#but hopefully we can get a lot of active fandom people to vote!

[stardust2003]

A History of Oasis Fanfiction

I'm calling this "A History" rather than "The History" because this is from my point of view. I know I could've done more research on this topic and dug way deeper into it than I have but decided not to. So, I'll be sharing a history of Oasis Fanfiction as it pertains to my history with it but hopefully others in the fandom can still relate to it.

I've been a fan of Oasis since 2005. Long story short, I fell in love with the Beatles in 1999/2000 followed by Jet in 2004 followed by Oasis in 2005. There were other bands elsewhere in that mix but Jet and Oasis have always been the most important ones to me after the Beatles. To me, they both sound like a modern day Beatles in their own unique ways.

Despite being a fan for so long, I didn't discover the Oasis Fanfiction Community until 2015 on the day after I saw Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds in concert. Still buzzing after the show, I googled Oasis fanfiction which led me to the Tumblr page of @heresthestorymorningglory. Their story, "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" blew me away for so many reasons with the biggest one being how they included real life events into it. Up until then, the fanfiction I read in other fandoms was fluffy and maybe included some real life stuff but not in the way this author did.

In addition to Tumblr, the author also had a Wattpad account. I'd never heard of Wattpad before but decided to join it after it prompted me to do so while looking at Oasis fanfiction on there. This led me to so many other great authors (like @Katy15307) who wrote so many great stories and inspired me to write my own.

I never thought I'd write my own story because I didn't think I'd be able to write something as good as the stories I was reading. But in November of 2015, I finally mustered up the courage to write and post "To Light A Bitter Fuse" and haven't looked back since. It's been a fun journey so far and I've met a lot of wonderful people over the years because of it.

That brings me to my next topic: the Oasis Fanfiction Community. If you've read my author's notes on Wattpad (I leave them out of my posts on Archive of Our Own), you know I talk about this a lot. But it's a subject that always strikes me and makes me wonder.

The Oasis Fanfiction Era from about 2015 to 2017 at least on Wattpad seemed like a pretty active time period. I'm sure this included the couple years before it as my two favorite stories by my two favorite authors were first started in 2013 and 2014, respectively (I believe). I met a lot of great people back then who not only provided lovely support on my stories but became my friends as we gushed about our shared love of Oasis amongst other things.

Sadly, it seems like a lot of people have come and gone since then. I could make a whole list of people who I really wish I could reconnect with. It always makes me wonder what happened to them when all of a sudden they just stopped reading, writing, commenting, voting/giving kudos, etc. Did they leave the fandom and move on to another one? Did life get in the way and they just don't have time for writing and reading fanfiction anymore?

When I first discovered "The Girl In The Dirty Shirt" it was so entertaining to follow the author's Tumblr for their almost weekly updates as well as their Q and A videos and general interactions with their fans. But eventually that came to an end also which was sad to see happen.

I know we all have lives outside of writing and reading fanfiction. So, I can understand if someone gives it up because of this. It's just so sad to see people go and not get a chance to say goodbye.

This post from @coolcassie really says a lot: https://coolcassie.tumblr.com/post/188829997432

There are still Oasis fanfiction readers and writers out there though. Some old, some new which gives me hope this fandom is gonna live forever (see what I did there?). And maybe this post will bring people out of the woodwork long enough to at least say, "Hey! How's it going? I've really missed talking to you!"

To anyone reading this, thank you for being a friend. Not only if you've read and enjoyed any of my stories (and thank you so much if you have!) but also for indulging in our shared love of the Gallagher Brothers with me amongst other things!

#liam gallagher #noel gallagher #original female character #oasis band #noel gallagher's high flying birds #beady eye #fanfiction #fanfiction history #fanfiction community

[katyspersonal]

Some responses

Oh jeez...... Guys, I did not expect my post to resonate with so many people. I was aware that the problem of people feeling excluded and mocked just for less common headcanons had to be big, but I still thought this post would stay between me and all five of my followers, hahah; I am glad that some people feel really heard here! Some are for very different reasons, too?

I ESPECIALLY want to point out this one, because it is exactly the result I've been seeing a lot:

@tsunbath I've heard similar things from (former?) Malenia fans, and also I know at least two friends for whom Maria was ruined as a character because of how toxic her fans were. You are VERY right about the fact that Malenia would've hated to be the symbol of gatekeeping and bullying in the fandoms! I feel like the same would go for Maria; there is no direct confirmation, but I doubt many people can argue that she IS compassionate soul. Like... how do those toxic fans keep making the deep, compassionate, tragic female character into THE symbol of mockery, exclusion and aggression? Beats me.

It just deeply resonates with me how actions of the bad type of fans can create aversion to a character or a ship. I've had this phase with Mariadeline ship tbh. My advice would be - avoid searching content for the character/ship, try to find a tiny pool of people that likes them but are normal and respectful about it, allow yourself to feel identified with "normal fans of the thing" pool rather than dread of identifying with toxic gatekeepers by association... Like, the ship got recovered for me this way, same as Maria's character herself. Just remember that toxic fans and normal fans are not the same entity... It is a very rare case where division is HELPFUL! Hopefully you will be able to recover Malenia for yourself and not think of those l00sers anymore.

@mycopok I know Mal, easily the best person to have ever crossed BB fandom, and nothing will ever replace her </3 I am just happy that her positive influence still lingers even after becoming way less active, like... yeah, fans just should be allowed to explore any idea they want. Maria x Laurence is SUPER interesting concept! In fact, the initial post WAS made because of someone venting that they were afraid to post their Maria x Laurence stuff out of fear of being ostracised!

@underworldsheiress Yeahhhh again, you are not the first one I hear a story like this from. I also heard takes like 'tomboys are the grossest aesthetic, either come out as a trans or get back in line' (not exagerration). It is REALLY unfair how a woman looking masculine should be either her being a butch lesbian, or... well, no longer being a woman in the end. Infighting and forcing pointless norms on each other is a huge problem with LGBT+ community, you'd expect people to gather to support each other but... people will be people I guess :/ Anyways gigachad move of you to wear what you want.

@alma-amentet I don't quite agree with your tastes on body types maybe not gonna lie; However what you pointed out (not so much in the tags, I saw what else you said heh) is a very good example of how fandoms are open spaces and everyone should feel welcomed here. Like, the girls in the fandoms will have absolutely ridiculously specific tastes regarding male characters - not liking shorter height, not liking slim build, prettifying their canonically not-so-attractive face, judging them in sexy look contests, throwing insults towards their appearance quirks at times...

But once someone tries to pull similar things with female characters - all HELL breaks loose. Double standards in the fandoms regarding genders of the characters are absurd. I even once saw someone in BB fandom whining about how someone attempted to discuss which female character was hotter with them...... after we, as a fandom, CONSTANTLY have shit like 'sexyman contest who is sexier Mico or Brador vote now from your phones!!!!'. .... Like idk if you need to hear this as well or not, but everyone should be allowed to say 'muscular women aren't my taste' for the exact same reason why everyone is allowed to say 'muscular men aren't my taste'.

@fantomette22 @rhythmloid Devotees of the Biphobic Order are the bane of every western fandom's existence at this point for real though :/ They will see a female character that wears pants and kicks ass and start shaking over her like Gollum with The One Ring, ignoring all the context, nuance, her personal story, other possibilities, etc... Like I said - feelings of real people who just try to enjoy the fandom are more important than some toxic bunch's creepy obsession with the character they want to crown as their token masculine lesbian based on stereotypes, no less. I say if they really care about masculine lesbians, they should direct their activity towards real world and real people. Because, again - fandomry is not activism.

Anyways thanks everyone for speaking, and sorry if the tagging annoyed you or something fdsjhfh I really appreciate that, and I do hope you all will be able to find your own group in the fandom that'll keep you mentally safe from the toxic fans ruining characters for you. Like a power barrier in the middle of the chaos! I know I did find mine, lol

#dash commentary #long post #(wow look WHO is using a tag like this hahahaha) #fandomry rambles #disco horse #controversy #fantomette girl your tags are as long as my post itself fdhhdfhsd #you had a lot to get off your chest pffffft

[shiro-hatzuki]

yknow, i've been thinking a lot about how yuno voting has gone thus far and how it's differed from her voting season 1, and it led me to reflecting oh how much the milgram fandom has changed between then and now. so i'll be rambling about that and other mostly related thoughts below the cut!

spoilers for... i guess all of yuno? mostly her s2 vd, but also her s2 and s1 mvs to an extent. also i'll be mentioning prostitution and abortion - especially the political views around them, though hopefully i'm not going to go too in depth with that last one (we're certainly not mentioning any ~irl events~).

i joined the fandom pretty soon after muu's mv was released, so i had just missed yuno's voting period. i can't personally attest to what it was like voting for yuno back in 2020, but i do have a friend who was in the fandom at that time. they told me that the english fandom had to fight to get yuno the forgiven verdict we now see for her.

in a graph tracking the daily votes of the prisoners made by @PaiPlushie on twitter shows that in the last month of yuno's s1 voting, she had switched from not forgiven to forgiven, and even then, it was only by a small margin (graph below cropped and edited to only show yuno's info. i recommend looking at the full graph through the hyperlink when you get the chance. it's interesting!)

jackalope also commented in his end of trial 1 video that yuno's votes when back and forth a bit. why might her votes have been so polarized, one might wonder?

from what i can gleam, it's likely because her sin revolved around her abortion and the circumstances behind it. of course there were multiple theories around yuno as there are with every prisoner, but the then theory that she had an abortion and became pregnant because she was in the business of compensated dating had always been prevalent and one of most popular - if not the most popular - as made clear by her s2 voice drama. in yet another show of "hey, we're listening to your theories!" from the milgram team, yuno says that she can hear es (the audience) theorizing, and it's heavily implied through the conversation between es and yuno that at least one of es's theories was that she prostituted herself and got an abortion because of the accidental baby that ensued (which yuno confirms is the truth). for those of us who weren't there for s1 yuno, this is pretty good confirmation that a good amount of the fandom had this theory.

that also means that yuno's abortion was what polarized the votes in those early days. seeing the fandom and yuno's votes right now, it's easy to forget that there are people who might genuinely not forgive the "sin" she's in the prison for. but remember that abortion isn't the only thing to her - this was a result of prostitution. and when it comes to the target audience and the writers' backgrounds, at least for the beginning of the project, these are important important.

there are many difference that could be pointed out between the fandom in s1 and s2, but the biggest difference to me is the the en fandom is much larger than it was even back during fuuta and muu's voting period. back when yuno's voting period was open, the fandom was very small - i can't pull exact numbers for either then nor now, but i'm certain that the tags for milgram were much less active back then than they were now, and back then, you were more likely to see posts talking about stanley milgram's experiments (especially the electroshock one) rather than the skrunkly anime-style characters we're all so attached to.

i think that the milgram team knew the initial audience well, so they wrote their prisoners with that audience in mind. they knew the audience that the project would initially reach might not forgive abortion, seeing it as murder. or if the audience accepted abortion conditionally, they made it so the condition would be less forgivable than it could have been. even when yuno was mentioning es's (our) possible reasonings for forgiving what she did, it wasn't because "prostitution and abortion aren't inherently wrong," it was because "she had to do it" or "it's because of trauma" and so on. in s1, she could only be forgiven because she had a "legitimate" reason for doing what she did, not because it wasn't seen as inherently wrong. remember, my friend said the english fandom had to fight for yuno's forgiven verdict. and of course, this is *not* to say that everyone in japan is a woman hater, but rather, the milgram team knew the audience the project would initially reach. for those who like anime, i don't think i need to tell you how misogynistic certain people who are into anime/manga/other otaku stuff can be.

now of course, this line of thinking leads to the conclusion that the english fandom, being bigger and actually respectful of women's rights, had caused this change in yuno's voting, but i can't say that's definitive in good faith. it's possible that the fandom simply brought in more progressive-minded people, jp fandom and international. the fact that milgram's en fandom is more progressive-minded might just be because those are the only ones talking while the rest sit quietly, might be because milgram also has official stuff on twitter, and also, i argue, something that might have happened by sheer luck. that's not even to mention that i don't know how much of a majority the abortion theory had since again, i wasn't there for yuno, so there could have been many other theories other than abortion that pulled her over to be nearly unforgiven in s1, and not that abortion is confirmed, those people are more forgiving of her. the aforementioned "conclusion" is really only a guess on my part.

but regardless, i think the change in yuno's voting patterns shows a shift in the fandom. how we think and how we vote has changed. and i think that change is interesting to see!

