#but generally when you compare and look at just how popular the ship is
Note
It is something i have read from a cockles blog.
ofc 😅 probably someone i have blocked
#but i have to say#for fans of a rps#we are doing okay percentage wise with the people who take it too far#i mean. ymmv ofc#but generally when you compare and look at just how popular the ship is#could be worse!
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Head empty just
Sagau but readers cellphone now has infinite battery for some reason and theyre on tiktok and watching genshin edits until one of the acolytes sees and gets curious so reader shows everyone the edits made for then
Zhongli: why am i........geo grandpa
Xiao: morax isn't my father
Yae: what is an........Eiussy and why do these humans want it so bad
Venti: (trying to force scara to have anemo vision after seeing the sad scaramouche edits) BUT THE EDITS, YOUR BACKSTORY IS SCREAMING AIR BOY!!!
Scara: GET THE FUCK OFF ME!!!!
WHOOO MY FIRST REQUEST ASK!!!
anyways-
When I tell you that a phone in TEYVAT would be absolute chaos… I mean it.
I can 99% guarantee you that Albedo has asked to experiment on what he refers to as Their Grace’s “strange device.”
(Please keep your phone away from him, as it will not make it out of his lab intact.)
Other acolytes who aren’t as curious about HOW and WHY it works may find interest on seeing you use your device to watch videos.
The people of Teyvat aren’t familiar with advanced technology, so I’d assume it’s fair to say that they would treat your phone as a Divine Object, comparable to the Anemo Archon’s Holy Lyre.
Since you are The Creator, it would be valued a lot more.
Nobody, not even one of the Archons, is allowed to touch such a holy object. Such a thing would be viewed as incredibly disrespectful. How could any of them, lowly acolytes, have the audacity to come into contact with your beloved “phone”?
Now, assuming that the reader can still watch Tik Toks, of course they would like to share some of them with certain characters, because why not?
Also, why wouldn’t you let them in on some of the jokes that are popular in the Genshin Fandom?
If Zhongli knew that he was referred to as “Geo Grandpa” I think his reaction would be one of initial shock.
“What does the title ‘Geo Grandpa’ indicate, Divine One?”
After a little explanation from you, I think he’d catch on. He is aware of his age, after all.
Others may think that the title “Grandpa” is offensive towards a former archon of all things, but he doesn’t mind as long as you are the one saying it. The term “Grandpa” is often used between mortals in a family, so does this mean that you considered him as family?
Whenever you call him by that name, you can expect to see a soft smile across his features.
When Xiao discovered that the fandom considers his relationship with Morax to be one of father and son, he was speechless for a good minute.
You gave him a look, trying to suppress your laughter.
“So…? You’re not denying it.”
He huffed, crossing his arms. “Morax is not my father.”
You wheezed, clearly amused by his flustered expression. Xiao was avoiding your gaze, clearly trying his best to convince you that he did not see the older man as a father figure.
The term “Eiussy” was completely unknown to the Lady Guuji… until she joined you in watching the short films know as “Tik Toks” on the magical screen of the divine “phone”
Now, Yae Miko is quite clever, so it was only natural that she would grasp the concept of what “Eiussy” meant.
She watched a few videos which featured similar titles, such as “Tartussy”, “Scarussy”, and “Kokussy”. All of them played a key role in her eventual understanding of just what exactly “Eiussy” meant.
The very moment she learns the true meaning, I can guarantee you that she will casually bring it up in conversation.
“Your Grace, you would be welcome at Watatsumi Island anytime!” Gorou beams, waving goodbye to you from the docks of Ritou.
The Watatsumi ship had finally arrived, after a lengthy delay following your business meeting with the Inazuman Officials.
“Thank you, Gorou.” You started to say… but the ever famed doggy general had already boarded the ship, and was out of your sight.
“Hmm…” a recognizable voice trailed, as her hand lightly touched your shoulder. Miko gave you a knowing look. “I guess he wanted to get some of that Divineussy”
Your expression remained blank.
“Perfect use of that title.” You praised, staring after the ship, as it departed into the sunset.
If and when Venti saw all of the sad Scaramouche edits… let’s just say that you’d have to physically restrain him.
Restrain him from making his way over to the Balladeer as soon as possible, that is.
Scaramouche would just be doing Fatui work, maybe trying to convince the recruits that the stars are indeed a lie…
And… bam.
A random ass bard pops up out of nowhere.
“Good day! Would you be interested in gaining an anemo vision?”
“What the fuck.”
#cultau#sagau#genshin impact#genshin impact sagau#genshin cult au#genshin crack#genshin sagau#venti#zhongli#genshin xiao#scaramouche
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This is my reluctant fandom rivalry story. It’s long. Please bear with me.
A couple years ago I got into a major (read: very active) fandom. I wrote a few fics, then began what would become my longest WIP to date. That WIP generated a lot of interest, and as the smut escalated, I started getting more engagement with a fic than ever before – especially after posting a scene in which the characters finally hook up, in a very kinky and unexpected way. While working on this story I was following the work of other writers, and at one point a certain author who is pretty prolific and well-established in the fandom posted a finale to a work that they hadn’t updated in a long time.
Seeing as how this work featured an uncommon ship dynamic for the pairing I write for – which my WIP also featured – I was interested to read this particular work. Then, when I got to their newly-added finale, I was astonished: it featured a scene that very closely paralleled the hook-up smut scene that I had just posted about a week or so prior, to a startling degree of similarity. So here were two characters in a very specific relationship dynamic—ages differing from canon—who were hooking up in the exact same way as my characters (also of this age/dynamic), down to the very same environment and scene context – the same uncommon blocking; same uncommon smut scenario – in a way that I’d thought was highly original when I wrote it (I haven’t seen anything like it before or since), and posted very close behind when mine was posted! The author even went out of their way to say that they’d actually written that scene “months ago,” and were only just getting around to finally posting it… /: *suspicious eyes*
You can see where I’m going with this.
While not exactly plagiarism per se, that author received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from their many followers, while my chapter received a comparably modest response (though still very positive by my own standards, being so new to the fandom). I also worry that a good number of shared readers had encountered the other [popular] story, first, then caught up with mine after, only to wonder if I had copied the other author (unless they bothered to go into “chapter index” -> “full page index” to confirm publication dates, it would’ve looked like mine came after once I posted the next chapter).
I decided not to confront them about it, though. There was no way I could prove that it wasn’t “parallel thinking,” even if it would make for a very odd coincidence. The wording was not the same, but it was structured very closely to what I’d written, including certain spicy details. I didn’t want to stir up drama in a new fandom, especially with such a popular author, lest I inadvertently alienate myself.
But here’s the thing: I decided to just be flattered that my work had "inspired" theirs, and I tried to get past any lingering resentment by befriending them. Left kudos and the occasional nice comment on their work. Followed them on tumblr. Liked/RB’d their posts. But they steadfastly ignored me completely, for reasons I can only guess at. We have many common mutuals and they never like/reblog even my most popular posts (though these must cross their dash), though they will promote similar posts by anyone else.
Over a year later, I’ve continued to follow this author’s work, keeping an eye out for other “coincidences” (though it’d be very ballsy of them to "borrow" from me again, since my work is more widely read now). Meanwhile, I have risen in popularity, myself, and while still not as popular as that author, I’m very proud of my own contributions to the fandom, and feel that my writing is a lot stronger than theirs. So I really shouldn’t let it get to me, but seeing them around all the time, being praised for their mid-level works and interacting with so many of my mutuals (while giving me the cold shoulder) still rankles me. Recently they even posted something about showing common courtesy by not stealing others' work in fandom, etc. that really rubbed me the wrong way. I stewed over it for way longer than is healthy.
Any advice on how to navigate this one?
I want to enjoy my time in this fandom, but their ubiquitous, icy presence and my own lingering paranoia casts a pall over my experience.
This is one of those situations where you either need to confront them directly and let the chips fall where they may or you need to block them on every platform you share and pretend they don't exist.
