I listened to the final ep of @anotherkindofmindpod's Fine Tuning, yesterday. I'm so sad it's ended. I loved every.single.second. I don't think I've posted about it at all, but it's only because everyone was already saying it better, and my posts end up in drafts half finished and confused and full of runaway sentences of little import.

I'm really grateful for the whole thing. Grateful the way I was when I watched Understanding Lennon McCartney the first time, like being given a genuine gift of fandom making sense of itself. I don't know. It's just lovely to have. And it's done so well.

When, in the first ep, they casually mentioned that there were going to be ELEVEN episodes I knew it was going to be amazing. Proper genuine "we have a lot to say and we're going to say it all so you don't think we didn't think it through" you know? I love that they didn't start making eleven episodes and then decide that was too many and cut 40% of it out, it's more like they wanted to make twenty episodes and then cut out about 40% of that. Making eleven episodes and then being like 'we didn't even have time to talk about anything that we LIKED about this book' is a real move. A perfect shiny move.

The fact they made a spreadsheet sends me into fits. I love it.

Cards on the table I have not read Tune In properly, I have skimmed and picked at it, and obviously I've seen loads of it quoted on tumblr, but EVERY quote you read from it (and everything he says in interviews) makes it so fucking OBVIOUS that he doesn't understand basic things, I've never been able to face it full on. And the frustration that people (men) can't see how bad it is. So having it put out there like this, bit by bit, oh the joy of it.

And then it's also so much worse than I knew, because I'd never really worked out that he was just MAKING UP QUOTES and mushing them together to say new things, and oh my god the stuff that's NOT in there, is insane. The bit in episode 3 where AKOM quickly list off about five or six really interesting things about Paul's art in his schooldays and then you find out that Tune In didn't even MENTION that he liked to paintklsjdofihoijsodijfohwoisjdf OH MY GOD.

I'm blown away by the work of it, and the scale of it, and how well put together it was. I love the *feel* of it. I love its tone when they let the sarcasm ride high. The voices of "sincere surprise" are just my favourite thing. "Oh, so he mentions that Paul did x and y right?" "Actually, weirdly he doesn't!" "Oh, HOW STRANGE. But does he say he was interested in z???" "Oddly no." I love the sense of giddy anticipation in the intro ep, it must have been killing them to have made so much of it and not be able to talk about it.

I'm so fully aware that all of what they're saying will move into other podcasts, and become things that men sort of talk about as if obviously everyone kind of sees the bias in Tune In, even though they've always talked about it as if it's a great work of truth until now. It kills me softly. And they'll claim it's only POSSIBLE to see that now, ten years later when it's spelled out to them, as if it's aged badly or something, when actually female fandom has been fucked off with Tune In for fucking years. But that's FINE. WHATEVER.

Also glorious have been all the posts people posted around it, and how the conversation grew, and especially the fact that @mythserene had clearly been doing a lot of the same work. Her posts in tandem with the show are so wonderful, and make it even more special, the depth of fandom for the love of fandom <3333333

Something important I realised upon rewatching the ultimatum for Eclipse episode..

When Moon told Sun to let from his chest whatever he wants to say to Eclipse, Sun said that he'd like to see him dead right now..

Notice the way he emphasised the word "dead". He shouts it out unlike the rest of the sentence. Even if many probably thought that the emphasis means that Sun really wants Eclipse gone, I think that it might not be true..

Because idk if any of you realised that but Sun was unable to look at neither Moon nor Eclipse longer than for a few seconds most of the conversation.

While it's understandable that Sun was anxious and nervous from Moon's anger and threats, looking at this scene from broader perspective rises few questions.

Like for example we know that Sun isn't afraid of Eclipse himself anymore. He was able to stand up to him twice before his death back in summer last year. And he simply turned off (destroyed) the device Eclipse was speaking through in Beta 10. He also pointed out how Eclipse isn't a threat because even when he had unlimited power in his hands (star) he didn't do anything with it.

Sun showed us many times how he is mostly unphased by Eclipse's shennaginans at this point. Which is understandable.. because Eclipse didn't carry out most of his threats. It's all bark no bite.

So the question is.. why Sun seems so nervous all of a sudden? What he's scared of? The most obvious thing is Moon's anger. Sun is scared of Moon's anger and how quickly he jumps to violence.

Getting back to what Sun said. I think that the emphasis on word "death" seemed forced as if Sun didn't want for anyone to question if he's truthful or not. And adding on top of this that Sun was looking away most of the time but only at this moment he was looking at Eclipse indicates that Sun was indeed lying that he wants Eclipse to be dead. At least it looks like that to me..

And now we can ask another question. Why Sun was so nervous about them deciding to what to do with Eclipse? We know that Sun is tired of all of this repeating over and over again. Them having to deal with Eclipse time and time again. But wouldn't he be more annoyed than nervous/scared if he was just tired of all of this? That's why I think that Sun was nervous because he doesn't want for them to kill Eclipse but he's too scared to oppose Moon to his face..

I'm almost 100% sure that he'll go behind Moon's back and try to help/reach out to Eclipse somehow..

Although some of you may think that Sun is a good liar and that's true but from viewer perspective we could see that Sun can't lie to Moon. He can lie if he wants and he can lie at whim.. but whenever he was lying to Moon he was always nervous and he was giving more obvious signs that he isn't truthful e.g. when he killed BM and when he was hiding that he was training star's power..

The truth is that Moon either is unable to see Sun's obvious lying or he just simply ignores it.. I think that both things are true.. Because 1) Moon doesn't suspect Sun to lie, obviously and 2) Moon always ignored the issue till it blew right in his face - it was more with Old Moon.. maybe Moon still is like that or maybe due to his paranoia even if he sees those signs he doesn't address any of them immediately simply because he has prepared plans in case of x, y, z situation..

I mean that Moon might suspect that Sun is lying to him and that he might act behind his back so he'll just wait for the right time i.e. when Sun will break his trust to act according to his prepared in advance plan e.g. locking Sun on the island..

Or that's what I think may happen if it'll turn out that I'm right.

The way Moon reassures Sun every step of the way that he trust him, that he got his back, that he wants to improve himself screams to me of paranoia..

You may think that I'm weird because Moon is simply trying to be better.. while it's true.. don't you find it odd.. because for me it looks similar to the scenario in which someone repeats often that they love you as if they were scared that you don't reciprocate the same feelings..

I don't know how to explain it better.. cause well paranoia often makes you question things that you were 100% sure of..

I hope that it makes sense though.. but it's really hard to explain the way that someone who is paranoid may think..

Tl;dr Sun is lying about wanting Eclipse to be dead and he may act behind Moon's back and Moon is paranoid and probably is suspecting that Sun might do something on his own so he'll lock him on the island in case Sun will break his trust

I really liked your answer to that last anon! I just got into this fandom (and macden) and it's the first one I've been in many years. I was still a teen when I was kinda obsessed with shows like spn and bbc sherlock, and after those I just can't help but think that I'm once again just reading too much into the choices of the writers etc :/ like I want to believe my own eyes but I'm afraid to lol

What you have to try to remember (and constantly remind yourself) is that Sunny isn't like any other show, it's not Supernatural relying solely on Network demos to stay alive, and thus constantly feeding into bait to draw views, it's not a writers room completely removed from the actors.

The heart and soul of the show is completely, from the ground up, Rob, Charlie, and Glenn, in almost complete control. So when you see things the actors do in the show and you think "ugh I'm reading into this just like Destiel, those looks mean nothing, this is just the actors playing it up for..." For what? They've been renewed through 18, they don't even really rely on bringing in a large audience, it's FXX. They make this show for themselves, the audience is just a bonus.

