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fozmeadows · 2 years

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tools not rules: the importance of critical thinking

More than once, I’ve talked about the negative implications of Evangelical/purity culture logic being uncritically replicated in fandom spaces and left-wing discourse, and have also referenced specific examples of logical overlap this produces re, in particular, the policing of sexuality. What I don’t think I’ve done before is explain how this happens: how even a well-intentioned person who’s trying to unlearn the toxic systems they grew up with can end up replicating those systems. Even if you didn’t grow up specifically in an Evangelical/purity context, if your home, school, work and/or other social environments have never encouraged or taught you to think critically, then it’s easy to fall into similar traps - so here, hopefully, is a quick explainer on how that works, and (hopefully) how to avoid it in the future.

Put simply: within Evangelism, purity culture and other strict, hierarchical social contexts, an enormous value is placed on rules, and specifically hard rules. There might be a little wiggle-room in some instances, but overwhelmingly, the rules are fixed: once you get taught that something is bad, you’re expected never to question it. Understanding the rules is secondary to obeying them, and oftentimes, asking for a more thorough explanation - no matter how innocently, even if all you’re trying to do is learn - is framed as challenging those rules, and therefore cast as disobedience. And where obedience is a virtue, disobedience is a sin. If someone breaks the rules, it doesn’t matter why they did it, only that they did. Their explanations or justifications don’t matter, and nor does the context: a rule is a rule, and rulebreakers are Bad.

In this kind of environment, therefore, you absorb three main lessons: one, to obey a rule from the moment you learn it; two, that it’s more important to follow the rules than to understand them; and three, that enforcing the rules means castigating anyone who breaks them. And these lessons go deep: they’re hard to unlearn, especially when you grow up with them through your formative years, because the consequences of breaking them - or even being seen to break them - can be socially catastrophic.

But outside these sorts of strict environments - and, honestly, even within them - that much rigidity isn’t healthy. Life is frequently far more complex and nuanced than hard rules really allow for, particularly when it comes to human psychology and behaviour - and this is where critical thinking comes in. Critical thinking allows us to evaluate the world around us on an ongoing basis: to weigh the merits of different positions; to challenge established rules if we feel they no longer serve us; to decide which new ones to institute in their place; to acknowledge that sometimes, there are no easy answers; to show the working behind our positions, and to assess the logic with which other arguments are presented to us. Critical thinking is how we graduate from a simplistic, black-and-white view of morality to a more nuanced perception of the world - but this is a very hard lesson to learn if, instead of critical thinking, we’re taught instead to put our faith in rules alone.

So: what does it actually look like, when rule-based logic is applied in left-wing spaces? I’ll give you an example:

Sally is new to both social justice and fandom. She grew up in a household that punished her for asking questions, and where she was expected to unquestioningly follow specific hard rules. Now, though, Sally has started to learn a bit more about the world outside her immediate bubble, and is realising not only that the rules she grew up with were toxic, but that she’s absorbed a lot of biases she doesn’t want to have. Sally is keen to improve herself. She wants to be a good person! So Sally joins some internet communities and starts to read up on things. Sally is well-intentioned, but she’s also never learned how to evaluate information before, and she’s certainly never had to consider that two contrasting opinions could be equally valid - how could she have, when she wasn’t allowed to ask questions, and when she was always told there was a singular Right Answer to everything? Her whole framework for learning is to Look For The Rules And Follow Them, and now that she’s learned the old rules were Bad, that means she has to figure out what the Good Rules are.

Sally isn’t aware she’s thinking of it in these terms, but subconsciously, this is how she’s learned to think. So when Sally reads a post explaining how sex work and pornography are inherently misogynistic and demeaning to women, Sally doesn’t consider this as one side of an ongoing argument, but uncritically absorbs this information as a new Rule. She reads about how it’s always bad and appropriative for someone from one culture to wear clothes from another culture, and even though she’s not quite sure of all the ways in which it applies, this becomes a Rule, too. Whatever argument she encounters first that seems reasonable becomes a Rule, and once she has the Rules, there’s no need to challenge them or research them or flesh out her understanding, because that’s never been how Rules work - and because she’s grown up in a context where the foremost way to show that you’re aware of and obeying the Rules is to shame people for breaking them, even though she’s not well-versed in these subjects, Sally begins to weigh in on debates by harshly disagreeing with anyone who offers up counter-opinions. Sometimes her disagreements are couched in borrowed terms, parroting back the logic of the Rules she’s learned, but other times, they’re simply ad hominem attacks, because at home, breaking a Rule makes you a bad person, and as such, Sally has never learned to differentiate between attacking the idea and attacking the person.