You can't seem to get past what happened in the past, but you're also not talking it out with them. That means that you're stuck where you are until something changes. That thing is either messaging them directly or removing them from view.
Do not write a callout post. From what you've outlined here, you have a suspicion with no solid facts one way or the other. Writing a public post will just create fandom drama and having been tangentially involved in that before, do. not. recommend.
Personally, I think you need to evict them from your mind because they've been living there rent free for too long. But that's just my opinion. What do the rest of you think?
You can also find this ask mirrored over on Dreamwidth.
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POLL RESULTS JUST DROPPED!!
My hockeyblr experiences are largely catered to my own personal tastes -- mostly Leafs, a little Penguins and Stars, one or two who post about Stevie Y and Sergei Fedorov. These are obviously not the only teams out there.
This study was designed to survey as much of hockeyblr as it possibly could, gathering data on which teams people like and to what degrees. There were five questions and a free space -- my attempt to ask people to rank the teams they enjoyed in three levels, from religiously followed to casually affectionate, and an additional couple of questions on love for players versus team. I received over 500 responses. Here are the results.
Yeah, yeah, you all want to know: The most popular team is the Penguins, by a long shot, then the Leafs.
Because my sample size (n = 523) is actually fairly small compared to the number of NHL teams there are, I find definitive rankings tend to be difficult. It’s also worth noting that, as a mainly Leafs blog, my numbers are definitely going to be skewed a little in favour of the Leafs.
Your Guys
These are the teams closest to your heart: the ship you go down with, metaphorically or, depending on how married your old men are, literally. For me, I picked just the Leafs.
The average respondent had 1.9 teams in this category. The most popular, by far, was the Pittsburgh Penguins. Below is a table of teams, arranged roughly into tiers by the number of respondents. Each team has the number of respondents in brackets next to their three-letter code.
I allowed people to pick as many teams as they would like; the average person picked 1.9 teams, but here’s a distribution of how many teams they picked:
4 people picked 0 “your guys” teams, and 2 people picked seven, nine, or ten each teams. Just about half of people had one main team.
I then wondered: what teams were people most likely to only follow? That is, if you hold [x] team in the closest part of your heart, are you more or less likely to also hold any other teams? Almost exactly 25% of picks were solo; I wondered if there was any correlation at all.
Only a little bit! Of the samples large enough to actually consider (so: nothing in that cluster at the bottom left, who all received fewer than 10 picks total, and a few of whom -- CGY, CHI, NSH -- received zero solo pickers), the most devoted fans chose the Sharks, the Bruins, and the Leafs. The fans who liked the most other teams chose the Avs, the Kraken, the Canucks, Panthers, Sens, and Ducks.
Probably a next step would be to look for correlations: if people are a fan of one team, are they more likely to be fans of another? THAT BEING SAID that’s a lot of regressions. Maybe keep an eye on that for the future, but I don’t know!!
Objects of Enjoyment, and Generally Nice
These two were successive tiers meant to distinguish teams that people like from the ones in the category above. I admit I probably could have phrased the questions better; I received several comments saying that they’d watch any hockey when they wanted to put a game on. The dynamics between Your Guys versus Objects of Enjoyment versus Generally Nice would best be described as devoted fan of versus casual fan of versus favourable opinion towards.
As I said a few paragraphs back, people picked 1.9 “devoted fan” teams on average. Again on average, they picked 4.7 “casual fan” teams and 6.5 “favourable opinion” teams. Not all ratios are equal, though! Some teams had significantly more casual than devoted fans, and others still were much more liked generally than average.
I gave each team’s “devoted” count an index number of 1 and measured their casual and favourable count as a ratio against the index number. The teams assembled themselves into a few groups.
No Commitment
Arizona and Anaheim have decided to be soulbonded (Excel refuses to let them have different-coloured dots) and it took me three hundred million years to attempt to (and unsuccessfully) fix, so let’s ignore that. These teams all have a fairly high slope of interest -- a range of casual interest at about five times the pace of fervent interest, and good opinion at about ten times fervent interest. The Calgary Flames are an outlier on the entire graph, not just here.
Casual Interest
I gave up on trying to colour teams according to their real colours shortly after the Anaheim/Arizona debacle. Please employ the legend. Nashville is included on all five graphs for reference. These teams all have a casual interest factor of about 3, and a favourable opinion factor of around 5; the same ratio as the casual fans of the teams in the first category to their fervent fans.
Saturated Market
These teams have a much lower ratio of hardcore:casual:favourable fans, at about 1:2:3.
We Get It, Those Are Your Guys
Pittsburgh and Toronto; these teams have an almost equal ratio of all three categories.
...Whatever This Is
Every other category is defined by its ratios; this category is defined by its shape. While all teams have their rate of hardcore fandom set as 1, the other two tend to increase in a roughly linear form, without too much significant difference between the first interval and the second interval.
These teams, though (again, Nashville is for scale) don’t do that: they have a set increase between hardcore and casual, and a significantly smaller increase (or, in a couple cases, a decrease) between casual and favourable. This suggests perhaps some kind of divisiveness; if you’re not already in there, do you really want to get in further? Either that, or it’s something closer to what the Leafs and Penguins have: that is, a devotion. Like you’re in or you’re out.
Taking these values together
Because the casual:hardcore ratios are measured as indexes and not absolute values, they say nothing about the actual popularity of the team in question -- Calgary is one of the least popular, which is why I assume it’s so weirdly high up; small sample sizes lead to higher error values!
But we do have the absolute values, so we can measure them against each other.
If we consider the “In or Out” to be a category of its own while the other four are along more of a continuum, then we can absolutely see a correlation here -- larger fandoms tend to have more involved fanbases.
Players or Teams?
I also asked participants if their guys tended to be players or teams -- and if those they liked at a more casual level tended to be players or teams.
The results are… not particularly surprising.
On a hardcore level, people tended to prefer teams, although the variability was pretty slight. On a casual level, individual players were much more popular.
I also wondered if people who chose more teams in the hardcore fan question tended to do that because they prefer players.
On average, people who picked players on their hardcore level chose 2.1 teams. People who picked teams chose 1.7 teams. That’s definitely a difference!
Fun Shtuff
I got way more write-in responses on the hardcore player/team question than on the casual question, including this:
Three separate people answered “Minnesota Wild” for their guys and chose no other teams on any level. Hell yes. (One person also did this for the Kings.)
It took about 300 responses before the first Flames fan (at the hardcore level.)
On all three levels, the Seattle Kraken are really popular -- they’re in the top five in each.
What's Next?
If I were to update this survey, I would probably include a question about where all of you are from -- some people (like me) follow their hometown team, while some people most certainly don't (shoutout to the one person from Edmonton who dislikes the Oilers) and others still don't have a hometown team (shoutout to my brasilian + european + etc mutuals and everyone else!!)
Feel free to shoot me an ask if you want me to do anything else with this data -- examine a specific team, give actual casual fan/etc counts and total aggregate rankings, anything else!
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Finding Stories
Okay so I started a conversation/poll the other week about anon fics, which clearly made it clear that I had the wrong impression about anon fics. I thought that people avoided them, whereas it turns out most people don't even notice if a story is anon.
However, it started me thinking about how people find stories in general. Because this would imply that anon stories get found because people are reading new in a fandom, are they actually doing that? And do people find published books the same way, just reading in the bookstore or free-scrolling on a site? So. I ran two new polls. Fandom. Published books.
And I gotta say that this was clearly something fired off while I was avoiding my communications class, and I have never taken stats. This is in no way formal. But I was really interested in the things that are similar and the things that were different. Do patterns change when you're actually spending money for things? What happens when people click boxes?
First off, in both cases, the thing that won the poll was "browsing new", either in the fandom or in the bookstore. But the percentages were quite different.
I figured that knowing "I want to go to the paranormal shifter romance section of the bookstore" is approximately equivalent to "I know I want to read Stucky Omegaverse" so I compared those two percentages. 49.3% of fic readers were out here just scrolling new, whereas only 28.4% of people would just rock up to a bookstore and start looking around. (or IS this true? A lot of people in the "several of these" (24.2%) said they did a lot of these, but they did not regularly specify if that meant they just browsed in a bookstore.)
