#the best thing i've watched since lockdown started

[annabelle--cane]

uh oh gang I miss musicals

[a-hundred-jewels]

ptsd made me a hardcore marauders fan for seven months

Ao3

content warning: the following contains discussions of school violence, teen violence, (briefly) domestic violence, mental health issues, depression, and trauma. if any of these are sensitive topics for you, please proceed with caution. in addition, if you feel i've missed a warning, please nicely let me know in the comments.

I don't like Harry Potter. 

Sure, I binge-read the entire series in a bored, undiagnosed-ADHD-induced haze at the age of thirteen, have spent countless hours reading and even writing fanfiction for the series, have followed tumblr tags, listened to playlists, watched youtube videos, and am in the process of very slowly hand-binding myself a copy of A Black Mass Over Highway Ninety, but—

I don't like it, but nevertheless, I was sucked in. 

~

"Some kid overdosed," one of my classmates said. 

"What?" 

"They're clearing the hallways."

Our principal had just come on the loudspeakers to issue a "shelter in place" order, telling us to ignore all bells and stay in our current classroom until he came back on and told us otherwise. I was actually glad, hoping the extra time would allow me to finish my Spanish homework before second period, since I'd spent most of the weekend thinking about the Strictly Come Dancing finals and my King Lear presentation in English class. 

I hardly thought about the order itself—they're extremely common in United State schools, both as drills and as actual occurences. "Shelter in place" originated as a milder verison of going into lockdown where, instead of hiding from a potential shooter, students and teachers must simply not leave the room. In any case, I saw no reason to worry, and set about doing my homework. 

~

In fall of 2022, I started my senior year of high school at the age of seventeen. I was having a rough year—my younger sister's depression was at an all-time high and my mother was recovering from a health scare—but, fandomwise, I was doing great. After all, Our Flag Means Death had come out that spring and I was in love. All I wanted to talk about were the gay pirates, and I even bought myself a "Team Edward" t-shirt with Taika Waititi's face smack in the middle as a "back to school" present. Everything was supposed to get better. 

School sucked, because I went to a big public high school that looked like a prison and had equally-shitty Wifi, my (still undiagnosed) ADHD was worsening, and my grades were getting kind of bad. Even so, for a couple of months, I remained confident that my senior year would be my best one yet.

~

Third period was gym class, meaning I was only about an hour and a half away from the King Lear presentation. Senior year was actually one of the few years where I liked gym, which was awesome. It was just me and six boys, all of whom were nice to me, and our teacher was great. I think we were playing badminton that day, when our principal came on the loudspeakers to say that we were, once again, under a "shelter in place" order. 

We were nonchalant about this, just as we had been in the morning. I cannot stress how desensitized children in the U.S. are to things like this, these days. When my little sister was in elementary school, there was a day when the whole school was put in a "shelter in place" because a man was walking around outside with a bunch of knives. When I was a junior, a boy severely beat up his girlfriend in the school hallway, giving her a concussion and leading to two mass protests. There were violent fights at my town's public schools almost weekly—and all of this is very, very normal. I would go so far as to say that my situation was pretty mild. 

So we sat on the floor and did homework as time crept on, wondering vaguely what was going on, but no moreso than that. Third period ended, and we stayed. It should have been lunch time—we were getting hungry—but there was still no word about the lockdown ending. We stayed. Surely, it could only be another ten minutes or so?

And then, one of my classmates looked up from his phone screen, which was displaying a chat on Discord. 

"Oh my god—someone was stabbed."

~

Before, I get properly started, I'd like to be totally clear: the point of this essay isn't to bash the Harry Potter fandom, not as a whole, and certainly not the sections of it I've been in. I met some incredible people while in my period of rabidly consuming Marauders content, and I don't want to put them down or dishonor the beautiful things they've created with my attitude. I loved my time in the Marauders fandom as much as I could love anything at that point in my life and have nothing but respect for the writers, artists, and tumblrinas who welcomed me into their space. 

All of that being said, I think it's fascinating that I fell into a fandom like this one, particularly when I was doing so badly mentally. My dislike of Harry Potter only increases as I grow, as does my indifference, and, while I understand that's a fairly common sentiment shared among Marauders fans, I also get the impression that nostalgia plays a big part in their participation in the fandom. A Harry Potter- loving, bookworm child grows into a cynical teen, and then into a kind, brilliant adult with a "well, fuck it" attitude towards the world, using their limited free time to take that nostalgia from a childhood book series and write the kind of queer narratives they wish they'd had in adolescence. I could, of course, be wrong, but that's more-or-less how I understood the specific parts of the fandom I was in. (I know pretty much nothing about the tik tok side of the Marauders fandom, so we're just not factoring that in at all). Also, note that I said "adult" before, because the majority of people I interacted with were in their twenties and thirties. Being eighteen at the time and still in highschool, they all seemed at least moderately grown-up and untouchable to me. 

All this to say, once again, that I literally didn't care about Harry Potter until I was almost fourteen and, even then, I only started reading it out of sheer boredom. I have pretty much no nostalgia or happy childhood memories associated with the series—I even skipped large sections of the fourth and seventh books because it irritated me whenever the main characters were fighting with each other. I was, at best, a casual fan. 

There's something comforting, though, about being in such a big fandom, especially when your bad habit of choice is binge-reading smutty fanfiction in order to feel less dead. And, regardless of how I actually felt about Harry Potter , the concrete safety of a completed, unchanging series of books and movies where the author was already widely disliked definitely appealed tome and my less-than-stable life. You don't need to worry about a scandal if they've all already happened and, no matter how hard she tried to on Twitter, Joanne can't actually change the contents of the books. In my world of current fandoms and kind writers and actors all accessible on social media, the fuck-ass Harry Potter fandom was a bit of a refuge. 

So that's why I think it was specifically the Marauders that I got into.

~

I don't actually remember how long we were in that gym. It must have been at least two hours, including the class time beforehand, but I barely remember any of it. I texted my friends, frantically trying to determine that everyone I knew was okay, and I told my parents what was going on. To this day, the thing I am most thankful for is that my sister, who we'll call Tabitha, wasn't there. I don't know what I would have done if she'd been in school that day. The other main thing I remember thinking about was my King Lear presentation, which was supposed to happen right after lunch, and, as the time stretched on, I became more and more worried that I wouldn't get to do it that day. 

Shortly after my classmate saw the Discord messages about the stabbing, a video of the fight was leaked across Snapchat, as well as an image of the wound. We all looked on in horror, including my teacher (who we'll call Mr. Blake). It's objectively horrible to watch footage of a child being stabbed, no matter how grainy the video is, but, so far, we'd received no official information from the school, so this was literally all we had, and it had happened in the same building. Our principal wasn't allowed to make any statements (at least to my understanding) without it going through our superintendant and, for whatever reason, she didn't feel it necessary to get ahead of social media on this. 

I was trapped in a school with thousands of other people, one of whom had just assaulted someone. 

~

The night before my second semester of senior year began, I stayed up past midnight reading Dear Your Holiness by @mollymarymarie fleabag AU where Remus is a priest by day and a local rock musician by night, and Sirius has a popular music magazine. I had also spent much of my winter break listening to a podfic of All The Young Dudes (made it to sixth year) and generally rooting around people's bookmarks and gifts to get out of my head, so it's safe to say that, by the time I got to school in January, my brain was practially deep-fried in this new fandom, and it would only get moreso. 

~

Mr. Blake felt, after an hour or so, that we'd be safer in the boys' locker room. He brought us down through a stairwell I'd never seen before, tucked away in corner of a closet in the gymnasium. I was thrilled by the opportunity to explore and filmed the journey on my phone. It's a weird, haunting video, not just for the grim situation and shadowy rooms, but because I'm so lively behind the camera. We're all fairly upbeat, joking about how big the school is and what things must have been like when it opened. I won't share the video here, as I don't feel like doxing myself, but I did rewatch it in preparation for writing this and it's truly disconcerting to look at the inside of a building I haven't been in for over a year, to hear the voice of a past version of myself and know I'm seeing snapshots of a day that changed me forever. 

