#not to get discourse-y on the dash but like. it's true

[hey-must-be-a-devilbetween-us]

Everyone seems to be jumping on this shitting on the writing of Good Omens 2 band wagon and I just...don't see it?

I mean I am a person who values my own opinion and taste, (knowing its definitely not for everyone, I have some acquired weirdness), I'm no scholar but I think I have a fair amount of media literacy, I've been to a few classes and in some advanced creative writing when I was in high school and I've just ya know, read a lot of books and a lot of books about writing so like...

Idk maybe I need to go back and watch it again with a more critical eye and less of a fanatical eye, but I've read Good Omens many times, and I've watched the first season many times, and to me S2 seemed to be pretty on-par with the quality of writing we've seen so far, nothing jumped out at me as low quality?

Its just a different kind of story, the stakes weren't as high, we're starting literally in the middle (you can see that without anyone having to tell us) and the expectations being built up of how close Crowley and Aziraphale have become in comparison to Gabriel and Beelzebub and Nina and Maggie, and maybe the subversion of 'oop they're actually getting split up' was maybe obvious, but wasn't it supposed to be? Isn't that what the bridge season 2 is supposed to be, leading to how they start the true sequel split up?

Sure it was very fanservice-y but that's because its...truly for the fans, I don't see anything wrong with that.

I think a lot of you guys aren't remembering that Good Omens was always a book built around two buddies sending each other bits and pieces of a story through a floppy disk in the mail with the express goal of making the other ring them on the phone to laugh until they cried.

Good Omens has always been pretty cheesy and punny and goofy and playing off 'wow being human is weird, lets put a lens on that' with a great dash of wit and sarcasm and affection in there, sure some bits are pretty exciting but that's just the bookends of all the lovely nonsense, but well crafted nonsense, like a fairy tale almost.

I'm not trying to start a flame war or anything (though I'm not anyone I doubt anyone will care), but I've seen a lot of posts mocking fans who enjoyed the second season and making fun of fans sending Neil Gaiman asks being all excited and just calling him and everyone who worked on it a shitty writer and idk it really brought down the party for me, seems a really...interesting take when there's a writers strike going on but idk I don't see why people have to be so mean and callous about our silly religion fanfiction show but that's probably expecting too much out of the internet.

That's not to say I'm gonna sit here and say you have to like it and think its perfect because that's silly, its not perfect, everyone has different tastes, and of course its okay to make jokes about writing goofs, people have been making fun of Good Omens in the Good Omens fandom since its publish date.

I just genuinely don't see the quality dip, it seems like the same Gaiman Pratchett-y Goodness I've known, just new and more of it, with more modern jokes.

If anyone wants to have some friendly discourse I might not always reply to this thread but my asks should be open I just wanna understand where everyone is coming from, if anyone has some insight on the consensus that its 'bad writing.'

[btsbs]

Not to sound too shipper-y (no harm in being one as well as long as is it's within boundaries and in good fun) but there's something that tugs at my heart when I see jimin and jungkook. And I've realised it's quite fun to go through the tags of rbs of gifsets by blogs who casually ship / appreciate these two. Much much more fun than trying to navigate the jikook tag on tumblr (which sometimes is just 💀). And your tags as always are so funny to go through!

SAME. The topics of shipping and jimin/jungkook are touchy subjects that many other people on the internet have discoursed about plenty. People can get so emotionally charged about it, and I get some of the reasons, but I also don't really care enough to fan the flames or go to battle over any of it. What is really going on, who knows and we most likely never will. It can be fun to speculate in the dusty corner of the internet that is tumblr but I'm here for whatever you want to think is true. I find the intimacy of their dynamic to be heartwarming and whether or not it's platonic doesn't really play into my ultimate enjoyment of them or where my imagination can take me. I do think boundaries are important though, fan stuff should stay in fandom places and everyone should be respecting the fourth wall.

I've never really used tags to search tumblr as a whole- I know some people do but I've usually found the content I'm interested in through my dash. I've always been a little worried one day someone will come to me and say 'how dare you put [thought] in the [ship] tag' but luckily it's never happened. It's definitely happened over tag thoughts....but not ship related ones at least. I tag things 100% for my own blog organization so I can find things later, not really to contribute to the official catalog of a ship discourse on tumblr but I guess I have unintentionally done that now. The fact that anyone has gone through a certain tag of mine to find my posts and comments on the matter is a high honor! So thank you to anyone who has done that, really.

[fierceawakening]

I think Tumblr is thankfully a little over its “people with NPD are smol beans uwu” phase (or maybe it’s just that I’ve finally filtered that cadre of people out and those left are a bit more friendly to “demonizing people is bad! Obvi! but there’s also a reason many people find people with those traits difficult to be in close relationships with,” which is pretty much where I am) but I am Thinking about something

Some of you know that I’ve been following the Ruby Franke child abuse case. Franke was a Mormon influencer and mommy vlogger who was popular but who many people worried was overly harsh with her kids to the point of abuse. She had a close associate named Jodi Hildebrandt who at the time was a licensed therapist.