Shows like Supernatural have teams that are often separate, so when something is written it might not be acted as the writers intended, which might not be edited as the actors and writers intended, which is all overseen by the Creator(s) and Producer(s), who have different visions and intentions for their show, which is heavily guided by what The Network allows/approved and believes will bring in views. So what you see in Credits is like any 'normal' show: Created by X, Produced by Y, Written by Z, Top billed cast: A, B, C. What happens with long-running shows like Supernatural, is that all the players develop different ideas and attachments over time, so you'll end up seeing the actors play their characters (and thus relationships) in a way that's a little different from the writers writing it and what the creator(s) want and what ends up in post is some conglomeration of all of these ideas, then pushed out a certain way by The Network to hold their demo and draw views. So you "read into" what you're seeing, it's very much there in many forms, but it's being chopped at the throat and comes out disjointed. Because XYZ ABC all have different ideas and attachments and visions from each other and they have enough sway based on long-standing to (kinda) have their voice heard. You're not reading into something that doesn't exist, you're reading into something that exists but is being butchered and warped by conflicting visions and power. (Just Misha Collins opening his mouth post-SPN Finale is perfect proof of this, lol)

Now look at Sunny, it's not that. Episodes like Bowling are really great examples: you look at the credits and it's: Produced by Rob, Charlie, Glenn; Developed by Rob and Glenn; Created by Rob; Written by Rob, Charlie, Glenn; Top billed actors: Rob, Charlie, and Glenn. So what you're immediately affirmed is that there's very little disjoint even possible. And, not even credited, we know Charlie and Rob were heavily involved in editing and post production (per TASP, Glenn was in Hawaii when they did post on Bowling). So what you're seeing is ALL deliberate, as intended. They are acting out the script exactly as it was written because, they wrote it. And then it's edited exactly how they want it to be because, it's their show and they sat there in the editing room. The final product isn't some conglomeration of different teams with different intentions, it's RCG from breaking the idea in a writers room to approving the final cut of the episode. There's no conflict, your eyes are telling you exactly what the intention of every moment is.

(And per the Meg Ganz Argument: she was quite literally a fan of the show, hardcore Macdennis shipper when they brought her on in 12. Post filming Season 14, she was still tweeting about shipping them. You don't work as an EP, in the writers room, and as a director for a show for three full seasons (ONE BEING TWELVE) and walk away from S14 still hardcore pushing your ship if there wasn't way more going on behind the scenes than we even know.)

Welcome to Sunnyblr! Believe your eyes, trust the structure, appreciate the hints, knowing it's all very deliberate, and be certain RCG(M) know what they're doing, and definitely enjoy driving us mad with it all. We're in it for the long haul, there's just always so much preamble :)

Oh my gosh, a writing ask game? I'd love to hear 🫢 and 🧐!

hello!! thank you

🧐 Do you spend much time researching for your stories?

for fic, my rule of thumb with research is: I do as little as is required to not take the reader out of it.

for show research, like where the fic is set in canon, my beloved and frequent beta @gracerene is very helpful at being like "actually crowley DID have them working as hired guns in season x" or "in season 5 I'd expect them to be thinking about x y z canon events and it's incongruous that they're not," because I don't always think about that stuff. my goal is to avoid things like that that cause confusion, but otherwise to not expect the reader to remember the minutae of a specific mid-season episode. so I avoid that granular level of detail altogether

for America research: I have a working knowledge of the climates of different states and I make weather-based decisions on where the boys are. I avoid mentioning actual towns and cities if I can help it, so I can avoid specificities. if you don't mention specifics, you can't be wrong!!!

🤭 Do you have a favorite tag to use when posting your works?

HAHA uh. i don't have a lot of custom or funny tags, but I've used "winchester-typical consent issues" to convey something I think is very important, which is, "this contains consent issues not worse than what the brothers do to each other in canon," and I think that's a very specific thing that would be different if the brothers didn't cross those boundaries in canon.

also: "canon-typical downplayed alcoholism," which I've done because I have a very lackadaisical attitude towards alcohol abuse (I drink every day, I'm drunk right now) which I don't want to make anyone uncomfortable. in canon, they're very flippant with Dean's drinking and he never faces any consequences for it, which pisses me off, but. I think it gives people a heads up, with fic. Sam and dean drink constantly in everything I've ever written. it's a social lubricant! it's messy! I think there's a place for it, but I want to give people some kind of minor heads up.

After almost 26 years, Ash's journey will finally come to an end, and the next Pokémon series is going to star two brand new protagonists. I decided to talk about my personal history with the Pokémon anime. Maybe not that interesting, but I just wanted to put it out there.

I did say anime, but here's a small little paragraph about the video games, because that's how I got introduced to the series. Because I was still a kid when the first Pokémon game came out in North America, I just had to get Pokémon Red, and I did. I never finished it, but I almost never finished any video game back then. I also had Pokémon Yellow, but I did not get anything else.

I never actually watched the anime on Kids' WB, and I have sadly never watched Kids' WB when it was still on television, but I did have the VHS tapes. Those VHSes were amazing, and I'm so glad that Pokémon was big enough to justify them. I got to see Ash's entire journey through the Indigo League, one VHS release at a time, all in order. This was a standard for anime, and I knew this as I was also familiar with the original VHS releases of Dragon Ball Z, but it felt very special as a kid whenever a new VHS came out. I also watched the first three movies when they came out in theaters, and I remember loving them though I don't remember much about them now.

Then I discovered Digimon. I don't want to talk about Digimon here, this is the other -mon's special day. Then I went into a period where I didn't want to have anything to do with any "mon", "oh", or "cher" shows (though I did play the Yu-Gi-Oh card game). No more of those baby shows, I'm into Love Hina now! I don't want to talk about that, either. I can not really say why I got back into Pokémon. Maybe it's the nostalgia, maybe I wanted to know if Ash ever actually won a league, or maybe it's because children's cartoons got so good in the early 2010's that I decided to check out how the children's cartoons I watched that are still somehow on were doing. All I know is that it was around Pokémon Black & White's anime adaptation, and I ended up buying Pokémon Y. From Yellow to Y, I sure missed out on a lot!

I heard that Ash was getting into the Kalos League and placing pretty well in it, and I was curious enough to want to see if he actually won it. I wanted to know as soon as possible, and thanks to how the internet is now, I could watch the episodes almost as soon as they air in Japan. Granted, I wouldn't be able to understand the episodes as they were still in Japanese and, unlike most anime, Pokémon doesn't get the simulcast treatment, but I could understand the universal language of monsters who can say their own mostly-different-in-Japan name beating each other up with four different moves. One person is going to hold a trophy at the end of this, and it's totally going to be Ash this time!

...uh, second time's worth the charm, I guess?

I remember Sun and Moon being not as well liked for being more jokey than X and Y and I distinctly remember people saying it was a desperate attempt to get kids back from the then-"Pokémon killer" Yokai Watch. I personally liked what I saw of the Sun and Moon anime, and it also had some good Team Rocket moments. Don't mess with Mama Bewear. The Alola League episodes were fun, too, and the results made every news site even when it just happened in Japan.

Journeys, being the anime that took place in every region, ended with the Masters Eight, with all the region champions fighting for the chance to become the Monarch. It all ended with one final championship match: Ash vs. returning Monarch and nigh invincible champion Leon. I could give Journeys some flack for its not-so-great Team Rocket moments and the missed potential of Ash returning to places he went to, but at least I could say it ended with a good final boss fight for Ash with a satisfying ending.