#or maybe i'm finding correlations where there aren't any because i wrote this late at night when i was tired lollll #sometimes i think about how the fandom's grown #it's nice to see so many people here! #but also i get a little crisis every time i see that the milgram tag is active lolll #milgram #ミルグラム #yuno kashiki #my stuff

[neocrush]

— the girl groups enhypen’s gfs are in !

genre: fluff (angst on jungwon’s part) + established relationship (eventually lol)

pairings: idol!enhypen x fem!idol!reader

note: idk how to title this pls i thought of it while showering

tagging: @jeminiepabo @strwberrydinosaur

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

you just finished performing and your members were in need of water bottles

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

but fucking mnet didn’t provide any inside of your dressing room??

so yves told you to ask for some from the artist in the dressing room next to yours

you knocked on the door without looking at the sign that showed who was in there

you asked for some water bottles and heeseung went “i’ll go get it!” and ran off to go get get them

jungwon just chuckled and went “hyung’s a really huge fan of your group, he kept on singing star on the way here”

you nodded at the younger one, impressed at the fact that you were popular among idols

the tall boy came back with a whole box full of water bottles

“there’s 12 of you here right now so i figured why not get a whole box” he chuckled nervously

you giggled and smiled at the nervous boy

“thank you heeseung-ssi, i’ll take this to my members” you took the box in your hands but was taken aback on how heavy it was

“don’t worry i’ll carry it for you”

long after that you started hanging out and boom you became his gf

you couldn’t resist the charms of lee heeseung

once it was revealed that you were a couple, orbits and engenes went INSANE (in a good way ofc)

“wait so y/n DOESNT hate men????”

★ jay - aespa

OMG OMG LEMME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS BBY

you both met at school after you both debuted

everyone was gossiping around about how you were in the same class with the enhas

so like... monster rookies class

usually idols aren’t seated together but the teacher seated you and jay next to each other

causing a bunch of “oooohhhs” from your classmates

there were times were you and the enhas would leave school early due to practice or schedules

and on the way to the school gate, jay would always spark up a conversation with you

you assumed he was just very friendly

long story short he had a massive crush on you

so a few months into your friendship (which the both of you were very open about with your fans), he confesses

you were like “WAIT SO IT WASNT ONE SIDED THE WHOLE TIME”

y’all were just really blind lol pls read between the lines

anyways on to ur lovely bf !!

he’s so bold and brave around you but so shy around your members and seniors

we all know how he really respects nct (along with other sm artists) bc he covered the 7th sense with sunghoon on iland

so one day you were like “oh btw i showed taeyong sunbae you and hoon’s t7s cover”

he was like 😟 to 😧 to 😯

got all shy and was like “oh what did he say..”

you don’t know why he was acting as if he didn’t body that whole performance ????

anyway you told him that taeyong said that he and hoon did really well and that he liked how jay did his part

hid his face on the crook of your neck

“baby we should come say hi to them next time you go to sm”

“NO i will make a fool out of myself”

speaks english and japanese with giselle a lot when he isn’t occupied with you

sometimes you’d even have to ask nct’s shotaro to translate

your seniors (especially exo’s kai) adore him so so much pls protect the boy at all costs

★ jake - everglow

he was an active viewer of produce 48 and (like me) was really attached to the yuehua trainees

especially you

so when you got eliminated just before the last episode, he was devastated to say the least

he awaited your debut and when the time came he supported everglow !!!!

LOVED BON BON CHOCOLAT SO MUCH

does the killing part choreo in his room when no one’s watching lol

dies everytime you do the little “everglow” in songs

right so when he debuted in enha, he looked forward to meeting you as an idol and not a fan

when you shared a dressing room at kcontact, he couldn’t help but introduce himself to you

he mentioned he was a big fan and your heart warmed

cute boy is a fan of you? omg heart go brr brr

your members tease you and you just shake it off

that day when you got back to the dorms, you watched a bunch of enhypen videos bc you were interested in jake

you weren’t aware of how popular you were among people - let alone idols so you were surprised

you fell in love with his personality and started saying hi to him whenever you meet backstage at music shows

not long after, you develop feelings for him

you thought it was just a puppy crush but as you saw him even more, it got serious

you never actually confessed but aisha accidentally spilled the beans when he was passing by

“cmon y/n just tell him you like him because he clearly feels the same !!”

“you like me?”

“AISHA”

“that’s my queue to leave”

so she leaves you two to pour your hearts out to each other

you two become a couple and forevergenes (such a cute name omg) LOVE you two

you’re both the puppies of your group so that makes your relationship 103892x cuter

you met his parents and they adore you and even asked for your autograph

“jake used to talk about how great you are after every produce 48 episode”

“okayyyy i think that’s enough embarassing me mom”

his parents love you like their own daughter but does layla love you?

you were so nervous to meet her and was actually scared she might not like you - knowing how important layla is to jake

at first layla ignored you and jake was like “she’ll come around”

you were convinced she just doesn’t like you, until this one time you were cuddling with jake on the couch and layla comes in

you expected her to snuggle up with jake but she came to you :D

now layla is super fond of you and mrs sim would even send you pictures and videos of layla getting excited whenever you were on tv 🥺

★ sunghoon - itzy

you and the girls were at isac

the six of you were just waving at your fans and making heart signs with your hearts

on your left you saw yeji making hearts with ryujin so you wanted to do that with another member too

you felt a presence next to you and assumed it was someone from your group

spoiler alert: it wasn’t

sunghoon and sunoo were waving at engenes who just happened to be seated next to midzys

so you turned to who you thought was an itzy member, making half a heart with your hand

until you realized it wasn’t 💀

you bowed and apologized when you both looked at each other, you were scared you crossed a boundary

you bowed and apologized to the engenes who were there too

sunghoon and sunoo reassured you it was all good

after that, sunghoon couldn’t help but keep his eyes on you the entire event

when the day was coming to an end, he pulled some strings and ended up having some alone time with you ...in stray kids’ dressing room

don’t ask

ofc skz already left so it was just you two there

fast forward, you both hit it off and he became your bf <3

midzys and engenes love you both sm and love bragging about you two to other fandoms

you two were even named the king and queen of 4th gen kpop

oh also

you already know where this is going

“SUNGHOON HOW COULD YOU NOT KNOW NOT SHY’S PROPER TITLE IT’S YOUR GIRLFRIEND’S SONG” - jay

brags about how he can do the shoulder dance in wannabe

ofc it’s bc you personally taught him

sends you pics of jyp as reaction pics

so you send pics of bang pdnim to him

every once in a while he reminds you of that video of jay why pee trying to hit a high note

“lmao that’s your boss”

PLS you always get super embarrassed so ofc you bring up that vid of hitman bang

“rAp dAncE-“

★ sunoo - stayc

you were his seatmate at school predebut

you came from the same town, same school, same neighborhood, etc

the two of you were extremely close and both shared the same dream

when highup entertainment accepted you, the both of you were over the moon

he was so happy for you

but sad too bc that meant you had to move to seoul :(

you promised him to do your best and that you hoped to see him again but as an idol

and hopefully when he’s an idol too

well what you hoped for came true !!

although you couldn’t see him much as a trainee - which made you quite sad - you got to follow his journey on i-land

you even asked your fellow trainees to vote for him

anyways now that you both debuted, you became close again and became really open with your fans on how close you were

you recommended his songs to swiths and he did the same to engenes

he even memorized the choreo to so bad and asap and lemme tell you this

he BEGGED you to teach him those choreos

“sunoo you can watch the practice on youtube”

“but i want to learn it from you”

he never really realized his feelings until he saw you getting shipped with his other members

you were both on weekly idol and the hosts really seemed to like how you and jake looked next to each other and they just teased you both the whole episode

that made sunoo feel uneasy and he thought it was only bc he was an overprotective best friend

turns out he had feelings for you (wow shocker)

so one day he asks you to come to hybe

after slightly getting lost, you meet up with him in a practice room

he confesses bc he felt like not telling you about his feelings would put a wall between you two

you appreciate his honesty and tell him you’ve felt the same way every since you were classmates

he scolds himself for not seeing it all those years but you just laugh it off bc you were pretty good at hiding your crush

you both agree to secretly date, until you both announce it on your five month anniversary

fans were really shocked at first... but they support you !!!!

engenes will not hesitate to come at anyone who talks bad about you and swiths feels the same way about jungwon

he gushes about you every single time you’re brought up

and you can’t help but love your adorable boyfriend

★ jungwon - iz*one

okay so

he was just an average high schooler when you were introduced on produce 48

his deskmate was watching your audition video and it was the part where you were doing this freestyle

he was SO amazed and he secretly followed your journey on produce 48

always made sure to vote on time and watch the episodes live

once the debut evaluation came around, he asked everyone he knew to vote for you and even bought tickets to see the show live

almost cried when he saw that you were center

ACTUALLY CRIED when you got into the top 13 😭

fast forward to him debuting in enha

he wasn’t able to catch up on you since he was busy with trainee life, then i-land, then debut preparations

but somehow in the middle of promotions he ran into you and BOOM love at first sight

fast forward to you finally dating, he couldn’t believe he was dating the y/n of iz*one

wizones make those “ladies and gentlemen, y/n’s man” edits and engenes make those “ladies and gentlemen, jungwon’s woman” edits

both fandoms love you two so dearly that the only hate you two got were from the delusional ones (who clearly aren’t actual fans)

when your last concert came around, he couldn’t bare seeing you cry when you said “this has been iz*one’s y/n, thank you everyone!”

he got flashbacks from when you cried during the final episode of produce 48 and he’s just.. sobbing bc he couldn’t be there to hold you

so the next day he rushed to your dorms with snacks and emotional support bc you were emotionally exhausted from accepting the fact that your journey with iz*one is finally ending

you felt extremely lucky to be in his arms and he felt extremely lucky too that he’s able to make you feel a little better

★ riki - weeekly

you were both on weekly weeekly idol together

and both you and riki being main dancers, you were asked to do random dance together

a few popular songs played and the both of you did the choreos

until after school started playing and the boy did the chorus’ choreo and you were like “woah???”

bc he was so INTO ITTTT

the song was basically made for him to cover it

and the mcs saw your reaction so they asked him to do it once again but this time with the whole group

after filming, he came up to you and was like “i’m a huge fan of yours” and you’re just like ):&/£]>\**_£]

“woah really???? i rooted for you on i-land”

and his face just lights up bc his huge crush on you developed even more

you became besties since then but he didn’t ask you out until your birthday

he took you out to a puppy café, knowing you were obsessed with dogs

you’d ask him to show you pictures and videos of bisco

“i better meet bisco once we go to japan together”

melted at the thought of traveling to his hometown with you

anyways

once you left the café, he kissed you in front of your dorms

and somehow he became your boyfriend <3

riki as a bf isn’t really a very public person

he’s the “this is our relationship, not the public’s” type of person

he doesn’t wanna risk companies wanting to exploit your relationship

although he doesn’t talk about you two much, he loves to brag about you when given the chance

whenever variety show hosts would fawn over you he’d just look them in the eyes dead and go “she’s mine”

#enhypen x y/n #enhypen imagines #enhypen scenarios #enhypen x reader #enhypen fluff #enhypen reactions #enhypen headcanons #enhypen angst #enhypen x female reader #enhypen x you #heeseung x reader #jay x reader #jake x reader #sunghoon x reader #sunoo x reader #jungwon x reader #ni ki x reader #heeseung imagines #jay imagines #jake imagines #sunghoon imagines #sunoo imagines #jungwon imagines #ni ki imagines

[asterocky]

Hi, I actually had some more questions, lol. Thank you for answering the last one about Eunwoo and his relationship with the boys.

What happened to Moonbin, he took some time off and it seems like people don’t think it was a shoulder injury, but rather that he needed some time off for his mental health?

I was also wondering what happened to their last management or team? I saw Eunwoo speaking out again about how they were treated? What did their last team do or not do? I don’t remember his exact words but it was something to do with their company.

hello there again!! ^^ it was my pleasure, feel free to shoot any other questions you might have. sorry i'm a bit late with this answer, i was thinking through what to say.

regarding moonbin's hiatus.

i believe that fantagio never said anything concrete - they just said moonbin went to a check up and the doctors advised him to rest and get treatment. so no particular health concern was mentioned, so i can't give you a concrete answer. the mental health narrative might have come from some vlives moonbin did, since he was very vulnerable and obviously not in a good place mentally before blue flame era (like this one or the general conversations they had during their gateway era win vlive). i wish i could give you a more concrete answer, but unfortunately i was not too active since i work full time, so there might have been something concrete said by moonbin about his mental health after blue flame era once he came back. since the fantagio issues happened, astro developed a habit of going to aroha whenever something is bothering them. hopefully someone else can give a more concrete answer.

fantagio issues.

there's a lot to discuss here. i will try to shorten the entire situation the best to my ability but i did follow the subject closely and if you want to read into it more, feel free to go into eliot's fantagio update tag (i suggest starting from this post if you want to get into details). meanwhile i roughly summarized the situation below.

so fantagio music is a subsidiary of fantagio entertainment. and fantagio entertainment a few years back was owned by this chinese corporation jc group (they were the majority shareholders, which means that they had the majority vote during shareholder meetings). one day allegations came out in news portals that:

the board of fantagio dismissed the co-ceo and founder of fantagio na byeongjun. wei jie, who was the ceo of jc group, was instated as the new ceo;

the corporation credit cards were taken away from the staffs, so most of the activities fantagio's actors and idols had were funded out of the pocket of the staffs and idols. rumors circulated that astro and weki meki ended up paying for their fans' meals during isac out of pocket, too;

jc group was pooling the money fantagio made to an unrelated hong kong company also owned by the group;

fantagio organized a crisis meeting and settled with 9 demands for jc group, which included reinstatement of the former ceo amongst other things, as most worried that since jc group is pooling whatever fantagio makes into a hong kong company, that jc group will start selling their artists for profit.

