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lizardsfromspace · 3 days

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What's the worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years, and what's the worst thing about fandom that's always been true of it?

The worst thing about fandom in the last 20 years has been the incentivizing of fandom-as-conflict: not merely as a field in broader culture wars but as the field for endless intra-group battles.

This manifests in many ways: as seven hour videos complaining about The Last Jedi, as Twitter backlash campaigns, but also as stans defending their faves from any and all criticism real or imagined, as the endless boom-and-backlash cycle to any fandom meme or joke you see on Reddit, and as the drive for people to look for evidence other people discussing a thing they like are hysterical illiterate dolts, before anything else.

Or, in other words: a lot of fandoms are full of assholes these days, whose main interaction with fandom is using it as a reason to be an asshole, and to defend being an asshole. The actual “fandom” part of fandom no longer really exists for them. The discourse more or less is their fandom; someone whose main fandom activity is sharing videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) isn’t in the Steven Universe fandom, they’re in the videos about how Steven Universe is a fascist (?) fandom. I mean, the chief fandom for many people is their side in the fandom war. What type of fanfic you write is secondary to what your affiliations are vis-a-vis battles over fanfiction

(One trend I've noticed is people who aren't at the stage where they only talk about what they hate and not what they love, but are at the stage where they can only talk about what they love in relation to what they hate. "I love this movie...and it proves this other movie is bullshit made by a hack". No ability to say just "I love this movie", period, end of sentence. This is how like two-thirds of Film Twitter talks about film, the remainder are all the grindhouse people going "man you've GOT to see Wrong Turn 5")

Another one, that I think is related, is that fandom’s become...more transitory, maybe? There’s Big Fandoms that are inescapable and then everything else feels like it’s here for a weekend and then it’s gone. And we’ve always had fandoms that endure and fandoms that vanish quickly, when the show runs short or turns out to be bad/boring, but we did use to have a lot of enduring if small fandoms for Okay shows most people hadn’t heard of and now you don’t really. Or they burn themselves out fast.

So we’ve reached this stage where fandoms are either so big they have seven hour long discourse videos, or they’re a smattering of fanart over the course of two weeks last August. But that isn’t really the fault of fans so much as modern media release schedules.

A lot of fandom activities of old are just...impossible now, with many shows? The slow build of speculation and fan works and in-jokes and theorizing and analysis simply can’t exist in a world where the premiere comes out the same day as the finale, and you can’t talk about the finale because you have no way of knowing if the person you’re talking to binged it all in one weekend or is still on episode four. That was the kind of thing that sustained the fandom of something that wasn’t a big hit, or even something that was. My fave fandom experience ever was watching the online Lost fandom wildly theorizing for all six years of Lost, and we’d never get “and what if the Smoke Monster is a dinosaur but only the head?” under a Netflix release model. Now at a base level, we either have shows nobody can discuss because nobody’s sure who’s seen or what, or shows where everyone just discusses the finale right away, and where you get One Week of Show and then a massive hiatus, which either kills all momentum or...drives fandom in the direction of hyper-analyzing everything and fighting because, well, what else is there to do? And that plus the outrage cycles of social media plus the fact that “man who yells at Star Wars” is now a viable career choice result in, well. *gestures upwards* All that

(Really, shout out to Cartoon Network for engineering the Steven Universe fandom to Be Like That through their inscrutable strategy of dropping episodes during one random week every five months or whatever)

As for something that's always been with it...cliques and a certain fannish elitism, like, that sees engaging with media in a fandom sense as more creative or analytical or intelligent than your average person. You see it now in the form of, like, people holding up fanfic above published fiction as more representative or authentic (I’ve seen more than one post on here strongly implying queer rep doesn’t exist in mainstream non-fic storytelling???), or going “well, we think about shows, unlike those normies watching sports”. But that was probably way more pronounced a thing in the past, in the 40-50s sci-fi fans were calling non-fans "mundanes" and calling themselves "slans" as an in-group signifier (a reference to a book with superintelligent psychic mutants known as slans). Like at the very least we should be happy no one’s calling non-fans “muggles” anymore. In the evolution from “mundane” to “muggle” to “normie” normie’s probably the least bad one

#asks #fandom #schafpudel #long post

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diamondofversailles · 23 hours

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Besties I also don't particularly like Shuro (it's for the Izutsumi thing, not because of the Laios thing that happened this episode!!!) But I also get this thing that I also think Shuro is neurodivergent HOWEVER he comes from a place of privilege because of his family AND from a place where it's drilled into his head that being direct about discomfort is rather rude, it's not so simple as to just go "he HATES autistic people and he deserves to die because he was mean to Laios", Laios although heartbroken that the person he thought was his friend secretly did not like him IS NOT A CHILD, he's a WHITE grown man who (accidentally and without malice) did various microaggressions towards Shuro, and while I think this could have gone a lot smoother if Shuro was more direct or Laios was just a tad bit less socially inept, none of them are children or without fault. Hating Shuro because of this one specific thing is kind of weird (and there's a lot of fandom racism too towards him and Kabru)

The situation that Shuro and Laios find themselves in isn't something as simple as "character A is a poor pure man and character B is mean, evil and an asshole" 😭😭😭😭

#laios touden #shuro dungeon meshi #toshiro nakamoto #delicious in dungeon #dungeon meshi #laios thorden #laios dungeon meshi #dunmeshi

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usereddie · 2 days

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explain couch theory for dummies please

alright!!!

basically, couch theory started last season in 6x01. we got a snippet of the script for the buckley diaz scene at the beginning of the episode, where buck, eddie, and christopher are all having dinner together, and christopher teases buck for not having a couch.

buck is upset that bobby didn't consider him for interim captain and goes "i just wanna know what these other candidates have that apparently i don't."

christopher goes "buck, you don't even have a couch."

buck explains that the last two couches came with girlfriends (to which eddie replies "i think you mean the last two girlfriends came with couches.") because ali picked his couch when he got the loft, and they kept taylor's couch after she moved in, meaning that when she moved out, she took the couch with her.