This miniseries attempts to give the answer to a big question: "is Ash a Pokémon master now? What even is a Pokémon master?" Honestly, my biggest question going into this is, "what's going to happen to Team Rocket?" From what I've seen, I am not against thinking this is essentially just another season of Journeys, though it has been getting better with the last few episodes. As I am writing this article, the final episode has not even aired yet, but all I know is that this is the end of a supposedly less-than-a-year long journey that lasted almost three decades. Try to make sense of that.

The new series will premiere on April 14, 2023, and there's already been speculation on how much of a connection the new series will have with the original series. There's been a lot of talk about that hair decoration and those blue eyes, and I am not going to get into that here. This is beyond the scope of this article, but I hope the series can stand on its own, with Liko and Roy establishing themselves as new heroes that kids can look up to in a world they must defend. Will they succeed? Only time will tell.

They have gotten nicer to each other, but it's most likely because they just got used to each other. That's about it. Not everything becomes romantic.

I deeply enjoy seeing them both on screen because I'm a fan of their humour and energy, which is why I like following this pairing, but it strikes me that shippers aren't considering that there are often very simple explanations for things.

(God, this is sounding rude isn't it? I'm not trying to be!)

-> The eating joke: could be any number of things, but sounded like a throwaway reference to an inside joke

-> I don't... see the heart eyes? Damien's always been soft and sweet with people (except when he lets himself be more snarky and sarcastic like we all suspect him to be off-camera). It's only noticeable now with Angela because their original dynamic was more mean-sibling-rivalry.

-> her knowing about that taxidermy Butterfree (I think it was a Butterfree) is really just... stuff you talk about with coworkers. 'oh what's going on?' 'I got this cool thing! *insert long monologue about it*)

-> we know he's been on her podcast, that he's shared his mushroom concoction with her for what was have ostensibly been some kind of throat issue she might have had (or just for a taste). they've been nice and friendly off-camera for a long time. plus, smosh doesn't seem the kind of place that's too big on actual rivalry.

Another big thing is... obviously it's not a good idea to assume another person's sexuality here, but given the thing with Rowan and Angela and Arasha in the revenge LDT episode, I highly doubt Ang is totally straight. So we might never know what she identifies as (and it's not our business to), but assuming they're both cisgendered heterosexual people is just as bad.

Attributing changes on each other is also hard to do, because Smosh not only records videos weeks in advance to their publish date, but also puts up videos in different orders (evidenced by everyone's hair being wildly different sometimes between uploads). So, for all we know, we're seeing X change in them now, which might have been shot before Y incident or Z dialogue.

All this to say that sometimes, the simplest answer really is the answer. i.e. they've just gotten to know each other more and have phased into a more chill interaction style. It just... is a bit uncomfortable to see so much romantic shipping about them when a lot of the thought process is assumptions.

I'm making assumptions too! I acknowledge that! But I just thought it might be a good idea to consider the other angle of things.

Anyway bye, everyone buy the AnthonyIsDead VOD to see Angela and Chanse's halftime show, and hope we get more Damien in videos.

Can't wait for Sword AF 2!

I think you might have misinterpreted my last couple posts.

I think every person that has brought up ANY of the instances has always said they see that it is probably just a coworker thing? and it's not that deep.

Yeah it did sound like a bit of a throwaway joke, but what a weird throwaway?? because really, they could be related?

I fully disagree with the "I don't… see the heart eyes?" you must be blind if you DONT see it. heart eyes don't just mean something 'romantic', it's literally in the NAME "heart-eyes" it just means you can see the love they have for the other person. Damien and Shayne give heart eyes sometimes! it's not a romantic thing all of the time. and yes, they absolutely do give each other heart-eyes.

The butterfree thing was more of a "oh okay! she remembered somehting about him and brought it up! how sweet" it was very obvious it was a 'thing you tell your co-workers' thing

"given the thing with Rowan and Angela and Arasha in the revenge LDT episode, I highly doubt Ang is totally straight." What in Gods glorious world are you talking about??? I literally re-watched that (Let's Do This) episode because I didn't understand what you meant, and what?? the only thing I can think of Angela talking about her orientation is in this video (click me!) where she says she's been on dates and only uses he/him pronouns. (she still is probably under the umbrella, she was recently in a queer woman play(?) but that could just mean Demi or Ace or another identity under queer)

ALSO nobody was assuming she's cis hetero?? and it doesn't matter?? I like them as just them? I don't need either of them to be anything else then themselves.

I think if seeing people talk about shipping on tumblr is making you so uncomfortable you should block the tag.

Majority of the askes I get the Anon always alludes to it "not being that deep". like in the last couple, they kept putting "(delusional)" in their ask, so I think they're pretty aware.

Some of your points came off a little weird Anon but I think I understand your intentions. I think we agree that Damien and Angela are just good co-worker friends, I just love their dynamic and watching them interact <3

YAY SWORD AF DAY!!! LETS GOOOO

RE: stories without conflict: my mind goes to the kind of children's science books that give you a narrative of, say, the history of life on earth, or what happens in some meadow over the years, or the development of the early universe - not anthropomorphizing things, just giving a sequence of events that flow from each other in narrative style. Those don't have conflict in the sense you defined - there are no characters capable of wanting things - but perhaps they don't count as "stories"?

hmm, that's an interesting example yeah! i definitely think those are narratives of some kind we should be able to acknowledge. i guess those truly are stories without dramatic conflict.

it's interesting because it is definitely possible to add conflict to a story about nature. nature documentaries of the David Attenborough kind do this all the time: take footage of different animals, edit together as if the same animal, and the narrator and music help sell it as a story. there are a few genres of such story: the mother attempting to provide for a child, the powerful predator seeking prey or conversely the desperate prey seeking escape, the encroachment of human activity on pristine nature, or 'gee there's a lot of those little guys' - most of them turn the animals into characters with certain desires so we can see how they struggle to achieve them in nature.

when you tell history, you can definitely present it without dramatic conflict. i was recently reminded of the film Das Boot, which led me to read about the submarine U-96, and the story as told in the encyclopedia goes broadly like...

The next day, U-96 encountered the un-escorted British passenger steamer Almeda Star of 14,936 GRT. A first torpedo was launched at 07:45, hitting the ship amidships, causing her to stop. A second torpedo hit the ship astern 20 minutes later, but still did not sink. Two more torpedoes were needed before Almeda Star sank in position 58°16′N 13°40′W, three minutes after the fourth and last torpedo was launched at 13:55.[12] All passengers and crew, in total 360, were lost.

i.e. a series of episodes that go "submarine finds ship, attacks it with x weapons, ship sinks in y minutes, z hundred people die". despite, or perhaps because it is stripped of most of the elements of a narrative such as characters, the story is still kind of sickening: for me at least I'm left wondering what would motivate these 40-50 men to kill literally thousands of largely defenceless people over the course of the war, and my brain becomes numb to numbers of deaths. (I guess that's what the film is supposed to answer!)

i guess with things like timelines of the Big Bang, the characters and narrative in a lot of tellings instead centres on the scientists and their quest for knowledge. but there's definitely a point here like, this is a well established mode of telling stories which usually avoids dramatic conflict. interesting, interesting! a timeline of the Big Bang is all about causality and basically absent dramatic conflict, unless you want to project on like, the electrons. this impersonal quality is I guess the major contrast to just about every religious creation story I know of...

anyway what the stories rest on is the claim to being true. without that they're just numbers and funny words. but that is enough, it seems!