All there was to eat in the locker room were these Gatorade protein bars—mine was supposedly cookies and cream flavoured. I still remember the taste, sickly sweet and artificial. On an empty stomach, particularly an overly sensitive autistic one like mine, it was a horrible idea, and I felt sick afterwards, but god, I was so hungry. 

I sent a selfie to my parents and Tabitha, then tried to read fanfiction while listening to one of my classmates talk in what sounded like Hatian Creole with his family on the phone. Boys were constantly being paraded in to use the urinals. The walls were painted concrete blocks, the benches were narrow and hard, and so I sat there. 

~

In February, I spend a weekend binge-reading A Black Mass Over Highway Ninety, which kickstarted an obsession with seventies music and fashion. I read and reread the sex scenes during my final few months of highschool, trying desperately to shut my brain up and keep me from feeling so trapped in my daily life and the school I still attended. I got into the works of @spookymoonie, who was incredibly kind to me, and used to visit and refresh their blog every day to see if they'd (sigh) written more porn. Look, man, it was really good porn. 

On the day of my high school graduation, I got dressed in pants that were too small for me, a shirt that was too big, and a cap and gown that made me look like a walking body bag. I mingled with my friends beforehand, taking pictures with people who I now haven't spoken to in months. The ceremony was long and boring but I'm a sucker for that kind of symbolic stuff, so I kind of liked it. I did say for weeks afterwards, though, that I didn't feel like I'd really graduated until I was cycling home, listening to "Telephone Line" on my tinny iPhone speaker. That was my graduation. 

And I only knew that song from the official Black Mass playlist. 

~

By the time we were finally released from the "shelter in place" and sent for lunch, it had been about three hours since our principal's initial announcement back in third period. There was little fanfare to the whole ordeal, and I don't recall any actual information being given to our parents from the school at this point, either, though I could be misremembering. Our principal simply came on the speakers and told us that the lockdown was up and we were to go for lunch. I had a pre-packaged turkey wrap that day—my mum got them from the store sometimes as a special lunch for me. I'm a vegetarian these days, so I wouldn't eat it regardless, but, even if I weren't, I don't think I could bring myself to eat one of those wraps again, not without remembering. 

We'd only been in lunch for about ten minutes when somebody pulled the fire alarm. I don't know who did it, only that it was a student and there was no fire. I hate the fire alarm for the same reasons I hate all sudden, loud noises, and I was so overwhelmed already that I remember crying as we were paraded out into the parking lots, shivering in the cold, late-December air. I sat on a curb and ate my sandwich, wishing I had left when some of my classmates had, as soon as the "shelter in place" was lifted, or at least that I had my jacket and keys with me so I could get my bike and leave right then. 

The fire drill was over as quickly as it had started and, god, I wish I'd left right then. Just grabbed my shit and got the hell out of there. But, well…my English presentation. 

To anyone with rational mind capabilities, it would be incredibly obvious by now that said English presentation was absolutely not happening. A child had been stabbed, we'd all seen it on video and then been trapped for three hours— King Lear was far from a pressing concern. But I was traumatized and one of my groupmates was leaving the next day, so it felt like an emergency. So long as I was focused on my presentation and the soap opera-like melodrama of the play, I didn't have to think about what was happening around me. 

Anyway, we did nothing English related fourth period, instead sitting in a circle and letting our teacher talk us through how we were feeling. I'm very grateful to her for giving us the space she did to feel our fear and anger without judgement, and I will never forget her telling us that we were to use the teachers' bathrooms for the rest of the day, and if any administrators had a problem with it, they could take things up with her. It might not seem like much, but when the stabbing had occured in a student bathroom, it was really nice for someone to acknowledge that we might be scared. 

Another hour, or so, and the day was over. 

~

I also want to get ahead and make sure I'm not framing my leaving of the Marauders fandom as a particularly good thing, or a good time in my life. I was still depressed and unemployed and, even after I finally got a job in August, I managed to hit several more crushing lows before the end of 2023—I was just reading different fanfiction to cope. At the very least, though, I was reading fic for stuff I was actually a fan of, which is typically a good place to start. 

The feeling reminded me a bit of the one I used to get after I'd finished writing and posting a piece of puppet erotica—just this overwhelming sensation of "Wait, what was that?" It's like post-nut clarity, except clearly not. My time as a Marauders fan feels, in retrospect, like a bastardization, an appropriation. I was not a real fan because I didn't really care—I just needed something safe to numb my pain and confusion. That's why it feels so important to make sure I'm not trying to represent or bash the fandom in any way. It wouldn't be fair, because I wasn't really, genuinely a part of it. 

~

When I finally had cycled home and let myself in the back door, I only remember collapsing. My mum was in the living room and I just stood there, I think. All I really remember is this image of how I think I looked, as though my mind had floated out of my head and taken a photograph. My face is very pale and completely blank, my bag somewhere on the floor next to me, and I'm staring at nothing, the performance of being okay just…evaporating. I know my mum told me she'd been facetiming my grandparents and aunt throughout the day and they were worried as well. 

One thing I often forget about that day is that, barely an hour after coming home, I had a violin lesson over zoom. I assume it must have been a similar situation to the King Lear presentation, where I had to act as normal as possible in order to not completely freak out. I told myself that I couldn't cancel, because then I'd have to pay the fee, but, like. I'm pretty sure he would have made an exception. I remember telling him "oh, by the way, I'm a little out of it because someone got stabbed at school today," and seeing the utterly baffled look on his face. He offered to postpone, and I declined. I was not a very good student that day—I think I'd forgotten what we did in the lesson before the hour was even finished. 

I went downstairs afterward and told my mum everything—I think. Either that or I lay in bed. The next thing I remember is going to school the next day, because I was still clinging to that King Lear presentation. Or maybe it was just because I didn't know what to do with myself? No idea. The next night, I was feeling sick and tested positive for Covid. 

So that was nice. 

~

My high school was never the same after the stabbing. Rules got stricter, a mass of teachers quit or transfered, the classes graduated and moved on, and I truly think something died that day. No matter how bad things were beforehand, there was always this hope I felt—this optimism. Even if I'd been cynical for weeks, all it took to love that shitty old building was an orchestra concert or a school play. It was trash, but it was home. That love didn't come back. 

My love for the Marauders proved to be just as fleeting. I literally woke up one day last July with a craving for this Good Omens/Buzzfeed Unsolved crossover fanfiction (called video appeal by ravel_aorla) and that was the end of my phase. Poof! Avada Kadavra! 

I'm proud to say, though, that I'm doing much better now. I'm writing and editing this in my college dorm room, which I moved into just yesterday. I'm also very into My Chemical Romance now, and am able to share that interest (and a long furby) with one of my best friends, @vriska-serketboard. It's been a year and a half since my high school has darkened the door of my feet and I am worlds better for it. 

Call it instinct as a former GSA leader, but that's how I want to end this. It get's better. I got better, and you can too. 

Thank you.

[agirlandherquill]

Written In Smoke - The Letter By The Lake

As you can probably tell, a large part of this letter comes to you from the side of a lake, well, a very tiny one - I'm not good at naming bodies of water but it's close enough, here's a photo for you dear reader,

Anywho, moving on to the rest of this letter!

A Glimpse Through Time - little bits about me and what I’ve been up to this week

So, at the start of this week I thought I'd take a walk to what's known as the pocket park, essentially a little bit of forest with paths to walk around, and in the heart of it is the spot pictured above - it's one of my favourite places to read, incredibly quiet (excluding the sheep, and baby lambs, more of that later) and very beautiful at the height of summer - Given the fact that the majority of this week had very high temperatures I thought what better way to spend my time than sit out here on a lovely little bench and read? And so I did!

I felt like diving back in to a series I had only read during lockdown and it felt like a fever-dream, and it was so worth getting back in to because I adore this series and the author's writing - the picture on the left is my view under a ginormous tree because it was hot, very, very hot, and it was the best place for shade, so for a couple hours I sat in the woods, on a fallen log, and read my way through the worst of a hot day

Another few snaps of my little walk - this here's the lane leading to said pocket park, and pivoting just so slightly to the left is the sky, it was very, very pretty and of course photo-worthy

Do you ever feel as though you're sitting in a fairy-tale? Well, maybe it's the woods, the gorgeous albeit exhausting weather, but this week at least it's certainly felt as though it's true - just take a look at the water in the (not-quite) lake

Doesn't quite seem real does it?