(this is why moonbin always says he's the oldest standing fantagio member, idols and staffs included - the ceo was not reinstated and many staff, including astro's manager, left the company)

so staffs were fired and replaced by jc group (they have nothing to de with entertainment btw) staff. it should be noted that wei jie became ceo of fantagio entertainment, but not fantagio music. at the time, fantagio music's ceo was woo youngseung, so aside from the company card limitations, the artists weren't affected that much. however, all hell broke loose when jc group fired woo youngseun and wei jie (i believe) became the ceo. that was the exact moment fantagio music started operating illegally, as based on south koren laws, the ceo of an operating entertainment company has to have a certain entertainment license and ceratin experience. the new ceo was not registered in the korean entertainment management association, which was also a problem. at this point there was no choice but to stop all idols' and actors' activities because everyone that was under contract with fantagio entertainment, which did not have the required licence, would also be considered to be operating illegally. basically everyone under fantagio was forced into a hiatus because of all of the shit jc group caused because of their incompetence.

then the korean entertainment management association reached out to an illegally operating fantagio and gave them 45 days to appoint a new ceo with the relative registration and experience or fantagio will be removed from the association entirely. with all that happening, actors started going through court to terminate their contracts with fantagio. in general there were many uncertainties with the artists under the company, some news portals going so far as to say that "fantagio has no future".

for a while, fantagio (jc group) threatened their actors who went against them (terminating contracts) with court and ignored any korean entertainment association complaints and lied to press that they WERE operating legally. however, many contradicting articles came our and entertainment associations publicly announced that memebers of the associations (which is basically most of the korean entertainment industry) are banning fantagio and basically no one within the association will be working with them.

but then karma came to bite in the ass and the main vilan wei jie who was the ceo was arrested for illegal funding activities (which probably includes the before-mentioned cash pool in an unrelated hong kong company situation). also, the former kbs ceo was appointed as a new fantagio music ceo. a bit later the second main vilan of this story - jc group - sold their ownership of fantagio back to this other shareholder l&a holdings (i believe, don't quote me on this)! which was highly celebrated because fantagio became it's own company again. later fantagio did have a dispute with l&a holdings, but it was nothing too major.

as of today the company is fairly stable and doing well, the largest sources of income being ong seongwoo, astro and cha eunwoo. recently, there has been a dismissal of the management once more and a new management for fantagio music was instated. everyone had war flashbacks for a moment got scared. but it turns out the new management seems eager to put their people out there, as right after the announcement of the new management, astro announced their astro x aroha festival, comeback and all members finally had their own schedules to attend to. and right now all of astro seem to be working on something as the management cleared their schedules, also we got astro zone - to put it simply, we had not seen so much activity from astro for a while so this new management brings hope. also, fantagio was said to be getting more funding and expanding more into acting industries (i think they released more shares, too, which usually means expansion of the company), the financials of fantagio for 2020 have been the best in comparison to the last three years. so as of right now, we can be happy it's in the past and look forward to what fantagio can bring in the future.

also, it's worth mentioning that astro stayed really strong throughout the period and whenever we expressed worry about them, they always tried to calm us down and say that everything is okay and they're doing well. however, once the whole thing was over astro came out with always you, lyrics of which express just how NOT OKAY astro were throughout the fantagio issues and how hard it was behind closed doors, the song dedicated to the fandom. they were very emotional and open about what happened, a lot of fans left throughout the period (as they were on hiatus for a year basically) and astro ended up thanking the ones that stayed with them. there's also this video from astro star light where each member shares a little bit about what went through their minds, from uncertanties, fright and feeling thrown out.

#fantagio #fantagio crisis #moonbin #astro

[pynkhues]

Good Girls S4 Spoiler Survey Results

Hello! I’ve finally gotten around to compiling the results for the S4 Good Girls Spoiler Survey. Breakdown is below the cut, but one of the things that became apparent is that there are a lot of varied opinions on it!

Interestingly though, we do seem to be a fandom that mostly doesn’t mind spoilers:

Far and away the biggest thing people considered spoilers were major plot points with 43 votes, followed by behind the scenes leaks (runsheets, location shots, etc) with 32 votes. All in their twenties were:

Episode synopses with 26 votes

Interviews with 25 votes

Sneak peeks with 24 votes

Episode promo pics with 21 votes

And then:

General plot arcs with 19 votes

Minor plot points (i.e. returning minor characters like Baby Tyler) with 15 votes

Promos and trailers with 14 votes

General set pictures with 11 votes

There was also a write-in vote here which said:

I'm generally fine with some spoilers and bts, but I really dislike knowing when minor characters return/ shows up! For me that's what "spoils" it!

These ones are pretty even, with reaction posts and episode discussion being the main thing considered post-episode spoilers.

And the major question of this survey is how long after an episode airs do you think content from that episode should be tagged as spoilers, and look, as you can see from the pie chart, there really isn’t a consistent answer for this. 56 people answered this question and the most anything got was 12.

How that breaks down is this:

3 days and 1 week tied with 12 votes each.

1 day was a very close second with 11 votes

2 days and Not at All tied again with 8 votes each

4 days got 2 votes

5 days got 1 votes

There were also two write-ins which were:

1 hour lol

Doesn't matter bc we get it extra late in france. The longer the better but yk. It's only fair to a certain point to ask to tag spoilers imo 

And then the write-in round:

I think the bulk of our GG fandom on tumblr would be considered hyper fans versus casual fans and it is more likely that casual fans would be more leery of spoilers and picky about what they consider spoilers whereas hyper fans are more likely to consume the episodes within a 48-72 hour period of it airing and generally devour any leaks or sneak peeks. I feel like tumblr functions as a more concentrated space where fans have a specific blog for a specific fandom and maybe because this platform is what it is, we don't generally need a longer grace period of spoiler etiquette. Not everyone feels this way though and it differs for everyone but that's my general feeling. I watch when it airs on my own timezone and when I saw people on tumblr begin liveblogging about the premiere I simply got off of tumblr and didn't come back until I watched the premiere.

if spoilers are that much of a deal breaker for you, it's your responsibility to protect yourself and you probably shouldn't be on the internet until you watch because inevitably something is going to get through. waiting 2-3 days to stop tagging is more than enough imo and how I've always seen it done in other fandoms (if people tag at all)

I love spoilers. Let me know if something is worth my time. Usually I won’t even watch a show until I know how it ends so I know going into it how mad I’m going to be. So weird to be following a fandom when it’s active. People sure do love to be pressed. 

I try and wait until the next episode airs to stop tagging spoilers for anything referencing the previous episode. I think it's a fair amount of time for people who plan to watch as the season airs. 

i think spoilers should be tagged the whole week after the episodes airs in general. that’s how all other shows are tagged on tumblr:) 

Yeah I’m not going to tag stuff. I get why people do but I’d rather people just unfollow me. 

I don't really care about spoilers, I'm immune 

In conclusion

There really doesn’t seem to be a consensus on this, so I think it’s up to individual people’s discretion as to what and for how long they tag things, but hopefully this might help people make those calls!

I personally will be tagging most things as spoilers still, but post-episode, I’m going to be tagging spoilers for 3 days. I will though still be, as always, using my episode tags, so people can blacklist for instance 4.02 or 4.03 or whichever episode they don’t want to see content for. I use these episode tags across asks and answers, gifsets, reaction posts and whatever, so hopefully nothing trickles through.

I hope people find this as interesting and useful as I did! :-)

#nbc good girls #surveys #gg season 4

[atelophobicity]

Top 10 Things You Shouldn’t Do If You Want to Finish Your Thesis On Time

It’s my entry for September! I’ve been busy in consuming new music, films, and kvariety episodes in my effort to catch up on everything. So, I decided to post monthly to fulfill my oversharing Tumblr needs and to exercise my skills in writing in English and putting thoughts into coherent words.

TL;DR of this: things I’ve done instead of doing my thesis for the past year and a half. I’m not romanticizing my not doing thesis self for the past 21 months, but I’m also not dissuading you from doing other stuff besides thesis because god knows, you will need something.

1. Got a part-time job. This was the first new thing I’ve done that really took my time and effectively gave me no time to do thesis. And yet, this was the most rewarding thing as I learned how to get my TIN, accomplish my deliverables, answer to my superiors etc. Looking back, I wasn’t the best employee and I deserved no job offers on the same company after. But still, it was a stepping stone in the right direction. Adulting-wise, anyway.

2.  Discover the art of creating.

Journal spreads. I bought a 2019 planner and I couldn’t fill it up, so I decided to turn it into a journal-planner. The art materials I used for to design pages are from old supplies bought back when I was in high school or stickers from the fandom-related events I attended. I didn’t spend money and I was given a chance to be creative.

Sew doll clothes. In K-pop, dolls that look like your idol exists. It usually comes with one set of clothes to dress it. As a “doll mother”, I wanted to dress them with new clothes but buying clothes was expensive. So, I just sewed clothes for them. I made clothes from scrap fabrics or clothes no one wears in our household. I’ve been barely successful, but it’s one of the things that keep me happy and make me feel like I’ve succeeded in one measly part of my life.

3. Purged my online files.

From my high school files. Nostalgia has been one of my coping mechanisms. I was able to be provided by lots of it when I discovered that I didn’t lose my high school files and it was on my mom’s laptop all along. Being able to relive memories while organizing my files was the best hours of that day.

To my external hard drives. Since 2016, I have been a hoarder of online files for so long that I have two EHDs to prove it. This time though, I was able to delete content that was either repetitive or uninteresting anymore. I was able to shave off some of my data bytes and am now able to save new interesting content available online (if I ever find one).

4. Realigned my priorities and consumption of K-pop as a stan and as a person by:

Selling 3/4 of my merch. Unlearning the pride that comes with owning K-pop merch was difficult, but overtime, I have been proud of myself for not falling to the traps of capitalism—at least in K-pop. Also! I was able to buy my own concert tickets with the stuff I sold so it is a win!

Joining giveaways instead. No matter how I can avoid the urge to buy K-pop merch, I still can’t help but want to own them. This is where I discovered how joining giveaways was my next best option. It takes a lot of effort and screenshots to win these things. However, if and when you win, it really feels like winning against the odds. You get free merch too!

Actually spent hours to vote and stream. In relation to the last point, since the main requirement in giveaways I’ve joined are voting/streaming proofs, I have been one of those people who collects points on voting apps or has a playlist of music videos that should be streamed. After collecting and/or streaming, I take screenshots, put watermarks there, and tags mutuals if needed. It’s relatively hard work but there’s a feeling of pride when your idol wins the poll or an MV reaches a certain amount of views and you know you participated in making that happen.

5. Rediscover Youtube. Channels like the vlogbrothers and their associates (Crash Course, Pemberley Digital among others), Buzzfeed’s shows (The Try Guys, Ladylike, Buzzfeed Unsolved) were a delight to watch after being out of the Youtube loop for so long. The platform also offered new niches of content and I allowed myself to be sucked in it. From Simply Nailogical to Ask A Mortician to amazing pop culture video essays like Lindsay Ellis and Jenny Nicholson, Youtube has all it for you! Learning something new every day is one of my favorite things and I get to do it with this website.

6. Rediscover my love of writing. (As if I’ve written anything for my thesis but here.)

Made drabbles. There is a weekly activity on my fandom where we write < 500 word drabbles on any pairings. I have been joining when I can, and through the support of the (small) community (back then), I gained confidence to write one. I’ve written at least four now and I’ve not done yet because I’ve been on a slump lately. But I’ll get back to it soon!

Short story. The same account that brought the drabble challenge created a festival where we write a pairing and write a short story with it. I decided to join the event! Not going to lie, my entry was shit, It was the first draft, it needed a lot of revisions and more constructive criticism and yet, I am still proud of it. It was the first creative fiction I wrote since 2019 and I did it in a day. And, I believe it has potential, so I’m going to review and revise the hell out of it someday.

7. Reclaim my college days.

Reconnected with orgmates. Visiting Elbi for registration and consultation purposes are brightened up by the fact that I get to do this. My first four years of college were not kind to me. I’ve forgotten a lot of things because of trauma and deep sadness that I still have until this day, and when I remember good things, they’re few and far in between. The numbered days I was in Elbi during 2019 were also few and far in between, but they were infinitely better than my academic years from 2015 to 2017. I was able to do the things I wasn’t able to do before (mostly attending Happy Ts and eating in newly-opened food places there) and I get to do it with people I love.

Made friends. One of the drawbacks of being a slot-driven student with no care of my coursemates’ schedules: I didn’t get to establish a friend group. So I didn’t get to make friends. During this time, I’ve accepted that I didn’t have any friends outside my organizations. But this time, instead of a feeling of dread of being that cliché orgmate, I feel relief and happiness because now, I realize that I do have friends from college, unlike the 2015-2017 who didn’t have anyone in college to rely on her darkest times.

8. Appreciated my friends more. For the past few years, I was the shitty friend. I agreed to go on hangouts only to message them that I’m backing out the last minute—sometimes I even straight up ghosted them. I really took my friends for granted. I have been slowly making it up to them by always attending when there’s an invite! I sometimes initiate the invite and it’s always a fun and healing time for me (it was a literal healing time for me as I was depressed during that time). I love them and I’m always thankful for them—and more so now than before.