One of her kids fled Jodi’s home and had been severely physically abused (tied up in such a way it left deep wounds which were then “treated” with cayenne pepper paste), blowing the whole thing wide open. Ruby and Jodi both were charged with aggravated child abuse and both pled guilty to four of six counts and are awaiting sentencing.

Anyway people have been following the story, and one thing that’s become very clear is that Jodi was a profoundly unethical therapist and has a history both of abusing kids and of ruining adult clients’ marriages. It’s a mess and a train wreck and very obvious when you look into Jodi that she had a kind of cult leader personality. (People suspected she wouldn’t plead guilty just because she’s SO rigid about her beliefs in the videos.) I know the one true way to help kids grow, society disapproves but I’m right, etc.

And there’s one video of her that people watch for the shock of it. She is sitting with Ruby in the basement they used as a video studio, and she goes off on a rant that gets more and more unhinged as she goes on. She’s upset that she’s getting bad reviews on her videos and people saying her techniques are abusive, and she says something to the effect of “I’ve made it really easy to give us a five star review, but you guys aren’t doing it! Why aren’t you doing it? You need to go do it right now. We’re getting all these one stars and we need you to help us fix it.”

It’s fascinating for the complete lack of acknowledgement that anyone might just not like the content, or give one star because they disagree with the techniques. Especially when viewers were mentioning repeatedly that they were concerned the techniques were too harsh and could even be abusive. If someone thinks that about what you’re teaching, yeah, they’ll give one star. Should be obvious? But she’s just like “I don’t know why you all aren’t doing this. Go do it.”

Anyway I bring this up because I’ve watched a LOT of videos on this, and that’s included several mental health professionals watching the videos and debunking the supposedly revolutionary new techniques of Jodi’s as abusive discipline with a weird half new age half religious conservative polish on it.

And EVERY ONE of the reactions I can remember from trained professionals says “this behavior is a clear indicator of narcissism. I would absolutely be looking out for more things like this to make a diagnosis if I were asked to do so.”

What intrigues me here is the clear consensus, and how little it resembles what I’ve seen people here on Tumblr say being narcissistic is like, which as they describe it seems to be destructive perfectionism plus struggles to empathize with people they’re not deeply close to.

Which I dunno. I think this discourse has kind of faded anyway at least off my own dash, but… I dunno. I think tumblr can sometimes get very echo chamber y about what a particular illness looks like, and everyone can sometimes all jump on a less central symptom because some posts are going viral.

Anyway I found it very interesting to see the professionals focusing very much on someone literally demanding praise, an unusual behavior that most would find striking, when the talk of tumblr was all “oh I’m a perfectionist, just to a degree where I do myself harm,” which sounds a lot more like understandably shitty coping and not “wow that’s pretty out of touch yeah.”

I dunno. I guess my point is… we love the idea of personal stories and experiential knowledge because it fits our broader politics, but it’s worthwhile to check what the scholars have to say to make sure we’re not taking one person’s compelling account as the truth of the thing.

[sunfoxfic]

I think the issue with the sentimonster adrien discourse is the fact that it's like

Pro-sentimonster Adrien folks: I just think it would be neat, plus there's a lot of foreshadowing and mechanics that have been established that make it possible. It's probably a clown theory but something I'm interested in exploring nonetheless because I like the possibilities and it opens up new doors with new questions that you wouldn't otherwise be able to explore

Anti-sentimonster Adrien folks: Actually it COULDN'T be this because of X, Y, and Z reasons. You're wrong and it's exhausting to see you on my dash. Why are you even doing this when everyone knows it wouldn't be true? It wouldn't fit with Adrien's arc and it would make Gabriel Agreste even more of an asshole which I object to for some reason and also it just makes me sad so therefore it couldn't be true, now that I've debunked it please shut up :(((

And that's clearly an exaggeration but it feels as though all of the "discourse" is being started by people who personally dislike the theory and therefore are using that as fuel for why it couldn't be true. This is fandom, guys. Everyone should get to explore it as they want to. Your preferences are moot in community spaces.

Clown theories are clown theories, okay? The reverse love square that everyone was anticipating before S4 is pretty clearly not gonna happen at this point, but you wouldn't criticize people still making content about it because "oh my God it's CLEARLY not canon so would you please shut up." Why is it any difference for an angst theory? Because it doesn't match up with the character arcs? Because it doesn't fit thematically?

Guess what. Right now, neither does reverse love square.

Yeah, maybe "theory" might be a misnomer for some people who don't believe it's true but still want to explore the concept, but even people who do believe it's true deserve to explore it in peace without being told they're wrong. What's the worst that'll happen if they're wrong? Genuinely, why do you feel the need to shut it down? What are you hoping to achieve?