I figured that sorting by kudos or hits would give you a similar impression as being on a book social media, where the popular books rise to the top. 24.8% of people were looking for what was popular in fandom, whereas 11.2% of book people were looking for buzz books. On the fandom side people said frequently that when they were new to a fandom they would read by kudos to get a sense of what the fandom was like, whereas there wasn't really an equivalent experience reported on the book side of discovering a sub-genre and reading popular in it. People just didn't mention it? Possibly.
It's noteworthy that on the fandom side being able to target your search specifically by tag or ship was wildly popular and came up again and again in the notes, whereas on the book side I saw less people saying things like "when I know I want a cozy mystery"— possibly the poll didn't hit cozy mystery or paranormal romance readers.
Getting personal recs: this was a Very big one on the book side and less on the fandom side. 18.2% of people on the book side would go to librarians or friends, whereas only 12.4% of people on the fandom side would look in bookmarks or get recs from people. Possibly that is because a book club is thing and in many circles reading books is a social activity, whereas while being in fandom is a social activity, the specific fics you are reading is not as much the same thing. I know a lot of people mentioned in the fandom side that matters of taste would come up, and that they'd be aware that what other people would rec wouldn't be of interest to them. One big thing on the fandom side though, people mentioned very frequently going through the bookmarks of authors they trusted, so if you are an author, people are begging you to leave your bookmarks public.
Sticking with authors you trust: this is something that I expected to be much bigger on the fandom side than it was, and part of that may come down to how I phrased the poll, as I had people saying that their subscriptions aren't "new fics", they already found them. However, the result that I got was 2% of people read from their subscriptions for fic, and 4% of people stick with trusted authors for published books. Clearly more people will get auto-buy authors in the published world, but it's still a comparatively small percentage.
And then closing it up: 0.9% of people read for specific themes or events on the fandom side, and 2.2% of people read things like best of genres or horror recs on goodreads, 0.2% of people read ARCs, and 0.2% of people read email blasts like book funnel and their "best regency paranormals" emails. Is this a perfect comparison? No. Mostly I was impressed that any people still selected that they read for specific events on the fandom side, though I think some of that was people meaning that they read In The Gore Tag, and not reading like, Goreswap 2024 Exchange.
Do I have any conclusions? Not really, other than going oh man, people do legitimately just find the stories they want to read by browsing. A good summary/cover copy+cover legitimately can help people find your story. And please please please make at least some of your bookmarks public people are crying.
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ok so i was actually kinda surprised to find that looking at the ao3 stats and adjusting for how long ofmd’s existed (a year and a half) vs how long the stucky fandom’s been around (coming up on a decade), not only is gentlebeard on par with stucky but it actually beats stucky for amount of fics written. but i’m making a prediction now just based on how i’ve observed fandoms to work: i do think the gentlebeard popularity will peter out faster than stucky did
i’m not saying bc i think gentlebeard is worse or the ofmd fandom is weak or anything, i’m saying this bc in fandom it seems like the white masc queerbait ships* have like, an absurd amount of longevity that goes way beyond the general fandom surrounding whatever media said white masc queerbait ship hails from. im thinking abt the protagonist/rival ship from the TERF wizard series that nobody decent talks about in public anymore. before we all cut jkr out of our lives, people were still churning out fics abt the main character and that racist blond kid pretty regularly. and another example, we have those scientists from pacific rim that are more popular than any of the main characters from that movie. it’s been years and the newt/hermann fandom is still going strong.
and i say “newt/hermann fandom” intentionally, bc that’s the thing that i think actually gives these ships their longevity: when there are fans who are primarily invested in a piece of media because of a noncanonical masc4masc queerbait ship, they’re not really fans of the media itself. i mean, some of them might be, but if they are then that’s in addition to being fans of this alternate queer interpretation of the media in question. they’re a fan of the fandom mass hallucination that the fans collectively and collaboratively invented of a romantic/sexual/homoerotic relationship between two guys who on-screen might hug like once or twice (or sometimes even never)
and i’m pretty sure the reason this sort of fandom phenomenon tends to have so much longevity is bc the fans have already created this whole extensive romantic storyline using what is often some pretty minimal canonical material to work with. so when the movie franchise or the tv show ends and the shippers no longer have any new canonical material to work with, they can keep going for years because really, they were already making shit up from the start.
so compared to that, gentlebeard is way different bc everything the fans might have invented on our own the show pretty much already did for us, and anything the show didn’t do yet is probably coming for us this season (or in s3, fingers crossed). i’ve mentioned before how a lot of fanfiction seems to fall on a spectrum between “fix” and “expand,” and by the end of ofmd i doubt there’s gonna be a whole lot that gentlebeard fans feel like they need to “fix.” versus stucky, where there’s so much that needs to be fixed that you might as well just throw the whole canon out.
i don't really mean any of this as a criticism or an attack on fans of queerbait ships like this, im just pointing out fandom trends that i've noticed. i myself have been deeply invested in stucky, newmann, and the gay wizard boys at different points in my life. like there is something very fun abt putting on slash goggles and making queer content out of nothing. personally though, now that we're in an age where we're getting canon queer content, im not so engaged in a lot of the ships i used to care so much about, but i don't think it's inherently wrong** for people to still enjoy some classic fandom queerbait ships. it's just a very different thing from enjoying canonical queer ships like gentlebeard
*im using “queerbait ships” loosely to include popular gay ships in media that was never in a million years going to make these characters gay.
**a clarifying point: i don't think it's inherently wrong, however there are a lot of problematic elements to this kind of fandom activity, namely the way a lot of these queerbait ships will dominate a fandom while other characters who are important in canon get completely sidelined (and yes, the sidelined characters are often women/poc). also, less importantly, when people's primary media consumption revolves around strip mining canon for shipping content, this absolutely destroys their media literacy and critical thinking. again, im not saying this to attack ppl who engage in fandom primarily through fic/art of noncanonical gay ships, i myself have done the same thing. but i think ppl who do should also make a conscious effort to also engage with fan content that centers women/poc, or at the very least need to be aware of the issues around this kind of fandom activity.
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Inciting Incident (Thank Goodness)
One of the most popular songs in Wicked is sung by Galinda, and centres around the idea that the society she lives in is corrupt and that she is the only one who knows how it really works. But is she right about that? Does she actually know as much as she thinks?
I think the answer is complicated, and that's the fun of it. I think that Glinda has intellectually grasped that the system is flawed, but I don't think she's emotionally wrapped her head around it. Case and point, the complete and utter cognitive dissonance that is Thank Goodness.
Let me explain.
SPOILERS AHEAD: (Wicked, The Trekkie's Tale)
Thank Goodness is actually two songs. Thank Goodness itself, and a reprise of No-one Mourns The Wicked. So, it's a rehashing of the first act, opening with Glinda conversing with the crowd, the difference is whether or not she is appearing to agree with it.
In the first Glinda tries to argue for Elphaba's morality, and it frames the entire story. But now, Glinda stands idly by and goes along with all that the chorus says while they get more and more worked up by lies that she knows to be untrue.
You would think that the two segments of the song being in agreement would mean that they go well together, but they really don't. Thank Goodness and No-one Mourns The Wicked do not fit with each other at all, in my opinion.
So, what does this mean?
I think that this song shows Glinda lying to herself, and finally starting to crack and realise what is happening.
Glinda spends this song deflecting from the problem, instead of confronting it head on. She relies on popularity and giving the people what they want to distract them.
My ex-girlfriend is being hunted by the masses for something she didn't do, but look over here, I'm getting married!
"Like some terrible green blizzard
Throughout the land she flies
Defaming our poor Wizard
With her calumnies and lies!"
The obvious thing here is the tense. This is happening now, as opposed to something the characters have lived through and made it out the other side of. It is more immediate.