 9. Unlearning things like:

Realizing that a priv (a private account meant to be seen by your mutuals you trust; usually contains unpopular opinions and hot takes on stan twitter) only encourages negative emotions and I must not do it again.

No matter how I tried rationalizing my hate for Jennie when the JenKai dating news happened, I was one of those K-pop stans who hated her because she dated my idol. (I have moved on past that and have started liking her and Rose.)

Knowing that attacking people for what they say won’t make them unlearn their wrong opinions. Not talking down at them and educating with patience is the key, always.

There are still so much more I unlearned and learned where those came from. My main takeaway is: it’s complicated.  Sometimes our opinion needs a more nuanced perspective and sometimes it needs to scrapped entirely because it was just wrong. But it is essential so we, as people, won’t be stuck with outdated views of the world.

10.   Learning something new like:

Practicing how to do Tzuyu’s helicopter hands until I realized it wasn’t meant for me.

Utilizing Omegle to look for potential quaranflings.

Installing Telegram and uninstalling to ghost quaranflings.

How to do laundry in compliance with my mother’s preferences.

Doing two things at once.

Enough patience to take time and read the laws our government makes every day to know what I’m fighting against.

Optimizing my Twitter lists and now I can keep up with current affairs (that takes a toll on my mental health) then scroll through a fic fest-centric list the next (that helps me forget the stress from reading news).

Learning something new every day has become one of my life goals. Knowing that the world always has something new to offer to me, a speck in this universe, warms me up and keeps me going. And you’ll never know where the new tidbits will lead you. Maybe it’ll help you reconnect with something you’ve known before, maybe it’ll change how you see things, or maybe it’s something new that once explored, it will contribute something new to the community. It may seem small and unimportant but with a tweak in perspective, it might be something worth doing and pursuing.

Looking back at my list, I can finally see how if I didn’t do all these things, I would have probably finished my thesis by now and probably working a full-time job, able to provide the financial needs for my family. There will always be regret that I am still not done until now. But stressing over my current predicament in this time when the world is in its most stressful state yet won’t help me. So, we soldier on and hopefully, hopefully get back to the thesis I’ve been meaning to do.

 Let’s get it.

#2020 diary

[fuckyeahjohnnychrist]

Obvs these are crap quality but what can we do? LOLz

All the brief glimpses of JBoy during A7X’s TRL debut on November 11, 2005. 

What we found most interesting is that he TRIED to speak right at the end of the interview. You can see him bring the mic to his mouth in this last posted GIF. What he said, though, we have no clue lol. 

It’s crazy to think this happened FOURTEEN YEARS AGO! But it kicked off a whirlwind of activity for the band as they were invited back to TRL to perform in January 2006, won the MTV VMA for Best New Artist in the summer of 2006, we think? 

It’s so hard to remember, we’re old lol. But yeah, the fandom was furiously voting to try and get the band that moonman, and they did! We miss the days music was actually an integral part of MTV but we feel lucky to witness this part of everything happening for A7X cuz it was weird but it was cool to see them get so much attention and recognition after all their hard work :) 

And THANK YOU, BENJI & JOEL!!! Those dudes have been down since as long as we been around (and hopefully still) and we are so grateful to them taking A7X to MTV!!! A lot of people discovered the band when they saw them on MTV so, yeah, super thankful!

#A7X #Avenged Sevenfold #johnny christ #m shadows #synyster gates #the rev #zacky vengeance #gifs

[incarnateirony]

Democratic Debates, Day 1

So a few ground rules:

If you’re going to reply, be an adult about it, and don’t try to read everything in bad faith default lens. Ask questions of anyone who engages rather than accusing. And not in that presumptuous white guy bad faith questioning that isn’t a question tone.

If replying, put your comments with a lead in no longer than two (reasonable) sentences behind a cut. Because

some of us are fandom blogs first or whatever interests and our followers aren’t deeply invested

I just don’t want goddamn pillars of text on my reblog wall if I respond to discussions.

Literally if you’re a republican out to just be a shitlord and start whining or complaining or insulting or “no u”ing, see rule 4

I will not reblog or reply to any commentary that doesn’t fit these very basic guidelines, because internet trolling etc is not worth the future of our country. And that’s very much at stake now.

If you don’t want to see this, blacklist #politics and/or #democratic debates. Now, my takeaways on this, some surprising.

So, I’ll start with some disclaimers: I’m pretty much “vote for my dog over Trump” party line right now but we need to figure out a mix of “our best chance of winning” along of “award for the least tool” with hopefully a side of “I really like them and their policies”

Honestly, I entered this without being fond of Warren. She had some... establishment backing and other things that were just rubbing me wrong. I actually went in to day one looking to hear about Tulsi since I heard great buzz about her but honestly had only pulled up a few pages that sounded great on paper, but wanted to see her in action. Everyone else was littered policy ideas disembodied and, as a very visual person, I need to be able to connect to how they handle their podium beyond writing nice policy platitudes or listening to the toss back and forth online with everybody screaming at everybody else.

I’m also going to get something out of the way, and BEFORE you flame me on my marks on the image, read why I selected one that... I generally wouldn’t. First, this was my original graphic I released.

Okay so sore thumb here: De Blasio. The reason for the circling being simple: if you took every semi-valid idea of every other white guy’s platform on this lineup, gave it a little bit of meat, and showed ACTUAL LIVING PROOF OF HAVING ENACTED IT ALL IN HIS TENURE AND MAKING THE IDEAS WORK, you get De Blasio. A lot of the ideas of the other nominees is basically *hand raise* “I did that.” So like. That’s that.

Anyone with no mark whatsoever is kinda like “you’re there and not trump so good for you” but there’s some updates further down this conversation on one of those.

The internet keeps acting like Klobuchar did well and I really don’t get why. It kinda feels like our token non-canuck trying to appeal to them-there northern hunter-type and cheese folks to reach out as a middle ground without actually committing to much and honestly, she’s just not going to last.

Booker caught my eye even if I was kind of head tilting because that is quite literally the whitest black man I have ever fucking seen, but he made a point about intersectionality, marginalized groups, and held his ground. He was all but unknown to me but I at least looked at him now. On the other hand, a lot of it felt like borderline pandering. I don’t know. I’ll keep an eye on him, but he actually stood out a bit at least. Not hard with the mayo jars up there but whatever.

It’s not a rare take online that Castro took the internet by storm. I love him. Everyone loves him. I do have some concerns long-term though; it’s less having actual problems with his ideas and more knowing that ... our country is too fucked for him right now. He’s advocating some pretty heavily open borders and while in principle I enjoyed watching him stomp on Beto about that, I honestly feel like if we put him against Trump, we’d lose. 

There’s people in the red party that ARE tired of Trump, that ARE experiencing a crisis about the inhumane shit going on at the border, that WOULD be willing to crossvote to make it end -- but we can’t forget that a lot of them initially voted for Trump BECAUSE of a deep seeded Xenophobia, and the level of aggression -- again, the kind of aggression I personally agree with -- Castro had may end up being very dangerous long term in getting that vote. Pretty much everyone up there agrees we need very comprehensive immigration reform and immediate action about the travesty, but I feel like unless Castro smooths his roll a bit we’re in for a long term faceplant that gives us another four years of Trumpian hell by people pulling back into their xenophobic mindset and -- if not voting for Trump -- abstaining from voting for him, which I think several other candidates have in their court.

Castro made a bit of a gaffe about switching trans genders but the fact that he tried, I guess. And considered trans in the discussion of choice and birth control etc. It could have very easily just been a stupid fumble. He’s still trying to take it into account. I can forgive that, in the scale of it, even if it has a bit of performer aspect.

Also I’m left to wonder where Castro was when they needed help running in Texas to begin with. I also just don’t see the passion in his eyes of several candidates, it’s strangely calculating on most topics. I like his platform, in theory, but I’m very cautious. 

Jay Insley is just weird even if everyone likes him.

Dulaney is a meme and I don’t know why he’s even here.

Tim Ryan accidentally wandered in on his way to the Republican debates as best I can gather.

Tulsi was the one that I was watching. All in all, I was underwhelmed. And then... it got worse.

The better part of her time was spent repeating her time in the military. And while it was great watching her school Tim Ryan, that’s not exactly hard to do. The fact that she lit his ass on fire when he just about self combusted in front of the party without her help -- I mean, it was the highlight of her showcasing aside from the snazzy Rogue hair.

Somehow, for as woke as tumblr is, and the progressives that had me looking her way, I hadn’t heard of her anti-LGBT past which she’s mostly couched her opinions on and held as recently as 2014 or THE FACT THAT I HAVE FOUND OUT THAT SHE WAS VETTED BY THE FUCKING TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO BE ON THEIR CABINET, I’M FUCKING HORRIFIED.

BUT THEN THERE WAS THIS LITTLE GEM THAT I FOUND BEFORE ACTUALLY DISCOVERING THE PREVIOUS PARAGRAPH.

What the FUCK? What are you, seven? That’s literal pre-emptive “my sister stole my phone lol sorry” level tweets. YOU’RE A FUCKING PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE TALKING ABOUT IMPORTANT NATIONAL MATTERS LOCK YOUR GODDAMN PHONE.

Because THAT’S just what we need, we’ll go from Trump impulse-tweeting to like “LOL fuck korea - lmao sorry my sister texted that”???? 

Neverminding how STATISTICALLY INCORRECT that is. Depending on exactly HOW you count time Warren got 2nd or 3rd most time -- yes, more than Tulsi. She did not have the most. She did not have “more than all the other candidates combined.” And Tulsi did not have the least time, but center-ground on time. She wasted a bunch of it endlessly reciting her time in the military, scoring an okay shot on Ryan, and... well, vagueblogging about her opinion on LGBT to the vein of “something something equality my bad I was raised conservative” great. Great selling point. Great couching there. Five years ago you were fighting against me having rights and now you’re basically against government deciding what people can’t do but what the fuck is your opinion on me as a human being?

Doubling back from that problem though, that’s when I dug in her LGBT history and ended up tripping over the Trump stuff. AND THIS IS THE CANDIDATE I WENT IN TO HEAR FROM TONIGHT LIKE “YES PLZ LET ME HEAR MORE” because people I knew LIKED her, but then I find out she’s a Trump frand that has Trump-like hyperbolic meltdowns on twitter? NO I DO NOT WANT FEMALE TRUMP WITH ROGUE HAIR THANKS BUT NO THANKS. 

Back to Warren, who I started with a MEH on, she came out WICKEDLY strong out of the gate. Her second half was weaker, she kinda has next to no active plan beyond talking/passing around more research on gun reform, but everything else, yes. Do I think she has the potential weight to pull it off, yes. And most of all, watching as she gets mad, upset, or emotional, do I believe she believes everything she said tonight, yes. Look, I know there’s STUFF about her claiming she had Native American heritage or whatever but I’m honestly so far past giving a fuck about the obscure shit like that if they have decent policies because our country is so FUCKED right now that I DONT CARE. She held her ground.

So in the end my spread ends up looking more like

of day 1 contenders, Warren still maintains her strong chance. Castro kind of sprouted up out of the earth and I really goddamn like him, but I do hold caution for my reasons above, because again, our country is THAT FUCKED.  

Booker really turned some heads and I liked him Booker... Booker’s very concerned about a lot of marginalized intersectional issues and it took him from “who the fuck is that” onto my radar which is a leap, but he didn’t drill in as hard as Castro did to my mind and I feel like he’s just... I dunno, I could be wrong but I feel like he’s gonna fade. Beto, IDK, still exists, isn’t an embarrassment and doesn’t just morph in with the other white guys up there. He’s not Trump. So I won’t delete him, but let’s say he barely, and I mean BARELY hedged into my consideration in this image, I almost just cropped it over to Warren.

De Blasio is just sort of “status quo, but actually enacts it” but I wouldn’t weep to see him vanish, either. In the end out of this debate though, I see like

Everyone else go home.

ON THE OTHER HAND, MOST CANDIDATES I’M ACTIVELY INTERESTED IN ARE ON THE FLOOR TOMORROW, WHICH BY THE LINEUP IS SLATED TO BE A BLOODBATH.

I’m really, REALLY hoping everybody has the common sense to make such an ass of Biden he’s knocked out early. Like that’s part of why I’m so goddamn interested in day 2. If we end up with Trump vs Biden we might as well all just put on our goddamn clown suits but he has the fiscal backing to push through even if he shouldn’t unless he’s utterly DECIMATED early on.

I don’t like Kamala Harris’ prison industrial complex CRAP but I’d be HAPPY to watch her drag Biden around like a wet rag. Sanders is a given point of interest. Buttigieg is another one to watch. Yang... isn’t... gonna last. But is just sort of a ... fun thing to watch I guess in this mix up. Someone else may surprise me, I don’t know.

#politics #democratic debates

[yourultraarchive]

Possible contest/challenges...?

So it’s been super dead around here, very sorry about that? (You know how life gets...)

Still working on that English name puns post, but I really want some activity around here to keep the blog going? Not sure what to do when no one is really using the templates or submitting OCs though.