Idk. I'm just tired of seeing all the popular analysis blogs saying that this conversation needs to stop because it couldn't be true. When has "it couldn't be true" ever been what fandom is about?

[headspace-hotel]

so “Ending friendships based on political views” discourse is back on my dash and I’m just going to try to...put this into easy to digest bullet points

It makes a HUGE difference whether by “friends” you mean “people I am close to and share all my deep dark secrets with” or “people I can get along with and occasionally share lunch with”

the people who judge others for ending friendships based on politics are really out of touch, period. Not just because “differences in politics” essentially means “one of you doesn’t think everyone deserves to be alive,” but because relationships tend to mutually drift apart when you have fundamental differences in values. This is ESPECIALLY true if talking about and thinking about the Big Stuff is important to you.

however, I firmly do not believe that there is a moral imperative to end a friendship with a trump supporter, nor do I believe that it says anything about how much you “care” if you do

The implication that if you Really Cared about your beliefs you would stop being friends with trump supporters, like, purposefully, is WORRYING

Like. Okay. Let’s think like allies instead of like Christian youth group leaders here.

Scenario: A person you are friends with expresses beliefs that are deeply hurtful and actually harmful to people you care about and love. Cutting off that friend doesn’t do anything for those people who are harmed by those beliefs. Not only that, but it insulates that friend even more against disagreement.

One of the most important things we can do in day to day life to fight against prejudice, bigotry, oppressive structures and false information is to challenge them, if we have the ability to do so. Like it does exactly nothing for anybody if (hypothetically) you, as a white person, refuse to have anything to do with someone because you think their beliefs are racist. What matters is if you SAY to them, “Hey, that’s not cool, and here’s why.”

We should be defending the right of people to end friendships over politics. Because it’s never “just” politics, it’s much more than that. But implying that it’s a requirement of some kind to be a True Activist is absurd. Your day to day interpersonal connections with people can be a huge part of how you can impact the world positively. It’s a huge part of how you can use your privilege. Like, your ability to get Trump supporters to respect you and interact with them in a friendly manner is not a problem, what the fuck. It not only means you have a “finger on the pulse” of what their “side” is saying and what is important to them, it means you have the ability to call those people out on their bullshit and potentially even have them hear you out. Being in that position where that person actually respects you and has to at least acknowledge what you have to say is the exact opposite of a problem imo

the world does not need more right-wing twentysomethings in right-wing social circles devoid of a single dissenting voice. I promise.

Like...the problem is not the ability to coexist with Trump supporters, the problem is coexisting with trump supporters through never pushing back against any of their opinions and going along with what they say, even if it is harmful, to avoid conflict.

Likewise, the solution is not “avoid those people because being friends with them makes you a bad person yourself” the solution is “say what you truly feel and what you truly think is right, even if it could potentially put stress on your friendship.” Call that person out. Speak up. Ask questions. Fact check. For the love of god don’t assume they already know exactly who their beliefs harm. Drag their cognitive dissonance out into the open. If it’s safe/respectful for the person you’re referencing, just saying “I have a friend who could be really harmed by X because of Y, and I can’t agree with you because I’m worried about what will happen to them/they’re really worried about this” can be INCREDIBLY powerful. Making it personal is a very, very powerful tool for pushing back against ideologies that rely on “othering” people.

tl;dr the measure of how much you care about issues that don’t affect you is not how much you avoid people that disagree with you, it’s how much you’re willing to openly disagree with and challenge those people when they’re in your life. (Obviously, stay safe.)

[rangotangomango]

Okay, but which in your opinion is the better avatar, Aang or Korra (I've not yet watched LoK) And btw love your blog! :)

(thank you so much!!!!!! for sending an ask and being so sweet!!! every time your blog pops up on my dash or in my notifs i get excited bc ik u always have the best posts!!)

❗️spoilers for LoK❗️(like half of its spoilers lmao)

omg this is a LOADED question!! aang will always have a special place in my heart, and he went through so much so young. he took responsibility when he was no where near ready and did an amazing job!! (i don’t think the way that his parenting style was explained in LoK was accurate to his character arc and was just used to develop his kids character’s and humanize him but that’s a whole different rant) he also stayed true to his beliefs in a really well written way in the finale, and just has one of the best character arcs and has one of purest hearts. he was an amazing avatar and changed the world in his time buttttt, korra enemies that were way worse!! she faced the spirit of evil incarnate and won, was tortured by zaheer, brought back the airbenders, balanced the spirit and mortal world, had her bending taken, and took out a dictator with an insanely powerful weapon. the show portrays her mental health journey in a way never explored in atla and she grows so much as a person throughout the series. korra is not a perfect person. she’s arrogant, impulsive, stubborn, and kinda mess sometimes but she learns from her mistakes and becomes a kind, merciful, and mature person by the end of the series (also wlw rep makes me go godysiskxhosksidoskxjdi). one of the reasons the show gets so much distain is for a few reasons in my opinion.

