and it got a lot of notes. Well, more than a hundred, which is kind of a big deal to me. There seemed to be an audience for this stuff, which led me to devote more and more time to this blog. Over the years, my other blogs have fallen by the wayside, and this became my main internet presence.

I don't think this thing is all that "big" in terms of popularity. I currently have 3957 followers, which sounds like a lot, although I usually only see 20-30 unique users in my activity reports. Still, it's a lot for me, and I'm grateful for it. I think things started to pick up in 2015, probably because of Xenoverse 1, Resurrection F, and Dragon Ball Super all starting up around that time. I got a lot of positive reinforcement from my audience, and that was a major factor that led to me getting back into writing fanfiction.

The Luffa concept was something I had been sitting on for years, but I never tried to write it because it seemed like too daunting a challenge, and even if I could finish a story like that, I wasn't sure anyone would bother to read it. But in 2015 I felt a lot more confident about giving it a shot. And people read it! They seemed to really like it! And in early December of that year, I even got fanart of the story.

(Art by @bluewavelengths)

It still blows my mind that this happened. It's eight years later, and I still find myself kind of averting my gaze when I look at this. Like, it's just sort of overwhelming. I really need to assemble some sort of gallery for Luffa art. I've got a folder with a lot of XV2 screencaps and loose drafts, and I'll run across this image from time to time and it always gets to me. Thank you, Nico.

So Luffa kind of took over a lot of this blog space from 2016 onward. I still felt like I should maintain some sort of general presence for an audience that wasn't interested in the character. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but that led me to kind of half-assedly liveblogging JoJo's Bizarre Adventure in 2017, which led me to three-quarter-assed liveblogs around the time I got to Stone Ocean and Steel Ball Run. That kind of set the stage for much of the stuff I do these days. Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z in 2019, Hellsing and Battle Tendency in 2021, and GT and Super in 2023. Well, I like to think I use my whole ass now when I liveblog these things, but I guess I should let history be the judge of that.

I'm not sure there's a coherent message to this. Honestly, I noticed back in January that I passed Year 10, and I thought I should really make a point of doing some sort of retrospective on the next anniversary, so here I am. I kind of debated making it a shitpost, or blowing it off altogether, but now that I've settled on revisiting the history of the blog, I feel like the common denominator here is that I can express myself and there are people who are interested in what I have to say. Every so often someone will tell me they liked something I wrote, and it's great. I'm not good at taking the compliment, but it's still gratifying to know that someone actually paid attention long enough to go "Yeah, he's got a good point." That matters. It matters a lot. If you're reading this, thank you.

I don't know what the future holds. I mean, I'm gonna keep posting stuff here, but for all I know Tumblr will get sold to Yahoo again and go out of business. In the short term, I still have fic work to do, and I've got a lot of messages in my ask box that I need to get back to. Also I'm gonna try to watch Evangelion next year, and reread Jojolion now that it's finished, and see if it makes more sense. Other than that, we'll see.

Serious question: Did I coin the term "Knife Lady"? Like, other people call her that now, but I think I may have been the one to get that started. Maybe I'm kidding myself, but it's fun to think about sometimes. I just don't want to steal fandom valor from the actual inventor of "we should all call that Saiyan 'Knife Lady'." But if it really was me, then that's pretty cool.

[initiumseries]

It makes sense, I'm not a big fan of this format either

I tried looking for your comments about Invincible and didn't find much, but I wanted to know, what you thought of Invincible? Which characters did you like the most? What did you think of the couples? About the story and how it was developed? The animation itself, this kind of thing

Yeah, like honestly, if I wanted this format I would've stuck to cable lol.

Thanks for looking, but yeah, I didn't really get many Invincible asks, and I only really posted about how the fandom (typically) irrationally hated Amber

So, my thoughts on Invincible as a show, was I liked the idea, I think that they handled the concept of an "invincible" not so hero super being far better than The Boys. Like even though Omni Man mollywhops the FUCK out of his son, I believe it when he finally is like...fuck. I can't do this, this is my son. And leaves. And because we'd only seen him operating in secret, and his choices made sense, he wasn't just some insane white supremacists man baby with powers, I was like man this is evil, but I'd like to see where you're going with this, and the reveal didn't disappoint. The Boys just...doesn't seem to have a coherent point, and the points they do make have me like

I think there were some weird threads that, while I could see how they were weaving the story, I didn't really understand the point of, like the robot, and trying to get a physical body etc. I didn't care for Eve's storyline at all, and cared even less for her single episode or whatever. I personally find when people who don't experience violent isms are naturally, quite bad at writing them, especially for animation. I think I felt like, after a second watch, there was some meandering, and I wanted a really tight, really focused and executed season, more Arcane, less Avengers the animated series, as far as story execution. Everything in Arcane had a clear purpose, and with Invincible, quite a bit felt gratuitous and like it deserved cutting. When I learned about how awful the production was, it made more sense though lol.

I liked the animation, but, and I've said this before and people get their panties all knotted up over it, American animation excels at the action sequences. Big fights, big explosions, they got the fx and animation in the bag. Smaller acting moments filled with emotion, not so much. And that sucks, because anime really fulfills that for me. I know I can watch an anime that has sick action animation and incredible character animation, and I wish North American animation placed more emphasis on the latter, but when everything is rigged to hell, and there's very little hand drawn animation in tv anymore because of the deadlines, I see how that gets lost. But to emphasize my point:

I really need more Black character designers on these productions and as ADs, because I HATED Amber's character design. Like, I don't know who this is, but it's not a Black person.

