#and I’m not just saying that in a fannish way | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

olderthannetfic · 3 months

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You know what obnoxious thing I keep seeing in fandom I wish would stop? This absolute need some people seem to have for their ship to be Representation in some way. Shipping is just imagining scenarios between two characters! You don’t need it to be a Special reason or whatever? I have a ship that is popular and people make weird vague comments about how the fandom is racist because both of them are white and there are other ship options that have poc so the white ship being big is a reflection on how racist the fandom is but the thing is…

Look I’m going to be real with y’all the fandom is for the game Detroit: Become Human and let’s just say the two major black characters are basically stereotypes written by a neocon lib boomer in a story that itself is imho…let’s call it tone deaf and corny af rather than overtly racist but yeah. Black folks on twitter regularly mock this game for good reason. It is very much a boomer white man’s idea of the civil rights movement but with robots. The robots sing actual slave hymns. The main character is essentially a light-skinned Martin Luther King Jr (dubbed Markus Luthur King by blktwt lol) and the religious allegories of him as a savior figure are very on the nose. It is bad lol. It’s not that I wouldn’t want to explore the black characters but the fandom is full of young white people singing the praises of this writing while patting themselves on the back about it which is genuinely uncomfortable to be around. Just my 2 cents but the virtue signaling and insane policing around those two characters makes it unbearable to interact with their content it is deeply sanitized and you WILL get death threats if you attempt any nuance or are critical of the (kinda racist imo) way they were written in canon.

The worst part of this is that Markus has a popular ship with a character a lot of people read or interpret as a more soft or femme gay man and you know what zoomers hate? Femme gay men. So obviously this is made to be ‘problematic’ in some way because these people can’t just admit to being femmphobic/homophobic themselves.

Sometimes it’s easier to stick with the boring white characters in the background because they aren’t being closely guarded by stupid reactionary people who are used to flashing their favorite fictional poc characters as tokens of their own goodness and virtue.

The pinnacle of this game is that moment when the black lady lectures her son about why they need to run the robot underground railroad to Canada.

I watched some playthroughs. Unsurprisingly, I liked the buddy cops with the good development, not the cringey activism plot with too many foils and not enough development of any single relationship and not the the Women Care About Babies plot.

But if I were going to do something fannish with Markus, I'd write him having a fucked up relationship with his mentor's son post game—the surrogate son who thought the guy was great and the estranged son who knew he wasn't but who has also done a bunch of shitty stuff himself.

It's especially hilarious when tryhards think the problem is not enough people shipping Markus with North as if the slashers are going to be into 1. het and 2. yet another unnecessary traumatic sex stuff backstory for a lady.

Even worse, half the whining isn't even about that Nines fanon nonsense being more popular than Markus: it's about how Markus/Connor would be better than Hank/Connor because old people are ew.

Sorry, children, a lot of people are here to thirst for Clancy Brown and because they'll turn up for any Caves of Steel ripoff. Other Connor ships were never in the running.

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bestworstcase · 29 days

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Hi, just joined Tumblr earlier today as part of an unrelated thing, thought I'd check your page out on a friend's rec, and... wow. Just, wow. This is practically the nine-dimensional chess of media literacy. I would have so many question, but everything you discuss is promptly explained in such great detail that I can't even say that. One question remains, though: *how?* Where do you get the absurd amount information and brainpower required to connect the show's many, many dots at this high of a level? It's something I struggle with myself (though that may be due to there being over a year between watching V1-V8 and seriously starting to reflect on the show beyond "well, that was a fun sequence of events"—thank you, newish fanfic writing brain—but that's besides the point), and I was wondering if you had any tips for expanding one's thinking in this direction, as the show still means a *lot* to me—there's a reason, however unexplainable, that I stuck with it so long before the reflections started—and I'd love it if the deepest parts of my brain could reflect it as such.

...Unless that's too much to ask, in which case, whoops! Either way, thank you.

really fundamentally the most effective thing you can do to practice is make a deliberate effort to cultivate a sense of curiosity toward the text. and what i mean by that is, get in the habit of asking yourself questions as if you’re in a high school english lit class: what happened in this scene? why did this character say or do that? does this conversation remind you of anything that happened in an earlier scene, and if so, what’s similar? what’s different? what did you learn about the characters from this scene? what did you learn about the world they live in? why do you think this scene was important enough to be in the story? what changed in this scene (something will always have changed)?

it may feel a bit patronizing at first BUT over time if you’re consistent about it, doing this will train you to approach reading or watching as an active participant. analytical interpretation is a skill and like any skill it takes sustained effort and practice.

after that it’s sort of just pattern recognition. this is true of all stories but it’s especially true of theme-driven stories like rwby because they tend to be very deliberate about repeating and refracting their ideas and often develop rich symbolic vocabularies. so you identify a pattern and then examine the text until you can develop a compelling argument for what it means.

one thing to keep in mind if you’re generally familiar with fandom is that fandom encourages a lot of practices that are cool and fun in fannish contexts but will poison analysis because they are (by nature of being transformative) untethered from the text. headcanon, for example, is things held to be true irrespective of the text—one could have as a headcanon that ruby is allergic to bee stings or that qrow is her father or whatever and it doesn’t matter that there’s no textual evidence or that the text says otherwise because the text is not relevant—but analytically, you must be able to back every part of your argument with textual evidence. so it is useful to practice compartmentalizing to keep headcanon strictly separated from the text in your mind.

(that’s also a practice i recommend in general because being able to say “i like this idea and i have it in mind when i create fanworks, but it isn’t canonical” is healthy)

a good habit to get into is arguing against yourself and holding yourself to a high standard of proof. the reason my argumentation tends to be so thorough is that i try to be as skeptical of my own theories as i am of other people’s. if i have an idea that seems right but doesn’t withstand textual scrutiny, i discard it. (or i might toss it into the headcanon/au idea pile, if i’m very fond of it.) i will often develop more than one argument about a given subject and then lay them all against the text before i commit to one. being skeptical will push you to pay closer attention.

cultivate curiosity about your own emotional reactions, too. what did this scene make you feel? why? how do you feel about this or that character? what draws you to your favorite characters? what distances you from the characters you don’t like? what ideas come to mind when you think about the story and what it means to you? if you have a strong reaction to something—good or bad—try to trace that feeling to its root. what sparked it and why?

once you start digging into that you’ll find that your intuitive reactions to the story are non-arbitrary—you’re subconsciously picking up on certain patterns or themes that resonate with you. so paying attention to what the story makes you feel and asking how and why it incites those feelings will guide you to conscious discovery of things you’ve already noticed without noticing.

and another good point of entry is to look for recurring symbols / imagery—for example, silver-eyes get associated with death and reincarnation through a combination of harvest/reaper imagery (scythe, sickle, ‘the grimm reaper’) and butterflies (ruby’s first glare resembles wings, butterflies everywhere when she and maria discuss her eyes, butterflies symbolizing ascension in the ever after). adding this pattern together with the white light in the liminal void between realms (the threshold of life and death!), the implication that silver-eyes came from ozma (who dies and reincarnates cyclically), the stated purpose of the glare (to preserve and protect life), ruby hearing pyrrha’s final words in her dreams (which she didn’t hear in reality), and the glare having destroyed the hand cinder used to kill pyrrha, is how i got to “silver-eyes are psychopomps,” because both the symbolism and the narrative facts about the power line up in that direction.

the one thing to be careful with in relation to symbolism is not to treat it like a secret code! symbolic meaning isn’t universal so you should always consider symbolism in context with the narrative. the first question should always be “what idea does this image appear in connection to, when it appears?” i.e. the burning rose in rwby symbolizes mourning. think of symbols as more like trail markers that the narrative has placed to help you understand the story by connecting dots. we see the burning rose on summer’s grave and then we see it on ruby; she carries her mother’s absence with her. she gives the brooch away in the ever after right after the blacksmith shows her a glimpse of summer, and then in the storm her reflection is summer but ruby doesn’t look, doesn’t see: she’s avoiding her grief, trying to pretend it isn’t there. and then the brooch returns to her once she faces what the blacksmith wanted to show her about her mom: now it’s a symbol for acceptance of loss.

and with a story like rwby that uses allusion to develop its thematic narrative it’s really helpful to read the texts it alludes to! the core narrative allusions are the marvelous land of oz, maiden in tower fairytales (petrosinella, persinette, rapunzel), cinderella, and the little prince, plus alice’s adventures in wonderland & through the looking glass for the ever after. and then every major character has a specific character allusion. both kinds of allusion are symbolic/thematic (you can’t use allusions to predict specific plot events but they help tie together emotional arcs and character relationships cohesively, and the narrative allusions are pretty good weather vanes for very broad-strokes things like ozma’s symbolic blindness being ‘healed’ in the end).

rewatching the show a couple of times will also help, especially if you take notes. i’m not sure how many times i’ve rewatched v1-8 but it’s a lot and i’ve watched v9 in full twice, plus rewatching a lot of specific episodes or scenes for reference. rewatching will help you spot patterns that you missed before and increase your familiarity with the text in general, both of which help tremendously.