Now, what else have I been up to this week?

Heatwave/Summer arrival demanded a drink of heaven, aka Strawberries and Cream Frappe from Costa, a little trip to Waterstones where I was lucky enough to nab the only copy of Lightlark they had (after searching for weeks), and I bought my first ever film camera! Perfect for little trips and things over the summer, so I'm super excited!

Books - As mentioned previously, I started reading Red Queen, I'm about 90 pages in, Wheel of Time I unfortunately wasn't able to read much of this week, but I'll make up for it next week! I'm also starting The Love Hypothesis which I've been excited about for years, I caved and finally bought it on kindle, so I've got that to look forward to over this weekend

Shows/Movies - I started watching American Horror Story this week, I'm 10 episodes in and I'm in awe, it's so much more than I expected and so, so good; I watched Solo and A New Hope this week as part of my Star Wars bet with a friend, I'm not a Star Wars newbie by any means but seeing them for the first time in years brings a whole new perspective, and they're even better than I remember, so I'm looking forward to watching the others, I finished Dexter Season 4 and I'm hoping to start Season 5 very, very soon - tonight hopefully, if time and sleep is on my side

Music - Being outdoors a lot this week hasn't left me with much time for listening to music, but here's a few of the tracks I've had on this week: Cornerstone by Arctic Monkeys (one of my favourites of theirs), One Day from POTC World's End (insta reels dragged me in, I'm in love, even though I'm a very big Pirates of The Caribbean fan to begin with), Blood // Water by Grandson (years after years of stumbling across this song again, and it's just as good every time)

To end this section I thought I'd include a little snap of the sheep that kept me company in the neighbouring field to the pocket park,

Many lambs, many sheep, the joys of the countryside

And since I'm feeling even more in the mood to write, I thought I'd slip in a couple of facts about myself, since this is the Glimpse Through Time section after all,

I'm a countryside girlie, so to speak - well I've lived in a lovely village in England since I was Two Years Old, and it's surrounded by fields - which means every year I get the joys of seeing the baby lambs, cows, and of course older sheep - it might be a little out of the way from the rest of civilisation, but I like it, it's my permanent escape I suppose

I love to draw, and paint (it's been a couple years but hopefully this summer I can get back to it)

I once wrote fanfic - only one, but christ it was shocking (and by that I mean the fact people liked it, last time I checked and it's about four maybe five years old now, it had 95k views on Wattpad, now that is a freaky number), and for any of you curious readers, it was a TMR/Teen Wolf fandom fanfic, so, take from that what you will - I have long since abandoned Wattpad, I avoid it like the plague, not that there's anything wrong with it, it's just not my thing I suppose, so that's an interesting little fact about me!

As usual this letter's been composed over a few days, and as it's the end of the week the cold's slowly creeping in, the wind whispers a little louder beneath the clouds, but it's still lovely, and just perfect weather for writing, which leads me on to the next part of this letter!

Spills From The Ink-Pot - writing, writing, and more writing

Friday and Saturday prove more often than most to be my most productive writing days of the week, I thought I'd take the time to give you dear readers a little tour of my writing process (if there is such a thing), and to kick off the tour let me show you exactly what I see when I open Scrivener!

p.s also a little sneak peek into my desktop (if that's applicable for a laptop, I'm not too sure)

The first thing you'll probably notice is the blue colour scheme, now this changes every few months when I decide to switch things up - but usually I write in page view, so this is what I see - sometimes my Scrivener themes have actual backgrounds to them, but I prefer to just see the words when I need to really, really get in the zone

Secondly, the split screen - I work from the left, and consult the same page on my right, because I'm in the edits stage so I need to reference my original draft and re-write bits and bobs as and when I decide - that's why the text is predominantly in red, because that's my editing colour (handy scrivener feature, I do love this program) and the original text is in white - I find it easier for my eyes and it's just aesthetically pleasing to me, not that I mind black and white I just love having the freedom to customise my workspace!

Next stop on the tour is another program that I rely on very, very heavily - Trello

I use Trello to plot, come up with writing snippets to save until later and slip them in like pieces of a puzzle when I find the right place for them in the story

Since the board for Ruin's Reprisal is incredibly old and less used now that I'm in edits, it's in a state of chaos but it's still nice to see old ideas, unused snippets and the like as I'm going through my draft again - so, here it is,

On each board, you can make lists, and I've used them for each Part of the novel so to speak, among other random little things, and in each list you add cards - I've written many, many a scene in the cards, often in the form of bullet points as you can tell by the number of "checklists" on each card, and I check them off if they're in the story; it's super helpful to have some sort of order for the chaos that is my thoughts, and when inspiration strikes at any time I just jot down the line on a card for later - It's super helpful And whenever I come up with a WIP, I make a board (until I hit the free limit, then I just create lists in a designated board for random, not fully fleshed-out WIPS, so everything has a place in this chaos)

That's about it for the tour! I'd show you my playlists, but there's many, almost too many, just for a small section of this letter (perhaps I'll make that a future post, who knows?)

Here comes the exciting part - writing itself

I actually have something to show you this week dear reader, even if it's only a few hours of work, but I've compiled a little collection of some of my favourite lines, and here they are!

Edeva touched his arm before he could pull away, he went rigid, eyes watching her with a gaze as sharp as the blade his fingers were a hairsbreadth from touching - for a heartbeat, she thought he would pull it on her, but he remained still.  “What is it?” Her words had deserted her. Her breath burned in her lungs, not only from the ash, she pressed her fingers harder into his arm. His eyes darted from her eyes to her fingers, his lips pressed into a thin line. “What is it?” Fenley repeated, a hint of alarm growing in the storm of his eyes. Words came and washed her away, leaving her speaking breathless,“You’ve come a long way from the heartless man I met in the woods.” “I saved you, then. Was that heartless?” “You tried to make it seem that way.” Edeva drew back, guiltily noticing the marks her nails had left on his arm, she hadn’t realised her touch had been so fierce. Her hands settled in her lap but she continued to hold his stare. “There’s very little point living without a heart Fenley, then you might as well just give up.” The smirk he gave her then meant more than most. More than words.  “Now that, Edeva, is something I’ll never do.”

“On those nights,” Edeva asked, tentative, but encouraged by the freeness of their conversation so far, “What troubles you most?" Fenley flexed his fingers, studying the invisible markings where scars should have been, where he knew damage had been done, only to see a smooth plain of unmarred flesh. He could see the scars, in his mind, if he concentrated enough, just as he could see the moments that had caused him injury, the moments he had committed unspeakable things - his scars were etched in history if not flesh, and in a way, that immortality hurt him worse than any injury. “I am worse than any other monster, because I am real.”

“Then why are we stopping, here, of all places?” “Because,” Fenley nudged her good leg with his knee, “You’ve been limping for the past mile and I’m sick of seeing it. We’re taking some time to rest, the night stretches on and there’s plenty of it yet for what we need.” “I don’t want to rest.” She was firm, but even her voice faltered. Edeva leaned more heavily against the mass of trees than she intended to and Fenley raised his brows at her.  “Either you admit it or I’m carrying you to a reasonable perch away from whatever may be skulking around here.” “Where might that be?” “Right.” Fenley’s quiet sigh lowered her guard, making it more of a shock when he threw her over his shoulder and began to scale the mass of tree. She stayed quiet until he set her down on a branch that was strong enough to bear their weight, and smacked him on the head - albeit accidentally, his face was her target, but she was disoriented from being uprighted. Fenley grunted, rubbing his head. “I gave you your options, no need to give me a concussion.” “You took advantage of my weakened state!” She hissed, minding his words and restraining her voice, if not her temper.  “So you admit it, you’re not fit for this.” “I-No!”

And that's it for this week! The second letter of Written In Smoke is all typed up and heading your way - this week's been a good one, and I hope you've all had a lovely week too! I'll see you next week dear reader for another letter!

~ A Girl and Her Quill

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[thefrogdalorian]

It's New Year's Eve and I just wanted to share some mushy thoughts about life and Mando and Din and how this year has been overall for me!!