But the other thing that I want to point out is the wall that the Ozians are putting up. The reason Elphaba can't get through to anyone is because they think she is lying, because who are you more likely to believe, someone who you trust implicitly, or someone who everyone around you says is dangerous?
The song is broken into four sections. The introduction, Glinda's two reflections, and Madame Morrible's story, which prompts her to change her mind a bit.
"When you bowed before his throne
He decreed you'd hence be known
As Glinda the Good, officially!"
The following is an excerpt from The Trekkie's Tale, a Star Trek fanfic first published in 1974.
"Gee, golly, gosh, gloriosky," thought Mary Sue as she stepped on the bridge of the Enterprise. "Here I am, the youngest lieutenant in the fleet - only fifteen and a half years old." Captain Kirk came up to her...
"Here, take over the ship for a minute while I go get some coffee for us."
This is the archetypal Mary Sue story, a format where the protagonist gets all that they want and more. The world revolves around Mary Sue, and as a result, it isn't particularly compelling. She wins everything, then she saves the day and dies, and everyone mourns her.
Nobody online seems to be able to agree on whether this story was a satire of general fanfiction trends or not, a fact that I find rather funny.
But compare that to the story Madame Morrible is telling about Glinda. Allegedly, the wizard gave her the title for... not much actually. In Morrible's version of events, good people get things just because, and nobody is asking any questions.
Essentially, Glinda is getting all that she wants on a silver platter, with no questions asked, no strings attached. Well, one string attached.
"Then with a jealous squeal
The Wicked Witch burst from concealment
Where she had been lurking, surrpetitially!"
I mentioned in my post on Defying Gravity (maybe go check that one out) that the central conflict that ended Elphaba and Glinda's relationship was that Elphaba was prepared to sacrifice everything, and Glinda wasn't. But Glinda did have to give up something to achieve her dream, and I don't think she quite understood that until now. To get the power she craved, Glinda had to lose Elphaba.
This song is essentially bludgeoning Glinda over the head with the fact that this tradeoff was not worth it.
That is the dissonance inherent to Glinda's entire character. She recognises the flaws in the world around her but has convinced herself that it will be worth it when she gets to power.
I don't think that Galinda would have realised this, and I am making a point of differentiating Glinda and Galinda. In my mind, Glinda is the version of this character who fell in love with and was changed by Elphaba. The two characters are incredibly similar, and one is an evolution of the other, but it is the influence of Elphaba that makes the difference.
Galinda was seeking power for the sake of it, a person who got her way because she couldn't understand anything else. But Elphaba changed that and gave her a purpose for seeking to climb the ladder. I think Glinda believed she could make a difference from within the structure of Oz, probably to help Elphaba.
Glinda has got everything she theoretically wanted, but at the behest of the reason she was doing it, and now that she is here, she can't even initiate the change she wanted to change. Glinda made the wrong choice, and is only now realising it.
"We couldn't be happier
Right, dear?
Couldn't be happier
Right here
Look what we've got
A fairy-tale plot
Our very own happy ending."
If you are wondering why I've been leaving Glinda's monologues until the end, it is because they make my case for me, and make analysis rather difficult as a result. I have been saying over and over that this musical is about dreams and reality colliding, and that is explicitly stated in these verses.
The fact that there are two of these mirrors the two sides of Glinda's character. The first is the side that craves the attention and has got everything that she wants, then the song reminds her of Elphaba, and she tries again with a more nuanced perspective.
"Though it is, I admit
The tiniest bit
Unlike I anticipated
But I couldn't be happier
Simply couldn't be happier
Well - not simply
'Cause getting your dreams
It's strange, but it seems
A little, well, complicated"
This is literally what I've been saying. She's got what she wanted, but not in the way she wants. It's complicated, and that facade of hers is finally cracking.
That duality is mirrored by the time signature, which is maddening. The song oscillates between a ton of different signatures, and if someone with more musical knowledge understands anything more about this than me, please give me a hand.
From my, admittedly limited, understanding, this feels like a lack of surety. Glinda doesn't know what she wants or thinks anymore, so she can't decide what she is singing.
It also gives an incredibly informal tone, as the lack of structure matches how a person speaks, almost. There have been two characters who have distinct speech patterns in this musical, Madam Morrible, and Glinda. The script of both of whom is written in recurring patterns and rhythms, making up words to match the metre of their sentence. It's pompous and pseudointellectual.
This is most obvious in how smooth the start of Defying Gravity is. There, Glinda doesn't have to change how she talks to match the song, because she is already speaking in the right rhythm.
Cynthia Erivo's rendition of this song in PBS's Wicked In Concert is phenomenal and I highly recommend you check it out, not least of all because removing the crowd gives the song a completely different vibe.
But here, halfway through a song, she gives up with artfulness and just speaks her mind. It's still a song, so you still get the rhythms and melodies, but that is breaking down, and is gone in the script from this point forwards. That's partially why I say Glinda and Galinda are different people, they sound different to each other.
There are a few almost exceptions to this rule, and I say almost exceptions because they come really close to breaking the mould, but don't.
In this exception, Glinda is trying to convince herself that she is happy. The song is limited to one thought, the idea that Glinda should be happy, and there can't be anything wrong. She has got everything she wanted, and that would make her happy, right? Happy is what happens when all of your dreams... That's the word that throws her off, dreams.
This is no longer Glinda's dream.
This song is a microcosm of Glinda's entire arc in the musical. She follows the story laid out for her, but is changed by the journey until it no longer fits. She has changed, and now she can't do anything about it.
Ironically, Glinda has gained all the authority she could dream of, but she is more powerless and has less agency than she started with, and all of that happened without her notice.
"There's a kind of a sort of, cost
There's a couple of things get, lost
There are bridges you cross
You didn't know you crossed
Until you've crossed."
Final Thoughts
Genuinely, my favourite trope in a story is a character undergoing character development and not realising. For example, the "nobody's that heartless" line in The Emperor's New Groove.
But Glinda is my favourite example of this because of the way in which she reaches her conclusions. She is smart, possibly the most intelligent character in the entire musical, but her biases cause her to make some serious leaps of logic and ignore several things that would change her worldview until she runs headfirst into them.
Also, the stagecraft of this song is simple in order to not distract from Glinda's thoughts, but that means a lot of these photos are remarkably similar. I apologise for that.
Next week, I will be looking at Wonderful, and how it forms a neat little mirror of Sentimental Man, so stick around if that interests you.
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#rants#literary analysis#literature analysis#character analysis#what's so special about...?#glinda#glinda upland#wicked the musical#wicked musical#wicked#glinda the good witch#glinda wicked
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Can you talk about MikoSeiga and why you like the ship ?
I think at least for me the appeal of Miko/Seiga lies in the plot of the game itself more than anything. As I already said at some point in the past it’s bizarre that a pairing which is in no small part based on character a declaring character b coming back to life is going to be a bigger deal than Jesus doing it is so niche. And that’s even without taking into account character a does it after waiting for nearly 1400 years for said resurrection (which she facilitated, and which involves character b implicitly transitioning on top of it all; also going by SoPM Seiga’s interest in people is often brief which makes waiting for Miko’s resurrection all the more unusual imo). If this happened in a mediocre live action tv show there’d be 10000 fics on ao3.
More under the cut.
I can't deny that a major obstacle is that despite the interesting portrayal of the connection between Seiga and Miko in the Youmu route in TD no subsequent Touhou media does much with it. Things are further complicated by SoPM throwing in the reveal that Seiga basically doesn’t have much camaraderie going on with the other members of the TD cast; the fact Miko basically became a one for two deal with Byakuren doesn’t help either (will admit I think that has outstayed its welcome, I’m glad they appear separately from each other in recent Detective Satori and Lotus Eaters).
