#not tagging this so if the fandom finds this anyway…. that’s your own fault i guess

[gilmores-glorious-blog]

making a post that’s going to get me fucking crucified by this fandom but i don’t really care… bothering the critical role cast or anyone who works for them about OGL and the current D&D drama is unproductive and not helpful. critical role isn’t responsible for this. wizards of the coast is. just because cr has worked with D&D Beyond for years doesn’t mean they support what’s happening now… most people supported WotC up until very recently. and because they’re an actual company and not just some random people playing dnd, they probably aren’t legally allowed to comment on the situation without facing serious repercussions. they are literally in no way responsible for this and why waste your time harassing people who have been nothing but wonderful and accessible to the world of dnd and rpgs as a whole when the actual WotC company is right there, fully to blame? not to mention the general expectation that everyone should be boycotting dnd right now (which apparently extends to boycotting dnd shows) is fucking ridiculous and needs to stop. you can acknowledge that what’s happening is problematic while still enjoying dnd as a whole. don’t act like everyone needs to abandon something that’s been popular for nearly five decades just because some capitalist higher-ups are being assholes. you aren’t better than everyone else, you’re just a dick.

[dimplyowl]

I want to just say that the hijacking of the Izzy hands tag by the canyon is one of the most ridiculous fucking things I’ve ever heard. I’ve never, in my about 20 years of being involved in fandoms, seen anyone declare that a character tag is only for positive posts about that character until ofmd.

I’m going to be very clear: a character tag is for posts about that character. Positive, negative, general shouts into the void about them, smutty thoughts, fluffy thoughts, criticisms, etc. It doesn’t matter. You can get more specific about the particular tone of your post with other tags, but the general character tag. Is for. Any post. About that character. And it is the individual’s responsibility to know what they can handle reading and skip things they might find triggering.

Which moves on to my next point, which is that tagging whether a post is positive or critical content is not a requirement. It’s extremely fucking helpful, yes. It’s kind to do it to give people who might come into contact with your post the ability to block that tag and never have to see it if they don’t want to. But it’s not a requirement. People can post what they want. People can view what they want. It is always the responsibility of the reader to judge whether something they come across is harmful to them. You are responsible for your online experience.

That being said, if people do choose not to use more specific tags about the tone of a post, they need to be prepared to have people reacting in all manners of ways about it. Because again. They’re responsible for their online experience. That responsibility does go both ways.

But all of this “can you not tag your critical posts with the character because it sucks to see your fave being talked about negatively” is bullshit. You don’t own that character, you don’t own that tag, tags exist so that people can find posts about that thing, people are allowed to have and discuss different opinions and have them tagged appropriately.

So yeah anyway I’m gonna keep using the Izzy hands tag on my critical stuff, and I’m also going to use the critical tag because I personally think it’s good to give the opportunity for people who don’t want to see negative posts about their faves, but I don’t think it’s a requirement, or that people who don’t are assholes.

And also when you keep changing what the appropriate tag for critical posts is, it’s not the posters fault for you seeing something you don’t want to. It’s a courtesy that posters are using ones that you specifically have asked them to use, so make it more functional for everyone and just pick one.

[marvel-ous-m]

Wiggy Wednesday 🧠🪱

I was tagged by @devondespresso @steviewashere and @hotluncheddie !!! Thanks for the tags bros, sending love your way <3

Okay, this one is a little bit sad, TWs for depression and isolation.

I've been having a lot of thoughts about Steve being left alone for so much of his life.

I know this is explored a lot in fandom, but there are some aspects of his isolation that I think are especially heart-wrenching.

Steve, who only spends time with people when he's at school. Mother and Father are on another trip, and they've fired his nanny, so he's ten and alone in a big, big house with no one to talk to. He leaves school on Friday afternoon, only to return on Monday mornings with his voice raspy from disuse. He becomes 'the quiet kid', until he meets a boy named Tommy who gets him out of his shell, a boy who asks him to spend time together on weekends. A boy who helps him speak.

Steve, who immerses himself in social hierarchy as a means of running away from the lonely feeling eating him from the inside out. If he's surrounded by people, he can't possibly be lonely, right? He's able to believe that until high school, when the lonely feeling begins to nag at him again, relentless. It's there when he returns to his empty home, it's there when he's at school and surrounded by his friends, by his teammates, by girls. It's always there. He tries to smother it by shrouding himself in popularity, then tries to drown it by throwing parties where he gets so drunk he can't see straight. Still, at the end of the day when he finds himself wrapped in a plaid comforter with matching patterned walls surrounding him, it is only the loneliness that remains.

continued below the cut

Steve, who finds a reprieve from the crushing feeling of isolation after a moment of absolute tragedy. Barbara Holland's life was taken too soon, in his own home, and Steve's loneliness is replaced by an overwhelming sense of guilt. He's never alone, though- he has Nancy at his side constantly. She's experiencing a similar kind of guilt, despite how many times Steve tells her it's not her fault. Steve's not alone, because her guilt keeps his company. He hates how her pain helps to relieve his own. The guilt grows.

Steve, who has his loneliness return with force, the guilt still unrelenting, after the events of Halloween, 1984. He has no one. Nancy is with Jonathan, and Steve's fairly certain that there's no hope of repairing that relationship. Tommy and Carol are a no-go, and all the teammates that he once called his friends are drawn to Billy like moths to a flame. They were never his friends, anyways- not really. They gravitated towards his popularity, his ability to put them in the spotlight. His reputation had soured, now. His name is only spoken by those gossiping about his fall from grace. It made sense that people wouldn't want to be associated with that. If he was in their shoes, he'd distance himself, too.

Steve, who finds himself becoming quiet again. Who was never called on much by teachers anyways, who doesn't have anyone to talk to, who returns to an empty house and an empty room every night. The loneliness becomes his shadow, and his light is extinguished by its darkness.

Steve, who finds himself abandoning his plaid walls in favor of driving around town into the late hours of the night. He calls it 'patrolling' when anyone asks- but really, questions have only come from Hopper once or twice, when the chief has had the bad luck of being stuck on the night shift. He drives until his eyes get dry from strain, then drives some more, until he begins to feel tears, until he's sobbing in the front seat, his hands banging against the steering wheel and his throat raw from his screaming. He drives until his body gives up, until the loneliness swallows him whole and the aching pain is gone, replaced by an eerie nothingness that has become all too familiar and painfully comfortable. He pulls over, then. He finds a spot hidden by trees and parks his car, then curls up in the backseat, exhaustion overtaking him.

Steve, who lives off of too few hours of sleep and too many bad dreams for months, until he's approached by the weird kid with curly hair, who asks him if he needs a place to say, who says that he's seen Steve sleeping in his car some nights.

Steve, who feels seen for the first time by a super senior that has been deemed The Freak of Hawkins High.

Steve, who tentatively opens himself up to the friendship.

Steve, who soon finds newfound solace in his nights, surrounded by the hazy comfort of smoke from a shared joint and the loving hold of a boy who sees him.

Loneliness is nowhere to be found.

