#times better that the fandom popular romo ship

[asleepinawell]

How has poi changed your life? Genuinely curious, I love this show

I got this ask in May '20 and am only now answering it. :')

part of the problem with answering it is that half of the answer would be to the question of 'how has fandom changed your life' where poi is the fandom I've been the most active in and where fandom made the most difference. and that's a long story

my first draft of this was over 2k words long, and went back much further in time explaining how i had and hadn’t fit into queer spaces and fandom throughout my life. I edited it way back but it’s still long-ish, so you can read it below the break

many years ago, when I got my first full time job in my chosen industry my senior year of college I was so busy that I couldn't function. massive unhealthy amounts of overtime and a toxic work environment. (don't work at tech start-ups, kids!!!) my social life vanished. strikethrough on livejournal happened right then too and fandom, which i’d only been a silent participant in at that point, kind of went quiet for a while and by the time it started regrouping I was so busy that I didn't know about it. several awful years later I quit my job, spent several months in my room in my parents' house trying to recover from massive burn out (see my comment about tech start-ups), and then got a job on the opposite coast and left behind my whole circle of friends some of whom made up my entire connection to the queer community at that time.

making friends after college is very hard when you're an introvert and just generally don't like socializing that much. making queer friends can be even harder since there's fewer places to meet them and there's often an underlying question of dating/sex that hovers around awkwardly when sometimes what you want is just an absolutely no romo/no sex friendship. so while I did make a few queer friends eventually, I didn't have that same sort of community I did before I'd moved and I missed it

(I would be remiss in not saying that the queer friends i made in this time are all amazing and wonderful and some are still my close friends and very important to me. The thing I’m highlighting here was the lack of feeling like I was part of a larger queer community).

fast forward a bit. I get sick. like really really sick. I'm in and out of the ER, I'm missing tons of work, I'm mostly bed-ridden. I think after the last few years people can more easily appreciate how intensely lonely and surreal being stuck at home by yourself non stop can be when you're not used to it. sometime right before that I'd joined tumblr for the sole purpose of looking at cat pictures on my phone during boring meetings. I wasn't really aware that this was where fandom had migrated to (it was in fact possible to use tumblr without intersecting with fandom). but stuck home alone with time to kill I started looking for art and gifs of the tv and games I was consuming and stumbled into fandom tumblr and specifically queer femslash fandom.

I kind of poked around the territory and eventually fell into the carmilla fandom which became the first fandom I actually created content for. a few of my fics had a decent audience and while I was never part of the central core of the fandom I made some good friends there. some of y'all probably followed me back then. I eventually drifted away from carmilla for a lot of reasons I won't get into and stumbled right into poi. this would have been between seasons 4 and 5, late 2015-early 2016.

my health problems get more exciting and I end up in the hospital. I have vague memories of watching poi on my laptop in my hospital bed (vague because I was on a lot of morphine). I actually posted some fic while I was in the hospital (would have been the end of my carmilla run still).

and I get out of the hospital (early 2016) and am somewhat better but it's pretty clear that I'm going to have chronic health issues probably for the rest of my life. my social life, such as it was, was mostly dead, a lot of stuff I used to do for fun was much harder to manage. I'm still spending a ton of time at home (not even counting covid) and I have bad days where I feel terrible and can't do much. but I'll come back to that

I think most of us remember 2016. the year tv show runners fully embraced the bury your gays trope (and sometimes the fridging trope at the same time as a bonus!) and, by autostraddle's tally, 30 queer female characters in tv shows died. and then on top of that we had the actual real world tragedy of the pulse nightclub shootings. it was a massively depressing time all around for queer people

s5 of poi aired that year. I know people have different opinions on s5 of poi, and that's valid. I hated it. and I really intensely hated how it treated root and shaw. there aren't enough words to express how fucking angry I was after s5. or rather, there are 319,678 words.

I wrote a fic many of you may have read called sliding towards chaos that rewrote the entirety of poi from mid-s3 onwards. it got pretty popular lol. I put so much into writing it, too. it was basically a second full time job for me and a great way to take my mind off the fact I was still having health problems and all the crazy shit going on in the world (we had a presidential election in the US in 2016 :)))) it did not go well!)