1. the plot fuels the character development while in atla the character development fuels the plot

2. the show was originally written to have one season. each time they made a new season it was expected to be the last but nickelodeon was like aha sike make another one after the last episode was written to be the conclusion. so there isn’t much flow between the seasons but i still think they did a great job with it!!

3. not to be controversial but i stg some of y’all just hate seeing women be flawed and powerful. (i see the same shit with katara discourse... of course she talks about her trauma a lot!!! she’s 14 and it dictates her entire way of life???? plus it’s a way to relate to ppl shut the fuck up u guys suck) like she’s not perfect and that’s the point!!!!! neither was zuko or sokka but we all love them!!! it’s the character development that’s important!!! people/characters change!! especially korra!!! which is one of the reasons i love her!!! (i’m have the big gay for her ok??? wlw himbo rights.)

in conclusion i am indecisive and love them both and they are just so different. both are amazing but korra objectively did more avatar-y stuff in the series??? on the other hand aang is baby and i would die for him.

also pls ignore my lack of capitalization i’m typing on my phone and have my caps turned off hehe

[kyliafanfiction]

It is true that the rhetoric of antis has been bouncing around fandoms since, forever, really. While it wasn’t very common, certainly people way back when did call other people ‘RL Terrible’ for shipping X or Y “unhealthy” ship (regardless of if it was or wasn’t by whatever metric one uses to define a ship as unhealthy) or what have you.

But it tended to be intermittent, selective, and wrapped up in more traditional shipwars. 

But as Internet 2.0 took off, and fandom and activism and news and shitposting and random comments about your life and struggles all started to flow together in one place (tumblr dash, twitter feed, facebook feed, etc), you started to see this sort of stuff increase in pace, volume intensity. As representation became a more central talking point in fandom (rightly so), and headcanons that created representation where none existed became increasingly common and so on, this sort of rhetoric got wrapped up in that too, and the understanding how how fiction did and didn’t affect reality got warped.

(Add in Radfems hiding their TERFy rhetoric better and brainwashing a lot of baby queers on tumblr - while demonizing the word queer, and also tricking people into talking and thinking like TERFs while still saying ‘I Hate TERFs’ with no appreciation of the irony and it gets even worse)

So as this whole notion got bigger and bigger, it started to spread beyond shipwars, but it still tended to be more isolated and specific, usually to individual fandoms and communities.

Eventually, this all sort of metastizied, amidst fandoms like VLD, and the whole Reylo vs Finnrey discourse, etc, etc, and became an all-consuming ideological proposition. It was then that you saw Antis specifically seeking out ships and characters to hate, and jumping fandoms while still holding to the same nonsensical principles, and moving beyond fandom to just openly hating trauma survivors, saying intrusive thoughts are as bad as really doing the thing, and combining forces with ‘violent video games pearl-clutchers’ and anti-kink people (usually radfems and the people they primed). 

Antism has fully metastasized and spread well beyond fandom. But this is where the cancer analogy fails - we can’t cut antiism out. There’s no chemotherapy for antis, unfortunately.

Antis are more like HIV/AIDS - we don’t have a cure for it (As far as I know) but there are things we as a fandom can do to manage them and contain their affects, as much as possible.

[driversmutbucket]

Second Chances.

Part 1

Adam Sackler x Reader

Warnings: cursing

Author note: I’ve been wanting to whittle away at this for a while. I think I will slow burn this in between smutty filth. I wrote this as occurring post season 6. Basically I just want to give baby boi a happy ending. K bye.

———

“Mom! I can’t find my shoes!”

You groaned, swearing under your breath.

“Have you looked properly? Under your bed?”

“Oh! found them!”

You shoveled cereal into your mouth, knowing full well it was going to be the last thing you ate for hours.

“Mom, we need to go I don’t want to be late”, Celia stood in the kitchen doorway, arms crossed. The school bag on her back looked almost as big as her.

“Alright, keep your hair on”, you sighed as your threw things into your purse before following Celia out the front door.

———

You breathed a sigh of relief as you watched Celia dash through the front doors of the school.

You looked forward to the post drop-off coffee at the cafe nearby and even going to work.

The theatre was busy, people milled everywhere as you walked through the main doors, the excitement and nervous energy was palpable. Today was the day everyone was finally meeting, thus far, each department had only met separately to become acquainted while casting was wrapping up.

Heading backstage you waved and greeted a few of the crew members you had come to know. You could already hear the laughter and general chatter from behind the doors of the makeup, hair and costume department.

Smiling you pushed through the swing doors, greeted with a loud “Hey Boss lady!” From your colleague Clinton.

“Hey! Good morning” you smiled as you approached the designated makeup/hair area.

“I took the liberty of grabbing you a coffee, creamer and sweetener right?” Clinton motion to the cup at your station.

“I know we haven’t known each other long, but I love and adore you” you grinned.

After some initial gossip and chat you got down to figuring out a plan of attack for the day together. Today was the beginning of trialing makeup and hair on the cast.