No pressure tags!! (I know it might not be Wednesday in your timezone anymore but time is an illusion!!): @klausinamarink @hairstevington @pearynice @withacapitalp @lightoftheseraph @eyesofshinigami @scriptorbemi @sourw0lfs annnnd @ YOU! <3

[sage-nebula]

Just wanna say, I love your tags sm on my post!!! I find it so fun to pull comparisons with both zinnia and volo because they have like. A similar character skeleton. Or whatever that means. They're so different yet their relation to their respective deity definitely feels, as u said, 2 sides of the same coin.

And 100% agree with the last comment- I only started thinking about their similarities when I realized how much of the fandom dislikes zinnia and how much of the fandom likes volo qq

Ahh thank you so much!! I'm so sorry I'm responding to this so late, I am just awful about actually sitting down at a computer lately unless it's for work . . . and my work network doesn't allow me to access tumblr because I'm employed by haters 😔 but I'm glad you appreciated the tags! I remember I was actually a bit hesitant about leaving them because I didn't know if they would be Too Much or not, so I'm glad that wasn't the case, haha.

And yeah, Zinnia and Volo definitely foil each other in many ways. What's really interesting about it as well is that, unlike Volo, Zinnia was actually rebuffed by her deity to her face, when it came to a destiny she was literally raised for, which we know since her flashbacks in her Evolutions episode show that she was training to catch Rayquaza as part of her Lorekeeper destiny since she was a young child:

She could arguably be a little older in that second flashback, but not by much. So Zinnia was raised to be the Lorekeeper since her childhood. Her life's purpose was not only know and be able to pass on the history of her people, but also to be able to mega evolve Rayquaza and, together with it, destroy the meteor that would threaten the planet. She knew that doing this would likely result in her death (indicated at multiple points in her dialogue), but she was so devoted to doing it that she went through it anyway. And she managed part of it; she did manage to summon Rayquaza.

And then . . . Rayquaza rejected her. To her face. In favor of some random (by comparison) kid.

By all accounts, Zinnia had every right to be furious. Her deity has rejected her in favor of some rando when Zinnia devoted her entire life (and was willing to sacrifice her life) to it. But is she furious? Does she take it out on May? No. We know that she's lowkey suicidal (some of her dialogue suggests she's almost hoping she'll die in the effort to stop the meteor so that she can be reunited with the original Aster in the afterlife), but she still takes it in stride because the most important thing is that the meteor is stopped. So she helps the rando as much as she can, and then leaves to figure out what she can do with this life she didn't expect to have.

Then, on the opposite end, there's Volo. Volo, as far as we know, was never raised with any special destiny in mind. To be fair, we really don't know anything about Volo's backstory except that it's heavily implied he's a descendant of the Celestica people. But that's it. We're never told that he had a destiny to fulfill alongside Arceus. Instead, Volo himself decided that he was going to summon and meet Arceus, and Volo himself decided he was going to summon and meet Arceus wholly for his own reasons, and Volo himself never actually came face to face with Arceus, and took that as a rejection, and then tried to murder the random kid Arceus chose over it, as if it's that random kid's fault.

It really is the complete opposite in every way. Zinnia had every reason to believe that Rayquaza would agree to work with her, yet when it refused, she took it in stride and did what she could to help. Volo had no reason to believe that Arceus would want to work with him, and when it refused, he absolutely lost his shit and tried to murder a child. There's a reason why Zinnia got closure by forming a sync pair with Rayquaza in Pokemon Masters and why I'm pretty damn sure Volo is not going to get the same treatment with Arceus, lmao.

And don't get me wrong, I love both characters. Personally, I hope Volo never gets better. Don't get me wrong, if his motivation is supposed to be that he wants to make a world where his people and culture were never lost and where Hisui was never colonized, then I do think that's a sympathetic motivation, and certainly I came away from PLA thinking that Kamado was more despicable than Volo, mostly because the game treated Kamado like a sympathetic, misunderstood man despite his blatant bigotry toward the DP clans. But Volo is at his best when he is absolutely off his shits and I want him to stay that way. Like the fact that he actually tried to murder the player is iconic. Love that energy for him. Keep it coming.

But that doesn't change the fact that, yeah, he is off his shits. And any sympathetic motivations we can give him are headcanon because Game Freak didn't feel the need to elaborate. And more importantly (and to the point of your second paragraph), yeah, it really gets me that people are constantly vilifying Zinnia (including downright calling her a villain) for trying to save two worlds and ultimately bowing out gracefully when her destiny was stolen from her, yet fawn all over Volo or Lusamine. I'm sure the fact that Zinnia is a darker skinned woman (as opposed to the the blonde hair and pale skin of the others) has nothing to do with it. [/heavy sarcasm]

Anyway, this is a very long (and late) reply. I'm a very verbose person, haha. But thanks again, especially for giving me the chance to talk more about this; I appreciate it! 💜

[olderthannetfic]

I saw someone make a post, griping about being in a fandom where the juggernaut ship is two adults with a significant age difference, pointing out that when that’s the case, when there’s a canonical age gap, you don’t need to tag “age difference” on every single fic unless it’s actually relevant to the plot of the fic. They seemed to be specifically addressing a subset of fandom who thought that was necessary as a trigger warning, by saying that with a canonical age difference, everyone already knows anyway since they’d know it from the original show/video game/book/whatever; the ship itself is warning enough. Anyway, someone replied to that person saying that actually that is useful for them because they read a lot of fics fandom-blind so they don’t know and they find that kind of stuff upsetting. And I’m just like…….

I don’t really get the phenomenon of reading fanfic “fandom blind” anyway unless it’s like a friend’s fic, but I think if you do that you cannot expect authors to accommodate that. A lot of fanfiction is, after all, transformative and some kind of commentary on the preexisting work, and a lot of the best fanfic requires a lot of knowledge of the original work to fully appreciate it. Those works would be lesser if the authors were overly wrapped up in accommodating “fandom blind” readers. Like, do whatever you want obviously, to each their own it’s just a fun hobby, etc. but the entitlement in “you should tag your fic with me in mind, person who hasn’t watched the show” is mind-boggling to me. It’s like going to see a sequel to a movie and being mad that some plot point didn’t make sense to you because it was drawing on something from the first movie. It’s not the fault of the creator if they made something for a particular audience that doesn’t include you.

--

Also, if I'm catering to most "fandom blind" readers, it's by tagging 'tentacles' or 'sex pollen'.

If you're here for your kinks, I expect you to put on your big kid panties and deal with your squicks.

[bonesandthebees]

Hi again Bee.

Thank you for lending an ear to listen even if I just kinda showed up. I really appreciate it. I've actually been reading through some of your other stories and they're very good (I adore the fae works!).

When it comes to Wilbur, I'm just. Very disappointed and upset. Of course I support Shubble and am glad she spoke out, it's very important and I'm glad that it's encouraged others to come forward with their own stories of abuse at the hands of large creators. At the same time though part of me wishes she hadn't said anything, so I could have continued as I was, in blissful ignorance, even if I feel really guilty for thinking like that.