With that being said, I nonetheless think Seiga is still the most interesting option when it comes to Miko’s shipping prospects - and vice versa. Granted, Seiga’s only other real options are… Yoshika, who’s dead and barely a character (and also waste of a name; her stocks would be higher in my eyes if she was anything like the legendary version of her namesake, who according to Oe no Masafusa called himself the “greatest madman under heaven”, enjoyed alcohol and company of women, decided to become an immortal after cucking his examiner a day before his civil service exam, and feuded with Sugawara no Michizane) and I guess Kasen, who she interacted with like once for two pages... which is not much compared to other WaHH-based Kasen pairings. Yoshika arguably does have a backstory to explore but the more takes on it I’ve seen, and the more I learned about her namesake, the less the fanworks focused on that interested me; meanwhile I still feel the same about the aforementioned plot elements from TD.
In addition to what is directly said or implied in the game, I think imagining how Seiga and Miko met and what their interactions in the past were like is another major draw of this pairing. It doesn’t seem like this is a popular position either though - Seiga doesn’t appear much in fanworks focused on Miko’s past even though you’d expect her to hang around for a while - you don’t learn Daoist secrets in a day, in legends immortality preparations might take decades. Granted, Miko’s pursuit of immortality honestly feels glossed over in most fanworks about her in general, even though it does reflect an actual legend. Tragic!
Speaking of legends, funnily enough if you dig deep enough you can even find direct precedent for adding a romantic component to the transfer of immortality knowledge itself, “Daoist adept falls in love with a female immortal” is basically a stock type of Six Dynasties/Tang romantic and/or erotic poetry. I like to think Seiga would read or even write these herself and that she sneaked some into whatever more standard Daoist literature she provided her with. As a joke, of course. Totally not a suggestion or anything.
I think even just the fact it can be a purely romantic relationship is interesting in itself in the context of Miko's backstory, tbh. Sure, if she is prince Shotoku, she has 4 wives - but most if not all of these marriages would be political (and let's not look deeper into the family tree, too). Romantic love and marriage were not necessarily the same, as the cases of many famous literary characters and historical figures attest. Also, do any of the wives have immortality elixirs to offer? Yeah, thought so.
A final angle I think offers room for interesting is considering what impact Seiga might have had on Miko’s decision to take the form she did. Fwiw, Ge Hong recorded a legend about an immortal named Liu Zheng who after being mentored by Change’s could change own gender (and also magically ripen fruit and vegetables and hide armies as animals to let them surprise enemies, among other things; I sadly think in context the gender fluidity is just meant to be an outlandish wacky power, based on that). The precedent for Seiga discussing magic hrt with Miko is there.
A potential issue with exploring the last option is the common weird fandom opinion that Seiga is uniquely immoral or whatever, which might bring unsavory implications, but it’s not like I’ve ever endorsed this view. Save for the grave robbing Seiga isn’t really very different from how actual immortals act in legends, and her actively facilitating Miko’s transition would go well with the symbolism of an immortal choosing to stay out of heaven (which typically served as a way to display opposition to prevailing attitudes of the time and a desire for freedom - heaven mirrored the earthly bureaucracy, and historical texts about seeking immortality often reflect disillusionment with the latter).
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Hello! :) Hope I don’t seem like I am trying to cause drama. 😅 I would like to ask how different and / or similar is the YOI fandom in Japan compared to the English fandom? Another thing I’m curious about is how do Japanese BL / GL fans view view Western shows with LGBT+ characters? For example does The Owl House have a lot of GL fans or do they not really care about the show?
Hello! Thank you for the message!
I don't think that it's trying to cause drama... In case of YoI and all the very unusual things that happened with this IP, if we try to understand why it happened, imo, it's impossible to see the whole picture without taking into consideration how Jp anime industry&fandom perceive LGBT+ related stuff.
The main difference is that, in case of anime like YoI, in Jp, majority of people think "fujoshi" when they see it, not "gay representation/ LGBT".
This is a quote from an article I happened to read recently (link) that answers a lot of your questions. A person, who works for a company that specializes in BL marketing, talks about Jp and Asian BLs.
"In Japanese BLs there is a lot of settings and cliches expected to appear in the story. There is so much that I'll only give you an example here, one that is difficult to explain in words - for example, the seme (the man that leads in the romantic relationship) is cool and the most popular person in the class, and on the other hand the uke (the man that is led) is more plain, and a bit of an natural airhead - this pattern is one of the classics. In BL, part of the culture is to enjoy those settings and story templates.
(...)
Of course, in the West, there are also BL stories called M/M, which portray romantic relationships between men and they have a lot of fans in Jp. But according to Tsutsui: "In the West, those stories are created more in the context of LGBT and are of a different kind that Japanese and Asian BLs."
(...)
Also, in BLs there is a lot of taboos, called "jirai, landmines". If you detonate those because you lack understanding [of the BL culture], users will immediately go away.
One example of a landmine is when seme and uke swap places, called "reverse"."
Of course, YoI isn't BL, but fans of YoI ships have exactly the same mindset: one uke, seme(s), enjoying our fantasies, not interested in LGBT. Obviously, it's not 100% of the fandom, but the vast majority is really like that.
VicYuu (Victor seme, Yuuri uke) is the most popular ship (seme the coolest character x uke the main character "I'd like to read shojo manga, but they have women there and I hate those" template is the most popular fujo template for every story - for example, in case of JJK, the most popular ship is... Gojo Satoru x Itadori Yuji (15) with almost 700 millions views in total on pixiv). So, that Yuuri doesn't look uke enough and Victor looks like a "fa*got with fake eyelashes" (that's a quote), when he should be a masculine seme, in a lot of arts is one reason why fujos started to hate members of YoI staff. Just like that person in the article said - for fujos, it's a landmine. I've talked about it a few times before - one of the most hated YoI staff member is Mitsurou, and there is plenty of reasons why she was targeted, but one is that the way she draws Yuuri and Victor is more similar to how "YuuVic" fanarts are drawn (and often you can basically tell the ship by how the person draws the characters)...
I don't know a lot about The Owl House, but of course, it has fans in Jp as well - only, I think that those fans (of Western LGBT shows in general) are more from the progressive side and there is little overlap with classic fujos (so a kind of BL/dojinshi fan). Another example, the Witch from Mercury was also popular with the progressive people of Jp twitter and they were also bashing the IP holders because of the marriage controversy... Of course, more progressive people read BLs, too, but many are against being labelled as "fujoshi"... That's generalization, but fujos are those people who labelled and still call heterosexual love "normal love" - I think that says a lot.
In my observation, YoI's Jp fandom is in majority fujo-fandom (2016 was a few years ago...). In 2023, however, more and more people are more open and know more about LGBT+ stuff, so there is also growing "progressive" population of fans on twitter etc. and those people gravitate towards different shows/have different interpretations compared to classic fujos.
So yeah, generally & simply speaking, in Jp, fujoshi, BL =/= LGBT. And btw, as I was labelled fujo-hater in the past, I don't think it's "bad" that fujos like to feminize their uke so much to self-insert and fantasize about the masculine seme(s) loving them, effectively making the ship into a heterosexual ship, because that's what they prefer (although when a grown-up woman is fantasizing about a tiny teenager having sex with a man twice his age and size, well... I'm not sure it's healthy) but I just don't think that it has much to do with LGBT rights and being allies or anything like that, and that it's something that should be acknowledged, too.