If you don't want to read below the cut I just wanted to wish you a Happy New Year!! I hope you have a wonderful time, whatever you do to celebrate. I'm currently on a trip so I may not be terribly active, but if you're struggling and the emotions of the day are a little too much, please do message me. I've been there plenty of times. You're not alone. NYE should really be about looking to the future rather than dwelling on the past, but I know how easy it is to get caught up in that depressive loop of thinking.

But if you do want to keep reading, then strap in for some Oversharing Online and gushing about how much Mando means to me:

I first started watching Mando during the pandemic in 2020, I think the first episode released like 2 days after the UK went into lockdown or something. 2020 was an awful year for me, as I'm sure it was for so many of you. A lot of things happened to me that I'm still trying to process but I hope to start therapy in the new year and go some way to addressing it.

Anyway, The Mandalorian came to me at a time I dearly needed it. It was welcome relief from The Horrors I was experiencing. I was hooked pretty much straight away, who was this mysterious man? What were his intentions? Was he good or bad? OH WOW THAT WALK. THAT VOICE!!! I loved it, but it wasn't until The Believer that everything changed for me. It went from enjoyment to full-blown obsession. I couldn't wait until Season 3 aired, and I think the expectations I had built up in my head could never have lived up to the reality of what I felt upon watching it for the first time. I was pretty disappointed most weeks, but I feel so differently now.

This year has been pretty strange for me. I had some amazing highs (like being able to go to Star Wars Celebration where I got to see so many amazing Din and Mandalorian cosplays which was an INSANE experience and I still kind of haven't properly processed yet??) and also some difficult lows.

In June I finally got my autism diagnosis, something I'd been essentially waiting for for EIGHT YEARS. It was a huge shock but also not shocking at all. As in, I knew I was autistic since being a teenager but I was absolutely not expecting to be told right there and then at my assessment. So when the psychologist looked me in the eye and told me that I was autistic it was somewhat of a gut punch. Processing it was extremely difficult but during that time I found myself drawn back to Mando and particularly to season 3. I rewatched it again and again fell in love with a season that I'd probably felt on the whole underwhelmed with at the time, until the last two episodes, which I loved instantly.

When rewatching it, I noticed things that I'd missed before, which led me to become kind of obsessed with the idea of Din and Bo together. I know not everyone enjoys that but that truly is what I love about media, that we can all watch a similar thing and interpret it differently! I don't think I'm any more correct about the way I view certain interactions than anyone else. Shipping should just be a little fun, not ruin your mental health or dictate how you treat strangers on the internet. And it especially should not lead to any real world harassment of creators and actors.

So in September an idea formed and between then and November a 182,000 word fic landed in my lap. That's the best way I can describe writing it for me, I was so fixated on finishing it and the plot just kept coming the more I wrote. It is by FAR the longest thing I've ever written and probably ever will write, but the routine of writing it and publishing it helped claw me out of a spiral I was in after my diagnosis.

And it was publishing it on AO3 that gave me the confidence to rejoin a fandom space again. It was a big step for me to put myself out there but I'm so glad that I did because that's what led me here, to discover this wonderful community who adore Din and The Mandalorian just as much as I do. I'm so happy that I finally found my way here. It was way less intimidating than I ever thought it would be!

I know that I haven't been here for the longest time, I wish I just got over my nervousness and made a tumblr earlier in the year so I could have joined in with the hype before season 3. But also considering how poorly received the season was overall, maybe it was for the best that I wasn't here.

Despite my relative newness here, I just wanted to say how welcomed I've felt and that is a truly lovely feeling. Thank you so much to everyone who has interacted with any of my posts and especially my writing in any way, big or small. It means a lot to me! I cannot wait to be around for all the buildup to Season 4, honestly. I know it seems so far but after midnight we can say it's (probably) only NEXT YEAR!

I have no idea what 2024 has in store for me. That doesn't scare me, in fact I'm quite excited about not knowing what will happen. I

Of course, I have some goals I'd like to achieve for myself but whatever happens, I know that Mando will be there to endlessly rewatch and whatever comes my way, I'll always have Din Djarin. He's the only man to ever exist! That gorgeous tin can who instantly soothes me every time I get to watch his silly little exploits with his silly little son. Where would we be without him, eh?

Anyway, whatever you're doing tonight to celebrate and even if you aren't, I wish you all the best. Stay safe, enjoy yourself and I'm sending you lots of love and light for the year. May 2024 be a healthy, happy prosperous year for you and your loved ones.

See you in 2024!

Love,

Spud 🥔🐸

[shiroi---kumo]

//So what inspired you to write Kumo? I'm very curious

|| So I actually started writing Kumo many many years ago before I created this blog

This blog was born of the fact that I lost the log in for my old blog so I simply moved him. I've been writing Kumo (on Tumblr) since 2014 in truth. (Whoo ten years now)

I've been apart of the FFU fandom since the old days of the Japanese fandom sites and artist website galleries and circles and when the series DVDs were releasing one at a time. I saw FFU for the first time when I was 15 and it was on one of the trial DVDs that had like 1 episodes of a few different shows per disc that came in my friend's NewType magazine.

I fell in love with Kumo at first sight. He's been my favorite character since day 1. Since I was 15. It's been 21 years and I'm still desperately in love with this man. Kumo isn't just my favorite character, he's my dream cosplay and has been since I was just a teenager. So I've been invested in him and everything he is and everything that concerns him since I was just a wee tot in high school, so picking him up as a muse was really just everything coming full circle.

I picked him up as a muse because despite my nervousness because no one knew him my RP friends at the time encouraged me to do so. They knew I loved him and they said they would write with me even if they didn't know him at all ( and they did 😊).

I learned quickly how easily I could cross him over with literally anything and how versatile of a muse he was but personal matters drew me back from writing and I took a break from Kumo for a while. My intense love of FFU sparked again speaking to other friends in 2020 and being on a layoff from work at the time because of the lockdown, I rebuilt Kumo's blog.

Here we are. Four years later. Drowning in world building and lore and at least 50 OCs deep. Kumo and Kiri (his older brother (yes I write him too)) have always been special to me. Since I was a kid, and I mean that with every depth of my soul when I say that.

I mean begged my grandmother to go up to town with me on my learner's permit driving to the store with every scrap of money from pop bottles and other various ways a 15 yr old in 2004 can manage to find money I could manage to find saved up for months just to buy the next volume of FFU (vol.5) because the DVD that has Kumo and Kiri's episode on it finally dropped after months of collecting these DVDs starting at vol. 1, one at a time. The release date for Vol. 5 of FFU was highlighted and circled in my school planner because I waited so long to watch Kiri and Kumo's episode. It was important to me and still is. I've rewatched that episode alone more than 100 times.

FFU was my SHOW.

I can't put that in words enough. I watch it at least once a year every year for the last 20 years because it is my "I'm depressed and I need to be happy so I'm going to watch a thing I love" show.

Kumo's face has the power to cure depression and end wars to me I swear to fuck. I cannot give you the proper words to explain what I mean when I say that it's been 21 years and I'm still desperately in love with this man.

His voice just soothes me. His face melts my depression away. He is just - the best. He's my favorite and it took a long time for me to let myself be okay with that because some of my IRL friends teased and mocked me relentlessly for liking FFU as much as I do, but I can tell you right now - it's been 21 years and I am still desperately in love with this man - so yes of course I would write him.

Of course I would write him and expand his world and give him the backstory and home world and proper culture he deserves. So fun fact, FFU ran for 25 of 52 planned episodes and was cancelled 1/2 through because SquareSoft went bankrupt. The second half of the series is referred to as "Final Fantasy: Unlimited After" (After 2 / After Spiral) and was only ever released as a script book that was never seen outside of Japan. The day I got my hands on it, I cried.

It's been 15 years of me owning the novel "FFU: Bond of Two / Twin Stars" for Google to give me the tech to scan a page and translate it but my god I'm reading it now. 15 years I waited to read this novel and we're doing it dammit.

I can't begin to tell you what I mean when I say FFU is my show but it is and it's not perfect and has problems and it's so quirky but it's my quirky and I adore it to pieces.

So really it only makes sense that I would go whole hog on world building build Kumo's entire society and culture from the ground up for him. The creators sure didn't so someone needs to. They gave me a cookie cutter outline of Misterica and now it's mine to go crazy with and do whatever I desire.