#the adhd helps. also

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literary-illuminati · 2 months

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2024 Book Review #17 – Terra Incognita by Connie Willis

Connie Willis is a name I have heard come up a lot with regard to late 20th century American Science Fiction, but in a slightly odd way. The only thing she’s actually written that I’ve ever heard of is To Say Nothing of the Dog (a delightful-sounding book that tragicall has a multimonth hold list at my library). Instead, I mostly know her from other books’ acknowledgement sections, or semi-mythologized folklore and anecdotes about the culture and community of the era. So I really picked this up as a matter of curiosity, to get a sense of what Willis’ whole deal is.

The book is a collection of three novellas, each basically totally unrelated with only the faintest attempt at a unifying theme to justify bundling the three of them together. Each work is pretty different from the others in everything from length (the longest is something like 3x the length of the shortest), tone, setting and subject matter, the works really. The first is a sort of romcom farce about surveyors charting an alien world that has, well, aged. The second and longest a love letter to classic classic hollywood and movie musicals as told from the POV of a self-hating drunk who pays the bills going through and retroactively editing the studio’s back catalogue to meet the whims of the executive of the day. The third and by far shortest is a lighthearted and very fannish comedy about a teenager getting conscripted to be a space cadet against her own ferocious objections.

The stories are all perfectly modern in, like, structure and pacing, but they still absolutely feel like they were written last century. Part of that is just word choice (the only thing that ages worse that old euphemisms for sex is old attempts to create futuristic slang), but it’s also just a general sensibility. Which is most cringe-iniducing in the first story, both for its portrayal of the native species of the planet being surveyed (directly compared to native americans on a few different times, characterized as relentlessly opportunistic penny-wise but pound-foolish hucksters leaping at the chance to sell their land for cheap imported consumer goods), and also just for a handling of gender and sexuality it’d take more time than I’ve got to really dig into. (I have a sense of where all those tomboy versus girly girl memes ultimately descend from now, though.) The other two more just felt out of time than actually wince-inducing, with the third story especially feeling like an affectionate nod to the fan culture of its time. That said, the second one’s whole horrified preoccupation with a Hollywood that refuses to make anything new instead of just remaking the same sure things from its back catalog forevermore either never stopped or has looped back around to feeling real topical.

Insofar as I’m already reading romances, I admit I do have a real soft spot for the whole ‘idiots compensate for total refusal to communicate feelings or desires with grand romantic gestures and hoping the object of their desires will get the idea. It doesn’t work.’ thing that’s a bit of a recurring beat in two of the novellas though.

Prose and characterization wise, all three were pretty well done – though riffing off tropes and archtypes that I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve seen played sincerely and unironically, which did always leave me feeling I was missing context on how to read them. Which is pretty much what I was hoping for going in, to be clear – what’s the point of reading older stories, otherwise? Which is nice, because the actual reading experience of going through it was a bit of a slog. The first one was the real trial, but just overall I’d say the book’s more interesting as a cultural artifact than an artistic work. Oh well, c’est la vie.

#book review #terra incognita #connie willis #classic sf #sff

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bluedalahorse · 4 months

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Okay, I’ll bite. Posts like this one on the confessions blog kind of make me wonder/worry about how I come across on tumblr. I’m one of those people who’s 200% down for the secondary characters in YR, particularly the controversial ones. I’m also someone who’d been lurking for a while prior to season 2 airing, but joined tumblr a little bit after season 2 to finally start discussing with people.

Given the way the post I linked above resonates with some of the themes I made a post about few days ago, it seems like the anon and I might both be struggling with some of the patterns of conversation in fandom. That said, we’re coming from very different places. And given the way I engage with this fandom, I sometimes wonder if I’m the antagonist in someone’s fandom story.

I do recognize that some of my posts come from a place where I could come across as pretentious, lecturing, or overbearing in some way. When I first de-lurked this fandom, I talked about a lot of the show in terms of craft and literary theory and such, in part because I’m in grad school for just that and in part because I hang out with a friends group IRL who uses that existing vocabulary to discuss things we love. I was also using the academic voice with a dose of sarcasm thrown in as a sort of armor, because I knew my favorite characters in the show (Sara and August) were so widely beloathed by so many people. I was worried that if my first post was “wow they sure are cute even if they’re messy; where do I find the fanfic?” I wouldn’t make friends, or possibly would even get chased off of tumblr. I figured it was much safer to come in and say things like “I find it really interesting to see how their relationship is a narrative foil to Wilmon’s, and them being together really raises the stakes of the drama” and keep my Big Feelings to myself. (Especially since some posters can be pretty nasty about my faves, and make assumptions about what I’m an “apologist” for when I talk about them.) I still lean into academic speak to some extent—like I said, it’s part of who I am even outside of YR, so it’s hard to shake. But rest assured there is fannish passion behind it, and also know I don’t think academic speak should be a requirement for participating in fandom.

I’m also wondering… what role should making the case for the characters and plotlines one loves play in establishing one’s fandom presence? Like, in general? Ultimately my motive when I make my posts, analysis or otherwise, is to invite people to play in my weird little sandbox with me. (If they want to, of course!) I recognize that some of my fandom opinions/hills I will die on are what they are, so I imagine some folks don’t want to change their opinions any more than I do. But I also recognize that in more than two decades of being in fandom, there are times when someone else’s passion for a character or a take on some aspect of a show or book really led me to see something new and interesting, or hook on to particular rarepairs or whatever else. That’s the beauty of fandom as a community—we all get more excited about things together and share our love of things. Since some of my favorite aspects of YR are much much more rarely represented in fanworks, I’m usually talking about how I adore them in hopes that I’ll continue to find the people who like the things I like, and in hopes that maybe I’ll spark something in someone’s brain and they’ll write a cool fic or draw cool art or something. Talking to people here has made me more interested in pairings like Walty and Stedrika, which I didn’t think about as much before on my first watchthroughs of the show. So anyway… I do know there’s some folks out there who are never gonna be interested in what I’m interested in. I also know there are folks, myself included, who’ve learned things from what other people are passionate about. I also know there are some opinions that seem a lot more unpopular than they are until someone voices them.

I recognize that the two factors above—a tendency toward academic speak, and another tendency to make the case for the less popular things I love about the show in hopes that people will join me, combined with maybe me not having the best day or not choosing my words well—all that together and I could I see how I could come across as pretentious or holier-than-thou or looking down on people. (And admittedly there are times where my posts come from a place of frustration about the way certain characters are talked about. I think we’ve all been there at one time or another.) It really isn’t my intention to come across in a negative way, but I can see how it would happen. It’s also possible I’m doing something that completely doesn’t register with me at all, but it’s super hurtful to others. I may not know the full extent to how I’ve bothered someone, because ultimately I am just in my own head.

If I’ve hurt you or made you feel crappy in your time being a fan on tumblr, I am truly sorry. I’m open to talking about it if you want to talk about it, but also, zero pressure if you just kind of want to hang out in your own space and do your own thing.

To sum up… it seems like on one hand there’s a portion of fandom that seems to want to embrace the YR world in its entirety, and another portion of fandom that would like to lean into a focus on Wilmon. And there’s probably people all across a spectrum there, because nothing is a strict binary. All are valid approaches! I don’t think we all need to be best friends, but I do think we need to figure out how to coexist and assume positive intent in each other’s approaches to the work. Does anyone have ideas about that? Are there hashtags we could be using a little more carefully? I don’t have answers yet, but it is something I’m thinking about.

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sanjerina · 2 months

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The thing I love about fannish creativity is how all of the stories kind of curl up next to the original version and pad it out, but in this variegated way where the padding around the original* story can create so many different answers to things like: what happened next? — what happened in the other character’s point of view? — why are there bees in the trees in the autumn? — what if the bees were surveillance cameras?