While there's a conversation to be had about the same tired ass hairstyles for Black men and boys in animation, I still can look at this and be like, yes, this is a Black person.

Inb4 someone cries about it being 3D, there's no reason to not get the same fidelity out of 2D animation, not when Static Shock and Justice League have laid groundwork for those clear shorthands.

but it makes sense they'd suck at drawing BW because they want the girls to be simultaneously eurocentrically attractive, while also being shit at designing Black people.

I didn't care for any of the couples. I wasn't particularly interested in a single thing Eve did, or the robot not robot guy falling for the lady who keeps getting younger, and I cared even less for Amber and Mark, but again, I think it's because there was a development to the relationships that I was looking for, and the show is so focused on all this action and Omni-man, there wasn't much room for the right development to those relationships, and by extension, the characters, for me to care about how they went. I think the only relationship I marginally cared about was Omni man and Mark's mom and that's because they did just enough, playing them like this lusty couple, and then he calls her a pet. I was like...oh damn, lol. We're going there. Embarrassing. I think if we cut out a lot of the chaff with the excessive action scenes and really built the story with as many emotional stakes are there were physical ones, it could've really been a powerhouse of a show, but instead I think it ends up being niche because it's like a well animated show without too much substance. I hope for more season 2, but I know how animation productions work, and that's an empty wish lol, but I'm still gonna watch it because I like watching animated stuff.

[sapphire-weapon]

Favorite ships in RE verse (Remake included)? Ik you like Ashley/Leon so feel free to scream about them. I'm also curious to know if you have any ships among the side characters.

oof. aight. so.

Leon/Ashley is the only "real" RE ship that I have, in the sense that it's the only one that I actively create and seek out content for. I'll go into the whys and hows of that a little later, but. In case anyone was curious why I go so hard for Leon/Ashley --

Actually. When I reblogged this post initially, I almost tagged it as #WHEN PEOPLE ASK ME WHY I SHIP LEON/ASHLEY #THIS IS WHY

I restrained myself because I don't like doing that to other ppl's posts, but. It's a pretty accurate representation of what drew me to the ship initially 18 years ago. Queen/Knight ships are my absolute favorite dynamic for a ship ever ever ever ever. Hands down. No contest. And what are these two -- especially in OG -- if not that?

My second favorite kind of ship? Doomed ones. Missed opportunity ones. "If only things were different" ones. "Our roles in each other's lives will never allow this to happen" ones.

And that's also them.

Real talk? I would actually like the ship way less if I thought for a second that there was a chance that Leon and Ashley could/would actually get together in canon. I'd still like it, but not nearly as much. (which is why it's really funny when people try to be like "it'll never be canon" YEAH NO SHIT I HOPE IT NEVER IS)

So I was cursed to fall super hard for this ship from day one. Like, there wasn't even a chance in hell I wasn't going to ship these two. No other two characters in this series have a dynamic that's even kind of similar to this.

And then the remake happened and it poured even more of the shit I already liked about it on top of what was already there and I was like "mmm yes it's delicious thank u capcom"

So that's my whole thing with those two.

And outside of those two? Well.

Back in the days of early RE fandom, we were so small and so starved for fan content that it was commonplace for people to read fics for ships that they didn't care about or even like lmao. I once read like 80,000 words of a Wesker/Leon fic because that was all I could fucking find that I hadn't read yet (and also wasn't weird monster dog porn -- late 90s/early 00s RE fandom was fucking weird ok).

Those early fandom days were also kind of magical, though, because so much of the canon was wide open to so many different ships and interpretations and scenarios. Like, as time has gone on and RE has grown larger and larger, the world of RE has started to feel smaller and smaller. It's way way WAY harder to write a canon-compliant fic these days, because there's so many moving parts to the story now, and a lot of details have been cemented in place that never used to be there.

Like, it's rad that the canon has so much to consume in it. But it sucks because it feels restrictive as a result.

So, like.

I have actually written fics for so many different, random ships over my 25 years in this fandom, because this fandom used to be more of like a... swap meet, sort of? Where we'd all just take requests from each other and write fics for each other and share them around -- because the fandom was so, so goddamn small back in the day.

I have actually written fics for:

Leon/Ashley (of course)

Leon/Claire

Leon/Luis

Chris/Jill

Chris/Rebecca (seriously)

Chris/Leon

Steve/Claire

Billy/Rebecca

Wesker/Ada (this one was fun, actually. I'd fuck with this one again)

Of course, there were people who were ride-or-die OTP folks (though this actually didn't get really bad or become any sort of real majority in the fandom until after RE4's release, and that's only because RE4 just dumped so much gasoline on the Aeon vs Cleon war holy fuck. RE fandom became a fuckin minefield after RE4), but a lot of us really just dabbled in a bit of everything. So I never really got like... super attached to any one ship, if that makes sense?

There is actually something very nostalgic about Leon/Claire for me, if you can believe it, because the ship was only viable until about the time of Degeneration, so we're going way back. That movie made it very clear that these two were not at all going to stay as active parts of each other's lives, so the ship basically died upon its release.

But prior to that? That was one of THE BIG SHIPS in the fandom. So, the vast majority of fics that I wrote back in the swap meet days were Leon/Claire, because the majority of my fandom friends fell more on the Cleon side of things.

Today, I don't like where their dynamic has gone in later canon. There's nothing there anymore, and I've lost all interest in it.