And Kumo is so fun to write. He's so fun to write and explore and listen to him talk to me to tell me about his life and his people. It's so fun to meet his family and his friends and his society as a whole. Misterica is so dear to me, I just - can't. I love them so much.

I've loved Kumo as a kid, so of course I love him now. It's been 21 years and he still has my whole heart.

[livingthedragonlife]

getting to know me game

tagged by @noblebs thank you! <3

Last Song I Listened To: i'm on 24/7 Pretty Vicious lockdown since I'm going to see The Struts in LESS THAN A WEEK AAAAA

anyway i've been listening to the whole album, but the titular song most recently

Favorite color: yellow!!!!

Currently watching: Mashle! it's an incredibly fun show and i recommend it if you enjoy really dumb anime fights and parodies that actually have a genuinely good story and message outside of all the jokes. also my friends have roped me into starting One Piece, not much to report on that since we're only like 6 episodes in.

Sweet/savory/spicy: Sweet, always

Current obsession: glam rock and the history of glam rock. i have multiple books checked out from the library about it and i already need more

Last thing I googled: "queer groups chicago", since i need friends IRL so bad

Favorite season: summer! especially now that i live right on the lake and will be able to have the Beach Experience more regularly

Skills I'd like to learn: leather working! i had a little taste of this when i made my extremely cool jacket, but i want More

Best advice: there is no correct way to live your life, only ways that will make you happy and unhappy. choose happiness, even if it's scary.

Tagging (no pressure!): @seventhgod @bargainbincheese @doberbutts @bluehairedspidey @jakeetored @xolarpunk @sigridhawke @noglorysavehonor and anyone else who feels like playing!

[digitalgate02]

1, 2, 8, 14 for Hikari Yagami! (lol I just like the Yagami siblings a whole lot)

[ask meme list]

(It's OK, i like them too!!)

1- My first impression of them

Like i mentioned before, in previous memes/challenges, 02 was the very first official entrance to the franchise -- even if i had watched a few episodes of Adv'99 before, but only when i got interested in 02 and it was about to be starting to be aired in Brazil (in 2001).

Vague memories of Hikari -- or, Kari, since i'm here talking about the BR dub this time -- is that she was a strong mysterious lady but very gentle and soft. As I watched 02 I really liked her, and was cheering for Davis (BR dub Davis is just like Daisuke, except with a Carioca accent) to get a chance to show how devoted he was.

I also had a strong attachment to Nefertimon and Tailmon as a kid too, Tailmon was my favorite digimon before V-mon appeared and stole my heart 🤣

Anyway, I love Hikari so much. Since I watched 02 with the JP cast/and fansubs, and i love how she's very able to manipulate people in order to get what she wants lol (yes, she's self-aware of this, of how she can control Daisuke and this is the group's advantage somehow lol)

2- When I think I truly started to like them (or dislike them, if you've sent me a character I don't like)

I think watching 02 with friends on our 02 rewatch party lockdown 2020 was when i truly started to like Hikari, and to apologize to her and to Takeru about my bad perception of their characters & portrayals there...

Also, MAO is fantastic as Hikari in Kizuna's Drama CD, and the BP Kizuna's character songs. But I also love her OG VA, Araki Kae and she will be forever associated with the kid Hikari-chan for me.

8- Your favorite outfit of them

I like a ton of outfits for Hikari-chan!! But mostly 02 and Kizuna ones! But lately i'm in love with her design for the new movie. I wanna dress like Hikari-chan!!

Isn't she cute as an adult lady? 😊🥰

14- Best storyline they had

I'm still thinking 02 is the best of Hikari's potential explored and developed. You can notice the biggest difference in her in the Kizuna drama CD, in which she's able to voice her own needs and desires more often.

But if anything... 02 ep 31 is the best Hikari-chan episode ever.

I highly recommend reading Shiha's metas about Hikari-chan. Because they also helped me to see what i didn't before, and she also worded a ton of things i've noticed before but never got courage or skill enough to say it aloud.

[wonderofasunrise]

...or at least I think I do.

Anyway, something tells me that it'd be neat to have a well-organised pinned post, so here goes.

I go by M around this place, and I've been back here since 2020 after almost a decade of absence from this hellsite. I'm a 28-year-old queer woman from Indonesia, and I spend around 30% of my fandom life writing fic, 5% being a connoisseur of...less-than-stellar and often obscure movies starring hot actresses that I like (Jeri Ryan, Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby, Laura Innes, Sherry Stringfield, Maura Tierney to name a few...), and the remaining 65% lamenting the fact that I'm a fandom participant from a non-Western country where English is not an official language which is...well, let's say it can be quite a lonely existence.

My two primary fandoms here are ER and Star Trek (The Next Generation, Voyager, Picard), so you'll find that most of my posts and reblogs are related to those two - with a dash of other stuff. I got into ER during lockdown in 2020, and it remains one of the best decisions I've ever made. It is my favourite show ever, and as of now Kerry Weaver is still the only queer character on TV that I can relate to fully as a struggling queer woman in a less-than-supportive environment. ER was also my entry to online fandom spaces, particularly Twitter and Tumblr. Star Trek is the one fandom I never expected to really get into, given that I was never too big on sci-fi, though according to my mum it runs in the family since my late grandfather loved The Original Series and was an admirer of Spock. So far I have watched TNG, VOY, and PIC, with VOY being my favourite - especially my beloved former Borg drone and half-Klingon.

As I said, fanfiction is my thing here and I've been into it since I was around 14 - though I didn't start writing seriously until I was an adult. Among other things, fic helped me learn English tremendously as a teenager, and though naturally I still make mistakes here and there I feel far more confident writing fic in English than in Indonesian, lol. So far I have 29 published works on AO3, all ER and Trek. My favourite characters, and thus the ones I write the most about, are Kerry Weaver, Susan Lewis, Abby Lockhart, and Carol Hathaway (ER); Tasha Yar, Data, Beverly Crusher, and Deanna Troi (TNG); and Kathryn Janeway, B'Elanna Torres, and Seven of Nine (VOY). My preferred ships are Kerry/Susan, Kerry/Abby, and Abby/Susan (ER); Picard/Crusher and Data/Tasha (TNG); and B'Elanna/Seven (VOY).

These are some of my personal favourites that I've written:

ER The Ache for Home (Kerry/Susan) When All We Have is Here and Now (Kerry/Susan) In a Sacred Place (Kerry/Susan) Like Nothing Before (Abby/Susan)

Star Trek In Salvo (TNG x VOY crossover; Seven, the Doctor, & Beverly) The Colours Are Bright (VOY; Janeway & Seven) One Hundred Hours (VOY; B'Elanna & Seven)

For more of those, here's my AO3 profile - do feel free to leave a comment if you enjoy any of my works! I also take prompts for the aforementioned fandoms, and if you have any please hit me up here. In case you somehow happen to enjoy my vibes, I'm also on Twitter as @lobsterbreaker and my ask here is (almost) always open. In addition, I'm a mod on two queer-focused Discord servers: que[ER] Fic and Fandom for all things ER fanfiction and fandom with a twist of gayness and Space MILFs for our favourite hot ladies in space - please let me know if you're interested in joining either (or both 👀)!

That's about it, really, so if you've been so kind to bear with me here you fucking rock, I love you, I wish you the best yadda yadda yadda, and here's to more medical and space shenanigans!

[froizetta]

3 and 20 for the ask game ❤️❤️

3. Biggest strength

Excellent question! I spent a little time thinking about this because I honestly don't think I have just one, clear strength - although I guess do most people, really? But in the end, I think my actual biggest strength is that I'm a little bit good at a lot of things. For example: I'm scientifically minded, which gives me a useful range of skills; but I also have a bunch of creative hobbies like music, writing, drawing and dressmaking that I'm fairly competent in. And it turns out that having some skill in a wide range of stuff makes you a lot more versatile. Like, for instance, when your PhD suddenly requires you to basically do arts and crafts for Science reasons, you can be like, cool I can basically already do that!

20. 5 things you love

Five whole things? Uhhhhh...