And of course, because Sally doesn’t understand the Rules in-depth, it’s harder to explain them to or debate with rulebreakers who’ve come armed with arguments she hasn’t heard before, which makes it easier and less frustrating to just insult them and point out that they ARE rulebreakers - especially if she doesn’t want to admit her confusion or the limitations of her knowledge. Most crucially of all, Sally doesn’t have a viable framework for admitting to fault or ignorance beyond a total groveling apology that doubles as a concession to having been Morally Bad, because that’s what it’s always meant to her to admit you broke a Rule. She has no template for saying, “huh, I hadn’t considered that,” or “I don’t know enough to contribute here,” or even “I was wrong; thanks for explaining!”

So instead, when challenged, Sally remains defensive: she feels guilty about the prospect of being Bad, because she absolutely doesn’t want to be a Bad Person, but she also doesn’t know how to conceptualise goodness outside of obedience. It makes her nervous and unsettled to think that strangers could think of her as a Bad Person when she’s following the Rules, and so she becomes even more aggressive when challenged to compensate, clinging all the more tightly to anyone who agrees with her, yet inevitably ending up hurt when it turns out this person or that who she thought agreed on What The Rules Were suddenly develops a different opinion, or asks a question, or does something else unsettling.

Pushed to this sort of breaking point, some people in Sally’s position go back to the fundamentalism they were raised with, not because they still agree with it, but because the lack of uniform agreement about What The Rules Are makes them feel constantly anxious and attacked, and at least before, they knew how to behave to ensure that everyone around them knew they were Good. Others turn to increasingly niche communities and social groups, constantly on paranoid alert for Deviance From The Rules. But other people eventually have the freeing realisation that the fixation on Rules and Goodness is what’s hurting them, not strangers with different opinions, and they steadily start to do what they wanted to do all along: become happier, kinder and better-informed people who can admit to human failings - including their own - without melting down about it.

THIS is what we mean when we talk about puritan logic being present in fandom and left-wing spaces: the refusal to engage with critical thinking while sticking doggedly to a single, fixed interpretation of How To Be Good. It’s not always about sexuality; it’s just that sexuality, and especially queerness, are topics we’re used to seeing conservatives talk about a certain way, and when those same rhetorical tricks show up in our fandom spaces, we know why they look familiar.

So: how do you break out of rule-based thinking? By being aware of it as a behavioural pattern. By making a conscious effort to accept that differing perspectives can sometimes have equal value, or that, even if a given argument isn’t completely sound, it might still contain a nugget of truth. By trying to be less reactive and more reflective when encountering positions different to your own. By accepting that not every argument is automatically tied to or indicative of a higher moral position: sometimes, we’re just talking about stuff! By remembering that you’re allowed to change your position, or challenge someone else’s, or ask for clarification. By understanding that having a moral code and personal principles isn’t at odds with asking questions, and that it’s possible - even desirable - to update your beliefs when you come to learn more than you did before.

This can be a scary and disquieting process to engage in, and it’s important to be aware of that, because one of the main appeals of rule-based thinking - if not the key appeal - is the comfort of moral certainty it engenders. If the rules are simple and clear, and following them is what makes you a good person, then it’s easy to know if you’re doing the right thing according to that system. It’s much, much harder and frequently more uncomfortable to be uncertain about things: to doubt, not only yourself, but the way you’ve been taught to think. And especially online, where we encounter so many more opinions and people than we might elsewhere, and where we can get dogpiled on by strangers or go viral without meaning to despite our best intentions? The prospect of being deemed Bad is genuinely terrifying. Of course we want to follow the Rules. But that’s the point of critical thinking: to try and understand that rules exist in the first place, not to be immutable and unchanging, but as tools to help us be better - and if a tool becomes defunct or broken, it only makes sense to repair it.

Rigid thinking teaches us to view the world through the lens of rules: to obey first and understand later. Critical thinking teaches us to use ideas, questions, contexts and other bits of information as analytic tools: to put understanding ahead of obedience. So if you want to break out of puritan thinking, whenever you encounter a new piece of information, ask yourself: are you absorbing it as a rule, or as a tool?

#critical thinking #logic #rhetoric #purity culture #fandom #evangelism #hierarchy #thinking

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olderthannetfic · 5 months

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A short while ago you mentioned fic on AO3 that was written in the “AO3 style”, or something to that effect. I was wondering if you could elaborate on what that means/is?

Oh god. This topic comes around every 6 months or so. Others should feel free to help me out here, but basically...

A lot of fanfic sounds like the other fanfic and other stuff that the same communities consume. In a given era and sector of fandom, that leads to a samey style. It often has a lot of overlap with a specific sector and era of genre fiction with a heavy dose of watches-tv-does-not-read-books elements on top.

AO3 House Style is relatively similar to the height of LJ Western slash fandom. Other fanfic styles are often similar but start showing other influences the more distant you get.

There are some major strains, not always in the same works:

Transparent genre fiction prose that doesn't call too much attention to itself. It's there to convey plot, not make you notice the language qua language. You'll see something similar in, say, a Mercedes Lackey novel (along with the terrible editing and protagonist centered morality that are also common in fic, haha).

YA boom era YA vibes.

Kind of forced "snark" and samevoice from many characters in a way that tells you the author spent a little too much time watching Buffy.