i'm very proud of writing stc, and even if I think it isn't my strongest writing (which is good! improving over time is good!), it was what really connected me to a lot of other people in the fandom. I felt part of the fandom community in a way I hadn't with carmilla and it was an intensely queer community built around shared interests

one of the problems with finding queer friend groups out in the 'real world' is you're often gathering to meet based on the uniting factor of being queer, and your interests may vary greatly. fandom is amazing because it lets you find queer people who you share all these interests with and who you can bond with over them and collaborate with and that's just so so important. does fandom have a ton of issues and toxicity and bigotry? yes, absolutely. but it also has so much good to offer

through stc and later fics I became close friends with some really really cool people in the fandom (including my favorite writer and my favorite artist). these are people I'm still very close friends with. some of them I've hung out with offline and the ones I haven't are mostly because they live too far away. after years of not having my own queer circle of friends I have found one again and one I can usually participate in even with my health problems and that is such an important thing to me

on a creative front, the fic writing and the gif making I've done have both taught me an enormous amount and been a very positive part of my life. working collaboratively on comics has been one of the coolest things I've done. there is just so much good that came out of me seeing one shoot gif on tumblr dot com years ago and being like hmm looks gay I'm in

and in terms of the actual content of the show, I think a lot of the reason I was drawn to it (other than my lingering crush on fred from angel) was that root and shaw felt so uniquely and wonderfully queer in a way few f/f ships I'd seen had before. shaw being bi and reading as aro to me (I've talked about that here) and root being a chaotic computer nerd just felt so relatable to me and their relationship with each other made sense to me in a way that few others had. and the specific draw that they had for some fans probably has a lot to do with why I found friends in this fandom who I really clicked with

so yeah. I don't know how to sum this up. fandom can be a great way to find your people and engage your creativity and I think that's very sexy

[sleepymouses]

tagged by @littlepetbee, thank uuuu <3 i spent way too long thinking about htis lol,

Rules: pick 5 shows, then answer the following questions, tag a bunch o ppls to do it too (if y’all want to, supes no pressure or anything!)

Natsume yuujinchou  (a teenage orphan who sees spirits/monsters sets out to free the spirits who were bound in magical contract by his grandmother after he inherits a powerful book, aided primarily by a spirit who appears as an exasperated fat cat (who is just as fun as he sounds). Titular character is like my Fave boy in the whole world, he’s so kind and soft despite all the hardships he’s faced, the series has very gentle pacing/character development, and each episode is a carefully crafted lil story that have often moved me to tears, chuckles, or outright chinhands of fondness as u watch natsume slowly find a home in the world and amongst the humans &spirits around him. big focus on friendships, there’s like no romance with any of the main characters, lots of cool different creatures (most of whom arent all that scary once u get to know them), its just literally everything i could ever dream for in a show and it exists! <3)

Leverage (team of modern day robin hoods ruin rich peoples’ lives via  delightfully crafted spy cons to give back to the regular folks the rich people hurt. Extremely good, strong found family vibes, and v cathartic)

Brooklyn 99 (follows diverse cast of character who make up a NY precinct. Hilarious, immensely wholesome & groundbreaking, & probs the most lighthearted crime show besides like psych tbh)

Blackspot/Zone Blanche (spoopy french/belgium crime series set in a small village way out in the mountains surrounded by misty, mysterious and murdery woods. eerie and atmospheric, but also like one of my fave characters (everyone calls him teddy bear) keeps a pet guinea pig at work, so it’s not entirely grim and bleak)

Longmire (a modern western crime drama centering around the titular sheriff and others in their small town wyoming county, well written and lot of chracter development revealed alongside some really good case mysteries bc i love trying to figure out whodunits apparently based on a book series well adored by dads btw)

who is your favorite character in 2? (leverage) ahhh,,, this is hard... Eliot maybe? like Hardison is baby ofc, but i relate to elliot a ton (i think if i was on a team i would want to be the hitter tbh?) and love the subversion of so many action hero tropes that he is, also endlessly amused by how very put upon he is despite all his rad/random skills

who is your least favorite character in 1? (natsume yuujinchou) oh seiji matoba for sure, he can go eat a mouldy tree stump. absolutely evil nasty dude

what is your favorite episode of 4? (blackspot) the end of the road. great opening, didnt end up too devastating unlike a lot of the cases, Hermann was gr8, cool twist i hadnt super expected in the plot which was neat.

what is your favorite season of 5? (longmire) probs 1, walter reeally started to piss me off being Such A Man in later seasons, also me being extremely anxious about Henry and his life choices later, that creepy stalker storyline starting up with Someone and when Someone else in the main cast got died really suddenly and upsettingly later on as well, also when a weird relationship started between some of the characters that i really aint feeling so. before all that happened was nice (also sorry if this is super vague, im trying to avoid spoilers)

who is your favorite couple in 3? (B99) Besides Jake/Amy and Holt/Kevin (bc oviously theyre gr8) uh.. i know it was a long time ago and didnt last very long, but i thought rosa and marcus were really sweet? it brought another layer out to her character, even when they broke up that helped rosa starting to show emotional vulnerability and all, even tho it ended it was still just, idk, i liked them.