It just saddens me that someone I looked up to so much ended up being this horrible person. It makes me worried that I too am bad, that somehow he has imprinted his awfulness unto me. I used to be horrible too. I like to think I've grown as a person, I was only a kid, but have I? Or was being drawn to Wilbur a sign? Like attracting like?

Y'know, I used to say that my hair style goals were how Wilbur's hair is, and recently I got a haircut. When I took a shower earlier it ended up floofing up in a similar way to his. I don't know how to feel about that. Maybe I should style it differently, even though I like the floof. I don't want to be even a little reminiscent of an abuser.

I am reminiscent of him though, in ways I can't change. I used to feel so seen by him, we're both song writers, and hypochondriacs, and I wanted to be him so badly I would cry. I would cry because he was everything I desperately craved to be as an insecure transmasc, an attractive guy with a beautiful voice and an amazing life. And now he's horrible, and probably always has been, and all of my memories of him are tainted.

I hate that I can't listen to Lovejoy anymore. It feels unfair to the other band members. It isn't their fault Wilbur is awful, and yet I'm taking away a source of their income. I know I'm taking away from Wilbur too, but he's only one person out of the group. Maybe that's just me giving an excuse so that I won't have to stop enjoying their music. It doesn't matter, I can't stomach listening to them anymore anyways.

I keep getting songs from YCGMA stuck in my head. It's like now that I can't listen to it anymore my brain has decided to fuck with me by making me listen to it anyways. I can't even justify listening to that album, that's just Wilbur's music. I was going to cover a song from that album for fun. Now I can't.

Is it bad I still find comfort in Wilbur as a character? C!Tommy is my favorite, but C!Wilbur is almost always a huge part of any C!Tommy story and I love C!Wilbur stories too. I know C! ≠ CC! but I just. It's complicated.

Idek why I'm this upset. I haven't been an avid watcher of anyone in the DSMP in at least over a year. If anything this whole thing has brought me back into the fandom more than I have been in ages. I feel bad about that, but also this situation has introduced me to people like Aimsey, whose content I'm seeing more of and I find myself enjoying.

I've also found more great DSMP fics lately in my quest to binge read them before the mass deletions start. Is it bad to find good things in a bad situation?

I'm sorry for the lack of put togetherness and the length of this ask. I promise I'm usually more coherent and to the point.

-Tech (just call me Tech like a name, "tech anon" feels weird heh)

hey tech, sorry for a bit of a late reply I've been busy the past few days

(sorry about the 'tech anon' thing, it's just a habit since that's how I refer to most of my anons. I'm going to still tag your ask as tech anon though just for my tagging system if that's okay)

I'm so glad you like the fae stories!! I'm still so proud of both of those looking back on them

anyway, yeah, I get that. I get the guilty wish that none of this had ever come out so you could just continue to go on in blissful ignorance. when someone learns something very upsetting, it's only natural to feel like you wish you never learned that. you don't need to feel guilty for that. you're not a bad person for your emotional reactions to things. your actions are what matters.

also, you are in no way a bad person because you were drawn to wilbur's content. the persona wilbur put on for the internet was not representative of who he actually was. you were drawn to the facade. an illusion of the person wilbur could've been, if he actually practiced the things he preached. you said you used to be a bad person, but you've changed. the fact that you are worried at all that you might still be bad shows a level of self-awareness and concern that wilbur apparently did not have. because wilbur was aware he was a bad person and treated the people around him terribly, but he didn't care to try and be better. as long as you're trying to be better, you're already leagues ahead of him.

also, regarding the hair, the floofy fringe is an incredibly common haircut. that is not exclusive to wilbur soot. you do not look like him if your hair does the floof similarly to his, it just makes you look like thousands of other dudes with fluffy fringe.

the day after shelby first streamed I had an MSR song stuck in my head and I hated it so much. it really sucks. you just have to try and drown it out with other music

it's not hypocritical at all to still find comfort in c!wilbur. I know it's complicated, and there's so much discussion I could get into as to why it's so complicated, but we can all separate the guy and the character in our heads. there's no reason to feel guilty about that. and there's also nothing bad about finding good in this situation. I think it's really sweet that you've found so many great fics in this time and I'm so glad you've been getting comfort from them. you're appreciating the authors hard work and that's a good thing! you don't need to feel bad about that

I hope you're doing okay tech

[stormyoceans]

no because the things i'm reading about it are actually insane, i've learned my lesson and i barely go into the tags anymore or am in tumblr that much for that matter but the things some people are saying about tae are so mean lol... people are just so entitled my god. i don't know if you agree but finding joy outside of fandom is easier and easier every day, for some shows specifically you're better off enjoying it on your own ANYWAY just wanted to let you know that i feel the same way

honestly i always expected this storyline to bring up a fair amount of questionable comments because unfortunately a very big part of fandom (and im talking about any fandom) has a very black and white kind of mentality, which most of the times means that when something like this happens in a show they try to fully put the blame on one character while lifting others from all responsibility, but that's not how it works, in life first of all, but also when it comes to stories

people saying tae deserved to be cheated on are wild to me, but tbh also are those who keep demonizing bahmee, a 21 years old girl who is coming to terms with the fact that maybe her relationship doesn't work while realizing that maybe she also wasn't as straight as she thought she was AND was drunk when she kissed judy. and like don't get me wrong, im not excusing her for what she did (although i don't like people calling her names), but what caused all this was the complete lack of communication between her and tae, and they're BOTH at fault for this

and while i usually HATE cheating storylines, i personally find this one very well written in the way the miscommunication and mistakes is built on are actually very human. this is why i want to wait before judging the storyline as a whole, because i do think there's something worth telling here, about falling in love young and eventually growing up and apart and learning about oneself and hurting people and finding a new way to care about each other (whether romantically or platonically) and becoming better (especially since they're paralleling them with janeryan where jane is the king of communication and maturity)

and i can understand people judging judy because she definitely should have known better, but idk it's just hard for me not to sympathize with both tae and bahmee, and the narrative is also obviously working hard on trying to make us see where they're both coming from, so i do find some comments kinda out of place tbh ;;;;;;;;;

anyway. sorry this got way too long and im not sure i was able to properly explain my thoughts on this matter, and i also don't know if you're actually going to agree with them, but still. thank you for letting me know im not alone in this!!!!!!!!

[nartml]

it's not "entirely made up", which is the entire reason people are complaining lol have you seen what the fandom has done to the nazi allegory?

i agree that the people complaining are toxic, but also, a lot of the changes are both misogynistic and homophobic, and there's a lot of toxic masculinity and abusive romance tropes being romanticized, are people not allowed to call them out? representation is important, isn't it?

you literally tagged your post, adding to the toxicity

most new works follow the "new model" and people who write different things are harrassed (i've seen people be harrassed simply because they don't ship wolfstar). how are we supposed to change that if we don't call it out?

discourse in fandom is normal. you can just as easily follow your own advice and not read it/block it.

Y'all are quick lmao

Okay, okay, so, to get the easy stuff out the way:

I unfortunately made another hasty post, I didn't elaborate enough, that's definitely on me.