I had a thought though! How many people would be interested in a sort of contest or themed prompts? The main idea is that I’ll put out a “submit a character with [X quirk/X name/etc]” prompt, where YOU GUYS will fill out the student/villain templates with brand new original characters, your own OCs (either repurposed or just old BNHA/other OCs), AU versions of official BNHA characters, characters from other fandoms/crossover characters, or whatever else I can come up with in the future. I’ll totally be up to taking suggestions for the theme of these contests.

If a contest does happen (rather than prompts/challenges) and we get a lot of submissions, I’ll either put up a poll for my followers to vote on or get a panel of judges or both. I’m not sure what the prize will be yet, most likely some sort of art of the winning character/s? Maybe a fanfic? I’ll have to go find a few artists/writers, whom will probably also be the judges if I go that route. But if you’d like to volunteer to be a prize artist/writer/judge, please contact us! If you guys have any other ideas for prizes though let me know. (No physical prizes though.)

So what do you think? How many of you all would be interested in doing a contest or challenges? I want this to be mostly for fun, so hopefully you guys think it’ll be fun too!

#archivist #blog management stuff

[thegreymoon]

Hi I have been a fan of your work for a very long time and so I sneak into your tumblr from time to time.I counldnt help but notice that you post a lot of political/sjw stuff and I know it is none of my business but since I am probably absolutely opposite in my political views I can't help myself and ask: I understand that you are Asian, but you don't seem to be interested in real or imagined injustices in your country/continent and are mainly interested in USA, why is that?

Hi, anon!

First of all, I am not Asian and I’m very sorry if I ever did or said anything to mislead people into thinking that I was. It was unconsciously done. I have no intention of offending anyone or appropriating an identity that isn’t mine, so if I did something of that sort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to correct myself. I often reblog stuff about China because I think it’s an amazing country, I’m learning Mandarin (not making much progress, though), love their culture, nature, architecture and am a big fan of their historical/fantasy dramas. Also, the two fandoms I was the most active in (coincidentally) happen to be a Japanese anime and a Japanese video game, so I have a lot of love for their art and aesthetics.

I’m actually very surprised that you would ‘notice’ that I post a lot of ‘political/sjw stuff’, considering that I mostly use Tumblr to repost Merlin gifs, cast/crew news and fanworks. There is maybe one reblog on just about anything else for every fifty (perhaps even more) Merlin posts, so I really have to wonder which of the RL issues I posted about bothered you so much that you would describe them as ‘a lot’.

I may be misinterpreting the tone of your ask, so forgive me if I misread your intentions and am responding too harshly, but in my experience, ‘SJW’ is a term that is used to be dismissive when people are talking about real social issues, plus I found your wording of ‘imagined injustices’ very… interesting.

Also, I find it odd that somebody would unironically ask me why I’m ‘mainly’ interested in the USA.

First of all, the global market is oversaturated with American media, American products, American news, American movies, TV series, music, you name it. It’s everywhere. Of course I’m going to know more about it than, say, Lichtenstein. The exposure of American public figures is insane and it just happens that the stuff that appears on my dash is most often related to the USA because that is what the people I follow also follow (and for the record, on Tumblr, I mainly follow the Merlin fandom and to a somewhat lesser degree, various artists, baby animals, Chinese traditional outfits, Buzzfeed and NASA news). I absolutely do reblog pure evil, injustices, hypocrisy and intentionally inflicted misery in other countries too when I see them, but I don’t actively go looking for them on Tumblr, just like I don’t actively look for the USA posts either. The USA posts are simply there, without much active input from me, while other countries are not. An important point, of course, since we are having this weird discussion about why a random person outside of the USA is consuming so much American media, is that English is the only foreign language I am fluent in, so when it comes to foreign content, I am primarily going to read and interact with posts in English. And which country creates the most content in English? Yup, you guessed it!  

On a similar note, everything that happens in the USA affects other countries too. Nothing that goes on there takes place in a vacuum and the USA has made damn sure that it has its fingers in each and every single pie all over the world. Everything, the good and the bad, spills over and trust me, we feel the effects acutely in my unstable, politically fraught little country. The economic and cultural implications are enormous, so you can bet American issues are very personal for me, even if I don’t live there. My country’s government consists of puppets in the hands of various world leaders playing tug of war with actual human lives. My literal paycheck depends on the stability of the dollar. The survival of the entire human species hangs on how we deal with climate change right now and that ignorant, illiterate orange shitstain Americans voted into power is now standing on a global platform, spouting nonsense that is barely one step removed from Creationist bullshit and Flat-earther conspiracies. And you seriously ask me why I’m interested in the USA? 

The USA loves to dub itself as ‘the leader of the free world’ and ‘a global superpower’, and has managed to stick its nose into everybody’s business everywhere (usually with no good intentions), but somehow you question why the rest of us are now going to be interested in what is going on there, not to mention critical when the US government spouts absolute rubbish not just on a domestic, but also global scale? So, yes, I am personally invested in what is going down next in the USA and am sitting here, half the world across, cheering Americans on as they fight to have that shame they elected removed from power and, hopefully, incarcerated, along with all his corrupt cronies, advisors and family members. I’m going to be genuinely celebrating here when he finally goes down!

Secondly, I come from one of those countries that the USA and its allies have destroyed for their own gain and where they have ruined countless lives over multiple generations. I have every reason to notice, take a personal interest in and comment on the hypocrisy, the grandstanding and the false moral high ground that is assumed by the USA (and any of its bootlickers) when I see it.

For any of my USA followers here, I would just like to note that I am perfectly capable of distinguishing between ordinary people and disgusting government policies enacted by corrupt or incompetent politicians. I realise this post sounds angry, but I wish only good things for you all, people are people everywhere and the stuff I’m talking about is way above the average person’s paygrade. I also realise that the USA has screwed over so many of its own citizens; including its war veterans, PoC, minorities, the poor, the weak and the disabled. My heart goes out to you all, truly, and I love you all!

(BTW, I intentionally have not said which country I’m from because I’ve stopped publically stating my location online, simply because it makes it too easy for malicious people to identify me IRL that way. I don’t necessarily hide my RL identity if I have a valid reason to reveal my true name and location, but please forgive me for not stating it outright here, on a public platform, to satisfy the curiosity of an anon ask. My country is misogynistic, homophobic and hostile to all who are non-conforming and my job prospects are hard enough without my online pseudonyms being generally known in my RL circles. I used to be much less secretive about it, but have since learned the error of my ways and am now taking the most basic of precautions.)

With that said, yes, my country has issues! And, fyi, I have ranted and raged and cried about them before online, IRL and in private. I have posted about my country’s political problems everywhere, including here, when I was just too angry to hold it in because I’m absolute shit at being careful even when I make a conscious effort to be. Most recently, I raged about our elections which were a punch to the gut. If I was to start typing about the corruption, injustices and absolute evil going on around me, I would never stop, but I’m not going to do that because that’s not what I come to Tumblr for. This is primarily a fandom space, mostly for fandom stuff, where I come to look at other people’s things and almost never create content of my own. Just about anything political has been reblogged from someone else because it showed up on my dash and touched a nerve. Very little of that is stuff from my own country because nobody creates and reblogs posts about it in the fandom circle I mostly interact with.

I’m now trying to think back to what ‘SJW’ issues (as you put it) I reblog the most often and how any of them are ‘imaginary injustices’. Off the top of my head, the ones that usually touch a nerve are about the oppression and discrimination of women, patriarchy, sexism, various kinds of abuse, sexual assault, overworking, capitalist brainwashing, mental health issues, LGBTQ issues, freedom of speech, resurgence of Nazism, the gap between the rich and the poor, climate change and criminal religious institutions regaining power in society. I can assure you that none of these is ‘imaginary’ and the negative ways in which they affect me and the people around me are very, very real. Also, none of them is unique to the USA, which is what you seem to be the most concerned about, and even if the post is from or about the USA, these problems definitely overlap with things that I, and countless people around the world, are personally experiencing and have a lot of feelings about. The only social issues ‘unique’ to the USA that I often reblog are the ones related to the particular US brand of racism and the appalling, still-ongoing genocide committed against the indigenous people there, and how can you not empathise with that when it’s so egregious? I will reblog them every time they cross my dash to spread awareness since the US government is actively trying to stifle it and rewrite history and idc who is uncomfortable.

With all that said, I’m open to corrections and have no problem admitting to being wrong once I realise I’ve made a mistake. So, this goes for all the people following my blog: if any of the posts I shared are about ‘imaginary’ issues (just… wow at the use of this word) or contain false information, please feel free to let me know and I will take it under advisement. I’m always willing to learn.

#tl;dr #Anonymous #no idea how to even tag this #social issues #personal #i guess

[dailythranduilproject]

Today it’s @floranocturna turn with being interviewed! I would like to thank you for sharing with all of us! - Mirky.

General Questions: Username(s) we can find you under: Floranocturna and The Real Floranocturna (FanFiction.Net)

What Media do you create? Fanfictions, sometimes image edits

Are you self-taught or did you go to art school? I have a Masters degree in Literature (and History) and writing is indeed my job, but writing fanfiction and fantasy stories is my passion.

Which artists have influenced your style? Mainly Tolkien and Rowling, but there are numerous others along the way,which have shaped my style into what it is now.

Which are your favourite artists? Fragonard and Boucher (yes I love French rococo) and in the fandom my favorite artists are Kinko-White and Bohemianweasel.

Where can we find your work? AO3, Wattpad, tumblr, FanFiction.net, Quotev, DeviantArt and Inkitt.

What would you say you are best known for in the fandom? My writing

Do you have a favorite pairing? *ahem* I ship Thranduil with me of course XD

Do you have a favorite creation of yours you are especially proud of? My ongoing Thranduil story *The Secret of the Forest*, which I have recently rewritten into a Thranduil/OC story (it used to be a reader insert before). I have been working on this since 2016 and this story is very close to my heart.

Do you have a favourite fictional character, besides Thranduil of course? Severus Snape, because I really love how his character is neither good nor evil and the astounding amount of depth Rowling gave him.

What other fandoms are you part of? Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Avatar

Do you do commissions? Nope, sorry, no spare time left.

Any advice/words for others in the fandom?

First: Be kind and respectful and always remember that we are in this fandom to share our love for Thranduil and not to fight over him.

Second: Do not steal other people’s hard work. This is something I had to experience myself and it is NOT nice! Create your own works and if you cannot do that then support the artists by sharing their work and encouraging them with likes and comments.

Third: If you are a writer getting started I would like you to remember that only practice makes perfect. Keep writing, keep searching for that voice of yours and keep reading! Read books, read stories and then read even more! And then sit down and write again, let the words flow and don’t think about what others will think of it. Write for yourself and only when you feel comfortable with it, then put it out there for others to see. Don’t take criticism personally, but try to see it as a possibility to grow as an author.

Personal Questions:

If you could name a song (or two or three) that would describe you or your life, what would it be? ‘Unknown Legend’ by Neil Young, ‘Lost Direction’ by Beecake, ‘Resolve’ by Sleeping At Last

Favorite color? Green

Favorite Book? Since I cannot choose only one here go my top choices: ’The Silmarillion’, ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ by Tolkien, Harry Potter 1-7 by Rowling, ‘Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell’ by Susanna Clarke.

Favorite movie? ‘The Fall’, because of its absolutely stunning cinematography, magical storytelling and of course Lee Pace and the adorable Cantinca Untaru.

Do you have a pet peeve? Ignorance and rudeness.

What country are you from? Austria, that place where the hills are apparently alive with the sound of music ;)

Who do you think you might have been in a past life? I have no idea, but hopefully someone remotely cool.

What do you like to do in your spare time other than create the media you work on? Photography, cosplay, reading and I enjoy taking walks alone or with my dogs while listening to music and thinking about new plot twists for my stories (yeah I can never really turn off the writing)

When did you join the fandom? I have been in the Tolkien fandom for a while (since the LOTR movies) and I have been a fan of Lee Pace already before The Hobbit movies (because of ‘the Fall’), but I started being more active around 2014/15.

TheMirkyKing’s Questions:

What is the hardest part of writing for you?

This is a difficult question, because many parts can be hard depending on my inspiration or the lack of it. The easiest part is usually the dialogue, because I just listen to what my protagonists say in my head and write it down. What’s hard is to keep track where everyone is standing, walking, moving around. Sometimes I think that my characters take on a life of their own and keep walking around and then I don’t know what are they doing. Sounds crazy, but it does happen! And actually sticking to my decisions regarding the plot is hard for me too, because I keep constantly having new ideas.

How do you fell about the upcoming series based off Middle-earth?

I do have mixed feelings about this. On one hand more Middle-earth is always a good thing and maybe a fresh take on Tolkien’s writings might bring a whole lot of characters and events to life on screen. But, and yes there is always a but, I honestly hope that the producers will not try to drag Middle-earth to Westeros, wanting to have a share in the success of Game of Thrones. Tolkien is not Martin and as much as I like Game of Thrones — hey, why do we have to wait until 2019 for that final season? —, I do not think that trying to imitate something that is successful in its own way is the path for this new Middle-earth series. Finding a new voice maybe even away from what Peter Jackson has set as standard might be a more logical and creative way to go.