(This is, by the way, the collaborative storytelling we have been designed to do for, like, a couple-few hundred thousand years? * Yeah.)

Anyway. The example I have today (though I have others!) is from Victoria Goddard’s Greenwing and Dart series, which focuses on two young men named, as might imagine, Mr. Greenwing and Mr. Dart.

There were so many many stories where the buddy-sleuth (they’re not cops, Jemis Greenwing says ACAB) vibe they have going, their emotional intensity, their various in-jokes… I would have read as homoerotic subtext, like we’ve all been doing since Holmes and Watson.

And fanfic has always been such a reliable place for this. Like. Please and thank God for that. I keep talking about the Good Boys because I want them to experience every possibility of love and support and sarcasm they can possibly attain. And bring their friends. In wild permutation.

But for various reasons, halfway through its run I don’t think the text is “going there” (in terms of a G+D sexual relationship) — there’s plenty of gayness within the text, so it’s not Goddard pretending to ignore something (as if she would).

But it’s also not a sexually charged relationship**, and I’ll be astounded if that is how it actually ends for them. G+D hits beat by beat of a traditional romance in so many ways, but instead of “falling short” of true love like a 70s buddy comedy, it falls otherwise. Mr. Greenwing and Mr. Dart are each the most important person in the others’ lives. That will not change. Their mutual loyalty is so precious to me that I fear to mention it lest I endanger it.

So — though I will read alllllllll of the Greenwing/Dart fanfic y’all want to write! — I would sort of be let down if they did get together sexually “for real” (i.e., in canon). The beauty and vulnerability of their friendship is gorgeous just as it is, and my demi/gray-ace heart finds that so fulfilling. I trust the storyteller here and have no doubt she can get me “there” if that’s where she’s going, but I love their dynamic and the way it shows another model of love. And since that’s often a theme in Goddard’s writing, I think she’s doing it on purpose.

So if she did “go there”, great, nothing I like better of an evening than reading a satisfying romance about two people (who are fictional and nothing at all like me) finding true love and also orgasms. But if she sticks the queerplatonic landing as I am currently expecting, I will be deeply satisfied.

Either way, fanfic will fill in and give us the story that’s not there. And that’s what I love about stories that accumulate other storytellers.*

Anyway, to my POINT, which is that I love fanfic for its profusion of color, AND I also love the original* canon everyone more or less agrees on and either (1) elaborates within that framework or (2) turns it on its head.

And please go read these books. The love, the loyalty, the yearning… the FANFIC just trust me. I want 500K of G+D fic on my desk next Monday and I’m hardly going to do it all myself 😂

- notes -

* I think in the end every story is one story, but also that that’s why every retelling of that story is singular and cannot be duplicated. Along with also having a theory about social storytelling and music being the ways we managed our mental health long enough to develop agriculture (and then fuck that cultural system up.)

But anyway. I’m also a tiny bit high right now, so this may not be as deep as I think it is. :)

** Look, in canon, which is from Jemis’s perspective, you know I’m right. And yes, it’s equally well established that Jemis is an otherwise very smart young man who is utterly oblivious about his own sex appeal. So it’s like a Schrödinger’s cat of they will kiss/they will not kiss, and I eat that up with a spoon.

#greenwing and dart #nine worlds #victoria goddard #queerplatonic #mental health #Aunt Sanj: gummy auntie?#maybe a little on alternate Sundays #storytelling and human behavior #this is what we get when Sanj doesn’t edit their sentence structure #gray ace #collaborative storytelling

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fanhackers · 10 months

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Radio, Radio!

I almost didn’t write this post for fear that you guys will think I’m even more of an old than I even am, but a) fuck it and b) there’s a way in which everything old is new again, so bear with me. *takes deep breath* OK, so when I was a young fan, a lot of my fannish life happened over the RADIO. Yes, RADIO, that–I was about to say, that weird looking box with dials on it, but you probably don’t even have a radio. (*Shut up, shut up, I can’t hear you, la la I am going to live forever!*) But you probably listen to something like radio on Spotify, or you listen to podcasts, or you might even use an app to listen to some great legacy radio station in your area. So imagine you had a dedicated box just for that.

Anyway, in the before-times, radio then–like podcasts now–was a way to do fandom. Music people know this of course, but I’m both a fan and a theatre person, and man, radio theatre was the best, and fannish radio theatre even better. Britain had and still has a really strong radio drama tradition, which is smart because it lets them produce new plays by new writers for a fraction of the cost of a staged production. But NPR in the US used to do radio drama too–they had a show called NPR Playhouse / Sounds of Theatre which I was devoted to.

I have two particularly strong fannish memories from this era. First, the joy of hearing the original Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy on radio. Douglas Adams wrote Hitchhikers for radio and radio is the best way to experience it - I mean, Zaphod having two heads and three arms is radio joke if there ever was one, and then all these poor TV and film people had to figure out how to actually get an actor with a second head. (Footnote 1). I backtrack here to say that if you don’t know what I’m talking about, never read or saw any version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy, click on the link and have yourself a whale of a time (or a bowl of petunias of a time.) (Sorry, the whole Hitchhiker’s thing makes me instantly 12 years old FOREVER. My whole world is Hitchhikers, Star Wars, and Doctor Who– Five.)

Moving on: the second great fannish radio experience was NPR’s dramatized version of Star Wars, which had Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels playing their original roles, and Perry King as Han Solo - Perry King, you will remember (who am I kidding, you will absolutely not remember, but anyway), became a fan-favorite for a show called Riptide, so that was okay, too. And they expanded the text! And added new scenes! I can remember Mark Hamill giving an interview talking about how different it was to play the part for radio; he talked about how you had to sort of put movement in your voice at all times: “I’m–grunt–putting on my–harumph–jacket!” But he was great at it–obviously, since he’s become such a famous voice actor since. And it’s wonderful that podcasting has brought theatre and fandom back into the medium of sound - podcasts are the obvious new media version of all this.

Okay, so bring this back to fan studies, these personal fannish reminiscences (and awesome links—you’re welcome!) are brought to you by Martin Cooper’s book Radio Legacy in Popular Culture: The Sounds of British Broadcasting Over the Decades (Bloombury, 2022, excerpt available at the link). Make no mistake, this is a fannish book in its way - Cooper is interested not just in radio but in artistic works that are in some way about radio, which he regards explicitly as fanworks about radio:

In the case of fandom it could be alternative storylines; in our case of radio listening, it can be a reinterpretation of what has been heard on the airwaves. Hence, it is plausible to think of the responses I analyse in the chapters that follow as reinterpretations and critiques of radio listening; that they have been produced by professional writers and musicians makes them less of a subculture and more of a series of transformative texts that extend the meaning and understanding of the medium of radio. They are portrayals of the everyday action of listening to the radio: of paying attention to the programmes, the discussions, the documentaries, the dramas, the daily shows and the DJs.

Note that the book has a specifically British focus, but British music and drama have influenced fandoms all over the world. I mean, Radio, Radio; Video Killed The Radio Star; Oh Yeah (There’s a Band Playing On The Radio), Radio Clash –Cooper frames all these songs as part of a British transformative fannish response to the medium. Radio on!

–Francesca Coppa, fanhackers volunteer

(1) I got the chance to meet Mark Wing-Davey, who played Zaphod Beeblebrox both on the original radio show and on the BBC show--he's a big-shot theatre director now, but I honestly could not keep my inner 12 year old under control: I basically had my fists stuffed in my mouth because OMG Zaphod Beeblebrox!!! my heart!! and finally I just kind of choked out, "sorry, I can't--excuse me" and fled the dinner. *facepalm*

#author: francesca coppa #forever 12 #radio fandom #so glad that podcasts and podfic are a thing now!!

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agent-troi · 6 months

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Fannish Year Review - 2023

thanks for the tag @frogsmulder!