But... at the same time... when RE2make happened, it was something I thought about revisiting just for old time's sake. I haven't pulled the trigger on it yet, but I do still think about it from time to time. Maybe I'll actually go ahead and do the thing one of these days, now that I'm back in the habit of writing RE fic again.

But anyway.

The point is. Any side ships I have, I really just enjoy in passing. Like, if I see nice art of Chris/Jill or Billy/Rebecca I'll definitely reblog it because I do enjoy it, but I have never even one time gone out of my way to find it or any fics of them. Most of my contributions to side ships are thinkpieces and meta analysis.

Leon/Chris is one of the ships that I've done deep dive meta analysis for -- and half of that was just to piss off fanboys who were already mad about RE6 to begin with, because those fuckers made the fandom UNBEARABLE in the early 2010s -- but I still don't go super hard for them.

Same thing with Remake-verse Leon/Luis. I've done meta for them because people have asked me for it, and I do find their new dynamic absolutely fascinating from a literary/storytelling standpoint. They're another ship I do enjoy, but... again, mostly in passing.

So. idk if this actually answered your question. RE ships are just kind of a weird topic for me in general most of the time, because I went so, so, so long just looking at characters' individual arcs as opposed to engaging in actual ship content.

I've talked about this a little before, but I did go through that period (around 10 years) where I tried to pass it off that I had no ships in order to seem like an "objective" source for canon information (which, in hindsight, is so fucking stupid because I could've just done what I'm doing now and kept objective facts about the series/canon differentiated from my ship shit, but w/e), so in those 10 years, I didn't really engage with RE ships, like, at all.

So now I'm just kind of at the point of "dude whatever idc as long as we're all having fun."

[olderthannetfic]

We're sharing how we found our first fanfics? For me, it was when I was 12/13, and I'd just seen Avengers: Age of Ultron. There's this line at the end where Nat is surprised to see Steve there so soon because she expected that 'you and Tony would still be staring into each other's eyes'. And I thought, 'that's weird, were they in a relationship? I didn't notice!' and searched for 'tony stark and steve rogers relationship age of ultron'

...I landed on AO3, on a Stony fic. It started off with Steve and Nat talking about Tony (oh, the golden pre-civil war era of all the avengers living together in the tower), and then Tony enters but he's like 5 feet 1 or something? And he has lifts on his shoes all the time but he didn't that day for some reason? And the fic title was 'Advantages and Disadvantages of being Short' or something. Anyways I realized that this wasn't canon (not that I knew the word 'canon', or 'fanfiction' or even the concept of fanfiction (or fandom), for me it had always been 'read/watch this media and you're done') and I closed it.

But then the beast had been awoken, and I tried finding that 'extra story' (that was what i called it in my head) again but never found it. But I did discover AO3, then FFN, then tumblr and so on, and I have never known peace since, even though I haven't been in the Avengers fandom for years now.

If someone is out there and wrote a Stony fanfic about Tony being super short that starts off with Nat and Steve discussing the little things Tony does for his friends, I hope you know I hate you and love you, please drop the link so I can read it once more, and I hope you're having a great day.

--

[spencer-reids-adventures]

✨ 2022 Writing Year In Review ✨

Thanks to @feeisamarshmallow​ for tagging me!

1. Number of stories posted to AO3: 12

2. Word count posted for the year: 299,454

3. Fandoms I wrote for: Criminal Minds

4. Pairings: Luke Alvez/Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, lots of friendship stuff between the team

5. Story with the most:

Kudos: A Collection of Blurbs Featuring Autistic Spencer Reid with 844

Bookmarks: Also A Collection of Blurbs Featuring Autistic Spencer Reid with 242

Comments: bau super seven loving-reid-a-thon with 159 comment threads

6. Work I’m most proud of (and why):

to seek and to find the narrow way. it's so personal and i was so nervous to post it because of the religious themes but i'm really pleased with how it turned out and i've gotten some amazing feedback <3

7. Work I’m least proud of (and why):

secret storm. i'm not not proud of it! but i wrote it for a challenge and i think i rushed it a little and could've done a lot more with it if i'd given it the time it deserved.

8. Share or describe a favorite review you received:

there's one person who's been reading you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own and leaving long, detailed comments on every single chapter. i love this person so much. every comment from them makes me cry, they quote my work and talk about what they liked and what they're looking forward to. it's a writer's dream.

9. A time when writing was really, really hard:

writing the little scenes that i have to get through to get to what i really want to be writing. it's so hard to slog through sometimes, but it's always worth it once i make it to the good part and it gets easy again.

10. A scene or character you wrote that surprised you: 

an upcoming chapter of you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own has a nightmare aftermath scene that i wasn't planning at all but i'm really into it now that i'm writing it and i'm excited to see how it affects the story as a whole. it literally came out of nowhere but i love it so, so much. also, that fic as a whole has surprised me - it started as a really long oneshot and now i'm at about 75k and only halfway done.

11. A favorite excerpt of your writing:

“Oh. Sorry.”

“What are you sorry for?” Morgan asks. 

“Keeping you here. Falling asleep on you. Trauma dumping on you.”

“You didn’t trauma dump on me. I asked questions and you answered. And I don’t mind that you fell asleep on me. You clearly needed the rest.”

Spencer buries his face in his hands. “I don’t usually talk about these things.” 

“I know, kid.”

“I don’t like talking about these things.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want this to change our friendship,” Spencer sighs. “I don’t want things to be weird from now on. I don’t want you to treat me differently.”

“It won’t change anything,” Morgan promises. “I won’t treat you differently.”

“I don’t want you to be worried about me all the time now.”