the theory REALLY starts, though, when eddie points out that buck and taylor broke up months ago, he could've replaced the couch by now.

and buck gets a soft look in his eyes as he looks at eddie and goes "well, maybe i don't want to pick the wrong couch again."

that's kind of the root of the whole couch theory.

there's another scene in 6x01 where buck mentions not having a couch to bobby and saying he doesn't want to make a mistake again, referring to life experience.

essentially, the couch metaphor is actually something that happens in canon throughout season 6. the couch theory is the spin off of that metaphor, where it's very obvious that eddie is the damn couch.

throughout the season, there's this theme of buck searching for the right couch. it continues at the very end of the coma episode (6x11), when the buckley parents ask buck why he doesn't have a couch after they come home from the hospital.

we find out in this scene that maddie is aware of the couch metaphor because she goes "oh, that story is too long to tell while standing."

we then get a scene in the following episode (6x12) while buck's in recovery, of him trying and failing to get comfortable on his couch.

in this episode, the 118 and co are showing up to buck's apartment to keep him company, a system created by maddie to make sure buck is fine and that he's not by himself while he recovers from the lightning strike and coma.

buck doesn't want all this attention, though, and, eventually, gets fed up and goes to eddie's house.

where he immediately gets comfortable on his couch, and falls asleep before eddie even brings the beers out.

it did make the fandom lose it, thanks so much for asking.

not directly related to the couch theory, but after buck wakes up on eddie's couch, they talk about the shooting for the first time since it happened.

couch theory kind of continues throughout the season. there's a scene that's essentially a beat by beat parallel of buck falling asleep on eddie's couch with christopher falling asleep on the couch, and the buckley diaz family implications went crazy with that one.

seriously, i'm not kidding. beat by beat.

the writers, actors, producers, etc were all aware of what the fandom thought about the couch theory and how it related to buddie, also. couches were mentioned in interviews, tweets were liked, it was a whole thing.

but, i'm assuming whatever oliver says in today's (april 25th) article about the couch theory is gonna be a little more....buddie specific than anything was during s6.

anyway, after buck falling asleep on eddie's couch everyone sort of hoped for a continuation of the couch arc that involved eddie, because obviously eddie was the couch. you have buck, who didn't want to pick the wrong couch again, who couldn't even get comfortable on the couch his parents bought him, immediately fall asleep the second he sat on eddie's couch?

insanity!!!!!! it was crazy!!!!!

i don't remember if anything happened between 6x13-6x17 that was directly in canon. obviously the fandom kept going with the couch theory, speculating all the ways that the couch could mean buddie canon (there's a lot of fic from s6 that's full of couch metaphors and couch mentions)(my fics, too).

kameron gives birth to the sperm donor baby on buck's couch, also.

i forget that detail.

anyway, end of 6x18, buck and natalia are sitting on his balcony and he turns to her and asks if she wants to go buy a couch.

people died that day.

that's more or less it. i'm sure there's more that i'm missing, but essentially, the couch theory is the idea that eddie is buck's couch, the couch representing a romantic relationship.

or, not just a romantic relationship, but the right one. buck's couch is buck settling down, finding someone to spend the rest of forever with, a family, a home.

and then he got that in eddie's house, but he was too blind to see it.

alright. i think that's it! hope it made sense :)

let's pray today's interview doesn't kill us all

#i did this instead of getting ready for class btw #buddie #bia gets mail #anon #911 abc

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dykefaggotry · 2 days

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[image id: an ask from @harbingerofskulls that reads: "im gonna b real i only knew the jerking off i would love to hear you elaborate more if you want to go on the whole situation" /end id]

answering here so i can save as a draft without risking the ask disappearing bc tumblr's been doing that lately but

oh god </3 for everyone else- it's talking about this post. sooo i'm gonna go through each one bc i've been feeling insane for several weeks. i'll do my best to cite my sources lmao

i don't know (johnny johnny)

this is referring to this unreleased VERY early beatles track from 1960. the audio quality is absolute shit & as such unfortunately people love to put words to it that don't make much sense in either direction (i.e a lot of mclennon fans want to hear "you're in love with me" and a lot of people that hate mclennon will just make up the weirdest lyrics that make 0 sense so it's Not Gay). some of the lyrics that ARE clear make it obvious this song is about the two of them running away together- at one point i'm fairly certain paul says "how am i gonna tell my father that we're leaving town?" probably referring to them leaving to hamburg. which would be fine but some of the other lyrics areeeee..... very..... Hm. like multiple times paul refers to john as "my boy" and there's bits of them talking about not knowing what to tell their friends & wanting to just run off together alone. if i were the other members of the band having to record this i would have killed them with hammers <3 also the entire end is just paul going "oh johnny" like 1 million times. okay. sure. also since the lyrics ARE so garbled i mean i guess people could be right about it saying "how am i gonna tell my father you're in love with me" but i just don't hear it. still, a very gay song about running off together and getting away from everything and everyone, complete with moaning the other's name </3

2. paris

this one is a huge part of McLennon Fandom Lore lmao but for good reason. not citing sources on all this bc it's one of those that's just Fact & can be found in like any beatles biography or thebeatlesbible.com (my savior) but. for john's 21st birthday, he got 100 pounds from a rich relative. instead of taking his girlfriend or any of his other friends, he decided to use the money to take paul to spain. but they stopped in paris on the way and just decided to stay there. which i mean like. taking your best friend over your girlfriend to the city of love is a little weird but it's not THAT weird. it's everything else that makes people want to chew glass about it. including some of the other things on this list. like this audio of john just goofing around singing about paris and paul, with such hits as "my cheri, my pau pau my pau paul." which is :| okay best friend. and paul has this picture hung up in his house that he took of john sleeping in paris. okay. sure. why not. (although ig there's some doubt about if the photo is from paris? either way it's a picture paul took and has framed in his house which is incriminating enough my man). also NOT in the original post but may pang, a woman john had a brief affair with in the 70s, wrote a book called loving john. in it, there's this quote:

After a late lunch, Linda launched into a long paean to the joys of living in England. When she was finished, she turned to John and said, “Don’t you miss England?”