1. your main fandom of the year: still the x-files but i did join the west wing fandom this year lol👽

2. have u watched a film this year: other than fight the future i can’t recall lmao🛸

3. your favorite book this year: after all the hype about the movie on twitter i gave in and read the ballad of songbirds and snakes and omg it was so good, it was dark in a good way and very deep, much deeper than the twitter fangirls had led me to believe lol🕊️🐍

4. your favorite album or song this year: obviously i have to say staring at the stars aka the dreamland song!! i’m so happy it was found and i can listen to it on repeat over and over again whenever i want✨

5. your favorite tv shows this year: txf, the west wing, svu

6. your favorite tumblr community this year: ever and always the txf fandom, but i’ve found myself coming back to the star trek fandom a bit lol🖖🏻

7. your best new fandom discovery of the year: does this mean discovery of a fandom or discovery of something about/within a fandom? if it’s the former then the west wing, if it’s the latter then it was learning that the dance at the end of post modern prometheus wasn’t scripted❤️

8. your biggest fandom disappointment of the year: literally every time there’s drama in the txf twitter fandom, like guys please just chill we’re all here to enjoy the show

9. your tv/movie boyfriend and/or girlfriend of the year: mulder of course!!🥰

10. your biggest squee moment of the year: seeing josh and donna finally kiss for the first time!! i can’t believe i willingly put myself through another seven year slow burn lmao

apologies if you’ve already been tagged lol @tofuttim @virtie333 @welsharcher @scullysexual @mulderno @enigmaticxbee @unremarkablehouse @doctorbeverlycrusher

#i have no idea how many people you’re supposed to tag for this lol so i just tagged the same amount as the previous person did #tag game #fandom

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broomsticks · 11 months

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help needed??? i've been in fandom for 5 years and i still haven't proper *proper* read a femslash fic???? i'm not counting side relationships and established relationships. shame on me, i know, but i'm here requesting for a guide because i thought i could start anywhere, and then realised i didn't know what i wanted - or who i wanted to watch fall in love. which is.... sort of absurd, like i'm a multishipper, and i have female faves too. anyway! would you be so kind as to rec your fav recs, fics, or metas, or fav ships so i could jump aboard one?

many thanks in advance 🤗

ykw i actually think i get what you mean anon. especially in HP fandom, where so many of the main characters are male and so many of the important relationships are het or between two male characters, you do have to make a special effort, go out of your way almost, to consider female characters. and then in that light femslash seems almost - contrived? forced? and not only is that not fun for a lot of people, there’s also the side of ‘am i just rehashing amatonormativity again???!’ you just can’t win, etc

all of which is to say, if you (more so anyone else reading this) don’t feel particularly drawn to femslash, especially in the HP fandom, that’s okay! maybe think about trying out more original media that centers female characters and relationships between them—i’ve recently loved both a league of their own (1940s american girls professional baseball league! so much canon wlw) and house of the dragon (dyke drama with dragons! canon is only het though) for this—but, meh, your fannish brain wants what it wants. ❤️

THAT was a really long way of saying: that’s why i think probably the first fic that really unlocked my femslash brain was this 200k longfic by @hawksquill, Luna Lovegood and the Forgotten Circle. it’s tagged luna/ginny but is really more of a luna centric AU, set parallel to the canon timeline. several canon events happen ‘in the background,’ like the chamber being opened in COS and sirius escaping pre POA, but luna is the main character, with a prophecy centered around her, and the story basically completely diverges from canon by the mid Hogwarts years. the main cast is almost all female characters: luna, her mother, ginny, mrs figg, mcgonagall, gwenog jones - everyone from bellatrix to lavender! really opened my eyes to the potential stories that could be told with the little scraps and tidbits of characterization given to these female characters.

have a little excerpt from chapter 17 that i still think about way too often:

“If you could have magic, like with a snap of your fingers, would you do it?” “You know, I’ve wondered about that for a long time. There will always be a part of me, a large part, that thinks I should say yes in an instant. But there are a lot of scammers trying to prey on us Squibs, and we have to be careful. And we ought to remember that fairy tales teach us to be careful what we wish for, particularly when we are offered something that seems too good to be true,” Mrs. Figg reflected as she added the valerian root and passed some to Luna. “So I suppose that if I were to get magic after all this time, I should want to work for it, so I could truly appreciate it, and be sure it was real. Which is why I keep pottering on at the Circle, and why you all think I’m such a fool.” “I don’t think you’re a fool,” Luna said quickly, but the lie tasted bitter on her tongue, and she was sure Mrs. Figg could sense it too.

(theres like a million and one things under the read more)

a couple of shorter femslash recs that hew slightly closer to canon:

Two Quaffles Pub by @thistlecatfics: postwar, cho and ginny meet at a bar and get to talking about what they have in common. harry. quidditch. michael corner. definitely not war trauma and definitely not unhealthy coping mechanisms!

tags: sometimes you get drunk and trauma dump on your ex's ex at the gay bar, and then make out in the bathroom. messy trauma recovery, Getting Together, not the healthiest of relationships but c'est la vie

“The war impacted me too. Just because I don’t spill my war stories to random girls in bars, doesn’t mean I don’t also have my shit.” “Tell me, then,” Ginny dared. She leaned across the table, staring at Cho. “I told you about Tom, the man in my body when I was eleven. What have you got?” Cho knew she shouldn't let this hot woman - no - hot mess of a woman bait her. Not when she was already feeling the alcohol. Not on a date. Well, this wasn’t a date, whatever she had implied earlier. She was not on a date with Harry’s Quidditch star ex who, apparently, had more trauma than anyone knew and a bit of a drinking problem to match.

hermione/ginny: it’s practically canon. they share so much gossip, they share a tent in GOF. here's a sweet untitled vignette series, Ginny is all warmth and strength and movement.

i’m not normally overly one for friends-to-lovers, but i really enjoyed these postwar parvender + werewolf lavender brown fics. again more established relationship than falling in love, but it’s not implausible to imagine given canon basis and there’s plenty more relationship development story to tell!

beautiful enough for the both of us by dirgewithoutmusic

like the careful undressing of love by comosum

Where Roses Bloom by monetstcroix

some marauders era: first thing that came to mind was alice/narcissa, actually! pre first war canon compliant is a fun space to play around in, because it’s circumscribed to an extent — you know you’re writing a doomed angsty romance, you know you’re reading a doomed angsty romance, you know where this story is headed but until then, until then, there is room to put your own stamp on things, your own interpretation of “how it might have gone”

Alice, Look at Me by Rollercoasterwords is probably the definitive marauderstok fic for the ship;

Devil's Snare by endocrine was written in 2015 and has several similar story beats/HCs!

Flying Lessons by Phantomato is a postwar andromeda/rolanda hooch i raved about recently that does a great job of pulling from canon and delving into some aspects of postwar trauma not often explored.

some other i never really thought about these!! ships i’m personally very fond of/ very intrigued by:

myrtle x mcgonagall: their student years at hogwarts overlapped! katie x cho, they were yearmates and both quidditch girls!

the (cho/)fleur/angelina/tonks “older than golden trio” girls. cho/fleur (delachang) and flonks are the biggest ships (and i have a couple more flonks recs later), but any of these dynamics would be fascinating, imo.

there is a limited amount of room to play around if you aren’t open to softening the lightning gen slytherins (in the way a lot of drarry fandom does, queer lightning gen cuddle puddle) (which i do get, i personally have to be in a specific mood for it) - but if you are, there’s a ton more fic! on the longer end too, because the character journeys are typically longer.

i say that and here's a <3k sporty feels cho/pansy, HOT AS FUCK

absolutely impeccable pansy/ginny double drabble by @nanneramma

delightful post war luna/pansy day at the beach

if the slytherin x gryffindor dynamic does grab you and you’re okay with that level of ‘canon what canon?’ - there are a number of longer ginny/pansy, pansy/hermione, millicent/hermione, etc. that are as well crafted, plotted, worldbuilt, etc, as any drarry fic of that length - i’m particularly thinking of the largely 25-50k range written for WLWBB!

some of hp femslash’s best kept secrets, imo: the incredible inventiveness of some of the rarepair fic - particularly those written around maybe the early-mid 2010s, though there are some in every year. examples:

Independent Love Song by Writcraft: Millicent Bulstrode is a tailor and Ginny is losing her mind over a woman in a tweed blazer and burgundy brogues.

A swagger, a twinkle, and a fine arse on a broom by Woldy: Tonks lets her eyes linger on Hooch's spiky grey hair, her shining leather boots, and thinks If that woman's straight, then I'm a monkey's uncle.

Stylemagic by Woldy (luna/tonks): Who would have thought that Charing Cross Road was style central?

City Life by holyfant (tonks/ginny): They travel, find each other and themselves.