reaching for the style of such 'historical' stories, such as disaster reports, can actually be a very effective device in a 'standard' story with characters and desires, such as the Gun Devil sequence in Chainsaw Man, the @mysteryfleshpit which is a whole story written in this mode, or to a certain extent the SCP wiki (although most entries do have dramatic tension: the Foundation is trying to describe and contain the object, here's how it goes about it). and there's also like, 'pure worldbuilding' types of book; when i was a teenage warhammer fan I was very into the kind of 'in-universe' books of the Black Library such as Xenology, even the ones without any sort of direct narrative at all like the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. the Primer has neither characters nor really a timeline for causality to play out, but I would still think of it as presenting a story, a darkly funny one about the miserable world experienced the poor fictional soldier issued this book.

you could totally fit such a story into a kishoutenketsu structure if you wanted. in fact it's kind of the natural structure of a disaster report: you have the evolving 'situation normal' before the disaster (ki and shou), the slowdown as we introduce the elements that caused it becomes the ten, and then the disaster itself and its aftermath is the ketsu? though you could argue that a disaster report still has a lot of dramatic conflict, insofar as the people want to stay alive and sail the boat/run the power station/whatever else and this is the tragedy of how they fail.

very interesting anon ty for pointing this angle out!

re: "I'll fix what the creators fucked up": I don't deny that there are assuredly examples of fixfics that are done well, respectful, and above all written by people who aren't raging narcissists, but as someone who's in the RWBY fandom I'm not taking the time or energy to bother looking for them because every single "RWBY Rewrite" is inferior to its source material and is made by a douchebag pissbaby.

Anyone in the fandom will tell you the show has flaws so you'd think it'd be pretty easy to make fixfic adjustments, but no, apparently the only thing any of those hacks can come up with is "Literally just plagiarizing the show except my OTP is canon and they can't go a single scene without being an inch away from fucking each other/the character I hate an irrational hatred for is demonized to Hell and back/the villain who very obviously did in fact do wrong did nothing wrong actually/the Optimistic Title Hero who changes the world for the better through her kindness and sheer willpower is a stereotypical edgelord nihilist/everyone is generally wildly Out Of Character to extents that make it clear I literally do not understand the show at all." And the worst part are the mouthbreathers who look at it and praise it to high heavens because they take these yahoos' word as gospel instead of, i dunno, actually bothering to check if what they say is """bad""" actually fucking happened in canon, because it's not like RWBYCrits have a long history of bullshitting or anything! /s

I feel like RWBY is such a weird case of 'a lot of people clearly don't like this media anymore but they just will not stop engaging with it due to X, Y, or Z'.

Because even as someone who never got into RWBY, only watched one episode, and only really knows about Penny because sad adorable puppet girls, fuck yes, the amount of wank that I see that can be boiled down to 'Um, the show isn't going along my individual headcanons, so that means its terrible' is immense.

And there seems to be an overwhelming sense of animosity towards RoosterTeeth themselves (have they messed up in several regards? From what I've read from mutuals' posts, yes), resulting in even the worst of the examples you mentioned being lauded as 'ugh, see what actually good writers can do, RoosterTeeth?'

as youre very both old school fandom and also someone who works to preserve old fandom content, what do you think is the best way to print off and preserve fanfics? I've been wanting to start to move my many many many archived pdfs into actual physical copies but ive been way too intimidated to really look deep into it so I was wondering if you had a preference

Okay, so.

My preference is "yes." Yes, I want you to archive them. Yes, I want you to save them. I've worked to preserve 1960s teen pulp mags, for fuck's sake, it can't get much worse than that, and I'm grateful to have them.

With that said, pick any or all of the following options to make your physical printouts last longer: --select acid-free paper --bind by sewing, not stapling --store in archival sleeves, like the ones you use for old comic books And now, pick any or all of the following options to make my life easier as a historian (or, you know, the lives of the historians who come after me): --include the title --include the author's name --include the fandom name --include which version of the canon, if relevant (e.g. the OG Transformers show vs the Michael Bay movies) --include the date, or at least year, of publication --include the summary --include the site of origin, including the URL All of these things are called provenance and help not only to identify a specific work, but to place it within its cultural context. As an amusing example: I recently got into James Bond, and decided to go through every fic in the main pairing tag, in chronological order. There came a point where suddenly, out of nowhere, there were like two solid pages of nothing but A/B/O, which I previously had not seen at all. I had a suspicion, so I looked it up, and sure enough--those two pages appeared within just a couple of weeks of the corresponding Supernatural episode. Having publication dates let me determine that. If I were a historian trying to piece together a long-ago puzzle instead of going "lol I live on the hellsite, I bet I know exactly where this came from," that would be a huge datapoint. I could probably find a similar sudden explosion in other fandoms, as well--and if we're going far enough in the future, if Supernatural were to just vanish off the face of the planet along with its entire fandom, historians could still trace that it existed and even determine some of its events based on when certain tropes begin to appear in other fandoms. And further, the fact that its tropes and major events appear in so many other fandoms would allow those historians to say "this must have been a very, very popular story." (This isn't just me making shit up to sound important, by the way. This is literally how we have records of a lot of things throughout antiquity and even into the Renaissance. The more copies there are of something, or the more references that are made to a thing in other things, the more likely it is for at least part of it to survive. This is literally how we know about Shakespeare's two lost plays--he was a popular enough playwright that quartos of his plays were advertised for sale.) Whew! Now let's get into stuff you could do that would make me, as a historian, scream with delight if I were to open your folder full of labeled, acid-free fanfiction fifty years from now: --write a little something about why you picked this particular fic to preserve in hard copy when doing so is bulky and time-consuming compared to the easy instant storage of the internet, yes, even if your reason is "I'm trying not to use my phone in bed because the screen keeps me awake but this story is soothing to reread" --write a little something about who you are, even if it's just "my name is X, my age is Y, I live in Z, I printed this out in 2022" And last but not least: Marginalia. Marginalia. Marginalia, my beloved. That's when you write your thoughts in the columns on the sides, underline stuff, circle it, and so on. Having marginalia means I actually get a window into your thoughts as you read--your perspective, stuff that stuck out to you, places the story made you feel some kind of serious emotion. And yes, this goes for everything. Villain A kills Hero B and you write "YOU MOTHERFUCKER" in the margin, that tells Future Historian Me that you really loved Hero B, you were invested in seeing her succeed, and that this scene really resonated with you. One of my most treasured possessions in the fandom museum is a copy of the novelization of the Help! movie the Beatles did. This particular copy is very worn--unsurprising, it was a cheap paperback even when it was printed--but also, its original owner apparently took it to the movie theatre and

wrote notes in the margins indicating all the things happening onscreen that weren't in the book. What does this tell me? WELL. Let's go ahead and take a look: 1) the written ink doesn't look any newer than the book, so I'm guessing a little when I say this was the original owner and in the theatre, but I have an actual datapoint I'm basing that on 2) based on handwriting and the main demographic of the Beatles audience at the time, this was a young woman, probably a teenager. 3) she went to see the movie more than once (some notes are in pencil, some in ink, but the handwriting is all the same) 4) she was dedicated to making sure every moment of the movie was preserved. This was an era before home video players, so once the movie left theatres, she had no guarantee of seeing it again. 5) while the book is worn, it's not beaten all to shit. It was read a lot, but there's no evidence it was mistreated, so it was probably a prized or at least respected possession.