“Frankly,” John replied, “I miss Paris.”

okay! also in an interview once he said:

The thing was all the kissing and the holding that was going on in Paris. And it was so romantic, just to be there and see them, even though I was twenty-one and sort of not romantic. But I really loved it, the way the people would just stand under a tree kissing; and they weren’t mauling at each other, they were just kissing.

(interview with david scheff for playboy in september 1980)

3. if i fell

this one i already made an insane post on that started my spiral into posting about the beatles publicly </3 but, essentially, the song "if i fell" by john is..... well it's most likely about paul. he said it wasn't about his wife but that it was auto-biographical and he never really had any public affairs that weren't flings, certainly not a lover. but most damning is he wrote the complete lyrics for the first time on a valentine's day card addressed "to paul with love" with some hearts and arrows pointing to where the lyrics were written. absolutely insane. made me insane.

4. oh! darling

rawest paul song of all time if i do say so myself lmao. but it's just.... Highly Suspicious, that's what it is. a Lot of beatles fans/historians will admit this song is most likely about john but they won't admit that it's fucking romantic if it is. like.

like that is so blatantly romantic idk what to say other than that. also, in the official recording on abbey road, there's Several points where paul says "darling" that sound more like he's saying "johnny" which is what he called him. people brush it off by saying it's his accent, but there's a very clear difference between when he's saying "darling" and when he's saying "johnny". i mean the Lore behind this is that it was written right when things were splitting up between them (& the rest of the band) so it makes sense and it's why most people are willing to accept it's about john. it's just insane to me that they'll accept it's about john without considering the implications of that.

5. the real life demo

this one made me want to light myself on fire i won't lie to you. but here it is! john had a song called "real love" and this is a very early demo of it. but instead of the lyrics that came to actually be in the song (which are thought to be about yoko but let's not get into the fact that it was on a tape labeled "for paul" but whatever), it includes john fucking crying as he sings saying:

"was i just dreaming or was it only yesterday? i used to hold you in my arms. and now a baby and another on the way... la la la la farm..."

which can quite literally be about no one else but paul, as this demo was recorded when he'd just had two children with his wife linda and linda was pregnant with their third child. they'd moved to a farm in scotland. hearing this audio clip did genuinely make me want to lie down in the dirt for a week. also "i used to hold you in my arms" just... yeah. god. when people think it was unrequited idk what to say, really.

6. If Paul Were A Woman-

shoving these two together but. in april of 85, paul said in an interview about john and yoko's relationship:

"I mean, I couldn’t stand in the way of someone who’d fallen in love. You can’t say, 'Who’s this?' You can’t really do that. If I was a girl, maybe I could go out and…"

okay bestie <3 and what would make your relationship different if you were a woman? interesting! and yoko had something similar to say. in this audio, she says:

"I’m sure that if he had been a woman or something, he would have been a great threat – because there’s something definitely very strong between John and Paul."

just reminds me of being a kid and telling my best friends "if i were a boy i'd date you" lol. incredible. does anyone here know about bisexuality.

7. stuart!

not much to say here except that john had a best friend, stu sutcliffe, who died young & before that had been the bassist in the band. paul fucking hated him sooo much oh he SEETHED. a lot has been written on that relationship but it was.... very interesting to say the least. it could have just been about the band, or just jealousy over john's friendship, but take that with a lot of john biographers suspecting john had feelings/even a sexual relationship with stuart and it paints a very Interesting picture to say the least

8. john's bisexuality

here's a compilation of quotes about it, but john was more than likely bisexual. which has nothing to do w paul, really, but more to do against people that like to claim they were both Heterosexual Men. although an interesting quote in this compilation is him saying he's "had paul" lmfao

9. paul's post-beatles work

there's just.... there is so so so much here i don't even know where to begin. @ringompreg has a good compilation of paul songs here. a lot of them do take a bit of Lore but like..... it comes down to the fact that both him and john have/had admitted many times to using their lyrics during The Breakup Years to talk to/reference each other and sooooo many of these lyrics are insanely blatant. the two i mentioned were tug of war and let me roll it, both of which are acknowledged to be about john by most people WITH NO ONE BOTHERING TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT which..... tug of war has this:

we could stand on top of the mountain with our flag unfurled? dancing to a beat played on a different drum? this is what gaylors think gaylor conspiracy is but paul mccartney is really out here saying this shit.

and let me roll it is so fucking blatantly romantic but every reviewer is like haha! what a cool song that's "making fun" of john and clearly in his style! like are straight people stupid genuinely. anyway:

bonus to that but about JOHN'S solo work :)))))) he wrote a song called "watching the wheels" and when you consider he very much responded to MANY of paul's solo stuff it's :)

which as a response to let me roll it would just be... so devestating but it may be a stretch idk if i'm onto anything there it's just worth Mentioning

and there's a lot of others, a lot of them in that post up there. like far too many where paul mentions falling in love with a friend like Alright.