& since you mentioned meta, i have to shout out holyfant's essay for @femslashrevolution: Towards A Darker Femslash

I wanted to continue to write smaller pairings and explore female characters, too. And I did, but the point remains that when I look at my story stats now, it’s clear that my f/f stories are shorter in word count and are less varied in their plot and execution than my m/m stories. All this to show that I am 100% part of what I am about to describe: not a problem, per se, but an observation that I think is useful to be aware of and think about. The fact is that femslash, across fandoms, remains a niche category, and that while there are great amounts of people who read and write almost exclusively m/m this is barely ever the case for f/f.

i also really liked this other one On the personal as normal; on the normal as political:

I think one thing that stands out, from a majority of my interactions on this issue through the years, is the perception that the act of writing relationships among women is inherently political, in a way that the act of writing about relationships among men is not. The $64,000 question: do I agree with this? Are electrons particles, or waves?

going to close this off with one of my self indulgently favorite femslash, both ship and writer: i am in love with the way montparnasse writes second war fleur/tonks and how reminiscent it is of first war wolfstar, the tension of attraction set against the tension of the war. vibe quote included, because either you like her style or it’s not your taste - but if you do, there’s nothing quite like it!!

Six Penny, Seven Stone: Timing is everything. Tonks's was always just a little bit off-kilter.

Fleur accompanied her to exclusive pureblood parties that summer, posing as a personal assistant or dear live-in friend to Tonks’s erectile dysfunction potion heiress while they listened to one of the Yaxleys moan about the dilution of sanctified old blood and got handsy over hors d’oeuvres. Still Fleur seemed disappointingly unaffected by her spectacular breasts in a vicious push-up bra or the Dietrich-esque raised eyebrow/lit cigarette combo: she made advances and spurned Tonks’s and eventually after reporting to the Powers That Be after nights out ruffling robes in enemy territory they ended up at a neon-sleazy diner or got takeout and ate it at one of their flats—Tonks in Southwark, Fleur in Camden—until they fell asleep at opposite ends of the couch after sharing a joint or chamomile tea and watching X-Files and EastEnders reruns. In theory, they kept to their own sides as well as they could, but in practice, their limbs did often wander.

Obscure Topography: Sometimes, Tonks realizes, coming at each other from awkward angles makes you stick, elbows and all.

Sometimes, when she’s either very drunk or feeling particularly soppy, she feels like she can slow time itself down to a sluggish, tipsy trickle, where nothing else matters but her own beating heart and the turn of the world, or—here, now—Fleur’s skin and hips beneath her skin and hips, moving to a rhythm of their own, no time like what your body keeps in its hollows and curves. The brush of a thigh takes hours; the glide of fingers riding over ribs, and she loses track of the day. War and worry and shattered nerves are nothing next to this, meaningless without the strange, humorous patchwork of two hearts beating out of tune, where the radius of the whole world condenses down to the bed and they’re the only women alive in London for a while.

OKAY NO VERY LAST ONE

@consistentsquash's:

#hp femslash #hp fics #my fic recs #answering this instead of working on my flonks ship manifesto hahaha #ty for the ask!!!#going to work on that ship manifesto now i swear it is almost done

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actuallyfallen · 11 months

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Fractured Pieces - On Kintypes vs Synpaths

I don't quite recall who, but I remember once seeing 'synpaths' being described as 'kin for fun, but for people who are already kin'. Which I suppose is true. However, for me, and my personal experience, that doesn't feel quite right. In KFF circles, 'kin' seems to be a synonym for the word 'stan'. And my synpaths definitely aren't the characters that I stan. I've also seen synpaths be referred to as one's personal set of 'blorbos', but that doesn't feel quite right either. Again, this implies that one views their synpaths through a very fannish lens, even if it does feel as if it implies more permanence. (At least, to me, it does.)

The coiner of the term describes it as follows: "Synpath is a tidy name for something you identify with on several levels, which could be a concept that resonates really strongly with you, an animal or mythological creature you feel you act like, or a person or character you share a lot of common behaviors with, among other things." This description has always felt more personal than KFF's "kins", or fandomgoer's blorbos. To me, my synpaths are things which I identify with, as well as things that are very important to me, how I view myself, and/or my life. Because of this, I've always felt that my synpaths have always been more telling to me, as a person, than my kintypes. My kintypes are not something I choose, after all. They're my past lives; they hold no bearings on who I am now. My synpaths, though, are entirely based off of who I am today, my experiences, and my interests.

On top of this, my synpaths are fewer in number than my kintypes. I currently have a total of seven synpaths, and, of those, four are fictional characters, two are animals, and one is a non-living thing. I am currently questioning two other synpaths, at the moment. Over the years, I've gotten quite good at recognizing a past life, but synpaths? I'm able to pick and choose those. I carefully curate exactly what things are important enough to me to label as a synpath, selecting only that which is closest to my heart, for the longest amount of time. A few times, I've seen something that I thought might be a synpath, but I made myself wait on it, to make sure it didn't fade away. Which, while I occasionally do for kintypes, I don't do for nearly as long or as often, because, again, I'm quite good at narrowing down the sensation of a past self.

My reasons for synpaths vary greatly from case to case. For example, Badeline from Celeste was the first synpath that I labeled as such, due to her story's incredibly intense effect on my life and how I view my mental health. The moon is the non-living synpath I mentioned earlier, because of the otherworldly connection with which I feel to it; she's important to me, because I identify with her and the stories about her, and have since a young age. Regarding animals, hyenas feel like family. I know so much about hyenas, and they feel familiar, in a way. Rounding things back with another fictional synpath, Lain from Serial Experiments Lain is one of my most recent synpath confirmations, by my memory. But she's so much like me, and I see myself in so much of both of her stories (the PS game and the anime). Her trauma and plights are unspeakably relatable, her rage cathartic, and there's just something about her that sticks in my mind. Like a sticker that you can keep picking at, but it doesn't peel off neatly. If you tried, you'd just be left with those torn, white bits of it, where you tried to take it off, still leaving their mark on your mind.

But I am not any of these things. Badeline helped me with how I treat myself, but I am not her. I see the moon as a friend, but I cannot say that I identify as her. Hyenas are familiar beings, but I could not say that I am one in a human's body. And my relationship to Lain is like that of a warped reflection (the same, but different). But the mirror is not one which shows my past lives. Just my current one.

So, no, I don't quite think that my synpaths are like KFF, or like my blorbos. More like fractured, cracked pieces of my current self, which I have found scattered across the world. I am not them. They are not me. But that is not the only way that something can be important to you.

#synpath #alterhuman #fictionkin #fictionkind #alterhuman essay #essay #📋 i'd show you my halo if only i knew where i had put it

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trisscar368 · 5 months

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I know this is a small complaint but between the big games floating on my dash and the ones I’ve started playing recently, there’s something that’s just so [cat left outside on a cold day] when looking at the perception in others who love this thing, the heart of fandom, between a game’s storyline and the romantic subplots.

It ends up feeling like I’m missing half the game — like even though I complete every quest and find every secret I can — I’m left with something shallow and incomplete if I don’t engage in the romance storylines. Taking the options where you’re friends with your companions doesn’t seem to mean much beyond keeping that character around.

(I care, I love you, but you won’t share so much of your heart until I say Yes.)

Whatever resonance and immersion I had with my OC always withers and dies if I force myself through the romance/sex scenes. Instead of an avatar in a story it becomes something robotic, divorced and dissociated and disposable. It’s the same way I play an evil run — not caring about anything but ticking off boxes to get the achievement or points. Either I sacrifice my connection point with the story or I miss out on what draws everyone else back to replay and what sparks so much fannish creativity.

Haven’t I had enough of this from life without needing to face it in my fantasy too? Why can I only love one person. Why is sex the only way I can show it and have it matter.

#tiny ace violin in the distance #cabbage muttering #i hit romance stage with every available companion in dao because i was giving my *friends* shinies #this is honestly a worse feeling than being a gen fan in a heavy ship fandom because at least i can watch a show #and i can discuss and analyze and create around what i watched #with video games there’s hidden secret episodes i can’t actually see without feeling like shit #yes i know that fandom always over emphasizes shippy things but hey! i still can’t actually find out without needing to dissociate!#and yes I’m sure there’s mods but i do not have the ability to mod my games. i do not have a pc that can handle gaming.#i get to live with what’s in the box

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kutputli · 1 year

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I planned to rewatch season 2 of Ted Lasso doing my Nate notes before watching season 3, but the torrent dropped and I was weak. So since I seem to have decided to break my lurker mode and get into participatory fandom after mumblemutter years, forewith! Oh also, I propose a #Safe for Nate Fans tag for ease of finding posts of likeminded people. :)

I find myself watching the show with a split conciousness. Which is always how I watched it. In one way, I watch it in ‘normal’ mode, which is to say through a white gaze, which I’ve cultivated through decades of watching white media and being perfectly able to enjoy and appreciate it. When I do that, I’m able to spread my attention wide and indulge my curiousity about all the characters. (I’ve never had much affection for either Ted or Rebecca, so I look around them to see what the rest are doing. Roy, Trent, and Sam the most, and then Keeley and Jamie.)