What can I extrapolate from this, with the understanding that I mean "what theories can I reasonably form but not prove"? Well. She was probably a pretty big fan, since she went to see the movie at least twice and also bought the book. Maybe she wanted to keep the story after the movie was gone. Maybe she was looking for answers for some teen mag contest like "find these things in the Help! movie and win a chance to meet the Beatles." Maybe she had a friend who wasn't allowed to go to the movie. You know what the most tantalizing possibility is to me, although I'll never be able to prove it and actual ethics as a historian mean I can only present it as one among many possibilities? Maybe she did it as a source reference for writing fanfiction. We don't know. We can't know, because I have no idea who the original owner was or if she's even still alive and no way to trace her. But that? In terms of fandom history, that is a fucking gold mine. Pure 24-karat all through. From a strictly historical view, that's worth more than the animation cel I've got in there, and I paid over a hundred bucks for that thing.

So yeah! That was a lot of words to say "just do it." But there's your answer!

That Winchesters script was pretty bad, but I'm gonna assume it was just the writer's draft before studio notes and network notes. But still, I doubt any changes for the final shooting script will be negligible. One thing is laughable, that they think they can get a Zeppelin song for it. SPN couldn't get Zep for 15 seasons, the one time they splurged on Metallica it ate up half music budget for S13. One Zeppelin song would take up an entire episode budget.

Well, that's the thing, Jensen himself has talked about knowing about music costs and not being able to get Zeppelin for SPN specifically. It seems odd a veteran writer like Thompson wouldn't be highly aware of and therefore avoid the issue, as well. Even if they were writing up some kind of wishful thinking version of what they were picturing but would need to get a cheaper similar vibe piece of music for? I would think it would be written into the script that way, like "song [similar to X,Y, or Z] plays". Conversely, it is the kind of production-side detail I'd expect someone like Goob & cronies to not have paid enough attention to and not think about when trying to pass off a fake as real. But again, who knows? I'm not inclined to believe I have any idea WTF they're thinking in terms of any aspect of this project at this point.

As to the possible script in more general terms, I admit I didn't read it, and not really because of the questionable veracity - I just don't care that much. If this thing actually gets picked up for series, I'll give the promos a gander and see if I have any interest in watching it when there's a finished product to evaluate. Until then, eh whatever. Mind you, I'm not shaming anybody who wants to rubberneck all the minutiae - although the catastrophizing from some quarters about how this is totes gonna ruin the legacy of SPN OMG has me rolling my eyes pretty hard. At this point, every detail (verified and otherwise), seems to point toward another attempt at a more CW-ish SPN approach like Wayward and Dabbernatural. Younger informed cool characters who are the bestest evar, arbitrary contradictory plots of the moment, questionable stereotyped diversity - just now it has the Winchester name tacked on, yay! So as far as I'm concerned, it's just a dumb idea not worth my time - like hundreds of other tv shows in development or production right now. Jensen's involvement doesn't change that for me.

Ain't that cute, CW and CW stans.

So, @dotthings had dropped a link to a tweet for CW news about their ratings and, specifically speaking, that they no longer have a single show over 1 Million Viewers (way to go, boycott crew, keep making noise--but smartly, where you don't boost their socials or product mentions.)

But something else caught my eye.

Now, for those of you who don't know, ad space is sold according to demographics. Which is why, say, daytime TV or certain channels have more AARP and medicare ads, because most people watching TV then are geezers while Gens X-Z toil away at work and shit.

Primetime TV is, however, sold mostly to the 18-49 demographic which is also what the modern "live ratings" decimal points you see are for. Most specifically, CW's premium demographic was their 18-34 (Gen Y and Z), but X still kinda counts depending on the ad sales.

So when you see a show has, say, a 1.0 rating, that's in 18-49. And that's what primetime ads that make networks money are sold off of.

Curiously, this tweet tries very hard to make it look like Walker is the most successful on the network, when its size is still greatly inflated by a number of viewers well outside of its target demographic.

While CW as a whole is nosediving, their top by demo (read as: making them money, because it's not watched by seniors in retirement)

1. Kung Fu (0.2, 956K)

2. The Flash (0.2 736K)

3. Walker (0.1, 979K)

4. Supergirl (0.1, 617K)

5. Legacies (0.1, 500K)

The exact order within demo is estimated-- listed by demo first, audience second. This is also not inherently true, because for example some more of an audience size may be outside of the demo the same way Walker's is. And it's almost 2 AM and I ain't got time for hunting down the raw viewership in every demographic on the fucking CW.

Either way by looking at Flash and Supergirl's ratings and audience size, we can easily estimate there being about 250,000 old farts outside of the viewing demographic/ad targeting inflating the numbers cuz yeehaw Walker. Given, that's also a lot smaller than the near-million of those it started with. Just like it's other ratings have been thirded.

These are the same listings that Supernatural used to clock ~3rd in, with a 0.3 demo this same season (fall 2020-spring 2021 is considered one season), 0.4 last year, 0.5 before and so on.

Ratings decline year to year is standard. This kind, within the same TV season, is absolutely fucking not.

It seems that all the ads on Fox News over and over, and all the gas station renovations, and everything else has not made Walker worth a goddamn. Not all the star power of Jared Padalecki. Not it hitchhiking off of SPN and using it as a promo push. Not all of Jared's livetweeting to boost value (which hasn't trended since March anyway). Nothing.

SPN, a 15 year old show, had a 1.118 or 1.062M audience, depending which half of the season you're looking at (or average them out.) It received next to no real advertisement beyond a few EW/TVG magazines and its ads were all quarantined to the CW. It was this same TV year. And a full run. It received no huge push at the start of the season unless you count some tumblr ads, for that first 2.4M viewers that went down the drain in like 4 eps. Walker's still has like 8 episodes to continue declining.

Holy fuck.

Anyway go Kung Fu. I can't watch it, Bobo King, but I'm with you in spirit. You dropped this

That tweet's doing a whole lot of lifting though. And some reach. Full workout.

why do you like angela kang from caryl shipper perspective? what did make you to have faith in her regarding caryl ship and it's spinoff?

Haha I see you've sent this to quite a few people, I feel blessed to be included so ty

I mean I watched twd as it aired thru season 4 and just never picked it back up. Ms. Rona then forced me to desperately grab onto any form of media and hyperfixation that I could to retain my sanity in 2020. And I sort of just fell into the caryl ship when I decided to rewatch twd in conjunction w reading fanfic and it was after the spinoff was announced so I felt pretty confident lol

I loved s10 bc it was just caryl&co, and that one fuckin scene that Daryl is wiping away Carol's tears and looking like he's a breath away from kissing her? Oy vey

Ngl I was absolutely fuckin devastated when Leah spoilers dropped. Like completely crushed. And a large part of that wasn't even possibly-caryl-ship-sinking related, it was that I felt that Daryl (a character i relate to on a deeply profound level, in a different way than I do carol) was all of a sudden totally alien to me. Wildly ooc.

However. Upon actually watching find me (just like @waynedunlaptheorgandonor and @my-mt-heart recommended lol) I was able to find peace with it. A fear of mine was that the spinoff would be about caryl looking for Leah. But episode was basically screaming "Look! Daryls ex gf is basically name brand Carol!" And as much as I hate using women as nothing more than plot devices for men's development, I was hypocritically relieved that Leah was basically "Look at how far Daryl fell during those 6 years! Look at how much he wanted Carol and had to settle! Look at how desperate Daryl was not to be alone!"

And then once the filming spoilers dropped that Leah would be in s11 I was like "Alright well the spinoff won't be about her it'll be about caryl"

And then I found out that the spinoff originally was about caryl dropping into team family and checking up on them every so often, and now it's they ride off into the sunset, I'm like oh OK. That's that on that

It's funny bc I've gotten much better at like critically analyzing TV and movies specifically due to this show - and I know that bc now when I watch tv/movies I'm able to predict "Oh X plot will happen bc Y character said Z line" or whatever and like 90% of the time I'm right lol

All of this to say... I personally feel like the whole time-jump-retcon-gf deal is lazy and alienating but I get why it happened and I'm still p confident that caryl will be canon. My only concern now is just the execution bc of the unbelievably bloated ensemble cast and concurrent storylines.