10. paul's first lsd trip with john/"i know" "i know"

this one is less blatantly romantic but it is just insane. here's an article. and a quote from george martin about it. the first time paul tripped on acid w john was bc john accidentally took some and he took him home & then took acid w him bc he didn't want john to be alone on the trip :( but, notably:

"And we looked into each other’s eyes, the eye contact thing we used to do, which is fairly mind-boggling. You dissolve into each other. But that’s what we did, round about that time, that’s what we did a lot," the singer recalled, "And it was amazing. You’re looking into each other’s eyes and you would want to look away, but you wouldn’t, and you could see yourself in the other person. It was a very freaky experience and I was totally blown away."

he also apparently saw john as the, and i quote, "emperor of eternity" during this trip??????? okay

SOMEWHERE i can't find it rn and i'm getting lazy but somewhere they (i think paul?) talk about the fact that they used to just stare into each other's eyes and then say "i know" "i know" which. considering john's song "i know (i know)" makes me crazy

11. in my life/i will

these are really just some devastating songs with lyrics that make you really raise your eyebrows. for in my life, written by john, it's just an incredibly romantic & sweet song that is again, not about his wife. given that the lennon estate is still out here posting pictures of paul to those lyrics i have to say it's a liiiiittle suspicious. and i will is...... it's one that paul insists is not about his girlfriend at the time, jane asher. and when you look at the lyrics vs how him and john met.... like. the song goes:

and the story of how they met was that paul saw john repeatedly before they ever met, when he didn't know who john was other than that he thought he looked cool & admired his sideburns (lmfao). and when they did finally meet, it was when john was singing at a garden fete (party) and paul was in the crowd just Mesmerized. so. well. you can see.... you can see how fitting that is. makes me crazy makes me want to chew glass actually

12. "we were each other's intimates" and other insane quotes

"we were each other's intimates" is a paul quote about john which is just insane but that's not even the tip of the iceberg. here's a ton of quote compilations.

13. "literally everything else"/honorable mentions

some honorable mentions go out to: john going on stage w elton john & playing i saw her standing there and introducing it as "a song by an estranged fiance of mine" okay! the "just like starting over" demos. okay! which isn't even to MENTION the fact that paul locked himself away in the studio listening to "just like starting over" on repeat for DAYS after john died like???? john saying repeatedly that he considered paul & yoko to be his two major partners in life including in an interview the literal day he died. a whole ass rpf movie where they kiss & talk like they're ex-lovers and dance in central park (two of us) made by the same dude that made the let it be movie like. he knew them personally? he worked with them closely? and the only thing paul had to say about it was just essentially that it was what he wished would've happened like???????? i can't find a super reliable source for this so take it w a grain of salt, but apparently paul referred to mclennon fanfiction as "beautiful stories" and doesn't mind them being written. paul also had a cat that had kittens & he named two of the kittens pyramus and thisbe after fictional lovers he and john played and he gave pyramus (the character paul played) to john :|

and literally so much else like all of this and it's not even all of it. it's not even close to all of it. i didn't even get to talk about the way in "get back" the documentary, paul started talking about john leaving the band for yoko and how john would choose her over them and then he got teary eyed, started choke laughing, and then started singing "build me up buttercup" before looking at the cameras and stopping. what the FUCK was that about! IT'S NOT EVEN GETTING INTO THE SONG "TWO OF US" THAT'S SO OBVIOUSLY ABOUT JOHN THAT IT HURTS. it's. it's not even scratching the surface. they were just genuinely insane about each other.

#mclennon #this is long but it had to be to expand on every reference i made in that post FJADJFASDF

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pixiemage · 2 days

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I legitimately think a lot of people get too hung up on how other people write or draw characters (both in MCYT and outside of it). I sometimes feel like there's so much bitterness towards fellow fandom members just because they've chosen to enjoy a character or corner of the fandom in a different way. Do you picture the characters the same way the creators are IRL? Fun! Do you have a much more fanonized interpretation because you want to separate the characters from creators? Great! Do you tend to lean toward one kind of design overall in your art because that's just how you enjoy the act of creation? Fantastic!

Short, tall, thin, fat, human, hybrid, something entirely undefinable - every single option is correct. Every single option is right. That's the point of creativity and creative liberty. That's the point of fandom and the whole reason why fan art and fan fiction exist - to take what canon gives you and make something, whether that something clings to canon's every note, or if that something turns canon on its head. Especially if it turns canon on its head.

This is a vast fanbase built upon a sandbox game, and any creations we make should be treated the same. It doesn't matter if it doesn't fit the bill for what someone else thinks, and it doesn't matter if it doesn't fit some standard mold. If everyone else views Grian as a parrot avian, but you love writing him as a cod? Do it! If a lot of folks depict Tango as a blazeborn, but you fucking love the idea of him being an android? Well, for god's sake, what's stopping you? Make him an android! Does everyone else write Bdubs as short, but you think it'd be really funny if he was taller than half the hermits, so the short jokes are even more ridiculous? Then, holy shit, I wanna see that!

But to roll back to the point, fan creations is meant to be fun. And all of you out there being picky? As a viewer of other peoples' art and writing, don't go telling people they're "doing it wrong". Don't be critical. Don't tell someone they need to "do better" if their portrayal doesn't line up with what's in your head. There's no rules here. And similarly, there's no quota we need to meet on variety. There's no law someone is breaking if they're not following your expectations. If you're a viewer of art and fics, and you're pissed at someone because you believe they don't draw or write someone tall enough or short enough or thin enough or fat enough or young enough or old enough - make it yourself. Don't detract from someone else's joy just because their version of having fun in the fandom doesn't line up with yours.

People are going to create what they love. People write and draw from a place of inspiration and enjoyment and fun. If they choose to share it, they're doing that for free and of their own free will. They didn't share it for you. Fan artists and fan writers aren't here to be your dancing monkeys, we're here to just have fun. If you aren't seeing enough of whatever you're expecting to see, then don't demand it from other people who were proud enough of a piece of art to share it with the world. Make it yourself.

#fandom #mcyt #fanart #fanfiction

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max1461 · 2 days

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Non-exhaustive list of things that seem to be really popular online, or at least in "extremely online" circles, or at least... if not popular per se, of widely understood appeal. Like someone might go "oh I'm not into that but I get it, or it's adjacent to things I'm into". Anyway non-exhaustive list of things like that that I'm not into, and basically don't get, and at some level feel alienated by the online commonality of:

DnD

Denial kinks e.g. cuckolding and chastity

Isaac Asimov Foundation/Edward Gibbon Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire style "civilizational" thinking

Fandom. How do you guys fucking... remember what happens in books and shit? I swear to god when I watch a movie or read I book I just immediately forget what fucking happened in it. Even some of my favorites, like FMA:B, I don't actually remember the plot of that show really. It's very loose in my mind. I remember lots of scenes and events though.