A head of department meeting and a hurried lunch break later it was early afternoon. The assistant director poked her head in the door,

“Y/n? I’m going to send you Adam in about 10 minutes” she called across the room.

Giving the thumbs up, you turned to the cast list, scanning for an Adam.

Fiyero......................Adam Sackler

“Oh he plays the love interest” you said excitedly as you started flicking through the folder you had compiled of reference material.

“I have honestly never worked with anyone who is this nerdy” Clinton mused, “but goddam it’s helpful”.

“Thanks? So anyway, I’m thinking for the hair per-” you stopped, noticing Clinton grinning like an idiot at someone behind you.

“Hi uhhh, y/n?”

You turned and looked up at a towering, built man, I mean, you weren’t exactly short yourself but he dwarfed you.

“Adam?” You smiled warmly, he nodded.

“Come have a seat” you said patting the client chair.

As he sat down, you could see Clinton trying to mouth words to you, but you ignored him. You knew enough about Clinton to know it was probably something very unprofessional.

“I’m going to have to lower the seat if I’m to have any hope of looking at your hair” you grinned as you stepped on the pedal at the base of the chair so he came down to eye level with you.

Finally looking at Clinton, who was staring at Adam like he was a slice of cake, you broke his trance. “Hey Clinton, wanna heat up some of the hair tools and we will mess around a bit, see what’s possible?” His head snapped up to look at you before he mouthed “holy fuck”.

Turning back to Adam, you ruffled and ran your fingers through his hair, “you have great hair Adam” you gushed. It was long and thick, just grazing his shoulders. You could feel him studying your face.

“So I’m thinking, Fiyero, he is kind of living behind this facade. So perhaps we should try a kind of super polished, Prince Charming vibe to begin....”, you trailed off, staring at Adam, lost in thought.

“Oh shit, you’ve actually read the script!” He seemed excited.

For the next 10 minutes you became engrossed in character discourse.

“Uhhh y/n.....” Clinton interrupted, handing you a straightener.

“Oh fuck, sorry!” You laughed “I get carried away talking about this sort of thing”.

Clinton snorted, “I’ll say it again, biggest nerd....”

You swatted at him.

The next half an hour you spent styling Adam’s hair into various look, and photographing each one.

“Ok, great I think that wraps up hair” you said as you smoothed some flyaways.

Placing your hand on Adam’s arm you smiled sympathetically “Thanks for being so patient Adam, I’m a bit of a perfectionist”.

He grinned, “Oh honestly it’s no problem, I get it, I can turn into a bit of a lunatic when I’m learning lines.”

“Could you grab the ring light Clinton? Let’s start some makeup.”

You took a moment to study Adam’s face, his features were strong, some would say, handsome.

“You have lovely skin and features for makeup” you mused.

“I must add that to my resume” he chuckled.

“Honestly, some people’s features can get completely lost under heavy stage make up, and then you have to do all this extra work to redefine...” you waved your hand, “I’m getting off track again”.

You got into your zone, testing makeup. It didn’t stop you admiring the little beauty marks on his face, or his plump lips. He watched you work, intently. Especially when you gave Clinton pointers on application. It was a little weird, but you didn’t mind. You caught his eye, smiling from time to time. He asked the odd question about your brushes or a specific technique, seeming genuinely interested. He was different to most actors you dealt with. Quirky, but in an endearing way.

By the time you had finished with Adam, it was late afternoon. You gently wiped the heavy makeup off his face,

“Thanks Adam” you beamed, “I’m really happy with what we achieved”.

“Hey, did you hear a bunch of us are grabbing dinner later, are you coming?”

“Oh yeah, I am, see you then?”

He grinned “See you then”.

After he had left, you checked your phone, seeing a message from Celia’s stepmom saying she had picked her up from school as planned, for the weekend. You fired off quick reply, hoping to go grab a coffee before the next actor turned up.

As you cleaned your brushes Clinton cleared his throat, “so...Adam is a delicious beast of a man” he said coyly.

“Oh Jesus Christ” you snorted “but yes, he is a good looking guy”.

“I would climb him like a fucking tree” Clinton sighed “my god, his buttons looked like they were going to pop off his shirt, he is so big.”

“Note to self, make sure Clinton is not assigned to Adam, ever” you joked.

——

When the day was finally wrapped up it was after 7pm. Feeling absolutely drained you considered ditching the dinner with your colleagues. However, the prospect of getting to chat with Adam was more than appealing.

Arriving at the restaurant you could hear the group before you saw them.

“Y/N get that fine ass over here!!” Someone yelled.

You rolled your eyes, but grinned and made your way over to the table. Seeing Adam you gave him a little wave.

“Hey, I saved you a spot” he yelled over the music and chatter, patting the space on the bench beside him.

“Thanks!” You smiled, squeezing in next to him.

A waitress came over and asked for drink orders.

“House red please.”