Sorry for rambling but tbh... you asked a woman who almost exclusively writes fic that is devoid of fluff/established relationships and usually doesnt make caryl canon until the absolute last second so you get what you asked for!!

Omg the fanfic ask game is too good I want to ask everything. That’s a lot but can I have I, K, M, S, T, V (I think I know which one hehe) and X, Y, Z? That’s so much sorry djndjdnd

kajskajsa is a lot to unpack! let see: I: Do you have a guilty pleasure in fic (reading or writing)? I do have a guilty pleasure fic i like to read, i'm not linking it because i have a lot of minors following this blog and said fic is...pretty fucking unsafe for ALL the reasons. All. A L L.

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

I'm writting it rn, suicide warning. Is about shigs finding his darling hanged. :D

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

That dabi one i told you about, and i'm working on one where reader is waiting at the bus stop and suddenly...Shigaraki appears, in this world, in this reality, and reader recognizes him and he's super confused so...adventure! And the third part of oath and spellbound, where reader finds her king...after he won the war. Also...the rozane one we talked about! i wan't to read your take SO MUCH but at the same time i want to write it for you to read alskdlaksdl

S: Any fandom tropes you can’t resist?

Mutual pining coated in heavy angst any day. I just love to watch my favs suffering for love. Slow burn is a must, and nothing like soulmate AU to wrap everything. Oh! i really really really like soft yandere aus too!

T: Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

I really really can't stand incest trope. Not even for the sake of horror.

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

YES, YOU KNOW. Cointoss destroyed me so bad. Is so beautifully written and so believable, but it riped my heart out. I would do anything for them to end up together.

X: A character you enjoy making suffer.

Tomura, hands down. Alastor too. Bakugo because i hate him. And surprisingly...Izuku.

Y: A character you want to protect.

Akutagawa. I mean, he's my baby. ALUCARD. Tomura because i love him like...my brain doesn't process the fact that he doesn't exist??? And Izuku because he's a baby.

Z: Major character death–do you ever write/read it? Is there a character whose death you can’t tolerate?

I wish there where more fanfics where reader dies and the pining character suffers because of it???? (Sunny, you cannot really grasp HOW MUCH I LOVE ANGST). STUPIDLY ENOUGH I CANNOT TOLERATE DAZAI DYING????? (Dazai is a character of bsd that tries to suicide EVERY EPISODE)

This was fun!!!!! I'll be asking you too, but some may differ!

hey cutie😊 congrats on your 600 followers, I'm really happy for you! Since haikyuu seems to be the most needing fandom at the moment, may I ask for either Iwaizumi's or Akaashi's (whichever you feel more inspired/comfortable to write!) fluff alphabet? post time skip of course! it would be the best birthday present 💕

happy birthday angel 😍❤️

Fluff Alphabet ft Akaashi 

A - ATTRACTIVE (WHAT THEY FIND ATTRACTIVE)

Keiji is attracted to beautiful eyes. Sometimes, when he sees someone with a nice pair or eyes, he would secretly wish that he knew how to draw just to have that image of those eyes with him forever. of course, that’s not to say that Keiji didn’t try to draw them. He did....but he failed epically.

B - BABY (DO THEY WANT A FAMILY?)

Yes. It may not seem like it but Keiji is a family man and he would love to have a big family. Just...not right now. He’s focusing in school and he wants a good job to be financially stable. Maybe when he achieves both of those things, he will consider starting a family. But for now, it’s just a dream.

C - CUDDLE (HOW THEY CUDDLE)

Keiji isn’t into cuddles really. But, when he had a long day of practice and having to deal with Bokuto’s antics, he seeks out your embrace with eager arms. It’s nothing too intimate; just his head on your lap while you’re lying on your back, gliding your fingers soothingly down his lap. He has his best naps when he’s in that position, lying down and mind free from future games.

D - DATES (WHAT DATES WITH THEM ARE LIKE)

Dates with Keiji are simple yet memorable. Every Saturday is your ice cream parlor date. Hours would go by without either of you noticing and when the sun sets and the moon shyly peeks its way through, Keiji would continue your date by taking you out to dinner. Nothing too fancy. Just a place where you can eat good food and enjoy your time for as long as you can.

E - EVERYTHING (YOU ARE MY…)

“You are my motivation in life.”

F - FEELINGS (WHEN THEY REALIZE THAT THEY LOVE YOU)

It happened during your senior year of high school when you’ve been absent from school due to a strong case of the flu. No one was allowed to visit you and Keiji didn’t notice his frustrations of not being able to see you until halfway through the week when nearly ripped his hair out at how chaotic his team was being without you, their manager, to put them in place. He was annoyed and easily irritated and when Tatsuki pointed out that he was only feeling that way because you weren’t in school with them after Bokuto complained about Keiji’s attitude, did he realize that he missed you and wished that you were there to help out. Keiji would deny this but Tatsuki and Bokuto would both confirm to you that he was blushing as red as a tomato when Tatsuki brought up your absence and Keiji’s frustrations.

G - GENTLE (ARE THEY GENTLE?)

Keiji is rough on the court but he can be so so gentle when he’s with you. 

H - HAND/HOLD (HOW DO THEY HOLD YOU? DO THEY HOLD HANDS?)

He isn’t into pda much but he doesn’t mind holding hands. Actually, he’s the one who is constantly seeking for your hand to hold; interlocking his fingers with yours and giving it a quick squeeze of gratitude. 

I - IMPRESSION (FIRST IMPRESSION)

Keiji didn’t think much of you when he first met you during his third year of high school. He only registered you as their new manager. But, when he noticed your quick wit and how smoothly handled Bokuto’s many depressive episodes, he began to take notice of you. He knew his team tried to help him as much as they could but you were the only one who actually managed to get through Bokuto.

Honestly, like many, you instantly found Keiji as hot. His mysterious aura was attractive too, making you want to get closer to him. It wasn’t until Fukurōdani had won against Shinzen and seeing the boys running towards Keiji, who was smiling so bright that it nearly blinded you, did you start developing romantic attractions towards him.

J - JOKER (DO THEY PULL PRANKS?)

Nope. He’s too mature for that. Though, he’ll throw in a quick pun that really isn’t that funny but you laugh anyways cause you love him.

K - KISSES (HOW THEY KISS)

Long, soft, slow and passionate kisses. The one that makes you drunk from the taste of his lips, addicted to his soft grunts and craving his hands to touch you all over.

L - LITTLE THINGS (WHAT LITTLE THINGS THEY LOVE)

Keiji loves it when you listen to him. Could be about his rants about practice, his frustrations losing a game, his professors being annoying, anything. Just you sitting there and helping him as much as you can brings a great deal of comfort to Keiji.

You love that Keiji initiates things; hugs, kisses, etc. It always surprises you because he just isn’t into pda but when the two of you are alone, Keiji is just so touchy and you can’t help but think of how damn cute he is.

M - MEMORY (FAVOURITE MEMORY TOGETHER)

His favorite memory was in high school senior year when you gathered up all of the members of the team and surprised him with a birthday party. He just felt so emotional seeing all of his friends and his girlfriend enjoying a good day right before graduation and everyone else is off to different universities. His lock screen is a picture of him with his face covered in whip cream while everyone was laughing in background, discolored happy birthday banner hung on the wall.