If you could travel to Middle-earth, where would you want to call home?

This is an easy answer: Mirkwood of course. I would love to see Thranduil’s kingdom, especially after the War of the Ring, when the darkness has been destroyed and the forest has been renamed *Eryn Lasgalen*, the Wood of Greenleaves. I want to see the beauty of this primeval forest restored, the sunlit canopies of green and gold, the peaceful glades, flowers and trees growing in a new spring. Maybe even catch a glimpse of Thranduil’s new elk, which I am sure he will have. I’ve written about these woods so many times in my story that I somehow feel at home there although I’ve never even been there. Well, my heart is there and that is enough for me.

Follower Questions:

From @moonofmorrigan - How did you conceive the idea for your story, The Secret of the Forest?

This story started out quite simple because of my love for Thranduil, but it has grown into a much more complex project. I first had the idea of a romance, a love story with many obstacles involving an elf and a human. Over the course of 1,5 years many more layers have been added to it. I really love exploring Thranduil’s past, finding a credible backstory for his wife’s death and the many hardships he has suffered in his long lifetime, but I also have discovered that I enjoy playing around with my own characters, like the brothers Amardir and Faeldir. And the best part is that the readers like them too! This story is not just a fanfic about a beautiful Elvenking, but it is a story about love and loss, grief and sacrifice and the search for absolution. There are some universal truths to be found in this tale showing us that elves and humans might not be so different from each other after all.

From @moonofmorrigan - What things inspire you to continue writing it, and your original story about the dark elf?

Thranduil is the one thing that continues to inspire me every day to keep writing this story. But also all the readers and their comments, kudos, likes and votes keep me going. I am still overwhelmed by all the support I have gotten and the nice people I have met along the way in this fandom! My original story *The Enchanted Spring* about the dark elf Andor is my new ‘baby’ and I have a complete plot laid out already. It is quite different from my Thranduil story, although it does feature another beautiful elf. It is much darker and closer to folk tales and folklore. What I love about it is that this is all my own creation, no boundaries, no given facts. I can do whatever I want and play god in my world *evil laughter*.

@bellevox asked- I loved the fact that your husband made a song for your story. He’s a very talented musician! This is real love! If you do not mind, could you tell us a little about your family? If you do not want to, you do not need to.

I am really blessed to have such a loving husband! Not only does he support my writing, but he is also extremely patient and listens to my ramblings about plot twists, character arcs and synonyms. He has written 2 songs for my story (Nameless Lady and Thranduil’s Lament) and he keeps asking me for the next poem ;). As many of you must have guessed around here, I am a bit older than your average tumblr user, but hey, one is never too old to be passionate about something. I am a working mum of 5 (in between the age of 20 and 7) and we have 2 dogs (Yavanna and Nenya) and 3 cats (Mina, Zuko and Sansa). Our kids are growing up with Tolkien, Harry Potter and fantasy in general, Gandalf is a household name and even the little one can sing ‘They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard’ ;).

@beelovesbutterfly wanted to know- What is one cause that is dear to your heart?

As a mother of an angel baby, miscarriage and stillbirth are causes that are very close to my heart. These topics are still widely a taboo in our society and yet it happens to mothers all the time. I strongly believe that it is important to offer those mothers help and support and to let them know that they are not alone in their grief.

@beelovesbutterfly - What is your favorite flower? Daisy (it’s small, simple and perfect)

@beelovesbutterfly -Do you have a bad writing habit? I write too much. Just kidding, but no, seriously, I can deviate too much from what I want to say and I can spend hours researching synonyms and searching for that perfect word instead of just going ahead with the story. I’m trying to keep my sentences short and focused, but it’s difficult. And I have the tendency to get enamored with specific words, says my husband ;)

@beelovesbutterfly -Who is your Hollywood crush? **ahem** Lee Pace (obviously ;))

And from @eldritchmage - What story would you want to write about your favorite king that you haven’t written yet?

In have lots of other ideas about possible stories with Thranduil. I’ve been thinking on a story with an elvish OC, just to give it a different twist away from the dichotomy of mortal and immortal. But what I really would love to write is a humorous story, something light and funny and completely different from the angsty romance I am writing now. Possibly even a modern AU with Thrandy running a beauty parlor or something like that ;). I’m sure this would be loads of fun!

#interviews #floranocturna #themirkyking #dailythranduilproject #interview 3

[rxbxlcaptain]

Rogue One First Anniversary Update!

Hi Guys! This survey has been running for about 24 hours now (it’s still running, technically, if you want to go vote!), so I thought I’d share some updates. First of all, thank you for the excellent support this has received!! I’m glad to see the fandom is really interested in making this happen!! It’s really heartwarming to see so many people so dedicated to this a year later :D

The official results of the survey are as follows (dramatic drum-roll, please):

In first place was a celebration week!

Fanwork exchange (like a secret Santa) and rewatch the movie tied for second place

A fandom create-a-thon (I also only just noticed I have a typo in the survey... Sorry about that, fam) and fandom awards came in at the bottom

Several people presented very valid reasons for why a fandom award could go poorly in the comments and I very much understand -- I just wanted to put it out there in the survey as an option. 

So what does this mean? 

We’re going to go majority rules and go with the celebration week!

If you guys participated in any of the character/ship appreciation weeks earlier this year, it’ll work a lot like that! I’m thinking each day will have a category and a writing prompt that anyone in the fandom can fill. 

I’ll likely be making a separate blog for this (and I’ll also likely need co-admins to help me out with this!) so watch out for that announcement coming your way!

But what about rewatching the movie?

The nice thing about rewatching the movie is that it could go with any of the activities we’re doing! @sleepykalena has been awesome enough to host the stream -- even two, if that would work out better for the differing hemispheres! (Thank you, my dear!) We’ll likely either kickoff the week with a rewatch or conclude it with one. 

The only thing left to do is figure out timing (since the anniversary of Rogue One overlaps with the release of another movie I have a strange feeling Star Wars fans are going to be seeing)! My first step right now is to create the new blog (so the posts about the celebration don’t keep getting mixed in with all the other things popping up from my queue) which I can hopefully have out in a couple hours and then we can go from there!  

In the meantime, I’m tagging everything #Rogue One First Anniversary if you want to find the posts concerning this! 

Spread this around to any Rogue One lovers you know -- We want the whole fandom to be able to celebrate!

#Rogue One First Anniversary #rogue one #jyn erso #cassian andor #bodhi rook #chirrut imwe #baze malbus #k2so #galen erso #orson krennic #lyra erso #rebelcaptain #spiritassassin #sniperpilot #all the other ships I am horribly guilty of remembering the names of #star wars #(honestly I just want this to try and get to as many people as possible) #saw gerrera #(how did I forget Saw?! Guys I have a terrible memory)

[oldadastra]

Night falls: losing myself in the dark

Sometime last year, a funny post listing the Myers Briggs personality types of characters in The Force Awakens made the rounds. I happily reblogged it, partly because it made me laugh, but mostly because I was tickled that the OP had labeled Kylo Ren as INFP, the same type as me.

Comments on the original post expressed doubt that Ben Solo could be this personality type, and of course, this is an analysis of a fictional character, so it’s silly at its base. Nevertheless, Star Wars has always presented a lens through which we can explore elements of our culture and ourselves, so I found it useful to think about.  

To me, the INFP assignment felt like it could be true; an introverted type, driven my deeply-held beliefs, with a tendency to go all in on causes which felt important. An ability to see multiple positions on an issue. Emotional, moral, poetic, impractical.

Without going too far into the weeds of personality tests and types, here’s a link to a test I took recently, and a link to the description of the INFP personality type.If you aren’t familiar with or interested in the Myers Briggs, you’ll probably want to scroll on, as this post is going to focus on politics and my own struggles to come to terms with the dark, using Ben Solo as my metaphor.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot in recent weeks, as the political environment grows darker here in the United States. Each day unleashes some new horror in our civic realm, and I feel myself getting lost in the gathering darkness. 

A little bit about myself: Most people who read my stuff know I’m old within the fandom (I’m 50). Here’s what I do for a living; for most of the past 25 years I’ve worked as a sculptor (in collaboration with my husband), creating artwork for pubic spaces. It’s an arts job that has taken us to diverse communities around the US where our process is to spend time listening to people to try to understand what makes their particular place special or important to them. We then create artwork which makes those values visible; inviting people to spend time together in their shared civic spaces, and hopefully, creating a more inclusive, beautiful, and lively environment in our towns and cities. Our work shows up in libraries, town squares, universities, transit stops, veterans homes, hospitals, parks, and other public spaces.

In my spare time, I’m part of our town plan commission, and president of the village merchant’s association. I lead rural arts activities, help out at our local museum, history festival and art fair, teach community education classes, and rescue stray and feral kittens. In short; I try to be a nice person, not an asshole.

To use a Star Wars analogy (which also works for me as a self-identified witch): I serve the light. I always have.

Until lately.

Aside: If you want to know more about me and the place where I live, here’s a link to an article in Politico in which me (and a bunch of my neighbors) are quoted at length. It was published on the day of the Inauguration. 

Here’s a picture of me, taken by the photojournalist who came out to document my little part of the world. It was a sunny morning, about 15 below zero F, and I am feeding my sheep:

  What does it feel like when a good heart goes bad?

I have lots of time to think while I’m caring for my flock of sheep and goats. and occasionally, insight strikes while I’m working at these mundane tasks. My whole Bloodline thesis? While flinging hay. The convictions that show up in my Jedi Killer essay? Hauling buckets of water to and fro. The explorations of the new saga as a possible meditation on universal themes of war and an exploration of moral injury? Those were late-night ruminations during lambing season last spring. 

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the American political situation, and my response to it. I’ve been working on an essay about the ways in which Rogue One provides templates for contemporary resistance, but this other thing has been in the way, and I need to write about it first: the darkness. 

One of my friends, another handspinner who is also a therapist, was the one who told me to take a Myers Briggs test. When I told her I was INFP, she clapped her hands and said, “Ha! I thought so.” This was probably only a year ago, so it’s a new idea for me, but the category feels right. All those traits of an INFP personality - they feel familiar and true. Embracing the ‘label’ has helped me to better understand myself and the ways in which I prefer to engage with the world.

Which brings me back to Ben Solo. Kylo Ren.

In the weeks since the election, and in the days since the inauguration, I have felt myself falling to the dark side. As the process began, I thought about asking my friend, the therapist, 

“What does it look like when an INFP goes bad?” 

Then I realized I knew.

Kylo Ren is the template for a personality with a vivid moral code warped into violence. His is the pattern for strong emotion congealed into explosive rage burning, burning, burning, just beneath the surface; heavy, corrosive and hot in your chest. It is the outstretched hand twisting into the clenched fist. 

I know because I can feel it happening to me. 

In the Politico article, one of the local people interviewed by Michael Kruse said, 

“It’ll be turmoil for four years. [Trump]’s like a firecracker in a keg of dynamite.”

Why, then, I wondered, did he vote for him? He put down his brandy in a plastic cup and looked at me.“Why not?” he said flatly. “Let it blow.”

This, and the guy’s other hateful comments, are part of what’s stoking my rage; my fall. In the darkness, I disagree with everything he says, except for this:

Let it blow.

I voted for Clinton. I was never excited about her candidacy, but Trump represented then, and is demonstrating now, that he is a clear and present danger to democracy, and I voted against that. Now that the worst has come to pass, in a strange way I agree with the vile man in the article; I saw the threat Trump and his cabal represent and voted to maintain the status quo. My neighbors (some of them might have been my friends) chose a different path, and here we are.

So be it. Let it blow. 

And why not? The world is in trouble. If we are to build new ways of living, the old ones must pass away, yes? It feels as though the collapse is upon us; a self-induced crisis of epic proportions to which we must all respond. We’re invited to sweep the ground clean of everything that went before and start anew.

I know in my bones that these are dangerous times which demand the absolute best from all of us if people and institutions we care deeply about are to survive, and yet, every day I am failing. I am falling to the dark. I can feel it. and cannot find my way out. 

Hate, deception, and cruelty are the markers of the new regime, and it is so easy, so very easy, to meet hate with hate. 

Star Wars is helping me try to make sense of it. I spent much of the past year trying to understand the story of a fictional character, writing about the reasons he might have fallen - been seduced by the dark side, we like to say here in the GFFA - but I never really got it until now. 

Surrendering to the dark side is easy. When war is brought to your doorstep, it feels simple and correct to meet it with war. When the people around you display their ignorance and bigotry, how else should one meet it but with righteous fury?

I’m lost. I thought I was Jedi, but it turns out I’m Sith.

Or not. 

I’m struggling against this, the darkness. Even that is a revelation; the intensity of the struggle in my psyche, in my soul. It’s exhausting. I feel it as a heaviness in my chest, the hot buzz of too much blood in my veins. 

I am a shepherd, perhaps the most cliched pastoral and peaceful job a person can do, but these days I tend to my flock and fight fantasies of violence as I tear gobs of hay off the bales to carry to my gentle animals.  The steel tines of my pitchfork are polished with moving summer’s grass in winter, and they glitter in the guttering light of my headlamp.