Dark Souls

I'll add more if I think of them. Just don't really understand these things. I've posted lists before of shit that I like before and said "hey can anybody figure out the commonality here because I can't". Well this is the hatermode (or nonunderstandermode) version of that. Does anyone have a coherent theory of what these things have in common that makes me not get them, even though evidently many people get them?

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bad268 · 3 days

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maybe a story where kimis gf (reader) has curly hair and she does her curly hair routine on kimi. love your writing!! 💓

Curl TLC (Andrea Kimi Antonelli X Curly Hair! Reader)

Fandom: RPF/F2/F3

Requested: Clearly (Thank you <3 and as someone with curly hair, I had too much fun with this)

Warnings: None

POV: Second Person (You/your)

W.C. 1332

Summary: Kimi needed some help with his curls.

Join my 1K Celly

As always, my requests are OPEN

MASTERLIST // HITLIST

~~(^Pinterest)

It was something you always noticed. Kimi’s hair was always unruly after a race, but after being with him for almost a year, you noticed the little things. His curls used to be so well-formed and clean, but now, it’s like he was losing his curl pattern. And given that you also had curly hair, you decided to teach him your tricks during an off weekend.

“I don’t see why this is important,” He complained as soon as you started rinsing his hair. “This seems like a lot.”

“I haven’t even done anything yet,” You laughed as you made sure none of the water got in his eyes. “This is just water.”

“But the number of things you have is concerning,” He replied as he glanced over at the three bottles and diffuser on the counter.

“That’s nothing,” You dismissed as you grabbed the shampoo specifically for curly hair. “Now, this is my shampoo. The first time I do it-”

“You’re gonna do it more than once?” Kimi cut you off as he tried to sit down, but you put your hand on his shoulder to sit him back down in front of the sink.

“Yes, the first time, I’ll give you a head massage. It helps get all the dead skin off your scalp and It’s just really relaxing,” You explained as you applied the shampoo to his roots. As you began working it through his hair. You knew better than to explain your process when you were scratching his scalp because you knew he would not be listening. As soon as you started, his eyes shut and that was game over. After a few minutes, you turned the water back on to rinse it. Maybe, you let a little splash onto Kimi’s face, causing his eyes to snap open and look up at you. “The first shampoo is to get everything off your scalp. The second one is to get all the dead skin out of your hair.”

“That sounds gross,” Kimi cringed as he settled back into his seat. “It’s just two, right?”

“Two shampoos, yes,” You answered as you started with the second shampoo treatment. “Then, we’ll condition once and put curl cream in your hair. I’ll show you how to form your curls, and then I’ll help you dry your hair with a diffuser.”

“What even is that?” He asked confused as you turned the water off to let the conditioner sit.

“I don’t know how to describe it,” You laughed as you sat on his lap to pass the time. Kimi immediately tried to bring his hands to his hair, but you grabbed them and held them to his side. “No, don’t touch it! Leave it alone!”

“That’s not fair!” He complained but leaned into you to kiss you.

“I know what you’re trying to do,” You dragged out as you pulled away and leaned your forehead against his. You felt his arms trying to pull themselves from your hold, so you adjusted your grip, “And it’s not going to work.”

“How long do I need to leave this in? It itches,” Kimi complained with no real heat behind his words. It did not really itch, but it was a different formula than he was used to. The texture was just weird to him, and he wanted it off.

“A few more minutes,” You said as you looked at his hair. The curls were starting to form back on their own, so that was going to make your job easier later on. “If it’s really bugging you, I can rinse it now and we can move on to the cream and diffusing.”

“Please?” He asked he gave you puppy eyes. He knew you could never say no to him then.

“Fine,” You sighed in mock offense as you stood up and walked around to stand at his side to wash the conditioner out. “I just don’t think you’re used to it, bu don’t worry. You’ll learn to love it.”

“That sounds threatening,” Kimi laughed as he closed his eyes when you turned the water back on.

“Take it how you wish,” You joked as you finished rinsing his hair. You grabbed a towel after turning the water off and gently dried his hair a bit. “Here, stand in front of the mirror and I’ll show you how to define your curls.”

“I never knew it was this complicated,” Kimi groaned as he stood up and stood beside you. You removed the towel and inspected the natural curls he had already formed. You were just planning on working with what he had. They were fairly spaced out right and they were already semi-formed. They just needed a little cleaning up, and that’s exactly what the curl cream would do. “What is that?”

“Curl cream,” You said simply as you put a little on your fingers and started to run it through a section of his hair. “It’s going to help your curls hold their shape and be less frizzy.”

“Is it going to make them hard?” Kimi complained as he watched you through the mirror.

“First off, that’s what she said,” You giggle as you move on to the next section. Kimi laughed a little, but he gently slapped your arm in response. “Secondly, no. It’s not. All it does is help them hold. They’ll still be soft. You’ve never noticed my hair being crunchy.”

“Oh, good,” Kimi said to himself. He watched you for a minute before asking, “What are you doing now?”

“I’m using my fingers to wrap your curls, so they will be more defined,” You explained, slowing down to show him. “Look. I take this piece of hair, wrap it around my finger, and then gently, keynote on gently, twirl it off. You try.” He tried it. Did it look perfect? No. Would it work for now? Yes. He’s learning, but it's a good start. “That looks good! You’ll get better, I promise.”

“As long as you’re here to help,” He sighed. “It’s a lot of work.”

“You don’t always have to do all of this,” You explained. “Some days, just washing with shampoo and conditioner works just fine. Your curls just needed some TLC today, so we did the whole nine yards, but normally, I would not do the curl cream or diffusing. Only when I’m feeling extra.”

“Oh, good to know,” Kimi trailed off as you finished off forming his curls and moved to grab the diffuser. “This is next, right?”

“Yes! If you want, I can show you how to do it, then let you. Or I can just do it,” You offered, but he immediately handed you the dryer. You chuckled at his eagerness to get rid of the object but started to blow dry his hair. “Flip your head down.”