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you can say what you want now but you decided to start this campaign because she said stardew valley isn’t anti-capitalist. you targeted a trans woman for pedojacketing because she criticized your cozy farms game.
ok let me get this straight.i did not criticize her because she didn't like the ideology in stardew valley. i thought her take on incest shipping was dumb before that, it's why i made this post
i made this before i even saw the stardew valley take. and when i did post a take on it it it didn't use names and censored the names in the post i showed. as for it being a "targeted harassment campaign" my inital post only got like 70 notes before i deleted it and i didn't really expect she'd see it all. it wasn't until i woke up with death threats in my inbox that i realized she found out she saw it.
and i'm not saying i received death threats to try to garner sympathy, death threats are bad obviously, but even people who deserve to be harshly criticized receive death threats, doesn't mean they deserve it, but it doesn't suddenly make other criticism invalid. i'm mentioning said death threats because i genuinely would of not have made any more posts discussing this if i wasn't informed anyone important actually saw it.
i'm not sure how popular txttletale is, she regularly get's posts in the 20k but to be so do i sometimes? although most of my posts about this situation only get like 40 to 200 notes which them being split by positive and negative engagement, while her posts about the situation seem to get around 1k to 3k notes with most of them being positive? so it seems more people generally agree with her than me, which isn't to say that automatically "makes me in the right" or "the underdog" but you can see why i feel the need to defend myself and "double down" right?
like this isn't this first time i've been "harassed at a massive scale" but calling THIS that is admittedly an overstatement considering i've only recieved like 3 death threats and accusations of transmisogyny when i've gone through WAY worse, like when i got harrassed and sent death threats and drawn cp for saying "the arby waifu" is cringe (look that up), or sent deaths threats by radfems for linking an essay written by a trans woman that i thought was a great discussion on gender, or sent death threats for radfems for saying that i thought sex work was alright. oh also i got harrassed by pewdiepie fans but does anyone even remember him? so like yeah comparatively this is nothing
the only reason this DOES sting is because i've lost some mutuals over this, not even because "they chose her over me" or other dumb shit like that but because they were just tired of seeing the discourse which fair enough.
and to be honest i don't really think txttletale is like. a bad person or whatever. i'm sure she has been harrassed before, and i do genuinely respect some of her opinions like her more nuanced takes on ai or sex work or whatever. to be honest i wouldn't have made a big deal about the stardew valley take if it wasn't for that one incest post which is what i'm stuck on because they're are a ton of bloggers on here that i otherwise respect who occasional endorse or parrot beliefs i think suck because it doesn't have a big glowing "pedophilia is bad" button on it. i don't hate the take because SHE agreed with it, i think the take is bad no matter who it's coming from. i hate this idea that "age play" or "incest shipping" exist in a bubble because it doesn't, i do genuinely know people who were hurt by it, and it's just really sad seeing people i otherwise respect who seem to care about homophobia or transphobia or racism in media kind of just dismiss concerns of post's that could be potentially endorsing shitty beliefs. it's tiring.
so uh. yeah i guess that's it? any more questions?
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some of your posts actually got me thinking about these questions! i'm very curious how people feel about this sort of stuff, since my own fandom opinions are relatively mild and it got me wondering how other people's experiences compare...
so how about #'s 2 (for stony), #9 and #27 (other than frostshield??😉)
Thank you for the ask (and for creating the game)! Lol, I'm glad me and my inability to keep an opinion to myself was a part of the inspo <3 And sorry for the long wait!!!
2) What's your biggest stony pet peeve?
BIGGEST? Oh man, I'm not sure...Teenification of Tony Stark. He's written so...infantile and emotionally weak (I love vulnerability, but my word choice of him being written as weak is my gripe) in many Stony fics. It genuinely gets on my last nerve. He's damn near 40 in AV1. And he only gets older. And sure, maybe there's some arrested development there, but he isn't a damn child. He knows this. And actually conducts himself well enough in canon (in a way that matches his issues) but it's the fanon portrayal I don't like.
WAIT...I think I have something that's popular for the ship itself. Not very fan of the lengths that misunderstandings go for Steve and Tony...Like, I understand they aren't great at communication, but sometimes it gets to the point where I'm like, "It's passed dense and shot straight into pure asshole territory". I know a lot of people write like this because of CACW, but hot take, I don't think CW was so much of a communication or misunderstandings problem. I'll elaborate on this in a separate post, maybe. But the way misunderstandings are drawn out with seemingly no reason gets on my nerves, but it really depends. I can love misunderstandings, but it can't be something that's contrived for drama's sake.
Oh! Another one is in AUs where Steve was still Captain America, and Tony is still Iron Man, and Howard was still lovesick after Steve died and Tony knew all about Steve as a child....and then the AU has Steve undercover or something and Tony doesn't recognize Steve's face. LOL. This sounds specific, but this exact set up has happened enough to where it bothers me. Like, it's kind of funny though, how annoyed I get over it lmao.
9) What's something that bugs you in fanfiction that you encounter often but isn't necessarily a dealbreaker for you as a reader?
I have a lot of not-dealbreakers. Primarily because if I were to strictly stick to my vision of every possible portrayal, I'd have like 3 fics to read. I'm picky in theory, not so much in practice because I'm also extremely greedy. I'll give one each for Stucky and Stony.
Stucky: That Steve crashed the Valkyrie because he was so sad about Bucky dying. I talk a little about how much I generally dislike this trope here. I think it's a huge disservice to this character, I will never take it seriously, and I will never write it. But, it's not a dealbreaker as long as it's not repeatedly more than....let's say 3 times in a fic. Looking back, I already gave this answer, so an additional one - Bucky being community dick and then getting upset that Steve doesn't realize that Bucky wants him and the tone of the fic also supporting that Bucky has a right to be mad lol. It's a weirdly common narrative point in a lot of fics and I just don't care for it. It's actually one of the reasons I tend to stay away from pre-CATFA fics. This trope also happens in Stony too, now that I'm thinking about it. What's up with that?
Stony: I (unsurprisingly) have a few to choose from, but I'll say - when it's written like Steve was horrifically out of line or the aggressor in AV1. It's super common (from throwaway lines to paragraphs about how Steve was an asshole) and there is a fine line that this has to walk for me not to dip. Usually, it's a couple of line about it, which I can ignore.
27) What's something that you think [insert fandom/pairing] doesn't have nearly enough of that you're starving for?
I have an embarrassing amount of rare pairs that I ship and I've been itching for a chance to let them out (/ = romantic or sexual, & = platonic).
Steve & Wanda. Oh my goodness, I am absolutely starving for more fics that show their growing bond from AOU to CACW. I would eat it up. Even in AUs, honestly. I said in another ask that I dislike kidfics, but guess what I'm outlining right now involving kid!Wanda...I just think there is something to explore there with Steve's care towards Wanda in canon. I feel like he understands her, to an extent, and anything he doesn't understand, he tries to sympathize with. He reaches out to her and that's so, so important to me. Because I adore Wanda. So much.
Rumlow/Steve. I want to clarify, not so much as a romance pairing (though I have read a couple like that), but more so as a one-sided creepfest on Rumlow's end. Something about him feeling an erotized violence/hatred towards Steve is so delicious to me. In my mind, it's not even love/hate - it's obsession. Maybe even coupled with a childhood admiration morphing into a disturbed/twisted fixation on Steve. I think this Rumlow likes to see Steve hurt. I also think he hates to be kept away from him. He's not deluded enough to think that Steve loves him back, he in fact, probably loves how much Steve hates him after the Hydra reveal. Yum.
Carol & Steve. Nothing much to say here, but I'm sure it's not too surprising. Captain Marvel is my 2nd most-watched MCU movie after CATFA. And I think their stories and journeys and experiences are so, so amazingly similar that I cannot resist the temptation of wanting them to be in every scene together. The squeal I let out when she first met Steve probably broke a few records.
Can I get a little more obscure? I have Steve-ships with characters who aren't in the MCU. Here's a speedrun, no elaboration:
Din Djarin (The Mandalorian)/Steve Rogers
Kushina (Naruto) & Steve Rogers
Sesshomaru (Inuyasha) /Steve Rogers
Ginko (Mushishi) & Steve Rogers
Epsilon (Pluto) & Steve Rogers
Kurenai/Steve/Asuma (Naruto).
Izaya Orihara (Durarara) & Steve....or Izaya/Steve...Izaya would hate him so much haha.