The waitress joted it down and looked expectantly at Adam, “soda water please”.

“Not drinking tonight?” You asked, having to lean close to his ear so he could hear you.

“Not drinking ever��� he shrugged.

“Oh, good on you” you smiled, placing a hand on his lower arm reassuringly.

Before he could reply, the assistant director tapped her glass with her knife.

“Oi! Shut up, I want to make a toast” she yelled standing up.

“Lets cheers to the beginning of an amazing run. I’m gonna call it early, best cast and crew ever!”

Cheers and whoops erupted from the 30 odd people crammed around the big table as everyone clinked their glasses.

As the dinner progressed, it became more and more impossible to have a conversation as the establishment became rowdier.

Giving up on talking completely Adam motioned at the door. Nodding you stood up and he followed you to the door.

“That was fucking ridiculous” he breathed as the door shut behind him.

“Jesus Christ I’ve been in quieter nightclubs” you laughed, “want to grab a coffee or something?”

“Love to” he grinned.

———

Finding a 24/7 diner down the block you went in and picked a booth in a dim, quiet corner.

You hummed happily as your wrapped your hands around a steaming mug of coffee. Taking a sip you closed your mouth eyes blissfully.

You could feel Adam’s eyes on you and you looked up to meet them, smiling.

“Sorry I was just having a moment with my true love, coffee.”

He snorted a laugh, you noticed the way his eyes crinkled, they were warm, kind eyes.

“No husband or whoever then?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh no, not anymore, I mean, no, nobody.”

You could have sworn you saw relief flutter across his face.

“You?”

“No, nobody” he said softly.

“Well aren’t we a pair” you murmured, smiling gently.

After a beat of silence you sighed, “Sorry i’m expectionally shit at small talk, which is ironic considering I do makeup and hair”

“Oh me too, there no fucking point to it, I’d just rather sit in silence”

“I can’t believe we have never ran into each other on the theatre circuit” you mused “I’ve been working around for a few years now”.

Adam shrugged “I’ve been in and out, some shit happened...”.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing you act”.

Adam chewed his cheek, “oh god...”

“Oh come on, you are obviously very good to be cast in something like Wicked”.

He gave a crooked smile, “I just overthink everything I guess”.

“I think the best people do.”

You talked through 2 cups of coffee and a milkshake. It was after midnight and you yawned.

“Where’s home Adam?”

“Brooklyn”

“Me too! Should we share a cab?”

“I was actually gonna walk”

You burst into laughter, “to fucking Brooklyn?!”

He grinned, “do it all the time”.

Maybe it was due to the large quantities of caffeine but you felt inspired. “Fuck you are a strange one, but I like it, let’s walk to fucking Brooklyn!”

“Fuck yeah!” Adam banged the table with his hand grinning.

———

By the time you got to the Brooklyn bridge you were feeling slightly exhausted. However when you turned and looked at the city from the bridge you gasped. It was beautiful, and the bridge was empty. Leaning against the rail you took in the view.

“This is beautiful” you said in awe.

Adam pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his back pocket, offering you one.

“Thanks” you smiled, taking one. You smoked socially, but never at home or around Celia. It was something you had had to cold turkey when you found out you were pregnant with her. There was a comfort to having a cigarette in your mouth. It reminded you of college, the wild, carefree times.

You stood there side by side, in silence for a few minutes, drinking in the twinkling lights of the city.

“I miss having someone to do this shit with”, you sighed.

“Your doing it with me right now?” Adam turned to you smiling.

You waved your hand, “you know what I mean.”

He sighed, “yea, I do”.

“Ever been in love?” You asked, quietly, looking at the water.

“Yup, you”.

“Yup”.

“What happened?”

He sighed. It was a sad sigh.

“You don’t have to answer that, sorry” you lay you hand on his forearm that rested on the bridge rail.

“No, it’s ok, I just haven’t talked about it in a while, tried to move on you know?”

“Yeah I know...”

“We were a fucked up couple, it was just never going to work. We were off and on. She was fucking stubborn and messed up. I had my own shit. I even fucking offered to raise a kid that wasn’t mine, when she got pregnant while we weren’t together, I just...” he trailed off.

“Didn’t want it to end?” You offered gently.

“Yeah something like that.”

He looked at you, contemplating, taking a drag from his cigarette. “You?”

“We got together when we were both in college. Young, you know, just kids really? We are very different people, I just don’t think it was ever going to work. We tried really hard for the sake of our daughter.”

Adam whipped his head to look at you, eyes bright.

“You have a kid?!”

You grinned, “Yeah, she’s 5”.

“Fucking awesome, I love kids, I have a niece, she’s fucking cool”.

You laughed, “I’ve never had a guy so enthused at my single parent status before. It’s usually what I pull out of the bag when I want them to make them run for the hills”.

“People are fucking stupid” he snorted, “what’s her name?”

“Celia.”

“Wait, Shakespeare?” Adam raised an eyebrow at you.