“I feel like this is unnecessary,” He grumbled but did so without question. You did not listen to him as you just laughed to yourself and moved on with blow-drying his hair. “Why is it so cold?”

“It’s cold to start with, but I’ll warm it up as we finish up,” You replied. “Heat ruins your hair, so even though we’re blow-drying your hair, it’s going to be cool air.”

“I don’t like it,” He groaned as he tried to lean away from the cool air.

“Well, lucky for you, you don’t have a lot of hair, so you're basically done,” You said as you ran your hand through a couple of strands without separating them, and you noticed they were completely done. You decided to explain the rules as you started putting everything away. “Don’t brush it, don't run your hands through it, and do not put a helmet on for a while. In a way, it’s a good thing you don’t have a race for a couple of weeks.”

“About that,” Kimi trailed off, causing your face to drop immediately, “I was gonna go karting tomorrow.”

“You better not! I worked hard to make those curls!”

~~~~~

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foone · 6 hours

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weird thought: I think if I was a teenager now (or anytime in the last decade or so) I think I would have written (and read!) a lot more fanfic than I did in reality, where I was a teenager in the 90s.

See, I've never been hugely into fanfic. Never had anything against it exactly, but it just wasn't something I was into. But I think that has to do with an interesting combination of how my brain works and what time I was first really getting into being a fan.

I've got a "librarian" brain (I'm literally typing this from within a library, WHERE I WORK). It wants to know things like "what are all the works in this series/by this creator?" and "are they all accessible?" and "what info is available about how it was made?"

I'm the kind of person who will watch a show then go look it up on wikipedia to see how many seasons it has, who made it, if they're still making it, check tvtropes for any more info, etc. Or I hear a song I like by a band I've never heard of, so I go listen to their entire discography while researching them. I just focus on things I'm into that way, you know? I don't half-ass my interest. (this is probably related to my autism, of course)

So what does this have to do with fanfic? like, do I go read some fanfics as part of this process? No, and I think the reason for it is when I specifically first got into fandom, as a teen.

See, this sort of fandom-librarian was harder to do in 1997, you know? You couldn't just pull up the wikipedia for that new show and see how many episodes it had. You also couldn't just listen to the whole discography of that band! Forget Spotify or Google Music, even Napster didn't exist yet.

So my interest in fandom focused a lot more on very basic questions: How many episodes/albums/books/whatever are there? Where can I see/hear them all? Like, I remember getting excited because I found some fan magazine that had a list of all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. Just a list! Not even descriptions or anything. I finally could take that list and see how many I'd seen, so I'd know when I saw them all in late-night reruns.

So I'm focusing on these very basic parts of being a fandom-librarian and I stumble across some fanfic. I'm like "oh, is this a transcript of an episode I haven't seen yet?" and I realize it's not, it's a story written by a fan, and I get a knee-jerk reaction of "that's not helpful to my quest to know and find all the episodes". It's like I am on a quest for the holy grail and I found a fake cup. It's not helpful to me, and at worst it's a distraction from my goal.

And the thing is, I think the fact I had that reaction is entirely due to the time and situation in which I first encountered fanfic. It was in that environment of "I can't even find a list of the episodes, let alone a way to watch them all!" and that anxiety that colored my response to finding fanfic.

I think if I instead was first introduced to fanfic NOW, where those fandom-librarian drives aren't so difficult to fulfill, I'd be way more positive about fanfic. If I could get a list of episodes with a quick google search, and watch them easily on netflix/prime/whatever, I'd be less "THIS DOESN'T HELP! I AM STRUGGLING WITH THE BASICS HERE!" and more "yay, more content for the fandom I'm obsessed with!"

Like I said, I'm not anti-fanfic, I never have been, I just never got into it. From the beginning I had this reaction that was "this is not useful" and I never developed any real interest in it. Which is a shame, honestly. Fanfic is great. It just never became one of my interests, and while I've written it and read it from time to time, I imagine I'd be way more into it if I didn't have the weird reaction to it due to the worries of the time in which I first encountered it.

I don't know how many other people have brains that work anything like mine, but if they exist, I'm glad they're now growing up in a world where they won't have these problems. They can get into fanfic without this weird baggage caused by a lack of information.

#fanfic meta

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olderthannetfic · 3 days

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"I think people have trouble articulating why fic is not books because they’re used to thinking in terms of content, and they know perfectly well that Goodreads is full of content that might as well be from a fic."

Time to drop my pet peeve. There's lots of obnoxious discussions about why fanfic is just "different" and is "perfectly valid" without "being something it's not", i.e. being compared to books, but when people actually articulate why it feels different (it sure isn't quality! because published shit sure does exist out there), they end up just describing the effect of... word count.

Ohhh published novels are more "stimulating" and "give you more to think about"? When the average published novel is at least ten times longer than the average fic? You don't say.... *eyeroll*

The main difference between people who read mainly published fiction and people who mainly read fanfic isn't necessarily the level of originality in the work, or the quality, but the latter group will generally read a LOT more short stories! I find that super interesting, and nobody ever seems to talk about that.

It is interesting because I usually dislike big publisher short stories, but I like shorter fanfic fine. Looking at the non-fanfic short works that I like, I think it probably has to do with how short content with a ton of outside context looks vs. short content that isn't leaning on something else. It's also because fandom is exponentially less likely to use that short length to end with a downer twist.

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tofixtheshadows · 2 days

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I keep thinking that King Laios is gonna have a real hard time, politically, with dwarves post canon. I think it's established that dwarves have the most beef with elves (though this might also apply to gnomes to a lesser extent, given Tansu's opinions) and I'm sure they would have their hackles raised over the continent chocked full of concentrated mana that suddenly appeared from the depths due to ancient magic right after the Canaries went in and fucked around.