But reading fannish posts about the show, and reading fic, inevitably gets me into the second mode of watching, which is as a person of colour, watching a show made by white people, which has a few (so few!) characters of colour. And oh boy, the defensive tension that envelopes me as I watch it that way.

All of which is to say, its very hard to code switch between both. Either I can be in one mode and complain about the absence of Trent when teased with James Lance in the series regular credits, and I can writhe in the excruciating agony that is Roy and Keeley’s shattering heartbreak as they go through their super mature super friendly concious decoupling and to wonder where the fuck a constantly crying Keeley came from and when she hung out with Higgins so often... or.

Or I can talk about how I automatically notice every non-white body in every frame, and start counting them in every scene with extras.

And since I guess there will be enough posts doing the former, that I can like and agree with, I might as well do the latter.

I am so angry about Sharon being given a (presumably) white boyfriend. Because the ultimate signaling that a Black woman is successful is for her to have a conventionally hot, thin, tall, WHITE man. Fucking yuck.

Meanwhile Nate... Jesus. Watching him be cruel to people below him is just painful. That moment when he ignores the hello from the Black woman on the escalater... ugh. And there’s always the explanation that he is so caught up in his own head and his paralysis of social interaction, but still. It’s wrong, and it hurts to watch. I can’t bear people who are rude to employees, and I’m so angry with Nate for doing that. And I’m also angry that I have to keep pointing out to myself, in response to the fannish reactions I’m anticipating, that none of what he is doing is worse than the way Rebecca treated her employees. (And probably how Cartrick treated the players?) The dum-dum line is just terrible, but then again, Ted Lasso told Nate to call his players big dumb pussies, so...

Nate’s new colleagues! Disco is entertaining! I enjoy how he does not seem to be judging Nate, and has an eager terrier vibe of his own. It would be nice if they could be friends.

Rupert’s PA Ms. Kakes, that pallid zombie lady, is interesting, because here’s my prediction. She’s kind of Rupert’s new Higgins. So she probably has to help him bring his women in and out. I suspect at some point Rupert will either sexually harass her, or do something else that she feels responsibility for, and Nate is going to side with her over Rupert. And that (to call back to Keeley’s line about how the previous business in her new office got shut down) is going to be how Nate will help take down Rupert. (I did enjoy the casual mention of the Sacklers as Rupert’s friends to signpost that he is Truly Evil and The Worst. Yes Rupert, you are.)

I am also enjoying the hell out of watching the craft both Anthony Stewart Head (Giles!) and Nick Mohammed are bringing to their scenes, because they are both being so very layered. Rupert just keeps flipping on a dime between genuinely charming and flirtatiously encouraging, and coldblooded threats (he totally staged that car tow, like he got Robbie Williams cancelled). And Nathan... can hold his own! He’s getting so much better and being able to keep up with the social interaction, and respond to the situation as needed, and yet maintain a bit of his own voice and opinion (on his face, if nowhere else.) I honestly thought Nate would just let them tow the car away and try to get it back quietly afterwards, out of shame, but he spoke up for his ride. (And of course the parallels - Nate gave Ted a ride in his car on his first day, Rupert gave Nate a car on his first day.)

And now, Nate’s first press conference! (And of course, all the parallels with Ted’s)

“I’m pretty sure I said wonderkind” - this is at the heart of the Problem of Nathan. Because, he didn’t. I’ve gone back and watched it. We’ve all gone back and watched it. We’ve seen Jan Maas point out to him his mistake. But Nathan just doesn’t let it go. He keeps sticking with the lie. Has he convinced himself about it too? I honestly can’t tell. But here’s the thing. This is a character who has for years, for decades, been dealing with lies and gaslighting and omissions - structurally, by being the kind of person he is in the place he is in. He was told he was worthless, and only capable of being a kitman, and of course I can fill in all the lies a brown man in post-Brexit Britain gets met with, just while walking down the street. Colin and Isaac and Jamie all acted like they had never bullied him. Rebecca taking actions that anyone with a knowledge of the game and the club like Nate has would be able to tell were harmful, and then just acting like she was always everyone’s well wisher. People in power lie, and the structure supports their gaslighting and their rewriting of of history. So that’s what Nate is doing, stubbornly pushing his own stupid, ridiculous lie at all the powerful people he aspires to be a part of. This is the part where I’d like to sit Nate down and ask him what his morals really are. Does he want to make of himself a Rishi Sunak or Bobby Jindal? Is he that self-serving and hypocritical?

There are two reasons why I know Nate to be better than the average self-serving conservative desi sell-out: One is the deep vein of feminism and sensitivity that runs through him - his inner critic is as harsh on him about the misogynistic mistakes he makes as about the social cues he fumbles. And the second is that, unlike Ted (who cares about people) and Rebecca (who cares about winning), Nate cares about the game. He has a deep love for football, which is what fuels his knowledge of it. And unlike Rupert, I don’t think Nate hungers for power (though he definitely misuses what power he now has). I think Nate hungers for belonging - for being included, for having the right to be considered an inalienable part (of the game, of the people, of the nation). The only way out is through, but I hope that we will find a distinction between the way Rupert loves the game - wanting ownership and control, and how Nate loves the game - wanting inclusion and celebration of his own talents in improving it.

But back to that press conference. Nate having the soundtrack of an impending panic attack like Ted had is a bit on the nose, and I get that the show wants us to keep comparing how Ted deals/dealt with a situation vs how Nate does. But, I’m sorry, you just cannot keep making 1:1 comparisons between a well off white American and a middle class brown Britisher. As Nate keeps futilely reminding the narrative - he has a right to be here, he belongs!

What I find frustrating and fascinating is the entire absence of any discussion of Nate as a person in Richmond - Higgins and Rebecca are alone, watching his press conference, and there is not one personal remark about him - oh, he’s really gone grey now! Has he lost weight? His contract was generous enough for him to have not needed to leave, right? Something? Anything! Even Beard and Roy and Ted - all we get is a “that little shit” from Roy. It’s all of Nate’s worst fears - they don’t know him, they don’t remember anything about him, they don’t talk about him. Contrast that with how much Rebecca talks about Rupert. Whatever happened to ‘be curious, not judgemental’? I actually think that’s rubbish - I am both curious AND judgemental of things that bother me, but why is no one gossiping about their assistant coach suddenly fucking off?

Besides the journalist who asked the sewer photo question to Nate, there was another older Black woman journalist in the funky flowy top. I hope one of them becomes the Trent Crimm to him. Though its nice to see Marcus Adebayo get his full byline at the Independent. Marcus’s article says, “Harsh words from Shelley for the club and coach who raised from obscurity as the kitman to assistant coach” and yet again - the same misleading narrative of white saviorism and enforced gratitude. Ted needed Nate’s help to do the job he was unqualified to do, and Nate gave his extra labour, skill and help for a full season without any recompense. For all of Ted’s being nice about Nate on a personal level (and I do believe in the genuineness of that niceness) he has not reversed this narrative of what Nate owes to him.

And that is the Problem of Ted Lasso. Ted values personal kindness and generosity over structural change which is both why he fails to be an actual friend to the first person (of colour) who was kind to him when he came to the UK, and also why he is failing as a coach to get his team to the victorious position his boss wants him to take it to.

And then we see Ted Lasso ‘fighting back’, as Rebecca begs him to. (A note that marginalised people are often not perceived as fighting back against the structural injustices that attack them daily; they are mostly portrayed by the dominant framing as just ‘combative’ and ‘angry’.)

This scene is doing a lot of work, and I think of it as emblematic of the show (and the writers) greatest strengths and weaknesses both. The show is good at craft and writing and flipping from emotion to comedy to pathos to truth, and this scene does all that. Ted makes himself vulnerable, though you can see how it batters at him to invite those laughs. It’s a contrast to Nate - a reminder that the masculinity the show values is about bringing down one’s defences and inviting collaborative relationships - get people to laugh with you, don’t attack, be kind.