Obvious but: fandom shit. We're literally on dc tumblr lol, I feel like this goes without saying. I'm lumping it into one answer so this whole list isn't just a list of pairings and fandoms, but superbat is the current loml!

Music! I've been playing instruments and singing since I was a kid. I like basically all genres tbh, but my favourite genre to play is jazz and my favourite to listen to is basically any genre fused with funk. (This includes pure funk btw: put on September by Earth, Wind and Fire in my general vicinity and watch me absolutely lose my shit for 3 minutes and 35 seconds.)

A really good sandwich. The majority of sandwich ingredients are fucking baller (I am a slut for both good cheese and a nice seeded sourdough), there's near endless variety, they're easy to make, and it's socially acceptable to just stuff it into your face with your hands. Exquisite. My favourite (partly just out of nostalgia but whatever) is reker smørbrød (open prawn sandwich for the non-Scandinavian) on a sunny summer's day with the family, on the proper white poppy-seed bread with plenty of mayo and a good spritz of lemon juice. And yeah, sure, there's very obviously an element of nostalgia there. But it's my list and I can do what I want, so there!

Fashion I guess? I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was a kid, and although I decided a long time ago that I would hate that actually I've still always really liked clothing and dressing up. Ever since I hit an early quarter-life crisis during lockdown, decided that cringe was dead actually and started dressing like a low-effort e-girl basically all the time, I've been having a blast lol.

The brain. Look, the PhD may have thoroughly beat my interest in neuroscientific academia out of me, but my love for the brain in general remains mostly unsullied. If anyone ever wants a fun neuroscience fact, especially about dopamine (objectively the best monoamine neurotransmitter imo), I'm always happy to provide!

[personasintro]

First of all, happy new year!! I've been following your stories for two years now and it's one of the best things I've ever done. Yesterday you made my year end in the best way, reading mh. I just want to say thanks for jk and y/n talking and solving their problems, from now on I know more things are coming but I don't know what to expect from the two of them, especially because of y/n wanting to take a break from their sex life and jk doubting that proposal 😬

Also a few days ago I finally decided to start reading love lockdown, I spent a long time holding back the urge to read it because I wanted to read several chapters in a row and when I saw that you post such a long chapter, i said THIS IS MY TIME.

Normally zombie apocalypse stories are quite cliché but written by you I knew I was not going to be disappointed. I just want to say that I don't think I ever wanted so much for there to be something sexual between two characters, the tension was too much and when it happened it was beautiful lol. I know it's a slow burn story and it's going to be hard for there to be something romantic between them, but I'm also really excited for the drama with cherry 😭 I'm going to wait as long as it takes to see how that story goes because I know A LOT of drama and character deaths are coming (if taehyung dies, I die too).

Finally I just want to thank you for this great year because it must be really hard to write so many amazing stories at the same time, every one of them is worth reading and I hope everyone realizes that. I hope this year you are happy and healthy, Mimi 💜💜💜💜💜

(Sorry for my faulty English)

Two years?! Wow, that’s quite a long time. Thank you for still being here <3

I’m glad you could end your year with mh! Those two are idiots so we never know what to expect 🤭 but whatever it is, I hope you’ll enjoy it (all of you)!

You even gave 2L a chance? 🥹 well I truly appreciate that! I’ve had a zombie apocalypse au in my head for so long but I never had the guts to write it. I think the biggest moment of me wanting to write it was when I started watching TWD [The Walking Dead for those who don’t know this show] and that was like 4-5 years ago?! 😳 like I said, I never got around it but I still had an idea until I came up with 2L all of a sudden (after stopping to watch that show for some reason may I add). I knew what I wanted with this story was for it to be original. Even tho they can be a familiar elements to other zombie apocalypse movies/tv shows. I definitely haven’t watched many of them, but maybe I should haha? I really wanted to write my own version of this genre, pick what I think is the best. I even tried to use a name for zombies that I never seen/heard anywhere [undeads] and I love it! I put everything into this story and it makes me happy you guys enjoy it and love it! Seriously, every feedback just brings me so much joy! Especially since 2L is probably the least liked story by people out of all my current ongoing stories 🥹 so thank you very very much!!!

[toomanyfandomsneverenoughtime]

Thank you for the tag @baynton 💖

List 5 favourite shows (in no particular order) and answer questions accordingly. 1. You, Me and the Apocalypse 2. The Wrong Mans 3. BBC Ghosts 4. The Inbetweeners 5. The Office (US) (Ignore the fact that three of these are Mat things, it's all I've really been interested in for the last three years or so.)

1. Who is your favourite character in 2?

Sam, of course <3

2. Who is your least favourite character in 1?

Ohhh, I'm weirdly fond of most of the characters but Spike is annoying as fuck.

3. What's your favourite episode of 4?

"Will's Birthday", Series 2, Episode 3 because I too had a dinner party for my 18th birthday based on this, unfortunately, I did not serve Coq Au Vin.

4. What is your favourite season of 5?

Season 6 has to be my favourite for Jim and Pam's wedding episode and the birth of Cece 🥺

5. What's your favourite relationship in 3?

Actual canon relationship has to be Alison/Mike, but ship wise, I'm a Thomas/Julian fan.

6. Who is your anti relationship in 2?

As long as Sam is getting wrecked, I don't really care? So I guess any ship not involving Sam?

7. How long have you watched 1?

It'll be about 2 or 3 years now.

8. How did you become interested in 3?

I saw a clip of it during one of the COVID lockdowns and it was being advertised as Horrible Histories for grown-ups. I told my sister about it because we sort of watched Horrible Histories as teens and she said we could watch it. I'll never forget saying to her before we started watching it, "Do you remember when everyone was obsessed with Mathew Baynton back when Horrible Histories was on?" and look what fucking happened.

9. Who is your favourite actor in 4?

Joe Thomas <3

10. Which show do you prefer 1, 2 or 5?

Probably number 1, especially if it had more seasons.

11. Which show have you seen more episodes of 1 or 3?

There are more episodes of 3 and I've been watching it for slightly longer so 3.

12. If you could be anyone from 4, who would you be?

Charlotte Hinchcliffe beecause she's fit and doesn't really end up in any massively embarrassing situations 🤣

13. How would you kill off your favourite character in 5?

Get Dwight to do it (my favourite character is Jim, basic, I know 🙈).

14. Would a 3/4 crossover work?

It would since a few of the supporting cast from The Inbetweeners have been in Ghosts now - the humour would have to change though, preferably Ghosts' humour to be more vulgar so I can hear Thomas saying "pussy", thanks.

15. Pair two characters in 1 that would make an unlikely, but strangely okay couple.

Paula and Mary - power mums balancing each other out and bringing up their boys together in the best way possible 🤣 Also, Ariel/Jamie, very unlikely but strangely okay.

16. Overall, which show has the better cast, 3 or 5?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh, I meannnnnnnn, fuck. Nah, I'm not betraying Mat like that. 3.

[commajade]

I’m curious what draws you/keeps you following shinee?

i just love them! i have for a long time. i've been listening to their extremely diverse and high quality discography since 2010. their music is the main thing, their songs and performances are genuinely very very very good. they are very talented and their tracks are truly some of the best of kpop, just very good across several genres and styles. there's a shinee track for every person, every emotion, every situation. it's comfort music and daily music for me and their discog is so big it never gets boring. including their japanese discog they have at least 150 songs and with their solo careers its probably like 300, i have yet to listen to every shinee song after 3 years of stanning and i will maybe never run out.

i'm a p recent fan of the rest of their content (variety content, their musicals and acting jobs, livestreams, etc). i started officially stanning (or deokjil in korean) in 2020 when i was miserable because of lockdown and it improved my life and my korean skills a lot. they have over a decade of work that i could find and enjoy and that's just nice to have. i like them because they're funny and good at their jobs and i admire them as artists and public figures. i admire how they relate to their work and their audience, and how they handled their very visible grieving after jonghyun's passing and continue his legacy in their work. watching them grow and mature as people and artists and never lose their original charm, sweetness, and drive is really inspiring to me as someone who wants to be an artist as well. i'm interested in their art, i'm rooting for their careers, and being their fan makes me happy.