I’m doing what I can; writing this helps, perhaps. Stepping out into the cold air of winter clears my head, if only temporarily. Marching helped. Speaking out and taking action helps. I’m talking to the wise ones in my circle; my friend Richard, a veteran activist who is headed back to Standing Rock this spring, and who seems to have cracked the code of non-violence. All the voices around me that feel less lost. I’m looking for the light. It’s there, I know it.

I’ve written so much about Ben Solo because I love him. He’s Han and Leia’s boy, after all. I’ve thought of him as though he were one of my own children, and the question of how to bring him out of the dark, how to get him home, has felt urgent for these reasons.  Now for the first time, I realize he’s me. 

Save Ben Solo

#kylo ren #star wars #dark side #save ben solo #politico #myers briggs #INFP #personal #trying to work shit out

[incarnateirony]

The Homo-Hetero Paradox

This is gonna be long AF but is for those confused (or frustrated at/with) why some people believe their queer ship deserves endgame. This actually goes for multiple fandoms, but due to my core fandom, I’m gonna use The Obvious Example.

This is a hotly spoken thing, and a lot of people are “bothered” when certain things are, essentially, treated like “must be endgame” from a seemingly assumed position,which irks some people. Many don’t realize there is a difference between “This ship” or “that ship” because they’re not wired to see The Gay, and that’s okay, as long as you’re willing to respect, and listen, to why people see it. You have your right to not see it, but you also need to understand when “endgame” talks up from incidents like showrunners or authors declaring intention, so if you’re honestly interested... read on. Because odds are, if you can trudge through all of this, even if you don’t agree with their interpretation, you hopefully gain some respect for them as people on WHY they hold that belief.

So there’s something I really, really need to clarify here. 

I can talk all day about 

authorial intent.

I can 

ELI5 “canon”, “subtext”, “romance,” 

or the dictionary all day long.

I can literally cover 

the growth of this from the dawn of time,

But this itself is preaching to a choir until we write something with full intention of reaching out to those who may, genuinely actually not know. This isn’t intended for the antis sourced in issues like character/actor hate who literally will never see the logic because they don’t want to, but for those who WANT to actually understand where this comes from. It’s long. But this is about understanding your fellow fandomites as human beings, and honestly applies to multiple fandoms. 

Because the way this fandom has been trained into its narrative - and the way this culture has been geared into its narrative - the way SOCIETY has been geared into this narrative - the common reduction is, “this is just about a ship.”

And no. it isn’t. It’s so much deeper than that.Before continuing, keep those three list points in mind, whether you read them first, or as I reference them later.

So this is something written to implore every person that says, “I support the LGBT community but-”, or “I mean, I love gay people, I have gay friends, but-” or “I experimented a few times but-”, because even the latter can have internalized conditioning and not even realize what, exactly, they’re saying, or doing, because you’ve drawn a line in YOUR head where the fandom line is from canon, which is actually sometimes different from where the showrunners have even admitted that line is, and you don’t realize it or now about it. Much less the former. If you are any of these people, or if you’ve DEALT with any of these people, who see how people contend for the writing of ANY ship - in this fandom, most likely and by-and-large Destiel, but ANYWHERE - that is LGBT oriented - keep reading. Send it to them and get THEM to keep reading. Because I’m going to say something beyond “representation.”

Disclaimer: This is not about All Gay Ships Ever, this is about ships with confirmed authorial/showrunner/creator intent statements. I am in no way saying Anything Anyone Imagines Up Gayly Ever is part of this. Hell, I’m even being slightly exclusory in not including ones that are plain as day without intent statements, but that’s why I’m using this example: intent statements WITH plot/etc that STILL get resistance. But this becomes muddied to people who aren’t wired to see this engagement, in a world and fandom full of random pairings, that don’t follow author stuff.

If you’re honestly interested on understanding this phenomenon in viewership, and HONESTLY interested in understanding where this frustration comes from, I need you to do an exercise:

I want you to imagine a world where you can watch years of romantic burn going on between opposite gender characters. Every trope, every classic arc in the book. The authors go, yup, that’s exactly what we were going for there, thanks for noticing! Now imagine if whenever your male/female pairing get close, people scream it’s fanservice. If they don’t kiss, it doesn’t count, and you’re just in crazy fanfiction land seeing things that aren’t there; if you want them to be confirmed, you’re just missing the point of everything else in the show; and if they DO kiss, you’ve just ruined everything because you’ve made it all about a relationship, even if it’s just one moment and the rest goes back to normal. Where your male/female pairing is damned if they do and damned if they don’t; where they can never be with the person that clearly makes them most complete, because someone is going to make an accusation in a direction.

I need you to imagine this as your default. Every show. Now I want you to keep reading.

The reason I use Destiel, beyond obvious fandom affiliation, as my example is because of just how flagrant this is. And I understand - if you’re sitting on the other side of the fence, you may not realize just how flagrant it is. And that’s why it becomes very important for people in the LGBT+ community at times, while very upsetting in the opposite direction for others (such as the frequently used term “queerbait”, which also earns trigger-response on both sides of the fence, usually eyerolls from those who don’t get it). You’ll generally find LGBT+ people sitting at one side or the other on this discussion: Believing in endgame, or upset and saying queerbait. And there’s a reason, and if you’ve never understood... this is for you.

I need to paint a picture for you. In the links above, I covered three critical topics: 

what literally defines canon/subtext/romance, 

the growth of the story as per trackable history,

and literal statements from even the showrunners confirming the intended romantic tilt of certain scenes.

And people, bless them, people who really do believe they are open minded come back with statements like, “it’s stretching,” and “no reason to not make it clear if that’s what they want.” Because, as per the pages I’m going to have to expound on with how complex this issue is, they’re yet to actually grasp why it’s so damned difficult.

And then some of us get mad. And this is why “queerbait” even hangs in the balance. Endgame or queerbait. Faith in the show, or distrust in it. You’ll see in the “authorial intent” link that I even cited how major LGBT representation venues have started itself cataloguing SPN since these statements. Multiple major venues have started listing it at the top of queerbait listings - EVEN OUTSIDE THE FANDOM. This is literally becoming this franchise’s legacy in the modern world while trying to launch a confirmed LGBT-pairing-author-intentional new spinoff for a younger demographic, of which statistically less than 50% identify as straight as per a recent census. (Source) That’s half of their potential demographic this matters to on a personal level, much less how more open and aware the not-straight youngsters around them are to issues for their friends in this generation, which has grown up entirely different and more open-and-aware. (Compared to millenials 21-34 at 65% hetero, 35% scaling “other” - still 35% of our target demo too)

This is a generation behind us that performs giant school walkouts, orchestrates waterfalls of social PR and even political motions just as they’re getting their voting cards. Whether or not you agree with their opinion isn’t what’s relevant - what’s relevant is that they are literally the money making target demo for the future of this entire franchise. And “Queerbait” does not need to be the legacy of this show.

But before we even get into the freakishly dangerous fallout that is attached to this sentiment, let’s just fall back to the simple point: this started being our legacy years ago, and TPTB started making steps to repair them.

The issue is, as they make steps to repair them, the LGBT community itself runs into resistance from those who somehow think they’re allies, because they’re COMPLETELY unaware of the paradox they have built for us.

This goes for almost ANY literature, film, TV, anything. This goes ALMOST ANYWHERE. And yes, it does apply, in every corner, to Destiel as well. 

“It’s just... to feed that part of the fanbase!”

Okay... cool, but... if they admitted they did it, and they’re on screen doing the thing, and recognized doing the thing, and presented the thing, then why do you treat the LGBT community (or anyone else that sees and supports it) as somehow the crazy ones for seeing the thing? Because things-that-happened-on-the-show-and-were-confirmed-by-the-author/showrunner is literally the definition of canon, so it is at least canon that there would be romantic feelings involved, it just isn’t a “canon couple,” such as one that has become an actual pair/in an active relationship. So why is it crazy to see what we are told is there? And do you understand how this makes us feel when this is said to us, when we know it has been confirmed? What is the subtext about non-hetero relations/emotions then?

“Well, no reason for them to REALLY do it if they don’t make it clear.”

Okay... so... at what point is it clear? When they say “We did a thing, and intended to do the thing,” That’s fine on a one off (Jilted Lover Castiel). But what about when other incidents come back up? A second time? (Thompson’s statement) A third? (Colette-Castiel). All confirmed. What if it goes so far they film side by side frame by frame parallels to romantic pairings shot by the same director as before, or share the same dialogue? (multiple incidents). What if these things all tie together into a complete storyline and you guys keep saying each and every time that it wasn’t CLEAR enough, no matter what the authors said? What if the showrunner himself declared intent, or penned something obvious as hell that got cut once they had to extend to a new season? And what if this all ran a long plot arc, and all of these statements tied into the same story, that interconnected like a tapestry? And what if, after being a Jilted Lover, a Fated Wife, and implied as basically canon, we even get this just before the end line:

“Okay, well that last one never happened, though. They FILMED it and chose not to use it.” 

Okay, great? That... happens a lot in film.  But when you have a full circle of these statements, a full... everything (read the authorial intent link), and this original ending line there - how do you expect people that are open, receptive, or even resonate with LGBT+ issues to see this show? How do you EXPECT them to interpret it? And after ALL of these author statements, how do you think they feel when you tell them an emotional story about two people who haven’t let themselves be together, or life, or directors, or whatever else - how do you think that feels? Sure. It didn’t reach that end line, but does that mean all of the other intentional undertones and previous statements and VIBE of the story didn’t exist, we’re crazy for seeing it just cuz that scene didn’t lock it in and they didn’t fall into each other’s arms? Or did they just not get their happy ending? Were all the other confirmed directions suddenly invalid?

And again, this isn’t just about Destiel. This is just the most relevant example to those within my fandom reach. This is a VERY broad issue.

These viewers have TWO options in the end: Assume queerbait, or pray for endgame and that the studio isn’t manipulating them.

We literally don’t have anything else. Once those authors have confirmed that all of these things were there, once we know that, once we see it in action, we literally don’t have another course of action. Maybe for people that are straight or willingly repressed it’s easier to go “Oh, it’s just... a joke, or fanservice.” But what... a season of fanservice? Two? Four, at this point? It’s all just four seasons of fanservice with authors that have made statements (since season 9, or since S8 about Dean’s romantic potential) knowing what they’re doing and confirming levels of intention along the way, and keep doing it...

That isn’t “fanservice.” Queerbait or endgame. These are the options.

But this conversation gets worse.

It’s “unclear” to an audience, just because it isn’t acted on; perhaps you don’t see the same chemistry we do, and that part is okay. We get it, you’re not gay so you don’t see the Gay as easy. But as long as you take every author statement, every showrunner statement and delete them; as long as you take every scene, now without those statements, and propose other interpretations; it will never be clear to you, and then you will continue to resist it to TPTB. And yes, it’s your right to interpret entertainment as you see fit, but when you go around with “keep fanon in fandom” like this shit isn’t right here, on our screens, with authors or showrunners or actors, right there, in interviews, saying yes, this is exactly what we meant it to be, and yes we intended it this way - at what point are we talking fanon anymore? Oh, the gay stuff is just fanservice regardless of the years of content. You see how people take offense to this, too.

Why? Oh, because... I don’t know, “I won’t believe it until I see a kiss or confirmation.”

AND HEREIN LIES THE TRAP AND PARADOX.

The SECOND this starts taking effect, people begin the complaints.

geez u guys just want to make it about sexKeep fanon in fandomy do u guys make everything gaystory isn’t about kissing (except random girls)it’s like you changed something in them and u shouldnt have to

This may be shocking to some people, but - Destiel as the example - Dean could still be Dean if he was acknowledged more forwardly having feelings for Cas. He could still love cars, women (yes! shocking!), beer, guns and flannel. There isn’t a rainbow quota to fulfill. Some people just don’t want the implication of a gay angel in their Good Old American Guns Beer And Flannel, but that ALONE is an INCREDIBLY harmful narrative to gay or bi men around the world, many of which are JUST LIKE DEAN IN HIS LIFESTYLE AND HOBBIES and TRAPPED in this life of WHO THEY HAVE TO BE. Did you know that in the US, on a large, private census, while more than half of gays and lesbians are “out,” barely over 1/4  of bisexuals are because of the black-and-white pressure of culture? This is reality. And this is what is constantly being sledgehammered down by this kind of narrative. Bi guy dates a chick and doesn’t want to be thought as QUEER or anything, cuz he’s still a man’s man, so he just... marries into chicks and never opens his mouth and here we are. We’re making progress. On more public social surveys (not everyone answers honestly), between 2010 and 2016, answers for Gay/Lesbian and Bisexuals doubled in respondency rate. DOUBLED. And no, people didn’t suddenly turn gay. By 2017 another survey doubled the rate again. We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re sick of being shit on and treated like a joke, so if you could please maybe not.

We just want their (respective fictional handling of) romantic affiliations to be acknowledged and respected on the same level any other even-potential couple’s would be, without having to scrap our asses off to get people to nod once and go “OK cool, the author said it here, but that was fanservice.” “And this time?” “Fanservice.” “And these four times?” “Fanservice.” “And these multiple seasons?” “Fanservice, all fanservice.”