But the show is also terrible at accounting for the ways that race and racism are a structural force that affects every character it casts with a racialised body, and this scene highlights it. Nobody laughed with Nate when he was self-deprecating and open. In season 1 we see him constantly try to respond to his bullies with laughter and smiles, trying to play it off as banter between equals so as to minimise the hurt it causes as violence with a power imbalance. It doesn’t work. (And anyone who has studied the evolution of the stand up comedy circuit over the past few decades - a background that of these several show writers have - knows the ways that material is racialised, both the race of the comedian, and of the audience, matters deeply in figuring out what material gets people to laugh, and when.)

You cannot expect me to believe that Nathan Shelley, newly minted coach of West Ham, at his first press conference, could have got everyone to laugh with him and twitter to meme approvingly had he made jokes about calling himself a dummy and the washer of other players’ underwear. That Ted’s tactics are universal, and would work for any man, and not specifically a successful white american who got paid the big bucks to do a job he wasn’t qualified for while he fucked off and left his son on his Eat Pray Love foreign travel. (Nathan will never be allowed to forget that he fucked up the pronunciation of wonderkind. Ted can make comments about a reptile having a belly button uncontested.)

And I bet that’s what Nate is thinking as he watches that press conference - that subtle fear and sadness on his face (God, Nick Mohammed is SO FUCKING GOOD) for both himself and Ted. Nate cares for Ted as he resents him, and watching Ted publicly take a hammer to himself like this is scary and painful. But its also terrifying because Nate has been frantically trying to keep up with the rules of professional interaction in the echelons of power, and now here’s another exception made. Did he just fuck up again, making them laugh at his wit about another team, the way that Rupert clearly indicated he was to do?Ted was the one who taught him it was ok to be snarky and snappy and put-downy! Now he has to account for a different way to play the game?

I’m not going to pick a side on the headcanons about Nate being neurodiverse, but even for neurotypical people codeswitching and transitioning across lines of race and class and culture - it is exhausting to keep up with the constantly edited rulebook in your head. And Nate has not a single person on his side to help him do it.

Cue the text from him mum, which, imma just going to be full South Asian and call her Aunty. Because she sends him photos of the pretty moon, and he responds sweetly, because of course he does. I bet she sends him whatsapp forwards about eating almonds soaked overnight in water. The thing about his dad being upset about him swearing - its a very immigrant experience to have to prove over and over that you know the language as well as the white people, and can use it properly and politely, that you aren’t uncouth and barbaric. I know exactly where the dad is coming from and I also know how it cuts Nate like a knife that never once can his parents just be fucking normal (white) and say love you! (This is why I maintain that Nathan’s dad is not the James Tartt Sr monster that fandom makes him out to be. He’s an immigrant parent who raised a diaspora kid and the can of worms of messy fucked up relationship that involves is a whole other thing.)

I love that Nate read the note saying follow your gut, and immediately went for the honesty of admitting that he didn’t know whether to open the present in front of her or not. (The struggle is real).

Ms Kake’s ‘its a car’ was beautifully delivered. I get the sense that this character is watching a seduction going on as she has had to facilitate for many before, and is observing with the attentive dispassion of a scientist.)

Rupert nodding from the asinine futuristic window like a cartoon supervillian, while Nate gives a nod and immediately after (he can’t help it!) and awkward thumbs up. God I love these two actors. And I really really want to watch Nate collaborate with Ms Kake and take on Rupert. That would be the parallel to season 1 Ted and Higgins vs Rebecca that is worth making the comparison with. (Nate, unlike Colin, can drive a fancy car perfectly well.)

I’m not a fan of the precocious children dispensing wisdom trope, so Henry telling Ted he still needs to try to win, and Phoebe saying Roy is stupid for breaking up is whatever, but if I don’t see Nate’s niece in person this season, I will sulk a lot. (I am assuming Trent Crimm’s daughter will show up as part of whatever romantic arc he’s destined for.)

My final plea for the season is to see Nate in non-branded non-work clothes, and not That Suit, either. Let the man do a scene in jeans and a soft sweater! And thank you lord, for the gratuitous shirtless Sam shot.

#ted lasso season 3 #ted lasso spoilers #safe for nate fans #i guess i should have a nate tag

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disasterbijamietartt · 1 year

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I know what you mean about the neither confirming nor denying thing. Like I can see it as not wanting to take away from the Colin moment, and it was definitely left in a way that can be interpreted positively and I think unless they outright say otherwise, a lot of fandom will take it as a yes, he is. That said, that was the perfect time to confirm, just one line, and I will feel cheated if they dont let him acknowledge it. I am slightly more forgiving of actors teasing a character's sexuality if it seems like actually they are 100% behind it (a la Oscar Isaac with Poe, and I do think Phil with Jamie), but I will be more disappointed in the show for teasing it and not going ahead

Yeah, and you know, I’m so done settling and rejoicing over hints when the creators don’t have the backbone to make something canon. So I have a hard time giving them the benefit of the doubt right now.

Maybe they will surprise me positively, but … the more I think about this, the more it upsets me.

@time-is-restored also makes a good point here, that sleep deprived me forgot about.

The whole situation where everyone on the team looked at him like “We know what you are” was quite unsettling to me—that is not a group of queer people recognising one of their own. That is a group of straight guys singling out one in their middle because he looks/seems gay to them.

Are they stereotyping Jamie because he cares for his appearance? (which is like the only context I can think of, where “I’m flattered” makes sense as a response to me—”They think I’m gay because I’m stylish and hot, so it is a compliment”) Or do they think when Jamie talked about being too “soft” for his dad in season 1, he actually meant “gay”?

The most generous view I can come up with is, that Jamie has dated no one since Keeley and they’re collectively like “He is so hot, and also fun and kind and supportive, him being single makes no sense unless he is gay”. Like, from a fannish perspective I could also go “Haha, after Amsterdam they probably think Roy and Jamie are secretly dating”, but there is like zero proof they might actually think that.

And honestly, as much as I enjoy interpreting every little choice on the show: The average viewer doesn’t do that. The average viewer will look and jump to the first conclusion that makes sense to them, which likely will be stereotyping.

Someone (like Trent) should have called that out.

I could generously interpret the whole exchange as giving a huge hint to casual viewers: “Jamie is perceived as queer, just so you know for future reference 😉”, but still the entire scene doesn’t sit well with me. And they could have accomplished the same result in a way where Jamie actually has agency about this.

Since also, by singling Jamie out, they basically forced him to make a statement, either forcing him to lie or to come out even when he may not be ready for it, which is super shitty behaviour. (So I could also read the “I’m flattered” as him deflecting, like he knows he is bi but doesn’t feel like coming out yet and assumed they clocked him because of his appearance.)

Add to this that Colin basically was forced to come out because of the circumstances and couldn’t actually decide on his own account when and how to come out. (Which is like the opposite of what I wanted)

And we didn’t even get the how, because it was more important to focus on the straight allies 🤡 Like, if the writers didn’t want to take away from Colin’s moment, they could have made it more about Colin? (Yes, he didn't want to be a spokesperson, but it would still have been nice to have him actually say "I am gay" in front of his mates.)

I liked the conversation Roy and Isaac had and think it was necessary (partly for my queer Roy agenda), but instead of giving us this cringeworthy talk by Ted, they could have given Colin more room for his own coming out—and then have Ted reassure him, that they care about him with a story that is about Ted not caring enough about someone who actually was queer and regretting that.

Gosh, the more my brain wakes up, the more upset I get lol

(And yes, I am usually quite forgiving with actors, since they don’t have control over their franchise, but no matter how much I adore Phil, the way he constantly brings up Roy x Jamie as a possibility is going a bit too far at this point if he is only joking.)