“Reid. I was already worried about you all the time.”

from you've got a friend

12. How did you grow as a writer this year: 

i wrote a lot this year! i did a lot of sprints, and that made me really productive, and i forced myself to write even when i didn't want to. and i think that was good for me. i also have been making a conscious effort to write what i want to write and not what other people necessarily want to read, and not getting hung up on hits or kudos or comments. if i start worrying too much about what people are going to think about what i'm writing, i stop and regroup and go back to writing what i want, even if that means deleting a whole bunch of stuff.

13. How do you hope to grow next year:

i want to better balance my writing time with the rest of my life. i'm not always good at determining how much writing is enough and how much is too much, and i neglect other aspects of my life in favor of writing which isn't always healthy. i do want to continue to write for me, though. and i've started a trend of writing a chapter ahead in chapter fics so i don't get overwhelmed, and i want to keep that up because it's working really well. i also want to put more effort into brainstorming for the discord fic because i love that one and i feel like i've neglected it a little lately.

14. Who was your greatest positive influence this year as a writer (could be another writer or beta or cheerleader or muse etc etc): 

chris (@domestikhighway58) and maze (@tobias-hankel) have been so supportive and encouraging and spent so much time sprinting with me and chatting with me and reading my little snippets and keeping me motivated to keep writing. they also both write amazing fics that inspire me to write, period. i am endlessly grateful to both of them.

15. Anything from your real life show up in your writing this year:

i mean, i write fanfiction to process my emotions and issues, so yes, a lot of my real life shows up in my writing. spencer's coping mechanisms are my coping mechanisms. his stims are my stims. his autistic traits are my autistic traits. i have dozens of unfinished fics in my google drive that i've used to process issues in my marriage. also, spencer's therapist in one fic is an exact copy of my favorite former therapist, all the way down to her first name.

16. Any new wisdom you can share with other writers:

write what you want to write and don't worry about what anyone else is going to think. if there's something you're dying to read and no one's written yet - write it! if you have an idea that won't leave you alone - write it! don't worry about if it's good or if other people are going to like it. you are the most important audience. just do the thing!

17. Any projects you’re looking forward to starting (or finishing) in the new year:

i'm really enjoying writing you don't have to be sorry for doing it on your own and now that i have an idea of where it's going to end up, i can't wait to get there. we're only about halfway through, so there's still a lot yet to come, and i can't wait to find out what that is, haha. Besides that, i guess we'll just see what happens. i've spontaneously written a couple of oneshots in the past few weeks and i'd like to do more of those in the future instead of always getting stuck in my long fics.

18. Tag some writers whose answers you’d like to read.

@eldrai @masterwords @tobias-hankel @domestikhighway58

[anonofseasons]

Maybe it's due to not having spoons (fibro and the heat are getting to me bad), but my mood is up and down, and my feelings about Seasons are going up and down with it?

I'm like, "Oh this part is cute and I'm excited to share it!" and "Cal, shut up, please, you're being annoying. Keep it to yourself!" No one has said I'm being annoying. I just get super self-conscious now, bc... history of being told I'm annoying. Also, it's rather recent that I'd tell my now-ex that I was excited about something - that I'd finished a first draft or gotten a map drawn - and she'd respond with stuff like, "Did you see the witch Bath and Body Works diffuser?" (I had to beg her to congratulate me. I would do so for her when she had accomplishments, but mine? Meaningless.) Back to Seasons, though. I've been anxious that it's too long. I'm not out to set some arbitrary word count limit here. I mean "Was this really necessary, or did you just get too self-indulgent, and now you have too many loose ends to tie up?" (This is exacerbated by my writing out of order and fearing I'll forget something by the end.) That's just my brain, there. Worried that I was excessive and have made a mess, rather than a coherent story. I'm also worried that I sound so egotistical now that I'm finding joy in talking about my writing/characters. (This ties in with the first issue, that I should "shut up" haha...) I had such a weird process for years. I enjoyed the process of creation, but I... thought I was shitting out garbage. Characters, writing style, story, everything. Someone once told me years ago that I wrote nothing but man babies, and someone else later said the same thing. Second person also said my writing style induced their synesthesia so they couldn't stand to read my stuff. There have been other things, those are just some examples. It's so painful. I don't feel like I can become a better author if I don't have helpful criticism, but I've certainly had the destructive stuff launched at me. I'm still working on myself. I was only 13 months ago I got self-conscious and decided to stop sharing any of my writing publicly, so I locked up everything on AO3 in a private collection, I deleted or hid everything on google docs and other sites. And I struggled to finish Rascal (which I posted the final chapter just a few weeks before that and then ended up locking it up, haha), and now I'm struggling a bit with Seasons. I don't always struggle with ending stories, but... sometimes I do, and it definitely sinks my mood. I'm lucky in that some people have found my writing and been supportive. I'd be fucked if I didn't have @yume-x-hanabi being so supportive and nonjudgmental. She's a good writing buddy. And I have another friend who also just checks out my writing despite meeting her through fandom as well, even picked up Seasons despite the heavy content. ;A; That's a blessing. But sometimes I'm still working on saying, "No, I do love myself and these things. It doesn't matter what other people have said. They're a few people. They were mean. They don't define you or your work." Still, it sneaks up on me and leaves me scared that I have more work ahead. That I need to get better and better now, because if I want a career out of this, I'm going to have to bust my ass. And it's funny... I do enjoy the process of writing, I love building characters and writing stories and creating lore. I just wish after it was all done, I wasn't fearful that I just hot-glued a bunch of steaming shit together, and I refuse to see it...? XD; (Sorry that's a disgusting mental image, but... it wouldn't hold together, is my point.) Anyway, sorry if you read this for rambling so much. It's kind of negative. I gotta cheer up. ;A;

[multishipper-baby]

Heyyy

I just followed you recently and i find you keep talking about your ocs

Can you give me a basic run down on them?