[ohmybitna]

↳ 8 Shows To Get To Know Me

i was tagged by @sorrowfulliming and @heesulovebot thank you both so much, I had a lot of fun doing this list! ❤️ I tried to choose some shows that have had kind of played a significant role in my life in one way or another, maybe you'll learn a bit more about me through this idk

one tree hill (2003 - 2012) i feel like this one is the most important show if you want to know me. It's half of my personality. I grew up with this show and all of these characters mean the absolute world to me, I relate to them on a deep level and I've rewatched all 9 seasons of this so many times that if you tell me a quote from the show I can tell you who said it and in what context and season (maybe even episode) it was said. It's probably the best teen drama ever made and except for lack of representation (which i can excuse to some extent because it started airing in the early 00s) this is really something everyone can and should watch. Nothing beats the friendships in this show. I'm still searching for the brooke & haley to my peyton tbh

the vampire diaries (2009 - 2017) this show is very special to me because I started learning english more intensely and on my own outside of school because I couldn't wait until they were showing the eps with german dub half a year after they originally aired. I had to wait 4 years until the show made stefan & caroline a couple and no other ship has ever come close to how I felt (and still feel) about them. best friends to lovers will always get me and they did it so well. we do not talk about anything after 7x05, the show ended there for me tyvm. they were by far the best part of the show for me since I dislike a lot of the decisions the show made a lot of the time. but they were the reason I created a tumblr account back in 2015 that I've since forgot the name and password for 😂 it was an account dedicated to making icons for tvd. ugh i miss shows with multiple seasons and 24 eps for each season

blueming (2021) this bl drama is always gonna be important to me since it made me decide to choose film as the thing I want to major in. I got really into independent movies after watching blueming because the cinematography of it astounded me and I wanted to learn more about it and how to create beautiful shots like those in the drama myself. I also rewatch it frequently. siwon is very dear to me.

taxi driver (2021 - 2023) i debated if i should put this or the devil judge/flower of evil/happiness here because i love them all dearly and they're all tied for my fav kdramas of all time but this one was the first kdrama i watched weekly as it aired and I was so obsessed with it and its cases and characters. i love darker themes and case-by-case dramas, it's my favorite genre when it comes to korean shows. kim doki is such a dear character to me and i love the way jehoon plays him. words can't describe how happy i am that it's back on my screen and just as good as it always was. (plus pyo yejin is one of my biggest celebrity crushes i love her sm)

the haunting of hill house (2018) one of the greatest shows ever made and imo the best of its genre. ep 6 of this show especially impressed me so much because it just consists of multiple one-shots. i love mike flanagan, he's my favorite director and if you're into psychological horror i more than recommend watching this and midnight mass because they're both masterpieces. mike has this way of connecting horror and sadness and he does it so so well. I could write essays about his filmmaking and he's my biggest inspiration when it comes to film.

my engineer (2020) this was the first bl I was really invested in, I even bought tickets to the online fanmeeting which i usually never do for anything. these characters and actors really helped me get through the lockdowns in 2020. one of the few bls where they managed to give everyone their fair screen time and made everyone's story enjoyable to watch. also very important part of why i loved watching it was the lack of fanservice they made the actors do and that we got them all in one room reacting to every episode together. it was the best and i wish more shows would do it.

light on me (2021) oh what a show. even though I don't like the ending and I think the last episode had some continuity issues and felt like a second thought in some ways I thorougly enjoyed the ride this drama took me on. the runtime allowed for the show to explore its characters well and made us able to connect with them. i miss that for newer shows a lot. shin daon is and probably will always be my favorite k-bl character, he felt so real and I could see an old version of myself in him. he deserved a lot better and I hope he's off to college living his best life, he deserves it.

one day at a time (2017 - 2020) let me just say that I am NOT a sitcom enjoyer. shows that are targeted to make me laugh usually don't and I get bored early on because I don't get the appeal. nothing against these shows, they just don't speak to me. HOWEVER odaat is a huge exception because I was hooked to the well-balanced use of humor and deep conversations and topics portrayed in this show. plus it also made me laugh!! and sometimes also cry both in the span of 5 minutes. these characters have a special place in my heart. elena halped me a lot in my journey of self-discovery and I loved the way the show portrayed her journey.

bonus: (i know this technically makes it 9 but i didn't know where to put it)

wish you (2021) I'm adding this as well but extra since I only ever watch the movie version of it. it's imo the only kbl that works as a movie. even though not a lot of people love this, it is my most rewatched k-bl (and I think bl in general). I adore Sang Yi, he's a lot like me and watching him be an awkward mess in front of his crush and idol is very cute to watch. the OST for this show is also so good i listen to it all of the time.

i will tag @ghostvalleymasters i hope you haven't done this yet :)

[bloodelves88]

Everything Is Liked Nowadays

In the past 2 years, while trying to figure out if a new video game is worth playing, I've noticed something. Almost every game, good or just okay, are rated highly by users. I usually use Steam user reviews to judge a game, and it worked really well before 2020 or so. When the reviews are positive, I'm pretty much guaranteed to enjoy the game. Nowadays? It's a gamble.

I've also noticed that the exact same thing happens for anime. For anime, I use MyAnimeList ratings. The criteria for me to decide whether or not to watch an anime is if it has a score above 8. This didn't guarantee that I would like the anime, but it was pretty accurate most of the time. Again, this method of filtering seems to have stopped working since 2020.

I've been wondering why this is the case, and I've come to the conclusion that video games and anime have become a lot more mainstream in the recent years, and the lockdown period during Covid has fueled their path towards mainstream status. These two hobbies were definitely not mainstream before 2010, and it only started growing after that. It used to be the nerd thing. The thing the skinny boy with glasses does after school. It used to be something you only share with others when you knew that they were into it as well. Back then, whenever I said I played video games as a hobby, people would reply "Dota?". Nobody ever heard of Company of Heroes, Red Alert, Assassin's Creed, Mass Effect, or even Warcraft. Nowadays, while people still gravitate towards certain titles such as Fortnite, Valorant, Among Us, or Call of Duty, at least the titles are more varied, and people would have heard of Warcraft or Elden Ring.

Now, why would becoming mainstream cause this issue? Here's why:

Mainstream consumers are newbies or casuals.

Now put down your pitchforks, this is not an insult.

I say this as a definition of how they consume content, and the level of enjoyment they would gain from it. I simply mean that they only consume what's being hyped up, what's popular, and what has the best ratings. They are also possibly but not necessarily new in the space, with little to no experience with older content and content beyond what's popular. Think of a moviegoer who only watches Marvel movies. Something like that.

When you live in a bubble like that, the level of exposure to the medium as a whole is really small. So what happens is that these people begin to think that Spy × Family is the best anime released in the recent years, despite it having nothing much interesting going for it other than Anya being cute and funny. They think Stray is a potential game of the year, despite it being just a cat walking simulator. Don't get me wrong - these two examples are good, polished, and well made pieces of content, but ultimately they bring nothing amazing to the table. A solid 7/10 at most.

I'll use Spy × Family to make comparisons here, since MyAnimeList has scores and a top anime list which will make comparison easier.

Currently, Spy × Family has a score of 8.7/10. This puts the anime above classics such as Code Geass, Great Teacher Onizuka, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Death Note. And it's above newer hits such as Your Lie In April, One Punch Man, Made in Abyss, Kimetsu no Yaiba, and Haikyuu. I don't know how anyone who has watched any of the listed anime above can look at me with a straight face and tell me that Spy × Family is better.

Coincidentally, all of the anime I listed came out before 2020, and Spy × Family came out after 2020. I have a strong feeling that Spy × Family was a lot of people's first, second, or third anime (and Kimetsu no Yaiba probably also being one of them), leaving them with nothing solid to benchmark against.

Think back to the point when you first stepped into gaming, anime, movies, or any sort of hobby. You were looking at content for the first time, and it just seemed that nothing could be better than what you just experienced. You would probably have rated lots of things higher back then, compared to now. I myself am guilty of this, and it's perfectly normal behaviour. As a result, a lot of popular content that newbies consume ends up being rated positively as it's designed to appeal to the masses.