#ted lasso spoilers #jamie tartt #my answers #jamie x roy #roy x jamie #royjamie #colin hughes

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gffa · 2 years

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Hi! I genuinely do think there’s room for both liking Anakin and the Jedi. This is a topic that I’ve written a multi-paragraph response to several times, because I have spent much of my fannish life navel-gazing about how I want to approach fandom, what I want out of it, what can I do that will make me the happiest a month from now, given the constraints of the fandom, etc. I mean, this is how I approach life in general, but it’s true of fandom as well. It feels like a simple question, “Is there space for someone who likes both?” and, in a lot of ways it is! But also what does that mean to you versus what does that mean to me? I like both the Jedi and Anakin, but is my version of liking them the same as your version of liking them? How about someone else, who likes both but is more critical of the Jedi than I am? How about someone else who likes both but is less sympathetic to Anakin than I am? Where do you fall on this scale? How important are those distinctions to you? Does it matter if someone says “Anakin Skywalker never did anything wrong in his life, but the Jedi were sweethearts, too.”? Does it matter if someone says, “Anakin Skywalker was not the Jedi Order’s fault, but I love that trash pumpkin?” Does it matter if someone says, “They both made mistakes equally, but I love them both equally as well?” Because sometimes we can get along with one or two of those, but not the third. Sometimes we’re fine with all three. Sometimes we’re hardcore into one and aren’t interested in the others and we’ve done our time in the mines of the source material and word of god commentary and we’re fine where we are. And that’s something each of us has to grapple with, how much we need someone who aligns at least 95% with our views or how much we can pick and choose posts we like from someone else and how much we need to walk away from fandom and how much we need to say, well, fandom isn’t giving me what I want so I’ll just have to make what I want, even if it gets crickets in response. There absolutely is room for those who like both the Jedi and Anakin, it can be frustrating to feel like the divide between the two is an uncrossable chasm, but you don’t have to play the game of siding with any one “group”, because sure there are friend circles, but nothing in fandom is a monolith. I have my usual cohorts that I enjoy reading things from and reblogging from, I’m clearly on the pro-Jedi side, but I’m also still just one person, I’m still just making my own camp right here, I’m still someone you talk to as an individual. Fandom does often feel like it’s divided into “sides” and the only way around that is to just refuse to let yourself be limited by it, because no one should be able to stop you. Anyone who says you have to pick a “side” is full of shit and trying to police how you interact with fandom and you don’t have to listen to them. While I’m clearly pro-Jedi and hang out with that crowd the most (though, I also hang out with the OTP crowd, too, to be fair XD), I don’t feel beholden to them, I don’t feel like I can’t post the things I want to post because of them, it’s my blog, I’ll post whatever the fuck I want, and if I want to post something Anakin-positive, I do it. I’m a single person in fandom, I can like things in whatever combination I want, and yeah sometimes it sucks feeling like I’m the only one who likes things in a very specific combination, but that’s why I’m so loud about them. I am my own content’s biggest fan, I love my combination of things in fandom, I love the way I love both Anakin and the Jedi, and that self-reliance has seen me through a lot. You might only be able to find a small group of friends who align with you at 95%, but in a year from now, sometimes those are the ones you’ll remember the most, not whether you got to read a dozen think pieces a day or a dozen fics a day. It’s fandom, what you remember is the feelings you put into it, the fun you had doing your thing, not whether a bunch of people agreed with you or not. Or at least, that’s how I work and why I’m okay with the corner of fandom I occupy, that I feel plenty of love for both the Jedi and Anakin. <3

#lumi.txt

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pluckyredhead · 9 months

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Hi! This is isn’t meant as a rude or demanding question, and feel free to ignore if you don’t want to engage, but I know you’re a Koryak fan, so I was wondering if you had any advice about how to find a community in DC fandom if you’re not a Batfamily fan? I have a bunch of DC characters I want to write about, and none of them are Bats, so none of them get much fannish attention, and the thought of writing fic no one wants to read makes me want to crawl into a hole and hide. If there’s one thing I envy Batman fandom for, it’s having such an enthusiastic and transformative community with people always ready to support your headcanons or fic ideas. Meanwhile, most characters I like get tagged in posts not actually about them, and every general DC fandom or non-Bat discord I find is either dead or focused on a pairing I’m just not that into. So, if you’re okay with giving advice, any tips on how to find people who also like rarer DC characters?

I didn't think it was rude or demanding at all! No worries, friend. :)

To answer your actual question...it's definitely tough. I will say that in my experience, DC fans who love non-Bat characters are almost all in your boat, i.e. desperate to talk to other people about their blorbos. So if you do see fic or art or meta about them, comment on it! Most people will be thrilled to find another fan of those characters, and happy to get feedback on something more obscure.

I also vote that you write the fic! No, you won't get as many people to read it as you would for something starring Dick or Jason. But the people who find it will be so, so happy it's there.

I personally take the path of "if you don't already love this character, I WILL MAKE YOU LOVE THEM," which is why I write character profiles and highlight the relationships between my obscure blorbos and more popular characters. Like, people might not care about Eddie Bloomberg, but they love Jason Todd, and Jason Todd loves Eddie Bloomberg, and that's how I get them. Fic works the same way - I have definitely gotten comments from people who didn't know who Koryak was before I started writing about him, but love him now.

So the short answer is: put your enthusiasm out into the world! It will come back to you tenfold.

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pilferingapples · 1 year

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An Ongoing Effort to Index This Blog

You’re probably here for reference material! Here’s a tag list to hopefully make finding that easier!

Before I get into the tag lists, a note on my Editorial Policy, such as it is: I truly appreciate corrections, warnings about bloggers/writers operating in bad faith, etc! But if you’re contacting me with actionable info please come off anon or leave me some other way to get hold of you, so I can follow up if I need more info! I don’t post or reblog incorrect or hateful material on purpose, which means if I missed something I probably need more information! I’m happy to keep a convo private if asked, I just need to be able to verify my sources.

That out of the way! The tags!

(I had all these linked before accidentally deleting this post once; it's going to be a While before I can repair those links. If you want to find any of these , just go to pilferingapples.tumblr.com/tagged/name of tag and it should work!) Les Miserables Specific: -BrickClub: former readthroughs - LM X.X.X (as in: LM 1.2.3): chapter specific tags -Fandom 101: stuff that’s hopefully useful for people just starting to look around ; if there’s something not here you think would be useful, let me know! -Fashion,or: Canon Era Fashion : what it says on the tin - Les Misereference: a general tag of all kinds of things , if you just wanna binge canon-era reference - (Character) relevant: references and commentary specifically relevant to one character. Note that this includes “barricade relevant”, “Amis relevant” as a group, and, yes, “sewer relevant” - (character) talk: discussion of a character/concept , like “ Grantaire Talk” or “sewer talk” -what’s the meta for: a general catchall tag for analysis discussion; mostly older stuff- Paris in Canon Era: historical info for the True Main Character ; incl. sewers, schools, etc - maps : They Are Maps - FRev : goofy fannish stuff and silliness about the French Revolution - FRENCH REVOLUTION: actual historical/ analytical posts about the French Revolution (NOT when Les Mis is set, but hugely influential!) -Women in the Revolution: what it says! historical /analyses stuff about women in various revolutions and uprisings, though mostly the 1830s and the Frev. Romanticism Specific: - Actual Romantics : stories and histories on members of the French Romantic movement -Four People and a Shoelace: specifically about the Petit Cenacle/Jeunes France crew -Hugolania: trivia and random Hugo homages/commentary/fandom stuff. Because Hugo always had a fandom. more, doubtless, as I think of them! Adaptations: - Les Mis Stage : things about /from the stage musical -Les Mis Dallas, Dallas Les Mis : the 2014 Dallas Theater Center modernized production -Les Mis 2012 : things about/from the 2012 musical movie -Shoujo Cosette: the 52-episode anime; characters from this sometimes just get tagged SC(character) -Les Mis Arai: the multivolume manga - Other Adaptations : what it says on the tin , including other musical adaptations, movies, and tv shows Fanwork Specific -(Character) art: exactly what you’d expect - Canon era fic :..again… - Modern AU : rarely needed, but sometimes! -Fic Rec, Ficrec-what it says Character/ Group/ Ship/Pairing tags, when not just a character’s name : - The Pontmercy Friend: Marius - All of Them : the Amis as a group -Most of Them: ALMOST all the Amis as a group -Poetry Smash: Bahorel and Prouvaire -Justice and His Tutor: Enjolras and Feuilly - Bini!, Bini: Joly and Bossuet - OMST3K: J/B/M, for reasons - Power Trio: Enjolras, Combeferre and Courfeyrac - Party Trio: Joly, Legle , and Grantaire -To Watch Faith Soar: Enjolras and Grantaire Ships Ahoy: any content focused on romance (these are NEVER EVER Ship Tags): - Owl and Wren : Valjean and Cosette - Para Bellum: Bahorel and Gavroche

#pinned post #THANK YOU SEAGLASS #long post

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