In my defense, it's 2:30am, I need to be up in five hours at the latest, and I saw the fifth post hating on jegulus and/or other fun parts of the fandom that I genuinely cannot find anything objectively problematic about.

I got pissed.

I tagged my post, and I agree that I further fueled the discourse.

This has been something that I've done before, unfortunately. I'm used to thinking of tags as part of screaming into the void, I'll be sure to erase them after this.

But as you said, it's normal for there to be discourse in fandom.

And honestly, that's what I usually do. Ignore it. Like I do with a lot of things I don't agree with on the internet.

I don't remember contributing to this whole ordeal before tbh, and I've been here for a decent amount of time.

But I got so ticked off, I wanted to get it off my chest for once.

Lost my grip there, but I honestly didn't think too deeply about it.

Anyway, yes, yes, obviously it's not entirely made up. We have the HP series, aka the source material, in which we do see quite a bit of Remus and Sirius.

I was more referring to the fact that every single other character in the marauders era, is, in fact, made up.

It's undeniable that, despite the bits and pieces we've heard throughout the books, we can't possibly have any sort of concrete understanding of how these characters were during their Hogwarts days, before the war.

Not only because the bits and pieces don't in any way make up a whole picture, but also because some of them might've been entirely unreliable.

So these characters; younger Remus and Sirius, as well as James, Peter, Lily, Regulus etc etc etc, have more or less been crafted on very arbitrary ideas.

They are made up, and very rarely reconcilable to their adult counterparts, which makes sense from several standpoints. (E.g. their canon characters have been severely beaten down and traumatized. AUs take place in entirely different settings; the context changes entirely, and so do the characters)

Now, as for the nazi allegory, I assume you're referring to a) morons who are glorifying the death eater tattoo (jesus christ), or b) the 'Slytherin Skittles'?

In b's case, I'd wager it started with Regulus and the potential to explore the Black Family dynamics, which then escalated to giving him his own friend group and creating entertaining dynamics between them.

However, I genuinely do not see the harm in this.

It hardly matters that they're canonically deaths eaters, or that they were most likely blood supremacists and horrible people; or whatever else could've been going on with them.

They were so barely mentioned in the actual story. Doesn't matter what effect their existence had on the story and how it served the narrative, because they were barely ever directly there.

We know next to nothing for fact. So it's next to impossible for most people to care for their actions in canon, and just see them as blank canvases.

I can't really fault them for that.

People project whatever they want on characters that are firmly established and thoroughly explored; characters that are borderline non-existent are free real estate.

And yes, changes can totally be problematic.

A prime example is definitely the hyperfeminization of Sirius, to make wolfstar fit the classic heteronormativity that plagues queer ships.

As for the romanticization of abusive romance tropes, I honestly have never seen it.

I mean, I hear people complaining about it, but I swear to fuck, it feels like you guys are fighting ghosts sometimes 😭

Either it's a part of the fandom I've somehow steered clear of, despite being balls deep in it, or some people are exaggerating, which isn't out of the realm of possibility, but I kind of doubt that's the case.

As for toxic masculinity, again, I literally haven't seen it. Hand to my heart, scout's honour, I have not.

Hyperfeminization? Definitely.

Toxic masculinity? Macho men? Written in any context that's not challenging it, and is promoting it? Nope.

Representation is important, and that was the other part my post was based on.

I've seen people hate on the liberties others have taken to explore gender through these characters, which ticked me off even more.

And this is coming from a cis individual, who doesn't really fuck with he/they Sirius, they/them James, etc etc.

I don't think that there's any harm in people creating/enjoying content that is representative of their struggles/experiences with gender (or any other part of life).

Exactly because in the marauders fandom, characters are incredibly flexible, for aforementioned reasons.

Blank canvases, remember?

Usually this hate, from what I've seen, comes from people who prefer sticking to the canon part of this whole story.

In which case, totally, the 'new model' is very. Very. Unrealistic.

(There are definitely harmful headcanons out there. Even within this context, there also exists content that fetishizes the very thing I just defended. But I physically can't sit here and list off every problematic thing that has happened in this fandom. I don't have the energy. And that's not what the post is about anyway)

-"People who write different things are harassed".

Yes, glad that you get my point, even though I obviously didn't get it across.

This goes both ways. This goes all ways. Yeah, people who don't ship wolfstar get hate.

But people who headcanon Regulus as trans get it too.

People who prefer Jily get hate.

But jegulus shippers have their hands full as well.

People giggling over silly headcanons that are honestly just that: silly; can't catch a break.

What was that, you like the new model? Here's all the ways I think it sucks ass.

Oh, you prefer canon? What a loser, you're in the wrong fandom.

Ultimately, the joy gets drained out of everything.

This is meant to be fun. This is meant to be a break from real life stress.

It's not meant to leave you exhausted because you're too busy apologizing about not taking something too seriously, or defending your ship preferences.

In the end, however, I obviously get what you're saying. There are harmful changes that deserve to be pointed out.

But I never said that they didn't. Calling out the notions that are inherently problematic when perpetuated is important.

Constructive criticism is welcome. It's crucial. It only adds, it deepens people's understanding of media and brings attention to problematic aspects of certain interpretations.

That's not what I was referencing in my original post; at least, not intentionally.

I was talking about how so many people love to mindlessly complain about things they don't like, without actually bringing up any substantial points.

The only goal is to tear other people down.

As we've agreed, some of these changes are problematic.

But so is the way some people convey their disagreements.

Some of y'all use your complaints about new character developments to also hide your general prejudice against something.

Like, there's no need to get this heated over genderfluid Sirius.

In this particular instance, it's because the general concept of the 'new model' is pretty mainstream, so it's hard to avoid it. So I know that I'm being a bit unfair when I say, 'ignore it'

Ignoring it is rarely easy though, no matter how mainstream or minor.

It should be, because logically this is all fictional and it doesn't matter if someone dislikes your OTP, or if you think someone's hc is painfully unrealistic.

But we can't help it. It's impossible to care about how fictional something is when it means so much to us.

And seeing something antithetical to our interpretation can feel like some sort of personal attack, even when it's really not.

Part of it also stems from how, when you see fifty other people throwing in their two cents, you also want to.

Because it's a base instinct to want to be heard.

All that said, ignoring it, despite the circumstances, is often the best way to go, because a lot of the time it can be irrational.

Hating on someone because they don't like your ship can be irrational.

Starting a fight over someone's differing interpretation of a character can be irrational.

Think critically before you speak, and be careful when phrasing your points.

Being respectful is crucial, and if you're not getting the same courtesy, then stepping back is the smarter choice.

I'm still working on always maintaining these things myself.

I've been doing a bang-on job, broadly speaking.

I had a slight moment of weakness earlier :P

(For those wondering, I took the og post down. It wasn't anything tragic, I just said that most people who complain about the fandom's toxicity actively contribute to it when they hate on stuff others enjoy.

In the tags I went off a bit, my ultimate points being that the fun is often sucked out of everything, and that if I personally don't like something, I avoid it, stick to my stuff, and don't venture into others' spaces if I'm not willing to be open minded.