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my online fandom experience in 2007-2008:
-First learned about Death Note by randomly seeing L in an AMV on Youtube in late 2007 and being intrigued by how he looked. Have never watched an anime in my life but wanting to know more about this emo lookin' dude. Found some website where I could stream it, immediately getting spoiled for his death by somebody in the comments on episode 1 (the 2000s was RAMPANT with gleeful spoiler trolls, these were the days of people driving by Harry Potter midnight grand opening lineups for the new books to scream SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE type shit)
-Binge-watched the whole show in a couple of days. Immediately haunted by the "what if"s of Lawlight and start reading fanfiction.net fics about it. Wrote a gushing review on a fanfic and start talking in emails with the writer who writes back to me. I think at the time the most popular Lawlight fic on the site was Poison Apple by RobinRocks (which I didn't read, because I didn't like reading AUs back then, nor did I like the idea of mixing Death Note with Disney princess imagery... my absolute fave fic was Coexistence is Boredom by sakurazukamori6, which was still being updated at the time)
-The Another Note novel and the How to Read 13 were already out, so most of the stuff the fans know now about the characters was already known and being used in the fan stuff by then. I bought the entire manga set at my local bookstore and read the first five volumes of it, but not the rest (because back then I was one of the people who lost a lot of interest in the plot once L was dead)
-Got invited to follow a popular fanfic writer's Death Note LiveJournal where people are doing most of the things you see them doing here, analysis and shipping and fic and memes. However a lot of the journals and communities were private and accessible by invite only, so I only ever saw stuff there as it was filtered through the journal of that one welcoming fandom friend I made
-Got into random private email conversations with the odd fan once I start posting my own fics on ff.net (I wrote one of the very first Beyond Birthday fics). At some point I remember a girl who called herself diane-chan from somewhere in South America emailing me a doujinshi she had scanlated (I think it was called Taikutsu by Balgus REC) and emailing some pics and penpal like letters back and forth. Connecting with other fans was a very slow and individual-like experience compared to something like connecting over social media is now. There wasn't much of anything like online group chats taking place in real-time, per se. I suppose MAYBE you could create one on MSN Messenger or something, but the experience of being in a fandom in general online was just much more fragmented and based on personal individual relationships, I think. Unless you were meeting up with people in person at conventions or something...
-Ships didn't have ship names like Lawlight back then! It was either called L/Light or Light/L, because whichever name came first in the pair indicated who you liked as the top (or the "seme;" people would often say "seme" or "uke "rather than top or bottom back then). They were treated almost like two totally different ships, and you definitely had to tag your fics accordingly or else people would get mad (I am very glad that ship names now exist)
-Omegaverse didn't exist back then either! That was a whole new world I had to get familiar with once I got back into this fandom around 2016 lol (and I still have never really fully got onboard tbh)
-Watched the occasional fan videos on YouTube, often things like Windows Movie Maker slideshows set to music with fanart of the characters or cosplays and the like
-It used to be REALLY hard for me to find clips of the show to use or edit or anything like that. The English dub still wasn't out yet anywhere I could watch it when i was into the show in 2008, but I remember hearing L and Light's English voice clips and thinking that L's was great and Light's was a bit cringe in comparison to the Japanese one. I wanted to watch it again but I didn't want to have to have an internet connection at all times to watch it, so I bought some shitty ripped illegal DVD of the Japanese dub on eBay from China, and it came with extremely lolworthy broken English subtitles (stuff like Light reading that passage out loud in class and the subtitles saying "the wisdom of the sheepus"... that one is burned into my brain)
-Trying to connect with other fans in person about it was not really possible for me where I lived? Being into anime was considered extremely cringe at my school at the time. And other people I knew who had watched or read Death Note either simply weren't that interested in it anymore to the same degree, or were usually straight dudebros who were only into it so far as to think about which character was smarter than which
ANYWAY I say all this just to reminisce, and I will always enjoy how easy it is to connect and share the content with the other fans like it is nowadays, because I remember the days when that was much more difficult hahaha
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I agree that Yeehan fans on TikTok are often toxic. But to be honest, I'm becoming pretty unhappy with the Yeehan fandom in general, because I see them engage in a lot of stereotyping of both gay and Asian men. :/ I don't think they all do that, and I don't think it's always very overt, but it feels normalized by the community. For example, people will say Hanzo is gay, and their 'reason' for it is something about him that isn't traditionally masculine.
I've been wanting to talk about this but I wanted to wait for an ask like this to do it.
I used to be a Yeehan shipper, like full blown that was my OTP, back when Overwatch was first popular. I still ship them today but my like for the ship has slowly deteriorated over time and it's not because of the ship itself, I think it has a lot of potential.
My problem with it is how oversaturated it's become, how flanderised it's become. Cassidy isn't just a flirtatious cowboy and Hanzo isn't just an emotionally constipated archer. At least Hanzo has fics that explore his dynamic with Genji, Cassidy just has fics where he's either pining over Hanzo or in a relationship with Hanzo. Where are the fics focusing on his relationship with Pharah? With Ana?
Not only that but at least with other popular ships, other ships get explored too. Like even though it's still a big margin, Pharmercy has over 2000 fics on ao3 while Gency has over 900. Now that may seem like a big margin but....
Yeehan has over 7000 fics meanwhile Spuriken has over 2000 and Cashe has under 200 (and don't get me started on Bapssidy). That's a big gap compared to the other ships I see. I wouldn't have a problem with this if it wasn't for the constantly repeating plot points, I know the dynamic is popular but at least spice it up a bit-
This is why I avoid posting about Yeehan on my page, there is already so much Yeehan content floating around. I want to give attention to other ships and relationships that go unexplored.
Now with the stereotyping that also puts me off the ship. I swear every time Hanzo calls Cassidy "cowman" I loose braincells, also people dumbing down Cassidy, I know he wouldn't be that smart academically but he isn't the dumb American stereotype. As Cassidy says himself "I'm a cowboy, not a clique".
I also absolutely agree with the stereotyping of sexualities thing. Personally I headcannon Hanzo as unlabeled, I don't think he'd know exactly what sexuality he is but he'd know at the very least he isn't straight. As for Cassidy I think he'd either be Bi or Demi, for me it seems that he'd seem to get to know someone before he started liking them romantically.
But as you see I have reasoning that go beyond the characters outward aesthetics. Also saying that Hanzo is gay just because of how he looks is ignoring the fact that Hanzo is an archer he needs lose fitting clothing. I once saw someone who does archery comment on Hanzo's design and they said that was one of the more ideal designs for an archer that they have seen. (I don't have an explination for him having his left tit out though, I think that might just be a Shimada thing-)
Anyway, I do still like this ship. I wouldn't have posted my headcannons or even discuss them on my page otherwise. It's a ship with a lot of story potential but a lot of that potential is ignored in favor of just repeating the same plot line over and over again with the same tropes and cliques. It get tiring to read and tiring to look at.
#overwatch#overwatch 2#overwatch lore#overwatch headcanons#analysis#cole cassidy#hanzo#ow hanzo#hanzo shimada#yeehan
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tagged by @aleng-neng. What are my fave top 9 shows in no particular order. (All of these I have at 10/10.)
I'll only pick recent shows, as they're the ones I have listed on MyDramaList and thus have a ranking for. XD
This means it's mostly bls and cdramas.
1. Moonlight Chicken.
One of my feelgood shows, even though it's still new. It feels comfortable and adult and grounded, with a bunch of amazing actors who are clearly comfortable with each other.
As an 'older queer' it resonates with me a lot and I didn't dislike a single thing about it.
2. The Blood of Youth.
A really fun show with gorgeous, engaging characters and the right mix of beautiful scenery, beautiful people, and creative storytelling that I like. Sprinkle in some excellent fight scenes and a bunch of my favourite actors and I'm sold!
3. Old Fashion Cupcake.
I talked about mature stories earlier and this is another one of those. I could see myself in the main lead just a bit too much for me not to love this.
Nozue recognizes that he's maybe stuck in a rut and complacent when he doesn't have to be. And, maybe, that handsome junior at the firm could help him get out of it (and make him recognize he's not straight).
4. KinnPorsche.
Look, I know it has its issues. I know. And I know people have an issue with some of the fandom. I get it and for the most part I agree.
However, this was the first BL in a long time that I had the urge to write fic for. I enjoyed the complexity of the universe and the characters that much. (Even if some of it didn't make sense. but that's half the fun!)
And that's why I like it. It got my brain involved. (And I just adore Tankhun, okay.)