Then there's the effect of social media, Youtubers, Twitch streamers, etc. Followers would naturally all have the same tastes towards certain types of content, and if the person they're following likes a certain game or anime, then it drives their followers to consume said content, which in turn brings up the ratings once more since they have a high likelihood of enjoying it. A point could be made about how these followers would be on the hardcore side of things, and you might be right. However I do think that people following Youtubers is also becoming pretty mainstream nowadays, especially among the younger folks.

Put together these two factors (and I believe that these are not the only two), and then apply it to how mainstream consumers are far more populous than the hardcore population, and this would then affect a lot of content. Out of a group of 1000 people, 200 might be hardcore, and 800 might be casual. And to make the ratings exaggerated, if the hardcores gives 0/10 ratings and the casuals give 10/10, you end up with an 8/10. More realistically, the hardcores would give it anywhere between a 6-7/10, and the casuals giving it a 9-10/10, resulting in a score of about 8.5-9.5/10. Apply this to every single piece of content out there, and you end up with everything being rated positively.

So now I have to read the reviews instead of just relying on scores. And even that is starting to become a problem, especially on Steam. The reviews on the store's front page are starting to become absolutely useless and meme-ish, since people are trying to get upvotes and funny votes. Sigh.

Finally, take everything I wrote with a pinch of salt. This is just my speculation and opinion. There's no actual research or statistics backing this up. It's just my guess as to why this has been happening. Am I right or wrong, who knows? I just know that the problem exists.

[swordshapedleaves]

Once again it's time for my seasonal anime opinions no one asked for!

Putting it under the cut because it's long as fuck

New Anime I'm Excited About

Uzumaki It's Uzumaki!

365 Days to the Wedding Introvert coworkers fake an engagement to avoid a work transfer. I fucking love fake dating.

Dandadan An anime guy on youtube already sold me on this one by talking up the manga but the trailers look incredible. I'm too stupid to know what's going on and I don't even care because it looks amazing. Science SARU also made Devilman: Crybaby and Heike Monogatari so this should be a treat to watch.

Demon Lord 2099 This looks sick as fuck, very Shadowrun.

Ao no Miburo I am way more excited for this one than it probably deserves but I love historical dramas. This one is about the Shinsengumi before they were the Shinsengumi. I don't honestly believe Maho Film can pull it off but I really want them to.

New Anime I Plan to Check Out

Lockdown Zone: Lv. X: This could be a good horror show but the teaser trailer is leaving a LOT to the imagination though so it's hard to tell if this is gonna be good.

Negative Positive Angler This anime has cute girls AND boys doing a cute thing, the animation looks really good, and the trailer had good vibes. Might be a tear-jerker since protag-kun has a terminal diagnosis.

How I Attended an All-Guy's Mixer I think this is BL but it's not clear. I will watch in the hopes that the guys kiss.

Chi.: Chikyuu no Undou ni Tsuite Grounded historic anime set in Poland isn't a thing I think I've ever seen before. The animation looks serviceable at best but I'm still hopeful Madhouse will give us another gem.

Ranma ½ (2024) I really wanted to like the original Ranma 1/2 anime but I gave up 28 episodes into its 161 episode run out of exhaustion. Every time it seemed like the main relationship might develop a bit, they backslid to the status quo by the next episode. If this is a less faithful adaptation of the manga and it streamlines the story, I might actually enjoy it. It's being made by MAPPA so at least we know it's going to look incredible.

Yakuza Fiancé Isn't an arranged Yakuza marriage the foundation of one of the greatest anime rom coms of all time? I can't remember the name but I didn't like it. I'm not into gangster stuff, but Studio Deen has made some of my favorite romances and the animation has a really fun bold style.

Nina the Starry Bride I read a bit of the manga and enjoyed it so I'm definitely checking this one out. Signal.MD also made MMO Junkie and The Fire Hunter.

New Anime I'm on the Fence About

I’ll Become a Villainess Who Goes Down in History It doesn't look like a good villainess show but that's never stopped me before! I haven't watched anything by Maho Film before but their winter anime Doctor Elise was supposed to be good. I have high hopes for the other anime they're putting out this season but I'll check this one out as well.

Kinoko Inu Is a story about healing from grief with the help of a fakemon. It says it's heartwarming but the trailer had some sort of last second sting where the guy's house was on fire??? The only other thing I've seen by C-Station is the first couple eps of Yuru Camp, which was too sleepy for my tastes.

Kabushikigaisha Magi-Lumière The premise, that magical girl is just a job you can have and there are start up magical girl companies, is quite charming but the animation is mid and the adult protagonist sidesteps a lot of the emotional core of the genre.

Mechanical Arms Complicated sci fi set up for what looks like a typical shonen battle anime, but I like that it appears our soft boy protag-kun has a girl for a lancer without any romantic tension. This is either a rerelease or a remake of the anime that was released on Vimeo by TriF Studio in 2018? I think?

The Do-Over Damsel Conquers The Dragon Emperor It's giving "we have seventh time loop at home" if the protagonist went for the evil emperor first thing as soon as she looped and he was actually super silly and chill.

Dragon Ball Daima I love that the synopsis is just "New Dragonball series." Fuck you. Its Dragonball. What else do you need to know? Based on the trailer, it looks like the adults get turned into children somehow and then sent to the demon realm. I'm not really a dragonball guy but this looks pretty charming!

[avaantares]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (except me because I've already done it). Spread the self-love 💙 (also sorry if you've gotten this already!!)

Top 5 fics? Isn't that like choosing a favorite child?

Well, here goes:

Fic: Children of the Future Age Fandom: Devil May Cry Probably Definitely my most popular fan work, this 330K monolith was meant to be around a tenth of that length when I started writing it during the final week of 2019... but during COVID lockdown, it became something of a coping mechanism, and I escalated from a simple one-problem plot to a convoluted braid of several interlinked conflicts, with a whole lot of character work on the side. Ultimately, I spent over a year writing and editing the thing. It gets the top slot by virtue of its length and complexity, its characterization, and because it was just fun and therapeutic to write. And it has the dubious honor of having been stolen and sold by plagiarists! (Okay, that part is less fun.) It's also been translated by fans into both Russian and Chinese, which... wow, that's a lot of words to translate, and I'm honored that anyone would volunteer to spend that much time with it. .

Fic: Splinter Fandom: Torchwood & Sarah Jane Adventures This is my earliest novel-length Torchwood work, and arguably not the best-written, but still a favorite because of all I put into it. I did SO MUCH RESEARCH for this one, to the point that after reading it, several other authors asked me to tech-read their stories because they thought I was either some kind of biologist or a medical professional (sorry, I'm just a nerd!). Also there's timeline fracturing and causality paradoxes and, oh, yeah, a boatload of angst. Very on-brand for me. :D .

Fic: What Dreams May Come Fandom: Torchwood & Doctor Who Another long and plot-twisty fic, this one plays with time travel and some other elements that I really enjoy writing. I included a number of my favorite characters from both series, and it was fun to get my teeth into their personalities. It also features an original character whom (to my surprise) most readers seemed to really like. This story was later republished in the Doctor Who zine Tales From the Matrix. .

Fic: The Night of the Fractured Mask Fandom: The Wild Wild West I've written so many Torchwood fics that I could probably populate a whole faves list just with those, but in the interest of variety, I'll pull out a story from the second most obscure fandom I've written for. Ever since I was a kid watching reruns of this 1960s spy/Western/proto-steampunk adventure series after school, I have been in awe of Artemus Gordon (and Ross Martin, the absolute genius who played him, who is largely responsible for the existence of one of my sideblogs). This is just a quick little character study, but I think I succeeded in capturing Artie's voice a bit, which felt like a pretty big accomplishment. .

Fic: The Light Within Fandom: Guardian (Zhen Hun) I'm being a bit self-serving with this last one. 😅 I do really like this story, especially the sibling dynamics in it, but for some reason it has garnered the least attention of any finished work I've posted on AO3 (only 121 views in the nine months it's been up). Admittedly, it started out as a joke, but it quickly took on a life of its own and became a charming little far-future sequel to the TV drama. I'm including it here in the hopes that someone in the tiny Guardian fandom who missed it the first time around might check it out.

I will be sending out some Asks privately, as that's how I received this one, but for anyone who has NOT done this yet and would like to participate, send me a message or Ask (off Anon) and I will drop it in your inbox! Everyone deserves a chance to self-promote once in a while. :)