Worse, the king's court magician is a half elf, and his royal advisor, once they get intel on him, will turn out to be some tallman elf pet straight from the elven capital. And their court was established with a live-in elven ambassador (Pattadol) from day one. Just like in the canon timeline, a bunch of completely innocent circumstances have converged to paint a horribly suspicious picture. The Golden Country folks are gonna have a hell of a time convincing the world that they're not an elven puppet-state. This is designed to give Kabru a chronic migraine.

#TO BE CLEAR: I am not calling Kabru a pet. But that is exactly what other long-lived people would assume about him.#this post is useless I am just speaking to myself. Kui what have you done to me I cannot stop rotating postcanon speculations in my head.#like I'm not crazy right Kabru is gonna have so many racists accusing him of being an elven spy/meddler whispering in Laios's ear #Golden Country trio my beloveds....#Dungeon Meshi spoilers #oh PLUS the dungeon had a lot of ancient dwarven architecture in it ... they might not be happy about that #musings with Dea #I need fandom to stop fucking around with ********* **** and give me more kingdom building political intrigue fics

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stoshasaurus · 3 days

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casually adopts iron lord felwinter as my own oc

he drives me INSANE i fucking love him sm. here are some design notes. felwinter is often described as not being as expressive as other exos. something about not having the same "modifications" (i don't have the exact lore excerpt but it goes something like that) so it seems like he doesn't have the same plates that most exos do to emote. so a static faceplate seemed like a solid bet. i use a lot of similar shapes in his face that I do for rasputin's exo frame, especially around the jaw area, and the same shade of red in the eyes and mouth. he is, however, described as having a "black skull", so his frame is black instead of white. i think it's an interesting contrast; if one were to look at both side by side, they are obviously associated with one another, but also opposites. the static faceplate and dark color palette also adds to felwinter's cynical and impassive demeanor. (iirc, he is directly described as cynical) a dark appearance suits such a personality in my opinion. i mean, he took over a whole mountain, he's described as being less inclined to show mercy. surely he's a bit more intimidating than the average fellow.

anyway, i hope y'all enjoy. i've been oc-ifying him for a while now but was kind of nervous to share it considering how relatively new i am to this fandom, and how little i know about the game and much of its lore. still finicking with him, of course, but i've been enjoying the journey.

#art #destiny #destiny the game #destiny 2 #felwinter #iron lord felwinter #he is very lovely i think #i don't think he has the impropriety to manspread #but i think he can get away with it this time #felspring is tutting aplenty through the neurolink don't you worry #this man wears nothing but leather pants convince me otherwise #one of these days i'll actually draw him in armor good lord

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hazshit-hotel-hater · 1 day

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Niffty Redesign! (3/7)

Holy shit was not expecting to finish in the same day much less in like… under 4 hours??? IDK IM HAPPY WITH HER THOUGH!!!!

My biggest inspiration this time was lovebugs and specifically this LPS lovebug

Yes im colour picking Niffty from a littlest pet shop. Who is gonna stop me? Hasbro? They don’t even own LPS anymore!

Im making Niffty a bit tanner because while I see it a lot in other fandoms, I don’t ever see tan asian people in the Hazbin fandom, tbh this place seems like its allergic to melanin in general. There’s also a lot of stigmatisation around POC women in Hazbin like I’ve mentioned before. I plan on having Niffty deal with a decent chunk of stuff later on, a lot of it relating to obessions and romance and learning how to manage feelings like that and keep relationships with other people.

I wanted her socks to be cute but also held up by a garter belt so you can gather she’s got something going on. People seem to stray away from the topic of Niffty and sex or romance because they see her as a child or have infantalised her in some way. Yes ik I talk about this all the time but like GOD it pisses me off.

Her maid dress is actually a much darker shade of hot pink to the point its not really hot pink anymore but it is I promise

Niffty’s main sins are lust, wrath, and envy, seeing as she is a lovebug and also her current backstory is killing a lover out of jealousy. The redder pink parts are supposed to be a mix of lust and wrath so I hope that comes across well?

The same thing can be said about her clothes and all that. With her dress and the reddish hearts it’s supposed to be like “in one sin there’s another” but idk how well I pulled it off. The stitched up heart is also supposed to represent her hopeful/eventually redemption. I’d like to give Niffty more character than just “crazy small lady” so I’ll be trying to balance being somewhat like that with also being a bit sensible. I think it definitely could be done but I have doubts Viv will do much with it.

It really sucks that the POC characters and especially women they just get reduced to one or two traits and then thats it. Viv already is terrible at writing women and I think writing Niffty for her is just boring because, again, she cannot write women. 90% of this rewrite is me saving the women/hj

There will be more indepth Niffty content from me eventually, as of now this is my backbone for her design and overall story. Btw I think her rubber gloves are cute but make really annoying squeaking sounds 24/7. No idea if I’ll pull off another fast design like this, but we shall see!🐐

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slasherstation · 2 days

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hmmm what I’ve noticed is that in dungeon meshi fandom a lot of the opinions i see of the few characters of color is based on their relationships with the white character. kabru and his relationship with laios. toshiro relationship with falin, marcille and laios. it’s like they can be seen as separate from them. kabru i feel like has been kind of generally liked because of how he sees laios and his “obsession” him with. while with toshiro it’s pretty self explanatory.

im not saying that you can’t ship these, characters dislike them or you have to like them. it’s more of something ive noticed in fandoms/fandom culture.

if you’re a character of color you’re reduced to being an accessory to a white character

#dungeon meshi #dunmeshi #delicious in dungeon #ryoko kui #anime #manga #laios touden #laios dungeon meshi #kabru #kabru dungeon meshi #toshiro nakamoto #shuro #shuro dungeon meshi #marcille donato #marcille dungeon meshi #falin touden #falin dungeon meshi

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decepti-thots · 2 days

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you know it's taken for granted by a lot of fandom that Ratchet taking Pharma's hands after he's (believed to have) died is some kind of hideously fucked up thing or whatever, but we get plenty of contextual suggestions that this is... like clearly not 100% above board culturally, but not remotely on the same level as it would be to steal body parts from a corpse for humans. hah. like. the implication is clearly 'bit dickish and gross in this context, but cybertronians are a Lot chiller about recycling bodies by virtue of their being robots' as opposed to something more like 'this is equivalent, morally, to if you desecrated someone's corpse as a human for organ theft purposes'.