“Yes! Holy shit nobody ever gets that!” You almost squealed.

You started walking over the bridge and discussing various Shakespeare plays with enthusiasm, laughing loudly at Adam’s sudden monologue performances in ridiculous accents.

By the time you reached your apartment you hardly even noticed the mammoth distance you had walked.

“This is me.”

“Oh I’m not far from here actually.”

“Thanks so much Adam, actually this has been the best time I’ve had in ages,” you smiled.

He grinned, “likewise”.

You wrapped you arms around him, hugging tightly. He reciprocated immediately, engulfing you.

“Let’s do this again ok?” You mumbled into his chest.

“We will” he promised. Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 / Epilogue

[battlestar-royco]

Just once I'd like a soulmate story where it gets revealed that the match is actually wrong.

Okay I’m SO sorry to be bringing Maximum Ride discourse onto everyone’s dash in the year of 2019 but the first remotely relevant example of this I can think of is when someone made Max a perfect partner named Dylan, but the entire meta purpose of Dylan was to prove that Max and Fang belong together. I feel like I might have also seen other sitcom-y subversions of this trope. Ooh, maybe The Good Place would be a good example? Michael tries to fuck up Chidi and Eleanor’s relationship, but no matter the scenario, they always end up together. Overall I tend to avoid books/movies/shows with soulmates and I don’t think they’re that popular anymore, so I don’t usually see literal soulmates similar to Mess’s kind in what I’m reading or watching. It’s usually more of a “this character found a perfect online dating match but it doesn’t work out because their true love is already in their life” or “these two coworkers/roommates/comrades were made for each other and all their relationships fail because of the other person and everyone knows it but them” type of thing. That’s always much more compelling to me than the writer saying that two characters belong together because the fates made it so.

[aadmelioraa]

I'm already kind of dreading this fandom once the season starts. I won't say what, but a spoiler is going around and people are already getting into a tizzy and holy crap is it exhausting. I've been trying to curate my dash because I love this show and I'm just sick of all the negativity and freaking out. There's you and a few others who are absolute rays of sunshine and I really appreciate it!

First of all, thank you. I appreciate that compliment very much

Re: spoilers, I’ve got everything blacklisted and I’m pretty sure I’ve still seen it going around because some people (who I’ve now unfollowed) don’t tag their spoilers. It’s annoying, but what can ya do. I hope people will be more considerate during the season if/when additional spoilers come out, but I’m not holding my breath. All I can do is unfollow, blacklist, and continue to remind y’all I DONT WANT SPOILERS please and thank you. 

We’re at that point in the hiatus (an extreeeeeemely long hiatus, at that) where we’re starting to go a little haywire, I think. The premiere is so close yet so far, and we’ve kind of forgotten what it’s like when the show is actually airing. Even apart from the end of hiatus craziness, fandom can definitely be exhausting, sometimes in good ways (like AMM!! We did that, y’all!), sometimes in…not so good ways. 

The best way to avoid fandom fatigue is something you’ve already done: curating your dash. I’ve unfollowed/blocked people for big reasons (they constantly start drama and attack people) and also comparatively small ones (I don’t like the way they talk about one of my faves and I don’t want to see that on my dash). It’s silly to get so divided over things the way we do sometimes. There’s room for a multitude of opinions and interpretations in fandom…or there should be. Blocking/blacklisting/unfollowing is a crucial way to create that room. If more people did that instead of engaging in “discourse” (I don’t mean civil debate, I mean inflammatory rhetoric driven wank) we’d have 75% less drama. 

It doesn’t have to be personal. I have no problem blocking people I’ve never interacted with if it’s the right call for my mental health…and I wish more people thought that way tbh. If I vehemently disagree with someone’s opinions or rhetoric to the point that seeing their url pisses me off, I’m gonna cut them out of my fandom experience, not hijack their posts or try to start shit. I don’t own my favorite characters/ships/shows and I can’t control the way people think about them, so why bother trying? 

Fandom is entirely what you make of it. You don’t have to follow or talk to anyone no matter how “big” they are in the fandom. Seek out other fans who create and reblog content that makes you happy. There’s a tendency on this site to focus on the negative, and while I definitely agree that critical analysis is an important (and cool, and fun, and dynamic) part of fandom, it’s not all I want from my fandom experience. 

And fandom is supposed to be fun. If there are any blogs you follow that prevent your experience from being fun, give ‘em the boot. It doesn’t mean they’re bad people, but your mental health should take precedence over everything else when it comes to fandom. You’re not obligated to follow anyone or partake in any discourse no matter how important the majority of the fandom might deem it. Don’t want to get bogged down in the constant meta debates? Scroll on past. Hate seeing character X’s face on gifsets and edits? Blacklist their tags. Annoyed by blogger Y’s sense of humor? Unfollow or block them.

You don’t need a moral justification to like or dislike characters or ships, and the same is true of bloggers and fandom trends. 