N - NICKEL (DO THEY SPOIL?)

Only on occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, etc.

O - ORANGE (WHAT COLOR REMINDS THEM OF YOU)

Keiji reminds you of ocean blue.

You remind Keiji of bright yellow, as bright as the sun.

P - PETNAMES (WHAT PETNAMES THEY USE)

Keiji doesn’t use petnames but he loves it when you call him baby, angel, cutie pie and honey.

Q - QUESTIONS ( WHAT ARE THE QUESTIONS THEY’RE ALWAYS ASKING?)

Keiji always asks himself “Does she know how much I love her?”

R - REMEMBER (THEIR FAVOURITE MEMORY OF EACH OTHER)

Keiji’s favorite memory was your first date. The both of you were just so shy and nervous that Keiji had accidentally spilled the drink he ordered all over your new dress and when he tried to help you dry off, you painfully bumped into each other’s heads. The date ended with laughs and giggles and you’re still dating in college so all’s good.

Your favorite memory was when 3rd year Fukurōdani students had won their last match before graduating from high school. Seeing Keiji with unshed tears and a look of disbelief on his face was something you were sure you won’t ever forget.

S - SAD ( HOW THEY CHEER THEMSELVES/OTHERS UP)

Keiji takes you to cat cafes when he notices that you’re sad.

Harry Potter movie marathon is always the best way to cheer Keiji up and that’s why he loves you. Well, one of the many reasons.

T - TALKING ( WHAT THEY LOVE TO TALK ABOUT)

College Keiji and high school Keiji are two completely different people. The latter being quiet and only speaking when deemed appropriate while the former talks for hours about the things he’s most passionate about. It’s a new side of Keiji and you love it as much as silent Keiji.

U - UNIVERSE ( A METAPHOR)

“Everything amazing about the universe is inside of you, and the two are inseparable.” — Carl Sagan

V - VERY ( THOUGHTS ABOUT EACH OTHER)

“Thank you for being with me.”

W - WHY ( REASONS WHY THEY LOVE YOU)

Keiji loves you because you love him. Plain and simple. 

X - XYLOPHONE (WHAT’S THEIR SONG?)

Say So - Doja Cat

Y - YOU (WHAT YOU ARE TO THEM)

You’re his partner and best friend.

Z - ZEBRA ( WHAT PET THEY WANT TO HAVE)

three cats and a dog. 

Hello! I'm curious to know your opinion. I've been working on this long fic for months. Ever since I started writing there has been a bunch of anon's under different names telling me how to write each chapter. Saying things like "make (A) do this", "(b) needs to do that." "I expect this to happen to (C)" Etc. On one hand I'm grateful for the feedback, after all what writer isn't, but of 10 comments, 9 are like this. I'm starting to feel my writing isn't good enough for my readers.

Hello anon! Elizabeth here. Hooooo boy let me tell you, as I was reading this I went on a **journey**. When I reached “9 out of 10,” I went, “WHAT.” I have a few thoughts, and without knowing the full context (what your story is like, what fandom it’s in, etc etc) some of this might apply and some might not. But I think it’s all generally useful for fic writers and readers to think about.

This actually got pretty long, so I’ll put my thoughts under a cut.

 1) The story vs reader expectations

This is something I think about—and talk about—a lot. Here’s a bit of what I said while discussing what “OOC” actually means a few episodes back: 

Humans act irrationally, and I think that you can write a character acting irrationally well. But to me, that’s not a character acting out of character. That’s a character acting against character, irrationally... I think when we say “out of character” about characters we’re actually saying something different, which is: “Have you done the work to show why the character would respond to this situation X way or Y way?” And if he responds Z way, and you haven’t done any of the work to show why he might do that or any of the consequences if it is truly out of character the way we would say a real human acts out of character—then very often it is bad writing. It is people taking plot ideas and then imposing them over their characters without earning it.

These conversations are a huge part of our discussions about media in recent years—whether writing choices are good, whether they are earned, whether they are “in character,” whether they conform to what we expected. But the last one is where things get really murky—because there are *a lot* of readers and viewers these days who are kind of doing what I’m accusing bad writers of doing in that quote—imposing their expectations over the story without really grasping what’s been set up by the writer(s).

There are a lot of parts to this. We often pinpoint Lost as the place where the modern audience’s inclination to “solve” a show was born, and this has spread throughout viewing/reading cultures over the past two decades. The rise of “spoiler culture” is a huge factor here, too—as if knowing plot points is the only thing of value when viewing or reading a piece of entertainment. My least favorite thing in all of this is TV Tropes and the kind of rewiring of peoples’ brains to *only* look for those concepts (which are often weirdly narrow and reductive, unlike, say, the more categorical tropes of fic or the romance genre). 

Here’s an example: in 2017, Gav and I made our love of Black Sails the centerpiece of our fandom newsletter, The Rec Center, and in the process got a lot of people to watch it. And because we were the ones that inspired them, I had a fair number of people in my mentions/messaging me to give their real-time reactions as they went through the episodes.

While not every single writing choice on Black Sails is flawless, much of it is meticulously done, and so many of the plot points are carefully well-earned. But the things people were guessing would happen next in my mentions...were bonkers. Not everyone! But it was enough people (guessing different things) that I was kind of floored. I would think, If that’s what you think is going to happen next, I feel like you aren’t paying attention to the show? I should clarify that this happened with *a lot* of people, not trying to call anyone in particular out. But so many of the guesses felt like they came from expectations imposed by other media, especially stuff that’s signficantly more formulaic and tropey. 

This instinct—to predict, to vocally desire outcomes, to try and get ahead of the writers, to impose the structures of other media over the thing you’re watching—is *deep* in a lot of viewers’ and readers’ minds these days, and it comes out regardless of the quality of the writing. I think it’s not a great turn of events, to be honest—and it leads writers to make some really foolish choices in an attempt to “trick” viewers with something they never could’ve guessed. Which...generally makes for bad writing overall. 

2) Expectations within your fic

So this is the part where I falter a bit without context. Because some fic writers make it clear that they are posting as they write, and that they’re open to suggestions for plot choices. I assume you haven’t done this, or you wouldn’t be unhappy that people are trying to dictate what comes next. 

I’m curious if you are signalling that you’re...OK? with these kinds of comments by, say, writing nice replies that don’t make it clear that you know where you’re going with the story and you’ve already made choices about what happens next. There’s definitely a way to strike that balance, like a very polite evasion, something like, “Haha, thanks for the comment! I have the whole fic plotted out, so you’ll just have to wait and see!” If you start to signal that you’re in control of the plot, not the commenters, perhaps they’ll chill out a bit—because I gotta be honest, the fact that this is 90% of the comments...is wild to me. And I’m wondering if people are doing it because they see other people doing it. 

Again, total speculation without any actual context. I think that this sort of thing is likely more common in certain fandoms and with certain age groups. Even on AO3, fandom is not a monolith—I wonder if you’ve noticed this with other longfics in your fandom. It might be worth checking out how other writers have handled it, if they’re getting flooded with comments like these. 

I posted a longish fic recently, 75K over the course of three months, and let me tell you, no offense to any of my commenters, but a few of them reminded me of those Black Sails folks: What story are you actually reading?? I politely pushed back with one who asserted a whole bunch of stuff that was not in the story at all and tried to predict what would happen based on what was frankly bad reading comprehension. With others who expressed expectations about where things would go, I went the, “Haha you’ll have to wait and see!” route.