Or a detailed explanation if you wanna

Ohhhh yeah I'd totally forgotten most people probably don't know the characters I talk about shfgiwehfni I'll give you a quick rundown of most of them (and then I'll probably pin this so others who are curious can see). I'll talk about my FHS since that's my main series- yeah, cringe, I know.

Under the cut for those who don't to see me ramble.

Raymond (Often nicknamed Rayray or just Ray): He's my Eakwynn (Eak x Owynn) fankid, and also the first OC I made for this fandom. Basically, he was an oops baby born when his parents were just out of highschool and in a unstable relationship so... Yeah. Because Owynn has an habit of disappearing from his life for months without explanation, Eak raised him as a single parent (with Cami and Towntrap for help) so he's very attached to Eak. He's autistic with a special interest in insects, and also plays the saxophone- he started being interested in music just to get attention from Owynn but eventually grew to actually like it. I have some drawings of him here and here.

Jason: He's a member of a gang that's rivals with the Nightmares, and had a serious case of self destructive tendencies (mainly alcoholism and fighting) and undiagnosed mental illness thanks to a bunch of childhood trauma. He's basically in the middle of his downward spiral when he mets Onnie, who he sees as too weak to bother attacking and instead decides to just play with a little. This backfires horribly for him, because he ends up finding Onnie a bit charming and funny and gets totally attached to him. So, he decides to betray his gang and almost gets himself killed! It ends fine for him tho- they get married and have three children. Haven't drawn him in a while, but have some picrews so you'll get an idea of what he looks like.

Derek Zephyr: Another fankid, this time for Red (Shadow Fox) and Gold (Shadow Golden) in an AU in which the shadows have their own body. He grew up pretty poor, but his parents always took great care of him (despite both being a bit fucked in the head). He's very punk and projects an image of a guy who's super tough + rebellious but he's actually pretty far from an actual bad boy- listens to his parents, doesn't drink/do drugs, is afraid of motorcycles... Besides the fact that he sometimes gets into fights, he's a calm dude. Wants to become a rockstar; plays guitar and sings (sometimes even writes his own songs). He and Ray are great friends. I also have art of him here and here.

Ezekiel: Frededdy fankid. He's a special case in that he wasn't actually born- he just appeared out of thin air thanks to shadow magic. Basically, he's a human/shadow hybrid, which means he looks mostly human but has a few weird quirks in the form of a black sclera and a weird personality. He's got a surprisingly clinical mind, a lack of emotional expression and a strong attachment to the supernatural. Has a very good voice courtesy of his parents, but he's not particularly musical. He's also a friend of Ray and Derek.

Tristán and Gabriela: These two are twins, and they're from a pretty dark AU that started as kind of a trauma exploration of mine, so trigger warning for incest and abuse for this part, skip to the next if it makes you uncomfortable. Basically they're Joy and Golden fankids, a fact that is kept a secret from them until they're teens and they learn the whole story behind their birth. Long story short- Joy forced Golden to have kids with her and abused him for many years under threat of taking the kids away from him. This ends up with both of them having issues to work through- Tristán ends up with a serious guilt complex that eats him alive and makes him feel like a freak of nature. Gabri meanwhile becomes a bit of a recluded mess, having a hard time opening up to anyone or showing herself as anything but happy because she worries her past is too horrible to even begin to face. They have issues.

Luca, Piper and Zachary: And to end of, Onnie and Jason's triplets. Let's keep this short since this list is already too damn long- Luca is a hotheaded bastard that has a huge trouble managing his emotions, Piper is a money hungry daddy's girl who loves to stick her nose into things that she shouldn't, and Zach is the deaf kid who always manages to get into trouble even when he very much would prefer not to get into trouble. Basically, they're a lot, especially for a pair of poor parents who didn't have any previous experience with children, but they're happy. They're a big, chaotic, happy family.

Besides that I also have Luna and Deyanira, but they're a bit of newer OCs so I still don't have much about the two of them. All you need to know for now is that Luna is Derek's younger half sister (his parents have an open relationship) and Deya is Derek's daughter. Derek kind of grew as an OC since I've been using him for roleplay and expanding him a lot, so he's kind of getting his own little cinematic universe lol. Hope that's enough explanation!

[childotkw]

Thor in Endgame was really just making fun of the fact that he was overweight and turning (his) depression into a joke. His whole characterisation in the MCU is weirdly inconsistent and lazily done anyway, though. But that was just the cherry on top. Super bad taste. I also pity every overweight person who sat through this movie and had the whole crowd roaringly laughing at Hemsworth in a fatsuit. Ugh. By now, Thor has turned into a bad comedy character, and it's just weird.

I never liked the Thor movies, especially with what they did to Jane or appear to be doing to her now. I understand that a lot of fans are completely hyped about her as a female version of Thor, and I get that when turning off the more critical part of my brain, but... why wasn't she enough as a human and as a scientist, as a strong but mortal woman with real passion and intelligence? Waititi called her boring, but I liked her. Not as Thor's love interest, but as an independend character or rather as the character she could have been. She could've been relatable and real. Now she's as overpowered and warrior-like as pretty much the rest of the MCU women. Why does it always have to be either that or all smirks and sarcasm for female characters in these movies? They all seem the same by now. To me, at least. And it sucks.