Anyway, sorry for the tangent. I’m personally really excited for this coming season, and though my fandom circle remains pretty limited I’m looking forward to chatting with more like-minded people like yourself when the show returns. We’re so close :)

[freedom-of-fanfic]

I loved your post about antishipping being the cool new trend for young/college age teens! Pretty much nailed my own opinion of it (and then I blew through your whole blog in like two hours lol I love how you discuss things! You're always so calm and polite which is something I appreciate a lot!). I'd value your input on how we might be able to put a stop to a lot of anti behavior if you have any c:

I’m very glad you’ve enjoyed my blog!

Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop anti behavior. The joke is: we’re allowed to ship and they’re allowed to hate ships; we’re allowed to write dark fanfiction and they’re allowed to loathe it. Until somebody is doing something illegal we can’t actually stop them.

However, we can limit anti influence on fandom spaces. And I don’t think it’s easy, or I wouldn’t have a blog like this.

The primary public goal of anti-shippers and anti-darkfic communities are to obliterate ‘bad’ ships and dark content in fandom spaces.  All public action taken with the intent of having their views communicated to shippers/creators of dark content are aimed to either drive them out of fandom or make them see the light of their evil ways. Their social power mainly comes from generating negative emotions in fandom, and I think there are 3 primary forces:

Fear: anti-shippers have proven that they are willing to go to great lengths to force fandom members to bend to their standards, including tag invasion, public shaming, dogpiling, callouts (true or false or a combination thereof), misgendering/erasing orientations, general and targeted online harassment including suicide baiting and wishing for physical harm, verbal harassment, verbal intimidation, reporting falsified TOS violations, and in extreme cases doxxing, false reports to authorities, destruction of property, threats of violence, and actual assault. Understandably this makes potential targets want to avoid notice so that they’re not ‘next’, reducing creative output.

Anger: nothing gets people talking about you like anger. People like to complain, and that spreads reports of anti-shipping attacks further (which spreads fear). Shippers increasingly dwell on their anger and frustration over antishippers, taking focus away from creating fanworks.

Exhaustion: being afraid and angry all the time will take a lot out of a person.  Self-doubt makes it even worse. Antis keep the pressure on with a constant stream of negativity and double down by questioning the motives, moral integrity, and social awareness of bad shippers and dark content creators.  Exhaustion cuts creative output just as effectively, if not more so, than fear and anger. People will create out of spite with the first two emotions, but exhaustion makes people want to leave and find something less tiring to enjoy.

So I think the best way to cut the power and influence that antis have is by shutting them and their rhetoric out of fandom spaces.  this looks like:

Block antis. Block all antis. block virulent negativity. Block even antis that hate the same ships you hate. Keep yourself away from the nastiness and also protect yourself from their notice (if you block them they can’t see or reblog your posts as easily).

Avoid black and white ‘discourse’. Don’t dwell on social debates about purity and the moral implications of your ships or fictional content. Be selective about the meta you indulge. Remember that nuance exists. Don’t publicly argue with people who refuse to see nuance, spreading their nonsense further.

Don’t fight fire with fire. Don’t borrow anti arguments to prove what hypocrites they are or use anti logic to explain why ships are bad (e.g. ‘antis say that x/y is bad b/c x is older than y and they call that pedophilia.  but antis ship y/z, even though they fight all the time; that’s abuse!’)

Ignore hate messages. If people send you hate for your ships or creations, ignore and delete them. it makes you a boring target if you don’t react and cuts the hate significantly. (This won’t work unless the main goal is getting a rise out of you. In the case of a targeted hate campaign, the goal is usually pleasing the instigator of the hate campaign, and reacting or not reacting won’t make a difference. :( )

Surround yourself with creative content and positivity. Curate your dash and social media circles to be mostly, if not entirely, fandom positivity focused and about creating new content instead of complaining about bad content or bad fandom behavior.

Spread positivity. If you have the energy, try to share the things that make you happy. Recommend fanfics, comment on fanart, talk about your favorite headcanons.

If you’re like me and you can’t entirely ignore shitty things that happen in fandom, create a separate space away from your main fandom space to indulge your salt. that way you can walk away and take breaks. (I tend to find salt begets more salt.)

last thing may not work for everyone: be kind and/or civil when interacting with antis. There’s of course no obligation to be nice to people who antagonize you, but I find that in general being kind in response to people being jerks gives them room to relax, stop being defensive, and talk openly. Most individual antis aren’t that different from shippers; they just have different ideas of what a safe, comfortable fandom space looks like. (And if they refuse to stop being a jerk, ignore/block them.)

that’s my two cents, which, as usual, looks more like 2 dollars. I hope it’s helpful.

[ferretwhomst]

asking a gravity falls fan their opinions on mabel pines is like a litmus test for seeing how they behave around people with personality disorders

like oh you hate when the 12-13 year old girl has emotional outbursts and is oblivious to people's emotions at times? you hate when she acts Irrationally? tell me more!