characters don't fail to respond to what ratchet does as clearly horrifying because the comic is excusing some great sin on ratchet's part; it's just clearly not nearly as strong a taboo for robots. we know they scavenge/recycle corpses sometimes, at least post war! we know it's gross but hardly unthinkable to use a dead body's vehicle mode in a tight spot to escape! all that kinda stuff we see.

so i really think sometimes people kind of overstate the 'ratchet took pharma's hands' thing tbh. it's enough of a dick move that pharma being mad about it makes sense, but it's clearly not. the same level of horror. they have interchangeable body parts and the ability to create new ones, no way they see it the same way anyway.

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zarla-s · 5 hours

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I've seen a lot of things with Heavy hauling Medic to bed or making him stop overworking in various ways and I love all of it, it's adorable, and I got to wondering about how it'd go in reverse. This fic is a bit unusual in that it's more like five vignettes based around the same theme than a linear fic. Medic has more than one method!

—

Title: We have ways of making you sleep Words: 8.6k Rating: PG-13 (one vignette does have sex but it's marked) Fandom: Team Fortress 2 Pairings: Heavy/Medic Warnings: Nothing, all fluff

Summary:

Heavy is always making sure Medic doesn't work too late, checking in on him and taking him to bed for proper rest. Shouldn't he return the favor sometime? Medic can't exactly pick Heavy up and carry him to bed, though. There has to be another way...

[Link]

#team fortress 2 #heavy #medic #heavymedic #red oktoberfest #fic #the tags are sparse but i want each method medic comes up with to be a surprise hehe

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elismor · 2 days

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I see a lot of posts going by about comments and kudos and hits and...well... I've been thinking about the three quite a lot lately--as both a fic author and someone who spends a lot of my professional life looking at web metrics and determining which are actually important/accurate measures of user engagement.

Mileage varies, of course. And this is all just MY opinion, so do feel free to ignore it wholesale.

What I think when I see someone say that sorting by a hits to to kudos ratio is a good way to find "good" fic:

Hits are a measure of quantity (how many times your story or art has been viewed), but without knowing how AO3 defines a hit, it's actually kind of a meaningless number. We know that our own views of our work do not count toward hits, but...if my BFF looks at my story 7 times in one day because she keeps trying to read it but getting interrupted...is that one hit, or seven? And if it's seven, then the numbers are artificially inflated because it's really just Bestie trying to get her Codex fix. And...if Bestie looks at it three times today and four tomorrow...is that 7 hits total, or two?

Some transparency on the part of AO3 could clear this up handily, but until we get that...shrug. All it is is a number that may or may not be an accurate reflection of how many actual people looked at the page your fic is on. Did they READ it? Or did they nope out? No way to know.

Kudos are intended to be slightly more qualitative, but there is no way of knowing why the reader gave them. (Similar to likes here on tumblr.) It might be that they loved the piece. It might be a simple acknowledgement that the reader was there. It might even be a pity kudo. We have no way of knowing. It's, again, just a number.

Obviously, everyone is free to interpret both hits and kudos as positive reaction/interaction. I might do that myself if I didn't spend my workdays explaining to people that 50,000 "hits" to the website could be 50K people who came to learn about us or...simply the result of the computer labs on campus having the university homepage set to default.

Bigger numbers are just that....bigger numbers.

Comments are the only objective way to judge how someone is reacting to your fic or art.

So, what then? Sort by number of comments?

You can do that, sure. (I think. I confess I have never once gotten the AO3 search to work as well as people rave about.) But do keep in mind that many authors answer their comments. So, something with, say, 20 comments may be 20 people telling the author they loved it. Or it might be ten people and ten author-replies. OR, it might be three people having a conversation in the comments. You have to look and see.

Bigger numbers are just bigger numbers.

Okay, fine Elis. What am I supposed to do then?

Look, I'm not your mother or your therapist and you are free to assign whatever meanings you like to these things. I, personally, find "good" fic through a combination of things including: recs, the fandom grapevine, dumb luck, events, and just...reading some of it and not feeling guilty if I nope out for some reason.

This all sounds a little depressing when laid out like this, huh? Especially when you take into account the downward trends in interacting and the rise of folks treating fic and art as content to be consumed.

Here's what I have learned from writing fic for 30 years (well, 28 and counting):

As an author (and an artist, I would presume), you have absolutely no way of predicting which of your work will land and take hold and which will not. It's alchemy and luck and the weird (and not actual) algorithm of fandom. Sometimes, the piece you whipped out in 30 minutes and posted on the fly will land in the right person's inbox and they will share it and their friends will share it and it will get big. Sometimes, the piece you slaved over for weeks and weeks will do that...sometimes it won't. Sometimes your genius manifests and resonates, sometimes it does not.

My personal favorite fic of my own--the one I think is probably the best thing I have done in SW fandom-- has like 8 kudos and 4 comments (2 of which are my responses). Is it disappointing? Yes. Is it an indication that the fic is objectively "bad"? No.

The mercenary in me suggests that if you want to get lots of comments and kudos, you should pick the pairing that is THE pairing in the fandom and write for that--because that's where the eyeballs are, because that's where the connections are. But that is not why I write, so it's just that--a very mercenary way of looking at things. Not that there is anything WRONG with doing it that way. Supply and demand run the world. If the people want Codywan and you want the people....give them Codywan. No shame in that.

And there is no shame in wanting or seeking validation for your work, either.

But it breaks my heart to see authors (and artists) give up on themselves when they do not receive piles of kudos and comments. It's not you. It's...the luck of the draw. It's...fandom. It's...an artificial and murky set of measurements that have almost no basis in anything meaningful.

Keep writing. Keep drawing. Keep sharing. You are what you make, not how people respond to it.

#let's talk about fic baby #fandom #kudos and comments

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