And Tony's character death - I hated when it was implied that his death was the only way he could ever find rest/peace? What kind of fucked up message is that? Why, why, do these movies always either kill off trauma riddled characters or turn that trauma into a joke until it's just not shown and addressed anymore?

I get that these are superhero movies and it's all not that deep, but the MCU used to be so much better at writing characters in a compelling way. :/

Yeah, Endgame!Thor just didn’t hit right for me. Depicting depression in media can be hard, and while I have seen some good blends of depression and humour (I watched the first season Afterlife and I thought it did a really good job of showing someone in the midst of grief and depression while still incorporating humour), the way Endgame did it fell short for me.

Thor is probably one of the strangest characters in the MCU, you’re not wrong. He flipflops between a serious character with growth and then two seconds later he's a clown. There's a difference between a character being nuanced and...whatever is going on with Thor's writing. The only movie of his I actually remember is the first one, and that's because it was probably the best at handling his humour while still giving him depth. I don't really do MCU anymore, so I probably won't see the new movie either. I've just got such a sharp sense of disinterest in the fandom now. I think I'd only really like it again if I started actively writing in it - which probably sounds dumbs, but that's how my brain works haha

Jane definitely suffers from Being The Love Interest. I always enjoy stories were she gets roped into sciencing with Tony (and Bruce and Helen and literally any of the other big scientists). Her intelligence is such an underrated thing in the movies, I feel.

Tony's death wasn't handled well. You're absolutely right about the fucked up message around it. He had peace. The man had his happy ending. He married the woman he loved and was raising his daughter. While the Snap ruined a lot of lives, Tony had made his peace with it and his grief, and carved out a new path for himself. He was, as always, looking to the future. While I understand that final scene was supposed to be a 'tribute' to Tony and whatever, I feel like what they should have done something similar to the first Guardians movie. Have a whole bunch of the Avengers join hands and share the burden of the gauntlet's power. They even had the foreshadowing right there to build off of.

Have Tony, Steve, Thor, Clint, Natasha (because she shouldn't have died), Bruce, Carol, Rhodey, etc. stand together. And while Tony could still be the one to 'Snap' (and maybe he loses his arm or something), it would have distributed the backlash between them. That would have been a much better resolution in my eyes. That way Tony can retire (so they don't have to bring RDJ in anymore unless for a cameo or something), and still get his happy ending. It would have done wonders for presenting the Avengers with a chance to stand united for one final fight as well; and even if I don't particularly like the idea of forgiving Team Cap for some of the things they did (I'm still salty over CW, sue me, idc), it would have been a solid conclusion with an opening to keep one of their most beloved characters alive and not burnt to a crisp in an unsatisfying death scene.

But yeah. That' s enough rambling from me. You guys should stop poking this landmine or I might decide to rewrite the whole universe 😂😂😂😂😂

[pinkandgreenarepurpleandyellow]

WIP WIP WIP WIP!

Early Concept

Some doodles/mockups

Current progress and some details.

My major plan for the moment is to find my brown markers (seriously, how do those things keep disappearing) and figure out what my background for the teeth/grin is gonna look like.

Ngl, I'm really proud of this one! kinda annoyed that the 1 in 2013 is a little too close to the 0, but I think I did some nice work on the nectars and blood splatters. (More details/breakdown below cut).

Escape From Furnace was one of the first books that I was super-passionate about, even though I wasn't online for the first while. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of stuff I loved and wanted to do bigger deep-dives into, but it was a kinda interesting perspective for me since I'm Jewish and the main villain is, y'know, a fucking Nazi.

It's kind of a weird feeling where on the one hand, watching the fandom was what actually shoved me online and on to Tumblr. Otoh, the obsession w/Warden Cross was kinda creepy to me, and it felt like almost everyone conveniently pushed to the side that he wasn't just a Nazi in the past, but kept up the ideals, modeled a prison on them, and constantly talks about "superior races" and "wiping out the inferior scum" and such.

Seeing the rest of the fandom, especially the headcanon that Zee is Jewish, resonated a lot more, and kept my head on this vague idea of breaking down how much that would change the narrative of the story (consider that Zee is the only person we know for sure is immune to the nectar, add that the version of nectar used in the Furnace is Cross's variation, multiply by how both Cross and nectarized Alex talk about Zee in Death Sentence and Fugitives. There's also the whole 'blondes w/blue eyes who keep responding esp well to the nectar' shtick with Alex and Gary).

So this idea's been rattling around in my head for a while, obviously! I initially wanted to do two triangles with the three circles, superimposing an upside version of the Furnace's logo over itself to create the Star of David, but it looked kind of weird so I might come back to it later. For now, each triangle has it's own mini-scene or element starring. breakdown, top to bottom, left to right:

I initially wanted to draw the dog's face/jaws but it just wouldn't look right no matter what I did. It was switched out for the three different nectar strains we see in canon: The silver syringe full of Cross's blend, the berserker blood with specs of red, and the mostly black that's running through the tubes connecting Alfred Furnace to the machine.

Teeth: I'm honestly not quite sure where I'm going with this in the final draft, but teeth stick out to me throughout the book as one of those details we get to see characters more clearly. Donovan's smile, Kevin missing two front teeth, the berserkers, Bodie's grin, Cross's teeth like crooked tombstones, y'all get my point. But yeah, teeth.