But I was definitely more aggressive with the delivery, which was my bad. I hate it when I break my own rules on how I want to behave on here.)

Anyway, so sorry for this long rant, and sorry if I've missed something or made a bad/harmful point. I'm borderline asleep.

And it's now 4:10am and I got too absorbed in this *sigh*

[twiceasfrustrating]

For a request

Could you do Diavolo/Lucifer angst where they are arguing and Satan and Belphie overhears

Rating: General Audiences

Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply

Category: Gen

Fandom: Shall We Date?: Obey Me!

Relationships: 

Characters: Diavolo, Lucifer, Belphegor, Satan

Additional Tags: angst, pre-exchange program, that means these brothers are dysfunctional, swearing 

Summary: Belphegor overhears Lucifer and Diavolo talking about the upcoming exchange program -- or rather, his reaction to it.

A/N: I'm taking a few liberties with this one because it gave me an idea.

"-talk to him."

"His issues are past the point of talking.  If he's left to his own devices he'll sabotage the entire program."

"He's a child acting out. He serves no threat to-"

"Lucifer!" Diavolo barked. "He may be your youngest brother, but he is not a child. His words and actions have consequences and he cannot avoid them."

"Please," Lucifer begged in a voice so quiet it barely seeped through the cracked door, "give me the chance to talk to him before you make a decision. I'll convince him to change his mind."

"You won't, but I would never deny my old friend the right to try." Diavolo's sigh was too exaggerated and heavy. "You have a week to convince him. After that, I'll consider his words and actions to be treason and I'll deal with him accordingly."

"I understand…"

Belphie didn't stick around long enough to hear the rest of the conversation, slipping away the second he heard Diavolo's footsteps coming toward the door. He didn't need to hear more than he already had to know that they were talking about him and that Lucifer wasn't willing to stand up for him against Diavolo. Sure, he'd paid the idea lip service by asking Diavolo to reconsider, but it was to give him more time to sway Belphie to their ideology rather than understand his own. 

It was clear Lucifer wouldn't be standing up for him against his precious prince . 

"You look awful."

Belphegor turned his head from where he was sitting in a daze upon the unmade bed in the guestroom.

Satan was standing in the open doorway, staring at where his younger brother sat with an unreadable expression. 

"Shut up," Belphie said curtly.

Satan's face twisted into a disconcerting smile that was clearly hiding his boiling rage at his brother's sharp, insolent tongue. "I wasn't planning to talk anyway. I was just going to remind you to stay out of that room before Lucifer catches you snooping around." He shrugged. "Then again, you'd probably like having that prick on your ass."

He was the baby brother , after all. Lucifer spoiled him to no end and Belphie readily accepted it.

"Fuck Lucifer," Belphie spit out.

Satan raised a single eyebrow at his brother. "Did you two have a fight or something?"

"No." He wished it was just a fight. Fights happened all the time in families, but you could get past them. Feeling betrayed by someone you cared about and claimed to care about you though? That cut deeper. "I finally saw him for what he is."

Satan looked skeptical for a brief moment, but seemed to accept that someone else in the house finally understood his hatred of Lucifer.

"Will you leave me alone now?"

"Whatever." Satan shrugged. "Have fun with whatever you're upset about. If you're still angry at Lucifer later, feel free to find me. There are way more options to ruin his life if there are two of us now."

As Satan's footsteps faded into the distance, Belphie collapsed onto the unmade bed. 

Soon there would be a human Belphegor didn't want sleeping in this very place. Their vile stench would seep into the fabric and cling to every possible thing. The thought made his muscles twitch and lips curl back in a snarl. 

How dare they welcome a human into his home. It was their fault that his sister was gone and he seemed to be the only one that remembered that anymore. Even Lucifer had forgotten the agony of her loss, but Belphie never could.

The human hadn't come yet and he was already cursing their very existence. If he had his way, they would know just how much he despised them. They would lament ever having been born. He would see to that.

[bubacorn]

alright, so this is gonna be so cheesy, but i wanna make a post with some of my favorite ST fics i've written this year, if for nothing else, just to remind myself that i can arrange words around, and they can come out half-decent. so, yeah, sorry in advance to anyone who has to see this, i wouldn't dare put the fandom fanfic tag on this, this is only for my dear followers, you are lovely, i apologize if this appears on your dash.

Come Beside Me (This Won’t Hurt I Swear) okay, so i remember being so in love with the last part, especially the whole morning sunlight thing. that was (is?) my favorite piece of writing at that point (which really wasn't hard, cause there wasn't much to pick from yet)

God Gives His Toughest Flus to His Sleepiest Vessels this is just pure mush, but stubborn sick Vessel being taken care of is very close to my heart

And I Don’t Wanna Get in Your Way this all started with the "Get comfortable" "I am" and the "You're allowed to take up space". in my mind, they're watching either The Matrix or John Wick at the end for some reason

I Got Problems Down in My Bones gods, this one. the little parts just wrote themselves and there was this common thread between them and i loved this one so much (still do). there's some pieces of me in this and it makes me feel sad, but seen that people related to this one (i love you, i hope you're doing well)

I Will Shield You from the Waves, if They Find You this is very sweet and all, but i always think of it more as sad

Break and Bend to My Basic Need didn't plan on writing this, but the brainworms made me and then it turned out kinda good

It’s All Your Fault, Even When You Don’t Mean To this. this and the next one are twin fics for me, i always think of them in pairs (probably cause i wrote them back-to-back). can't articulate, but it's also very close to my heart. IV holding the back of Vessel's head and wiping his tears and making him feel worth it make me feel very normal, i almost feel like it wasn't me who wrote it

This Is the Start of Something this!!! i made them watch worst cooks in America cause why not. this one's also very close to my heart, definitely one of my favorites i've ever written

I’m Frantic in Your Soothing Arms okay, the implication that Vessel knows nothing makes the transformation easier from his own experience suffering, but he still tries anyway, cause he would take a tummy ache from III without hesitation, if he could. also, rubbing his stomach is just so intimate and he's so desperate to help, even though he knows he can't, but still tries. and Vessel calling III 'my heart' and 'my III' just came to me and they made me lose my mind so of course i had to include them. feeling very normal about this one, too

And the Pain Still Hates Me for some reason i love the base idea of this, i don't even know how it appeared in my head, but i'm so glad it did. blowing kisses was a last-minute addition, also didn't know where that came from, but it's so cute

And Honey, I Only Appeared So I Can Fade Away this one! i had half an idea for this and like one sentence typed in, then just started writing and i loved writing this, it was so much fun and i adore the end product, one of my favorites. now that i'm thinking, maybe i could expand on this

I Believe I’m Not Alone this was kinda based on one of those posts that was like 'you deserve to be loved and chosen, not almost loved and almost chosen' and my brain went 'Vessel!' and then i wrote this. again, pieces of me, pieces of him

Come Squeeze the World and Drip It Down My Throat Again i was a bit afraid with this one, cause i felt it was a little clumsy (?), with the way the smaller parts revolved around a main idea but weren't all very closely connected. but gods, i made my own heart hurt with this one a lot. also, love this title, some of my favorite lyrics. loaded with layers of trauma, but it's very dear to me