This is the definition of queerbait and whether or not you acknowledge it, you are making an accusation towards TPTB that they are knowingly extorting a demographic, perpetually, instead of perhaps - just MAYBE - taking one chance to go back now that you know what the authors or showrunners said about these moments, knowing how communities feel about these moments, and watching it over again to see, maybe, just MAYBE see with different lenses now that you know an author said “Yes we intended this.” Instead of telling The Gays to stop seeing The Gay in things the author said they made Gay, clearly it was Just A Joke - can you imagine, back with our initial example, if someone said that to you about your author-confirmed straight romantic moments?

Because this also becomes a trap for production studios. If they get stuck in the same bind. Slow build it? Well, now the gays think we’re being queerbaited, and the people who don’t want the gay think it’s all subtext/a joke/fanservice no matter how frequent or blatant or core-plot-moving.  Make a move on it? Well, us gays are happy, and realize it isn’t queerbait, but the people who resisted it act like it was just So Abrupt, Poorly Done, Why Did You? After ignoring YEARS of Us, The Gays, pointing at the times the authors even admitted to it going WE AREN’T CRAZY, THEY LITERALLY SAID IT’S THERE. But now TPTB have to worry and balance the demographics when you could just Support It If They Made The Choice and be happy if people accepted the intention statements without dismissing them.

And this is why this narrative bothers us. The Gays. Or any kind of Not Straights, really. Because no matter what we do, we’re put at the disadvantage. Someone can slow-burn a plot for four years and then someone’s going to be flabbergasted at the HOPE that someone will do something with it after years of acknowledgment from a studio, rather than the ASSUMPTION of us being extorted. Because They Didn’t See It. That’s great, but not only did we see it, often we’re even told it, and that we saw what was actually there, by the people making it. But then it isn’t respected until it’s moved on, then when it’s moved on, it’s our fault for making everything about sex or kissing, and it’s rushed? But our confirmed romantic stuff doesn’t matter unless it’s kissed out or the arbitrary threshold. So gays don’t matter until they’re ruining things by kissing, in this narrative. The feelings don’t matter. The author statements don’t matter. 

This is. A literal. Paradox.

It’s a freaking trap, is what it is.

The industry is getting better about it. A LOT better. But it’s STILL. EVERYWHERE. And while the INDUSTRY may be getting better, We, The Gays, keep running into this narrative wall constantly from people who think they’re being fair and reasonable and open minded and don’t even realize what they’re saying. 

You literally can’t turn around on us and say “You’re just seeing gay when it isn’t there!!” in instances where we have LITERALLY HAD ADMITTED THERE WAS THE-GAY THERE AND THEY MEANT TO PUT THE-GAY THERE. Just because they didn’t kiss doesn’t mean romances aren’t valid, or have you NEVER had feelings for someone you didn’t manage to make a move on? Never? Were your feelings invalid because you never kissed? Were you incapable of feeling pain when this happened to you? Believe it or not, We, The Gays, have these same conflicts and personal struggles with our emotions in the real world too, and real relationships, and real romantic inclinations, even before talking about TV.

All we’re asking for is these things being ADDRESSED. Not even sexed. Just ADDRESSED. This isn’t even us seeing something in lighting, or camera placement, or clothing type and reading between the lines (no offense to the meta authors out there, some of you do great work), this is us literally deadass being told things like

Only to be told we need to keep our crazy fanfiction sh*t out, when... the creators... are RIGHT. THERE. [gestures emphatically at the above] 

And I get it. There’s this thing called Internalized Homophobia and at one point, even I used to roll my eyes and imply the same thing. Y U Gotta Make Everything Gay? But the more aware we become as a society the more we realize we’ve been trained into this. It’s cultural. Hell, some regions don’t have any problem with it at all. Which is awesome over there. But most of us aren’t there, we’re here, stuck in this narrative, and dealing with this internal discrediting.

So we’re going to echo the starter exercise: Imagine a world where you can watch years of romantic burn going on between opposite gender characters. Every trope, every classic arc in the book. The authors go, yup, that’s exactly what we were going for there, thanks for noticing! Now imagine if whenever your male/female pairing get close, people scream it’s fanservice. If they don’t kiss, it doesn’t count, and you’re just in crazy fanfiction land, and if they DO kiss, you’ve just ruined everything because you’ve made it all about a relationship, even if it’s just one moment and the rest goes back to normal.

I need you to imagine this. I want you to watch this duo on TV for years, investing your heart and interest in them like you invest in any and every part of a story you’re dedicated to for years, this male/female pair that even the showrunner said was romantic-toned at some point, hell and highwater, every adventure, and then, when you ask about it, get some bullshit answer like “Oh well why just make them one thing, when they can be everything for everybody?” And then look over and, in this reverse world, see All The Gay Pairings getting to run around being Confirmed Gay and nobody questioning it. And geez, you stick to your guns and say, “But the showrunner literally said it was romantic! And all of these authors said they did these romantic things on purpose.” and then get slammed with “Keep your stupid straight relationships in fanfiction.” or “God can’t you just enjoy the ACTUAL show?” like it hasn’t been RIGHT. THERE. IN. THE SHOW. AS PART OF IT.  And like you hadn’t seen the showrunner tell them to put it RIGHT. THERE.

Oh wow, okay, that seems pretty shitty, doesn’t it?

So let’s talk about the Bechdel and Vito Russo tests.

Okay, we’ve become aware equality is a huge issue in media. And I’m not saying all women need to be G.I. Jane. The Bechdel test is a VERY BASIC TEST for female representation. Here’s the basics

The movie must have two women in it

who talk to each other

about something besides a man.

Sounds simple AF, right? You’d be surprised how many fail, though. But then this got expanded on with options for PoC, and sexuality. The Vito Russo test via GLAAD for LGBT+ made their own.

The Vito Russo Test

Is there an identifiably LGBT character

Is the LGBT character not solely or predominantly DEFINED by their orientation or gender identity, but, 

are they also tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would have significant effect?

Now I want us to take one simple idea while we’re premising about what would be ruined or changed. Riddle me this, in a very very similar but only marginally different universe to challenge: 

if the community accepted Phil and Ben’s audio commentary about Dean’s sexual/romantic flexibility  with all of the attached related content (pages of bi-Dean meta such as the siren interview) being allowed for public consideration and discussion without dismissal (and better TPTB action) without being shoved in the ”fanfiction” bin (Or causing protests from antis), 

and IF we allowed ourselves to take the previous romantic authorial statements as identifiers instead of packing that away like it didn’t exist too

Destiel would ironically already pass this test with flying colors. Authors promote bi Dean potential, authors wrote Destiel elements, and many of these elements DRASTICALLY influenced the current of the story, and their characters are important, WITHOUT being solely and singly attached to walking around proving How Homo they are, and they are who they are, beyond where their romance may be. (The Cain parallels carried two entire seasons 9-10. The S11 profound bond attachment was a plot moving mechanic that arranged the entire finale. Dean’s S13 grief arc ran for five unmissable episodes; and we can say We Don’t See It all day, but when it all comes from the people with those statements up there, just because you don’t, doesn’t mean we’re wrong FOR seeing it, since IT IS LITERALLY SAID TO BE THERE.)

Literally all we need is for them to be identifiably connected LGBT, and for those of us who already take these statements seriously, they ALREADY ARE, because of author statements. However, the perpetual erasure of this, and battle from viewers that resist it to TPTB, or minimalize fans who see it as “less than”, is what would ironically keep this from passing a Vito Russo test, because they keep it reigned in JUST ENOUGH to not cause a blowout. And guess what? That’s where that menacing queerbait issue creeps back up again.

So we swing back around to our paradox. Really 99% of the Destiel community doesn’t want much more than literally them being recognized as the romantic pairing they’ve literally intentionally led us to see, as per all of the above statements from creator capacities (and this is literally just a small pinch of my bag of receipts). We don’t want sex scenes, hell, we don’t even demand a kiss most of the time. We just want to be seen as equals. We just want people to stop treating BLATANT LEAD ONS that compel entire plot arcs of a show like it’s a joke - because being gay isn’t a joke, it isn’t a punch line, and if you’re saying it’s literally all to “pander” to that viewership, if you don’t do anything with it, it isn’t pandering. It’s heartbreaking, and not just “because Destiel” or “because ship,” but because this is a cultural issue we deal with all over, in and out of media, even in the real world, with similar assumptions about us, or our behaviors, or our relationships from people on the street, or even family. So we go to watch media, and what, get pulled over coals, and berated for seeing what they literally told us was there, but If It Happens We Ruin It.

I want you to imagine a world where every straight pairing (or even potential-pairing) on TV that had this kind of investment had that kind of reaction. Hell, if a straight guy and a straight girl on TV run blatant romantic tension and plot arcs that jive up entire seasons of storyline, but they never go to bed together - does anyone ever say people were crazy-weird-fandom for seeing it, even WITHOUT an author saying “Yeah we meant that”? Fucking no, they don’t. And that’s where the problem kicks in.

So the next time you see Destiel people (or any ship for any story with strong authorial intent statements and major contingent plot arcs; this does not necessarily stand for weird crossfandom crackships or whatever) who are “annoying” because they “want/think their ship will be canon,” You might want to change your point of view. Because generally, those people who think it might be endgame, they’re giving TPTB the benefit of the doubt while you unwittingly accuse them.

 They’re going “Maybe they’re not just leading me on, maybe all of these plot things are going somewhere, maybe my sexuality isn’t a joke to them, maybe I’m not just a number they’re manipulating, maybe we matter to them” and that, my friends, is a hell of a lot bigger, and more important, than “just about a ship.” This isn’t me grabbing two characters that have barely met that would be sexy together and going “oh man this would be awesome!” and drawing sexy fanart. This is wanting my emotional investment to go somewhere after they acknowledge pulling on it on purpose. And I think you’d want the same.

And holding out that belief, especially with Wayward on the horizon as an LGBT+ prone spinoff with confirmed intent (Claire/Kaia) for a heavily queer generation, is a HELL of a lot more respectful to this show than just assuming it’s queerbait. This is those people that “annoy” you giving it the benefit of the doubt.

Because generally, people who dismiss these comments, time and again, as jokes/pandering, don’t realize that they’re actually accusing TPTB of something pretty fucking heinous. And I choose not to believe they’re being heinous. And you shouldn’t consider me less of a fan for not assuming they’re being heinous. To you, it looks like pandering. But the community has been pretty obvious about what they want. And queerbait isn’t it. Never has been. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If this isn’t the direction they intend to go, before launching the LGBT-target-demo spinoff, they should be dialing it down instead of ramping it up. Changes in administration etc, changes in vision, it happens. Does that sound like someone who Just Wants To Make It Gay, or someone that has reasonable expectations and a few feet on the ground in reality and what impact this can have on the franchise? But no, they’re once again cranking up the plot level volume of it. So yeah. Yeah, I’m hoping it’s Endgame. Yeah, considering the previous intent statements and All The Story, yeah... I think it makes sense. No, I don’t think it’s fanservice. It’s where the narrative should freaking lead at this point.

So the next time you consider dismissing a statement made by a showrunner, the next time you roll your eyes at someone who thinks their “ship” has a shot at endgame, maybe look back and wonder what installs that instinct in you - what you’re actually saying between the subconscious lines - what the implications even are in this trained thought process that at times even hits Us, The Gays, and is part of the struggle we had in our generation even living as ourselves without being embarrassed of ourselves. 

Maybe take it as less than audacious, and more by way of being generous and wanting to have faith in it.

Will it be canon? Will it be queerbait? We don’t know until the fat lady sings. But hell, if it goes canon, maybe consider why, and maybe consider all those statements We, The Gays pointed you to before, for years, might have had merit too. Maybe it always meant to go somewhere. Maybe TPTB weren’t manipulating us.

The ironic thing is, in the end, I won’t be heartbroken necessarily by Destiel not going canon. It’s less about Destiel specifically. It’s less about Dean and Cas, as much as I love them, and their romance, specifically. It’s less about this fiction show specifically. It’s more about this cultural pandemic. What angers and frustrates me more than anything is seeing SO MANY PEOPLE that think they’re open minded spilling out these paradox points and unwitting accusations, and damaging statements that minimize entire HUGE groups of people.

You ever wondered why? That’s why.

Queerbait or Endgame.

I refuse to assume TPTB are being malign. Regardless of what anyone wants to unwittingly accuse them of.

So yeah. I’m going to hold out for Destiel to be Endgame. And that they aren’t manipulating an entire demographic, and that they aren’t about to blow their own foot off for the spinoff series.

You don’t have to have faith, you don’t even have to ship it, but if you could please stop degrading these things, and us, to our faces (OR behind our backs, BOTH are shitty); or treating us like stains on the fandom for... I don’t know, considering ourselves human, our relationships equal, and statements about us or our relations not a joke; that would be great. Cuz my other option is calling queerbait. And if that’s what it is, I’d hope, deep down, that bothers you, too.

And if I reached even just... one, or two people with this megalithic exposition and made them change their opinion of people who think like this, then my work is done.

#supernatural #spn #queerbait #endgame #mine