5. Word of Honor.
Years ago I watched a few cdramas and then...somehow forgot about them? (I don't know how I did that.) However, back in 2019 I got back into them and eventually stumbled upon The Untamed. 'This is the pinnacle of cdrama for me and my tastes!' I thought.
But then Word of Honor showed up.
Look, everything about this show is stunning. The story, the characters, the setting, the clear and unadulterated love between the two main characters. Everything and everyone is beautiful and I've never gone through a cdrama as fast as I did this one.
It's beautiful in ever sense of the word. And so, so queer. Don't believe me? Just search 'word of honor cdrama' in the gif section on tumblr and marvel at the art.
6. A Tale of Thousand Stars.
This is not the first Thai BL I watched, but it almost feels like it? Because ATOTS is the first one I remember going crazy about (and it set me on the road to basically loving everything EarthMix are in together). I was super invested and wanted to draw art and everything.
It's just such a nice, soft, romantic story and the characters are so fun. This is probably the one I've rewatched the most.
7. Semantic Error.
As you can tell, I generally like stories that feel far away from home. I like magic and fantasy and settings that aren't typical. However, this is one of the few exceptions.
I think it's the characters and their journey and the perfect execution of tropes that would have felt stale in any other show.
It's a fun story with excellent characters and I get why it's so popular.
8. Mysterious Lotus Casebook.
Technically, I can't say this show is 10/10 yet because it still has a bunch of episodes to go. However, I can tell it's going to get close at least. (And will probably get to 10.)
I keep comparing it to a perfect blend of The Blood of Youth and A League of Nobleman, in that it's a fantasy world with a master swordsman who's dying (and begrudgingly adopts a cute puppy who loves him) and a bunch of cases that need solving (to unravel the overarching plot).
It's so much fun and the settings + characters are so beautiful.
(And I may or may not heavily ship the loyal, eager puppy with the stoic, lying dying man who tries to push him away (and literally abandon him) in an attempt to keep him safe (from harm and heartache).) The hurt/comfort and love against all odds is strong in this one!
He gave up his lifelong dream to protect a man who's been lying to him ever since they met and whom is at that point a wanted fugitive!! Because he trusts and loves him so.
Also, it has a bunch of very handsome and gorgeous actors/characters in it, whom I love (and who suffer beautifully).
9. ???
I only have 8 shows that I've given 10/10 to (or a prospective 10/10, lol), so I'll just leave you with some other recommended shows that came close!
Bad Buddy
Between Us
Choco Milk Shake
Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms
My Only 12%
Ancient Love Poetry
That's it! I invested way too much effort into this, but...it was fun?
Sorry for clogging up your timelines with this, though!
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I agree with that post about jin "apologists". hell, most jin stans i interacted with in the tekken fandom are not even trying to write essay in comments defending the tekken 6 bullshit they know it's bad, and they also want it straight up retconned like how tekken 7 retconned heihachi's actions. honestly namco just retcon it already and say jin was brainwashed by azazel. also jin kazama and the mishimas looks like a saint compared to other characters in fiction that ppl online simp for and defend like Tokkuriji Muchisute and Kanabun from Midori Shōjo Tsubaki (those two creepy bastards are sadly kinda popular on tumblr and I remember them being very popular on tiktok). Griffith from Berserk too, with the whole "Griffith did nothing wrong" meme.
I mean, there are extreme fans who will take every chance to dickride a character so hard that people will start to dislike or even hate them, and Jin is one of those cases (although can also be argued with Kazuya, Lee, the Mishimas and other Tekken characters in general). However, I personally have not seen many Jin Kazama fans who are like that. In fact, many of them are cool lads who want to hang out with other fans and who truly despise Jin's portrayal in Tekken 6, and I think I'm right when I say that almost everyone else in the fandom, whether they're a Jin fan or not, agrees that Jin's character assassination in part 6 of the franchise was absolutely disgusting and never should've happened.
We can only wish for a retcon to be done now, but who knows - perhaps the series will be rebooted in the future and Jin might get a proper treatment like he used to get in pre T6 era.
And about that last part - I wholeheartedly agree. Unfortunately, I have seen both Shōjo Tsubaki and Berserk, so naturally I witnessed the disgusting acts of all those characters you mentioned and it could be very well argued that they're all worse than the Mishima family in certain aspects. But again, people will be people and they will defend their favourite thing/character/ship/etc. to death, so nothing to add there. Cheers.
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why do I feel like the previous anon was a dig at me for asking questions about the kind of people James and George were😃I could be wrong though.
my only thing about why I’m hoping all of them in the show will show their flaws or how much of a bad person they can be is because I know it’ll be so much easier for people to understand or even sympathize with George simply because Nicholas is playing him. I’ve probably mentioned this before but I fully believe it has something to do with looks.
Nicholas is incredibly attractive so a lot of people feel more inclined or gravitate towards his character to feel sympathy, maybe defend, or ‘babygirl’ George even through problematic issues he’s had (that might be in the show but idk what they’ll include) but compared to Tony portraying James? I don’t think he’s going to get that same energy or thought process because his character might be criticized more simply because some people don’t find Tony/James attractive. I’ve seen this happen many times and it’s just odd people haven’t picked up on that.
I’m not saying people aren’t allowed to make up their own opinions about how they perceive the the characters or force my opinions onto others. I honestly can say that I feel sympathy for George and James (even Mary) but I think a lot of people aren’t going to realize how much looks would come into play when their formulating their opinions about the characters.
I’m sorry if I’m not making any sense, I have a hard time writing my thoughts! also I’m not trying to start anything so I hope this doesn’t come across as rude or anything😭
-✨
I don't think asking "good or bad" type questions is necessarily pointless… after all, people do have vices and virtues, and they can make good, bad, or downright evil decisions. I think we can even evaluate relative badness to some extent (like the 5th Earl of Bothwell, there's a phenomenally shitty person). Rather, it's a binary vision of good and bad guys that's toxic for the study of history. I think it's also limiting for media. If you (general you, not you, ✨) are going into Mary & George just looking to be entertained, there's no need to have several essays cited that George Villiers Is A Good Person™ Actually before you've even sat down. Not every story is meant to be didactical. What is about to unfold in front of you could be a villain's tale, some complex shade of tragedy, etc.
But to the main thrust of your ask, honestly… I too worry about this. The halo effect and lookism are well-documented phenomena (known and understood even in the period itself… I mean… why was short, stuttering, shy Baby Charles so invested in his iconography, but to depict himself as strong, masculine, handsome, and therefore virtuous and deserving to rule!!!) and also applies to media depictions of historical figures. It's totally a real thing that when a historical figure gets played by a popular actor, people will tend to be softer on that character, not even purely due to "beauty = goodness", but also because the pleasure of the visual spectacle inclines us to excuse what we're seeing. (Actually, even outside the appearance of the actors, people tend enormously to excuse the actions of a protagonist. It's just sort of an effect of the medium.)
That said, I believe the vast majority of people who say "I support George's rights and George's wrongs!" are just being silly and having fun and are perfectly capable of rationally judging what they're watching. You guys are great, please have a great time, tell your friends about the show so that more people learn about James VI and the Villiers family!!
But yeah, rarely there's… I don't go on Shitter but saw a screenshot of someone saying they hoped Somerset/Buckingham would be the main ship because Laurie Davidson is hotter and they don't want to watch an "ugly" (??) "old man fuck" and that just disheartened and disgusted me. You know, gayness doesn't exist to be hot and entertaining. Queer stories serve more purposes than fetish fuel for oglers. And this story is about real people who actually existed…
Also, I've got thoughts about people who think it's wrong and disgusting for James to have fallen in love with handsome George Villiers but also vociferously and openly thirst over Nicholas Galitzine and want to see him naked in queer roles. 😑
Anyway I'm happy to see these figures in almost any interpretation but I really hope George Villiers will be allowed to be magnificently terrible because… c'mon… it's George Villiers. The icon. The legend. The Duke of Buckingham himself. I feel like watering down his character would be cheating him of the glory he's due.
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