Hands: Donovan's hand (bathed in gold, currently yellow because I don't have any gold markers rn), and Alex's reaching out to Donovan. The big scene, but also all of the smaller ones that came earlier, like in Lockdown.

Prison bars: There's something that sticks in my head about the bars and all of the numbers used, for the inmates and the cells and the three chipping rooms and the blacksuits and how I imagine at some point, you only remember yourself as a number. I'd hope that with his memories back, Alex wouldn't forget his name, but I'd argue that 2013834 (inmate number) still holds better memories than 208 (blacksuit number).

Eye: Another big motif. So many blue eyes, so many silver ones. I've kinda been sticking to only 4 colors for all of these except the panel with the hands, we're doing something with emotions and colors and the way the Furnace saps all hope here. Again, can't quite decide on a background yet.

Gas mask: A rough redraw of the one in Lockdown, the very first book of the series and, again, that little connection of Zee with the idea of him being Jewish and the canon detail that he would have been made into a wheezer if not for Cross.

The center: Their motto is nine words, two phrases. It looks somewhat awkward, but I think it works.

So yeah. I'm planning on finishing the colors and then seeing if I can figure out how to turn this into a patch on fabric or embroidery or something, but this is one of my favorite concepts and I'm glad I can finally bring it to life!

[xiaojuun]

I'm responding sooo late but I was a bit distracted yesterday lol

It's interesting to hear what different people's processes are haha. I usually watch the mv first and then I listen to the album and usually after that i watch the mv again. and also I think it's easier for me to not watch teasers etc beforehand because of how multi-fandom I am. I can simply pretend that it isn't out yet 😆. Also, I really feel like enha is going to blow it away again. They have not disappointed even once. (I mean, it took a bit of time to get around to blessed-cursed but I still wasn't disappointed when I first heard it. Also I can't hate on dimension: answer when they have polaroid love on it. she's an icon.) but also, listening to manifesto intro made me hyped up for this comeback. (I got such a freight seeing it on my youtube home page when it was first released that I couldn't help but to listen to it, I won't be listening to anything else until album release tho and after the final concept film being released, I also won't be watching anything else either)

phew, it's a relief that it's not permanent, I still hope that it goes away quickly :') it's funny that I was so inspired to make things on Tuesday but then again yesterday I didn't know for which fandom i wanted to make gifs so I ended up just watching that high school musical series thing until I watched multiverse of madness before bed haha

I haven't even heard of that drama (no one is surprised, I'm pretty out of the loop with tv stuff and usually I'm super late to things anyway lol). I'm also bad with tv but my friends got me to watch some stuff last year and now it feels habitual to watch something before bed if I can - or when I need to pull an all nighter I watch riverdale because the things going on in that tv show is sooo weird that it keeps me awake 😂😂

yeah kdramas are really long every episode but I feel like if the kdrama is good enough, you don't even notice the time going by. Also hmmm, I tried to watch love & leashes but I ended up not sticking to it (I also thought it was a drama when I first clicked on it tho lol).

I don't think I've ever watched a web drama... I also haven't watched to my star... I'm not sure I'll be able to get into it because currently my brain is still on business proposal. It happened with crash landing on you as well... When it ended I thought I'd easily get into something else immediately but I just kept missing the characters of CLOY so I couldn't get into anything else 🥴🥴

— seungzie

@jseungz agreed, i love how everyone has their own process for preparing for and enjoying a comeback! i'll agree with you that enhypen has yet to disappoint me, i consistently really enjoy their music and find their concepts to be quite cool and fresh every time. blessed-cursed was actually one of my favorites, i'll say it over and over i LOVE the 90s/00s boy band styling they did for that era and the song itself always gets me hyped. definitely looking forward to hearing what the new track will sound like! i haven't watched or listened to anything, i've just seen the cb scheduler which is giving me the trendy pop punkish vibe so if that's where they're going with it i think i'll be pretty happy haha.

omg i love hsmtmts ... that is one show i do in fact watch haha my mom and my younger sibling and i all watch together when it's airing weekly. i can't remember the last time i pulled an all nighter on purpose 😭 and i used to watch riverdale when it was first out but i heard it got ... so strange haha and i haven't kept up in a very long time.

maybe one day i'll find a drama that i like enough to stick with! i know what you mean about needing some time between things though when you really become invested in the characters / story, i feel like that can happen reading books too. in lieu of watching much television i do watch a ton of kpop groups' like ... series things haha bc as you know multi life means there are plenty of those to keep up with. and when you already know the members and stuff it's easier to jump around and come back to them depending on what you're in the mood for. i've found esp since the pandemic started that i need my entertainment to feel really lighthearted so maybe that's also why dramas don't really call to me 😅 i haven't even watched the new season of stranger things bc those episodes are so long and i feel like it's too intense for what i'm looking for these days, even though i'm a huge fan of the series in general. luckily there's no time limit on finding stuff to watch and enjoy! <3

[wattpadscapcons]

Heya Treat,

Not a request or anything but just wanted to see how everything.

I know you don’t write for FNF anymore but happy that you’re writing for other fandoms. I’m trying to open myself to other fandoms to write atm

But hope everything is well

Tank /Ayrus (prefer to be called Ayrus, Tank anon is getting kinda stale 💀)

Sure thing Ayrus. I do still write for FNF, I just don't find it all that fun anymore. I'm really falling out of the fandom, I like the music and everything I'm getting tired of it? I was never like really obsessed with the game in general, but I liked the characters and thought it'd be fun to write for them. I didn't know that's what I'd be known for on here.