I’m Doing What I Must, Which Is Attempting to Kill the Little Boy Inside (But as Hard as I Try, the Child Will Not Die) again, loosely compiled together around an idea, but this took a shorter time to write i think. it flowed well for me, and again, it hurt right in my meow-meow, but i love this a lot. also, the title just wouldn't leave me alone and i wanted to use it for something and i felt that this was a perfect fit. then at the last moment i added a parallel, cause my brain thought it would be nice. i have to say, it is

okay, so this is just pure self-indulgent rambling about my Sleep Token fics, but writing gave me a lot these past months and i really love it and still have ideas that i wanna share. huge, huge thank you to everyone who's read anything i wrote, left kudos and comments, you are wonderful, i hope you are doing okay! 💕 drop by my dms/tag me if you want to yell at me or something

not gonna say have a great next year or anything like that, cause i don't like making a big deal out of the beginning of a year, as it just puts pressure on it and that's so unnecessary. have a lovely day, i hope you got some rest and could do something you enjoy and i wish all the best to you! see you around! 💖

[witheredoffherwitch]

Find it very funny how someone with a handle that shows they very clearly can’t stand Aemond as a character replied to tumblr comments made from a YEAR ago claiming that the showrunners can’t do anything in adapting alysmond’s relationship or add any sort of complexity that takes away from the fact that their relationship is not consensual and he is a r*pist. “No amount of pet names or cute moments will change that.” They are so unbelievably incapable of critical thought towards fiction. It’s unbelievable how they attack anyone who sees a FICTIONAL DYNAMIC as compelling and interesting. They had the audacity to accuse someone of “victim-blaming” for thinking Alys genuinely wanted to be with him of her own free will. You can absolutely recognize their circumstances were problematic but that does NOT mean people who enjoy dark pairings in media condone r*pe and to insinuate that is honestly disgusting. They even have “alysmond shipper? go kys” in their bio 💀 Imagine going that far because someone enjoys the possibility of a haunted romance. Just insane.

OMG 💀💀

I haven't seen this blog yet but there's a good possibility that I am already blocked by this individual... since my own blog doesn't shy away from showcasing my explicit biases for certain characters and their ships lol.

That being said, how FUCKING sad?? I totally get not liking a popular character or one of their ships, but to go out and make an entirely new blog dedicated to posting/reblogging 'anti- X' tags is so beyond ridiculous! It's a work of FICTION we're talking about here; how can another person's opinions really affect your own well-being? Asking people to KYS over a ship/character is the epitome of LOSER behaviour. I do consider myself a TG sympathizer, but I CANNOT imagine myself enjoying a fandom without my lovely moots who certainly don't align with my tastes or biases. That's why I try not to use anti- tags in my posts, opting instead for pro- ones which better represent my stance on a topic/discussion.

Anyway, I would just ask y'all to let them be! It's everyone's right to curate a fandom experience to their own liking. While I don't like my own experience to be this isolated, I can't fault anyone else looking to have their own 'exclusive' fandom experience.

That's all! 🤗

[29daffodils]

9 Fandom Peeps to Get to Know Better

Augghh I love these games! thank you for tagging me Mickey 🥺🌸(@thisautistic)

3 Ships You Like :

1. Yohan/Moogyeong from The Shape of Your Love (manhwa by Park Nodeok)

this is my ultimate OTP. i never had OTPs before them. they'll be my rise and fall. but yeah, anyway. they. my boys.

2. Vegas/Pete from KinnPorsche The Series

they had me by the throat even before i knew kpts existed and just, well. then i watched kpts and found them and they were everything i hoped for and more. a lot of it is also because vegas and i are very much alike without the mass murder aspect 😂

3. Alan/Gaipa from Moonlight Chicken

listen, MLC is like, the best thing i've watched in a while and alangaipa gave me what i had been craving since yohan/moogyeong c. 2019 : a small rare/ghost ship with barely any screentime but that hooked people in worldwide. firstkhao's acting was just bonus. alangaipa represent everything that i want from my own life. i couldn't not love them.

First Ship Ever :

Kanata/Miyu from Da!Da!Da!

oh, these two. i was head over heels in love with them. i shipped them even when i didn't know that shipping existed or what it meant, when we didn't even have anime on TV besides the broadcast on SONY at 5pm sometimes. i just wanted them in love and happy and raising a kid together. ugh i miss them.

Last Song You Heard :

The Moon Represents My Heart, by the Moonlight Chicken cast! God do I love this song so much! It fits all the ships so well! The lyrics are gold! (I also recently found that this is a cover of the OG by Teresa Teng and that's even more beautiful??)

(also, this has been helping me visualize and write a lot of sand/ray, surprisingly enough.)

Favorite Childhood Book :

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

ahhh, well, this is embarassing. i didn't have a favourite book until adulthood actually. and it's my only favourite (as in something i've read time and again). i don't think i'll ever find another book like this one. this is it for me. nothing can ever top this. (yes, I'm very picky about my favourites lmao)

Currently Reading :

i found out this fic exists because of twitter discourse lmao, and I'm not even a dramione fan, i'll probably never read another work, but goddamn, the writing was stellar. lived up to all that hype. good stuff. (I'm almost at the end so wish me luck!)

Currently Watching :

Our Dining Table

no offence to those who love this, i loved the manga when i read it years ago, but lord was i bored to death even on the second trial at watching this lol. I'm soldiering on though, i'll get through this!

Currently Consuming :

Thai BLs

uhh... not sure what answer this demands actually, so, uhhh... lots of thai BL i guess? that's really what i've been consuming lately. i had never watched thai BLs before KPTS in 2023 so it's eye opening, they've gotten better ( i tried once before , quite a while back when a friend recommended, and i found it ridiculous so i never thought i'd actually ever watch any again lol, mostly because i never was a fan of live action BL dramas in general)

Currently Craving :

💵💵💵💵

well, i'll be honest here, money is vital and that's what I'm craving lol, i gotta feed myself and my cats and pay a 50k laptop repair bill that my company thrust on me even though it's not my fault it's damaged. anyway, essentially I'm experiencing financial doom among other unfortunate events, so here's your chance to commission a fic or donate at my KOFI so...... haha.

alright, this was super fun! I'm tagging @skyfish7 @semantics-error @justfionn @boyslovecorner @peachym00 @lilitblaukatz @ae-azile

(please feel free to ignore if you're feeling up to it!)