who is your favorite couple in 2? (leverage) Does trio count, cos Parker/Eliot/Harding 4 life yo

what is your favorite episode of 1? (natsume yujinchou) i have sooo many faves ahhh!!! i dont think i could pick just one on pain of death, every episode is acrefully cosntructed gem all on its own and i have too many that i love and adore to pick jsut one :((

what is your favorite episode of 5? (longmire) Dog soldier!! ive rewatched that one a ton, so so many good bits, really satisfying resolution of the case despite the shitty system that was revealed, and i rmr getting chills by the end the first time i saw it.

what is your favorite season of 2? (leverage) i guess season 1? just, idk, everything being set up and watching all these grumpies/less grumpies who have no plans to stay together start working together as a baby team, and just the joy of seeing their first heist together with the first plot twist, just.. such a delight, but all seasons that ive seen so far were all excellent, it’s a stellar show

how long have you watched 1? (natsume yujinchou) oh idk exactly, like years and years man... defs the longest out of all on this list

how did you become interested in 3? (b99) i think it was just on netflix way back in season 1 and i started watching it, loved it and never stopped? i think that might have even been before it got rlly popular lol

who is your favorite actor in 4? (blackspot) i dont rlly know any of these french peeps? but teddybear’s one of my fave characters, so hopefully the person who plays him is also cool, in which case hubert delattre (if not, Suliane Brahim does a v good job as the lead)

which do you prefer, 1, 2, or 5? (natsume yujinchou, leverage or longmire) um... real torn between natsume and leverage here, they’re both such lovely gems that do found family so, so well.. leverage is a team of modern robin hood-esque spies with brilliant writing and exciting heists and multiple delightful plot twists every episode and great character building and so much catharticism in ruining evil rich peoples lives.

but natsume’s title character is one of my very favorite characters ever, hes been through so much but he becomes the most kindest and thoughtful boy ever, and its so, so soft and gentle in its development of characters and their slow build of getting to know each other and becoming friends, and the interactions with the paranormal world are very rarely entirely malicious/scary, and there’s pretty well no romance, at least like no romance for plot/with the main characters anyways, and there’s lots of female characters who have important roles but arent sexualized/killed off for man feels/exist for romo (which sadly cannot be said about a lot of media, especially manga/anime tbh, even leverage does not win entirely on that front).. its defintiely my favorite anime ever (i dont watch loads, but literally no other one can ever come close to topping its perfection),

i guess tho, leverage is over, and natsume is still technically ongoing, so i guess for that then i have to go with natsume?

which show have you seen more episodes of, 1 or 3? (natsume yuujinchou or b99) Natsume for sure, they’re so short its easy to power thru like half a season in an afternoon

if you could be anyone from 4, who would you be? (blackspot) i would probably want to be someone who didnt live in villefranche actually haha uh, it’s a pretty spoopity place.. even some of the characters i do like make some Bad decisions that are v bothersome. Dr. Leila barami seems to have a good head on her shoulders tho, so if i Must be a character here then let’s go with her

would a crossover between 3 and 4 work? (b99 or blackspot) oh god... the cheery upbeat department at the 99 meet up with a grim, misty tiny mountain forest village with bleak day to day life, solving crimes amidst small town paranoia and weird maybe cult-related conspiracies and honestbhly something/s paranormal and menacing going on in the woods?? i just... cant see any of the characters even interacting lol, im just picturing jake’s confused befuddled face when he hears something weird but like x 10000

pair two characters in 1 who would make an unlikely but strangely okay couple? (natsume yujinchou) hm... i mean, one of the things i love about Natsume is that there arent really any romo relationships tbh? at least not with any of the main characters in the main storyline (so far), just like the odd one-off of minor characters (and takashi’s adopted parents ofc, but that’s different). so, yeah, i cant really think of one (although i think the big fandom fave ship of takashi and his worst enemy is rlly.. nope, and i dont know what’s going on there? takashi and tanama however, that would make sense, tho it is not unlikely so i cant answer this question with them)

overall, which show has the better storyline, 3 or 5? (b99 or longmire) b99! cos ya know my annoyances with some of the stuff happening later on in longmire lol, b99 just got better n better as it went along, and it’s still going :’)

which has the better theme music, 2 or 4? (leverage or blackspot) blackspot has a real good eerie atmospheric theme which is gr8 and i love it <3 (leverage’s tune is like, elevator music/cheesy jazzy spy tune, which does suit it tho lol)

and idk, anyone bored and stuck at home who wants to do this? no pressure if ur like nah but if u wanna go ahead.... @creepy-friend-of-darkness @anna-wa @rhinky-thingz @rexbasileus @aeolian-harp @warrenkoles @softbrobarnes @damnitttana @cluelesswolf @moondoggiestyle @blloodorangeisthenewblack @my-nail-beds-suck @frankiecolours @savvylikeyeahhh @lake-effectkidx @justhugharry @casualmisandry @j4ya @galaxygalpals @thesecondwarm @dealwright @knipperdollin @curlycombover @kaspbrakeddie (and if i didnt tag u and u still wanna do this, consider yeself tagged)