I'd actually like to start posting more of my art and write for my current obsessions with it being Sdra2, Danganronpa, and Pokemon. If that loses me my followers then I'm just going to have to be ok with that because I'm just really not that interested anymore. I tried to open up the listing for different characters and it just gets too repetitive for me now. At most I would stop writing for the most popular characters on the list, but I'm sure that would only upset people as well.

I'm not really sure how to go about it. FNAF was rather easy to stop writing about since it wasn't really the large majority of my reader's favorite thing. I feel like starting with such a contrasting fandom wasn't exactly in my best interest, but it got me my audience.

I'd still like to write for characters like Senpai. Hell I was even thinking about writing for DDLC but scrapped that idea. There are not a lot of fandoms that I can say I'm super into besides for Danganronpa and Pokemon. Maybe Yu-gi-oh as a close third, but I forget the story plots past Yusei and the rest of the protags never caught my interests. Even thinking of miniscule fandoms, I can't think of anything I'd want to really write for.

I used to be into Hetalia, but that's too much of a trigger to fall back into, can't even watch the new season without feeling like I'm putting myself in danger. Writing about creepypasta's would be just weird for me, giving me middle school fangirl vibes that are just way too overpowering to even consider.

If you have any ideas of things I could write for that you think I'd be interested in I'll do some research, but otherwise....just this I guess.

Thanks for sitting through my TedTalk

- Treat

[loopy777]

It is commonly accepted by the entire fandom that avatars one bad episode was the great divide. Was there any other episodes that you felt was bad or lukewarm?

Ohya. I got my hit list:

.

The King of Omashu - This is the best one on this list just thanks to Bumi's character, but I can't get over the """""""mystery""""""" of Bumi. Who is the intended audience for this episode? Are they supposed to know that Bumi is Aang's old friend? Because it's super-obvious, straight down to using the same 'circus music' motif for his young and old selves, and yet the show treats it as a reveal. This bothers me. A lot of early Avatar is hampered by seeming to have mixed ideas about its audience, with its ideas and setting being wasted on stories for little kids, like 'The Great Divide,' but I find this episode to be the most egregious.

The Great Divide - Honestly, I only consider this one to be lukewarm. It's dumb and exaggerated and obviously written for 5-year-olds, but I still feel like it's more mature than a lot of LoK, and the twist at the end that Aang lied is great fun. The fandom beating on this one so hard has always seemed weird to me.

The Fortuneteller - This has some really funny and good Sokka moments, but otherwise it is such a boring episode with the romantic shenanigans.

The Northern Air Temple - Lukewarm storytelling, and I've never particularly liked the message, especially the destructive and polluting way the Mechanist is changing the temple. Also, some parts of the battle are hampered by playing to little kids again, like going out of the way to show that the weapons are non-lethal like the slime bombs- and then Sokka wins the day with a massive explosion that is pretty strongly implied to have killed a hundred people. I almost feel like the creative team had an identity crisis in the middle of making this episode.

The Swamp - This episode is the closest AtLA comes to pointless filler. Yes, even compared 'The Great Divide.' If it wasn't for Zuko's two scenes, I'd advocate new fans skipping this one. The hallucinations for Sokka and Katara are the only two worthwhile moments, and honestly I kind of hate the swamp foretelling Toph's role. Prophecy is a weird thing to include in Avatar, considering how the setting seems to work, and to waste it on Toph, who is already presented as the natural choice for Aang's teacher, is just dumb. I'll give it credit for the "Everything is Connected" theme being a big part of AtLA's messaging as a whole, but the Guru does it better.

Avatar Day - I'm sorry, the only good gAang-parts of this whole episode are Aang in prison, the flashback to Kyoshi, and the unfried-dough scene. This is also representative of the humor in AtLA actually getting sillier, IMO, compared even to when it was trying to cater to little kids. You can see it especially in Sokka's detective shtick, and while I do like that he loosens up as the series goes on, I see a direct line between this episode and "Get out of the bison's mouth."

The Headband - While I appreciate the look at the Fire Nation citizenry and really like what it implies about the nature of the Fire Lord's rule, there's no denying that after such a strong run of storytelling in Book Earth, this marks a much more meandering pace and lower stakes, and seems to just be marking time until they roll out the Invasion for Sweeps Week. I still don't actually understand what the gAang was doing in these episodes. Why didn't they rejoin Hakoda? I know, in terms of storytelling, we had to see the Fire Nation, but it is never justified in-universe.

The Painted Lady - More meandering, a Sokka subplot with the schedule that would seem important but then is never mentioned again, and also lukewarm storytelling all around. And the solution for this is simple- this story should have been told after Zuko joins the gAang, when he can react and add some additional spark to the character interactions. Actually, most of early Book Fire should have been pushed back to after Zuko joins the gAang, and then they journey to the Western Air Temple together while trying to lay low and avoid Azula as a pursuer.

The Beach - This is hands-down the worst episode in all of the Avatar franchise. Even the worst of LoK is better. Gene Yang's comics are worse, though, so at least it has that going for it.

The Ember Island Players - I like what this episode is trying to do. But, honestly, while the comedy here is much better constructed than 'The Beach,' Avatar in generally isn't really good with humor most of the time, so episodes wholly devoted to it are going to fall flat for me. Also, the little Kataang subplot complicates the romantic arc without actually adding anything to it for either the characters or their dynamic (I still don't really know what Katara meant by claiming to be confused, and our ability to makes guesses does not mean the answer is anywhere in AtLA), and the arc would actually be improved by removing it.

.

10 bad apples out of 61 ain't bad, huh?