[archaic-grey]

an apology? kind of?

okay . wow. so! i recently made a post asking why a lot of jasico shippers were adults and it kind of . blew up in my face. a bit. and a lot of people made some very good points!! so i am going to address all of it cause i'd feel bad just. ignoring it? and also to explain a bit of my internal thoughts relating to . all of it. just for more clarity.

so. i think the biggest issue people had with what i was saying was that i was uncomfortable with adults shipping minor characters. that has not changed. that is still something that is a bit weird to me. however, that wasn't me trying to outright imply they were pedos????? that is. a very serious accusation and not something i would throw around lightly, especially in this context. like. i get why you would think that. but that was in no way what i was trying to say there. its just something that is weird to me. & im sorry that i wasn't clear enough while expressing that.

i am a minor, which is probably evident by now, and adults in fandom spaces are FINE. i will always support their right to interact with the fans of medias they enjoy. while i personally don't really feel comfortable with them interacting with me, esp in the context of shipping, i am fine with their existence. they can do whatever they want within reason obviously.

also, my intent with my original post was in NO WAY to start discourse or arguments or make anyone feel attacked or uncomfortable. it was just a phenomenon i had noticed and wanted to make like . a bit of a joke about. i seriously did not expect this many people to see it & react the way they did. however i get why you all got defensive, i would have felt the same if i was in your place.

some people seemed almost confused as to why i thought all jasico shippers were adults. um . again that phrasing was mostly a joke. but clearly i do not interact with you guys that much & most of the jasico shippers i have interacted with have been adults . so yk. i generalized you guys a bit. which was entirely my fault & has to do with my own flaws and issues that i am working on. and i am sorry !!!!!!!

to continue on with how my own flaws & issues have impacted this whole . situation: i like having reasons for things. i like it when people can explain their reasoning behind things and i like to be able to explain why i feel a certain way or had a certain opinion so like . idk i guess part of why i cant let myself just not like jasico is because of that. cause nothing is Wrong with jasico. and i know that, so i don't understand why i don't like it??? so like . im trying to find reasons and stuff to explain it to myself and others. if that makes sense??? its like . a really shitty explanation but i am genuinely sorry that my own issues resulted in this whole mess.

anyways . hope that sufficiently gave a bit of explanation for this whole thing? i would like to politely ask that anyone who wishes to continue discussing this either send me an ask or pm me, i don't really want to start any more drama or anything in my reblogs haha.

and once again, i'm really sorry. i'll be deleting my original posts in a couple hours just because this is stressing me out a bit & i don't want them to continue to be a breeding ground for discourse.

thank you all!

(will be tagging everyone who has reblogged or commented here just so they can see this. apologies if you are uncomfortable with being tagged in discourse.)

@paddooo @i-am-triple-a @elvirie @evergardenwall @iamonlyatiger @via-rant @my-apollo-gies (love your username btw) @hammyletto @seulgishaku @jinxed-lemon @decemebercircus @yonemurishiroku

[white-light-on-my-prism]

Tagged by my fav moots who I'm not even sure are real cause they're too good to be true @mebiselfandi @thesupermegahell

rules: share the first lines of your ten most recent fanfics and tag ten people. if you have written less than ten, don't be shy and share anyways.

Okay so... while I have written more than 10 fanfics in my lifetime, very few of them are Neymessi, because I've only recently started writing about them. So I'll share lines from those, along with the link and name and pairing, but if I find any other excerpts from fanfics I've written for different fandoms, and they make sense without context, I'll just dump them here without any additional information. Fair warning though, a few of my fanfics are poems, a format people usually don't use for fanfics, so bear with me.

1. you put me on and said I was your favourite — Neymessi.

2010. A friendly against Brazil's biggest football rival, Argentina. Yet, that was the farthest thing from Neymar's mind, as it was currently occupied in its full capacity by the player, or as he'd describe, the magician of his dreams, Lionel Messi.

The man was a miracle, and, as always, Neymar was mesmerised. Messi's pale cheeks flushed red from the sun, his long hair swinging with every swift turn of his, his legs changing directions at lightning speed, the ball glued to his feet as if in reverence. Neymar couldn't believe a mortal had it in them to be so beautiful. Football was already art to him, but Messi's existence, perhaps, was his final bit of proof.

2. Wait for me, will you? — Neymessi.

Rolling river, running stream

I'm a helpless rock on top of a hill

Your current draws me swirling in

Yet I push against its way.

What will other people say?

3. Exile — Neymessi.

Neymar had never put much stock in the inner workings of the colour white. He could vaguely recall from sixth standard, learning something about white light falling on a prism and exploding in rainbow hues. Neither was he the one for academics, nor was his family the one for rainbows, so all he had known, all he had ever seen with those iridescent eyes of his, was life in black and white. The patterns on his childhood football, the one true love of his life, were drawn in the same twin colours. Then why was he, in that one wretched evening, finding the same opposing tints holding his throat so brutally to a knife?

The 30th of June, 2017.

4. 3 times Anto sees the flower blossom (+1 time she waters the plant :)) — Neymessi.

Antonela is standing, unsuspecting, on the sidelines of the Barcelona training ground, calmly enjoying the spring breeze, when a football hits her smack on the face.

Her vision turns black and her legs give away in a wobbly fashion for the slightest moment, before she locks eyes with her offender while still face down on the ground.

"Leo, you bobo, watch where you're hitting!"

Leo jogs up to her and gives her a hand, but Anto slaps hard on his palm, and gets up on her own.

"Not my fault if you're standing in the way, I'm just trying to play football."

5. It was dark.

The inherent calm of the misty night air was turned restless by the buzzing sound of crickets.

Festive lights had been switched off, so had the lamps in every room of the household. Hardly anyone, however, had been able to fall asleep. Only one tiny bulb shone downstairs, in the guest room, where two police officers clad in uniform sat upright in a chair and on the bed, cautiously sipping water from soiled steel glasses. <name redacted> presently stood with a tray in her hand, waiting for the men to return her their tumblers.

"Thank you", they said unanimously while placing their glasses on the tray.

"Thank you my foot", she mumbled under her breath on her way out of the room.

6. Fuck. I was hearing voices in my head again. The lines between truth and fallacies never felt more blurred. And here I was, caught between them both, trying to pick up the last pieces of my crumbling self esteem behind the closed doors of an empty washroom.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Face full of badly done make-up, smeared with tears; one eyeliner wing looking way different than the other.

7. Long before I knew you

I had gotten used to life in an armour.

Living in a tower, all bricks and concrete

No paint, no lawns, no light, no wind.

All alone.

"Alone's good," I had convinced myself,

Betrayal not likely in a one man army...

But then, I met you.

8. Breaths were coming in short gasps as our faces were inches apart. His black eyes were gleaming blue under some tinted light.

What were words? My head wondered.

All I could see were his soft lips, all I could feel was the prick of his light stubble under my fingertips.

"<name redacted>... I think I love you."

A teardrop or two brimmed on his waterline. A few more creases formed on his forehead.

Just as my right hand dropped from his face, I felt a loss of grip on my waist.

Sooner than I could process, his hold on my left hand tightened and his other hand grabbed me by my shirt.

He stood on his tip toes and planted his lips on mine.

I THINK THAT'S ALL I'LL DUMP HERE! Not tagging anyone because I'm late to this challenge as it is, so all my dearies must have already made this post if they wanted to. But if you didn't yet and you're seeing this, you're tagged! Thanks for reading, hope you had fun. I know I certainly did🧚‍♀️

[tokiro07]

What does your "fouryearsandaanime" tag means?

I'm pretty sure I've mentioned it before, but you all know I love to hear myself talk, so I'm happy to go over it again!