Talking to other people who’ve posted chapter-by-chapter longfics, I know that some of the bad predictions are par for the course: being absolutely certain the trouble in a section won’t be resolved, being convinced that any hint that the ship may not stay together will come to pass, even when, what, 95% of all shippy fic has the characters staying together? There’s a sort of performativity of immediate reactions in fic commenting, “OH NO, OH NO, ARE THEY BREAKING UP?” Like, duh, not forever. But commenting as real-time reaction is clearly the way a lot of readers engage with fic. Which is fine! That’s different from dictating the plot to you. 

3) The commenters vs your story

OK, so conceptually swinging back to the first bit, while my immediate response to, “I'm starting to feel my writing isn't good enough for my readers,” is NO NO NO JUST BECAUSE AN AUDIENCE IS SAYING SOMETHING DOESN’T MEAN YOU ARE BAD AND THEY ARE CORRECT. But! I think it might be worth spending a liiiitttle bit of time with them to see what they are saying, and how you think that connects back to what you’ve written. 

When folks came at me with, “I think X will happen next in Black Sails,” I, as a person who’s watched it several times and also professionally deconstructs texts as a critic, can go through and be like, “Here’s why I think that’s a misreading of what you’ve seen so far” (though mostly I would just say things like, “Why try to predict the plot! Just enjoy it!” because I’m trying not to be a dick). Rewatching the show, I can see all the things the writers carefully laid out, and how they pay off eventually. Can I imagine alternate choices for the characters? Sure! But I can see why, with the specific context and stakes in which characters made decisions, the writers had them do what they did. If they made other choices, I’d want that similar sort of work-showing. 

Similarly, when I got the occasional comment like this on the aforementioned fic, I would take it seriously for a moment. Why are they predicting this? Is it possible I haven’t shown my work enough? As I was writing, I thought very carefully about the characters and their motivations and the way certain events shaped their choices, and how changing events would change those choices. Generally, those comments felt, well, unearned: they were more about the reader than about the actual story. 

It helped having a beta who is both smart and scary, and wouldn’t hesitate to tell me if something wasn’t working. A big issue with the “no feedback in fanfic” convo is decontextualized “feedback” from random readers is not really useful! You have people coming from all sorts of backgrounds, all levels of reading comprehension, all sorts of contexts. Everyone can give you their *reaction* to your work, of course, but without that context of critique—the thing you have with a beta/editor, or if you’re in a writing workshop or group—it’s rare that some rando can give you truly useful feedback. 

But! That brings me back to 9 out of 10. I think, with that many people weighing in, it’s worth doing a little bit of serious consideration. Just read back over the story. If you can see ways that you zigged when you were signalling that you were going to zag, then your commenters might have a point. If they’re guessing character X might do Y next, and you’ve planned to have him do Z but actually haven’t done the legwork to make Z seem like a sensible next step, then that might be a fair read. Especially when they say, “I expect X will do Y,” try to figure out to the root of that expectation. Is this about the story, or is it about them? 

Because no audience is some neutral set of readers, and fandom even less so. People might tell you to do something because they hate one character and love another. People might hate your ship and for some reason are choosing to read it anyway. People have a million different contexts they bring to reading a work and not infrequently, they are reading through sets of expectations formed by other pieces of media that have very little to do with your own. 

4) tl;dr

The ~wisdom~ of the crowd is not inherently greater than the wisdom of the writer. Many people in fandom are very thoughtful readers—probably some of the most thoughtful readers out there! But plenty...are not. And that’s fine! They’re obviously still free to comment. I’d love to say, “ignore them, write for yourself, you’re writing the story you wanna write,” but I know how frustrating this must be for you. So give them a little consideration, but not too much. And most importantly, if you have a beta, ask them their opinion of these comments—and if you don’t have a beta, get one! Because a reader you know and whose opinions you trust is so much more valuable than random anon comments, no matter the circumstances. 

sorry if i'm nosy but i live for drama and the quarantine ain't helping lmao so do you have any more wild anecdotes from the kc/tvd fandom besides the ones you told a while ago?

Oh there’s definitely more.

There was the muffin incident. Which, sounds ridiculous, and I assure you it both is and isn’t. But basically, one of my dearest friends in the world, Jenn, @jonsnowbitch, decided one day she was going to conduct an experiment, if you will. And this experiment entailed sitting through an entire episode of TO and in that specific episode, replacing Camille’s presence with an inanimate object, and determine whether or not the story remains the same. Spoiler alert, it does. And the object Jenn chose was a muffin. Which didn’t sit well with some CK stans, who missed the entire point of Jenn’s post, and/or chose to ignore it. You can read it here. It’s the reason we have these amazing gems;

Uhhh there was a point where we had confirmation Carina was just hangin around on the blogs. She’d done an interview where she’d said her two most visited sites were these two blogs who hated TO, me and Hillary were like well that could not more obviously be us. Then like a year or so later, someone had sent me a screenshot of a tweet of hers, because I’m blocked by her on twitter, where she said she was just scrolling on a blog and came across a post that said ‘carina get off my blog’ which was something I’d written like the day before, lmfsksks. 

Uh let’s see, SOME WRITER LEFT TO, idr who exactly it was, Charlie something, I wanna say. He’d officially departed as a TO writer and he’d posted a picture of his goodbye letter on twitter, and he ended it with, ‘and yes, I love Klaroline too’ the kill bill sirens were real. We were like wtfwtfwtf. The fact that he didn’t say that till he was out the door, plus the way it was written. We’d had this theory that there was a Klaroline gag order, and that all but confirmed it for us.

Uh the last week or so of TVD’s series finale filming was pretty wild. 10/10 do NOT recommend, that was horrendous, no one knew wtf was going on. For some god-awful reason, this new girl popped up during S8 of TVD with information. But she had about a 60% success rate, which caused heaps of confusion in my inbox and on twitter. Every damn day was something whacked. She had this unprecedented access to sides, which are usually audition script pages, or misleading one’s. Like she’d posted a script page of I wanna say Matt or Alaric idr in a hospital bed scene, and it wound up being Stefan. It was just chaos. 

The day they leaked the board in the writer’s room during TO S5, spoiling that Hayley died mid-way through the final season. My running gag used to be that there was something in the water over there. The amount of times they themselves spoiled shit. Leah spoiled Camille’s vampire arc by posting a bts where she was very clearly wearing a lapis lazuli ring, some guy in S4 spoiled his character’s death, I mean the list goes on.

Narducci had given some interview once about how ‘tHIS UPCOMING EPISODE HAS THE MOST CHILLING ENDING WE’VE EVER DONE’ and I was like oh well I gotta see this, so I watch the entire episode just for the purpose of whatever this ending was, and it was just Aurora telling Klaus how she’d got the one-up on her brother that day and to come back to bed. I sat there for like five minutes going ‘....what’ because I couldn’t believe that was all it was. They had a notorious habit of overhyping things. Like who’s death was it in S2, I think? I honestly can’t even remember, that’s how whack it was. BUT THEY WAY THEY HYPED IT UP, LMFSKSK. Those weeks leading up to it, they had us convinced it was like Marcel or someone who was kicking the bucket. And then it was...no one. 

Which is why when spoiler anon said ‘in less than half a season they kill x, y, and z’ I didn’t believe them. Lemme think, the invasion of the sterobots. SC was up against CS in the finale of a poll, and there is absolutely zero way that fandom had the numbers to beat CS. Then one of their own went and said ‘we’ve been using bots’ and the rest is history. We were up against DE in a poll on EW. I don’t remember if it was the phone call or the letter though. But point is, they were gaining on us, while also competing in another poll on the same site and someone came to my inbox and snitched. Said she was in a gc and they were discussing how to overtake the poll. We lived some Wild times, ya’ll.