It's a reference to Community, a sitcom about a community college, wherein one character Abed is a major film and TV buff. In one episode, he was obsessed with a show called The Cape, a short-lived real-world superhero show. When Abed pulls a The Cape-themed prank on main character Jeff, Jeff yells "that show's going to last three weeks!" to which Abed replies "six seasons and a movie!"

Ultimately Jeff's prediction wouldn't be too far off the mark, the show getting 10 episodes out of a planned 13 before its cancelation, but the Community fandom adopted the #sixseasonsandamovie slogan when fears arose that Community would be canceled. If I recall, there were several points where it got close to or even did get canceled, but when NBC canceled it after season 5, Yahoo picked it up for streaming for a sixth season and is ostensibly planning to release the movie this year. Perhaps I should catch up on the last season before that...

Anyway, I've definitely mentioned this before, but I am of the opinion that the optimal run-time for a Shonen Jump manga is four years, with three years often being unsatisfactory and anything beyond five years being diminishing returns (not naming names but I can think of plenty of manga that should have ended waaay earlier). It's not impossible for a shorter series to be good (Death Note ran for only two years) and of course there are plenty of longer-running series that maintain their quality (One Piece being the most obvious instance)

Some of my all-time favorites, Medaka Box and Majin Tantei Nougami Neuro, as well as fan favorites Demon Slayer and Assassination Classroom all had approximately four-year runs and had some of the best endings I've seen in Jump's lineup. Of course there are exceptions, like Promised Neverland's extremely rushed final arc and Nurarihyon's unfortunately timed cancelation (it needed at least one more year to tell the story it wanted to, but it wasn't performing well enough to get the chance outside of a quarterly run in Jump Giga), but like I said, this is just my opinion anyway and an empirical study would likely find fault with my logic

Of course, "andananime" refers to getting an anime, which is effectively the bare minimum requirement for a manga to be considered successful. The manga industry is surprisingly niche, with the more generalized audience only really being aware of it because of anime. More often than not, fans are introduced to manga through their anime adaptations, not the other way around. Attack on Titan and Demon Slayer both performed fine on their own, but their anime adaptations are what allowed them to skyrocket to success. Even the Demon Slayer anime was only performing decently for its first four months until episode 19 came out and set the internet on fire with one particularly well-animated sequence. No one was talking about it before then, and then suddenly it was a household name

Naturally, a bad adaptation won't draw in new readers, which I'm pretty sure is the reason Hinomaru Zumou still hasn't come stateside aside from the chapters that were run when MangaPlus started and got grandfathered in, but that's something only time will tell. For now, the fact that Undead Unluck has an anime announced at all means that the manga is selling well enough to warrant the investment that it takes to advertise it with an anime. I won't go into the economics of it, but the anime industry ain't cheap and requires a lot of different companies to come together to agree that something will be able to produce a return on investment, so making an anime out of a Jump property means that multiple people looked at it and said it was worth throwing money at

In short, #4y+1a is my way of saying I want a manga to succeed and reach a wide enough audience that I won't feel like I'm the only one who loves it. UU is halfway through its fourth year now, and will have an anime by the time it hits the four-year mark, and I've watched its fanbase grow from non-existent to consistently active (albeit small) since its inception, so for all intents and purposes, mission accomplished. CA is still in its infancy and has a much harder hill to climb since it's not a traditional Shonen action manga mixed with Nisio Isin's esoteric writing style, but the transition into this new battle-focused arc looks like it might be able to bolster it just enough to last until it has the chance to snowball into something...not big, but at least decently sized. It just needs to find its tribe, and #4y+1a is my rallying cry to help it do so

Will I use #4y+1a in the future? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on how well anything in the future grabs me. The author of Hinomaru Zumou has a new series starting in the next few weeks, so it's definitely possible! I probably won't start any new reviews, though; the candle's already lit at both ends, I don't have any more wicks to burn. Still, you can't help who you fall in love with, so if something new lights a fire in me, I'll have to find somewhere to put it!

[sisterdivinium]

Hi I'm AvMila anon. THANK YOU SO MUCH!! ❤️ AAAAAaaaaahhhhhhh sorry for screaming. But you inaugurating the Ava/Camila tag on ao3 with your own piece is just... It's top 5 one of the sweetest things someone has done for me. You truly looked at my crackship and said why not and went ahead and created the very first entry, and probably the only one lol, but that's so considerate. Thank you truly. I enjoyed it, and I loved DocSuperion's cameo. Jillian finding them cuddling and surely thinking to herself "well, aren't all of us at this house a little (a lot) fruity"

I read your elaboration on the "spam" thing. I get it now, I didn't understand what the issue was at first, but you explained it well. I have had something similar happen in other fandoms, I wasn't much into the main pairing and my ship was also just sort of floating around them as accessories to them. And yeah it's disappointing. It would be good and also kind of authors to mention, hey my main focus will be this ship or these 2 characters, all other tags point to support roles so they won't get much spotlight or development. Thank you again, you're very kind :) I loved what you wrote for my little crazy ship

Hello again!

Oh, I'm very, very happy to know that ficlet was to your liking <3 You're very much welcome.

I'm not exactly popular but hey, who knows, maybe someone else will look at it and get a little idea for a story to tell about Ava and Camila as well -- and perhaps give the tag a little push forward in the process. I hope so!

And, you know, I'd consider something like JC/Miguel more of a crackship than Ava/Cam. To me, only one out of those two pairings could have an internal logic with the correct build-up (although I wouldn't censor anyone willing to make JC/Miguel a thing, LOL. To each their own, but THAT's something I wouldn't touch!) I'm sure the avatrice diehards might disagree with me (and, to be fair, as a Jillian/Suzanne diehard, I'm myself irrationally protective of my OTP and wouldn't be caught near any other pairing that involved either Jillian or Superion -- I, too, have my childish shipping faults :)), but I can see something in there for Ava and Camila, it does makes sense. Even if just for a small little scene like the one I wrote -- why not, you know?

I sometimes wonder if people don't get a bit too attached to longfic. I imagine it has its charms, but as someone who prefers to write smaller but "tighter" stories, fooling around with other ships comes a lot easier. I'm not bound to a leviathan ninety-eight chapter story and can just play with different concepts in each little fic that comes to mind. And it's fun, what can I say? I had a blast writing Ava/Cam for you that day. It's not the greatest thing ever written in the history of English Literature, granted, but then it doesn't have to be which is a good reminder for myself as I struggle with my current doctor superion project... Ahem.

As for the "spam" deal, yeah, I thought it had just been miscommunication and you'd know what I meant if I just explained it a little better, so I'm glad that got cleared up as well. I don't think certain corners of the fandom will ever come across this series of posts that took place on my blog this week, so I'm not hopeful that the conversation will reach those it should reach as concerns tagging, but who knows. Fandoms were more organised once, perhaps they might again find it in their hearts to remember we don't all like the same things and that it would be a welcome courtesy to take us into consideration when tagging for alternative ships.

Anyway. Thanks for stopping by again! And let me reiterate how happy I am to know that you enjoyed my humble offering to your ship! <3