World building and complex thriller/mystery/etc. plots that actually work typically take a back seat to pining, angst with a happy ending, and other more ship-focused, character interaction-focused, and emotions-focused things. The general idea of a mystery, vampire AU, etc. is often present, but it's more of a backdrop. (Depends on the part of fandom though!)

Huge focus on the internal psychological and emotional state of characters.

Lots of hurt/comfort, both physical and emotional.

Lots of serialized work that shows the traces of being written that way (dangling plot threads, inflated word count, returning to similar plot points in a way that wouldn't happen if the thing were completely written, revised, and then only posted serially).

Certain cliched phrases like "He smelled of __ and __ and something uniquely him", carding fingers through hair (thanks, commenters for researching this one a year or two ago and proving it's way more common in fic!), "Oh. Oh.", etc.

If the fic is more self-consciously literary, it's full of sentences that trail off to the point where you're almost not sure what actually happened.

Often lots of very short paragraphs and lots of scenes that are almost all dialogue

Frequently third person limited present tense. Some third person limited past tense. Less of other stuff unless you're looking at a fandom where canon is first person or you're looking at readerfic (which is on AO3 but is not really "AO3 House Style").

Honestly, some people would just say "sounds like fanfic", but if you go read primarily on SpaceBattles or something, you're going to find a lot of stories that don't sound quite the same as your prototypical AO3 fic.

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conarcoin · 2 years

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So Elon bought Twitter. I'm honestly not gonna push away Twitter newcomers, but if you're in the MCYT fandom you need to understand that the social etiquette and expectations and culture here are very different than over on Twitter. So as someone who's been an active part of mcytblr for two years now, I'd like to offer some thoughts and advice!

One: Shipping. MCYT communities on Tumblr have always tended to lean more tolerant towards shipping of roleplay characters due to the idea that this is a space for fans primarily. The creators who visit or actively use Tumblr like Eret and Martyn understand that this is a fan space primarily, and don't bother us for the content we make, and we don't bother them with it.

The number one worst thing you could do is share shipping content with creators who have not asked for it. This is a huge social faux pas here. Secondly, on the other end — writing callout posts for shippers here isn't gonna fly. Even for RPF shippers and people who may ship boundary-breaking pairings, our default is usually to not engage with these people rather than publicly call them out. It makes the space a healthier place for everyone and makes it much less likely that CCs may come across content they are uncomfortable with. It's also considered a social faux pas to ask CCs their opinions and boundaries on shipping, since that's bringing it up when they didn't ask!

Speaking of shipping, people typically don't mind you maintagging ship content so long as you also tag it as shipping so people can filter it. For Hermitcraft the tag is hermitshipping, Life Series has trafficshipping, and the lesser known DSMP tag is dsmpshipping.

Two: Reblogging. This is something a lot of newer users tend to struggle with. There is no algorithm on Tumblr, at least not one that works, so content creators rely on you reblogging their work in order for it to spread. If you see a fic or piece of art you enjoy, please reblog it! I often reblog art for MCYT fandoms I'm not even personally in.

Three: Tagging (again). There are a wide variety of tags you can use for your content! The most common tags you'll want to use are "mcyt" and "mcytblr", and any relevant series, pairing/group or character/CC names. However, please don't use the tag "minecraft"! Minecraft has an entirely separate fanbase on Tumblr that we co-exist with and have some overlap with, but don't necessarily appreciate seeing MCYT content in their tags. Any tag with "minecraft" in it is also a no-no, such as "minecraft youtubers" or "minecraft championships". Please use shorthands!

Four: Opinions on MCYT drama tend to be very different here than they are on Twitter. For instance, you should assume by default that most bloggers here either like or are completely neutral towards "problematic CCs" like Schlatt. But also, we tend to be very against spreading anything originating from leakers, and we also tend to not be fond of making posts "holding CCs accountable" for things they did years ago. Generally, mcytblr prefers to be a more drama-free community, and if you do engage in discourse, many would appreciate you tagging it as such!

Five: CCs do not need you to babysit them.

Generally speaking you will see a lot of jokes and memes on mcytblr that wouldn't fly on Twitter, and it is generally looked down upon to try to speak on behalf of CCs personal boundaries — they are grown adults, and you are a stranger! Calling out or harassing people for "breaking boundaries" is mostly just going to get you looked at strangely, especially if you don't have a source for your claims. Most of us will stop doing something if asked, but we don't need stans to tell us to! CCs can speak for themselves when uncomfortable.

Six: Most mcytblr blogs don't want CC notices. There are quite a few CCs who are active here, but the community is chill with them as they don't tend to talk about us elsewhere and allow us to do our own thing. We do not, however, like encouraging CCs to join Tumblr or to follow us or reblog our posts — many people here actually prefer being out of sight of CCs and many of us consider it rude to seek out attention from CCs outside of sending the occasional ask.

Please treat CCs kindly and don't gawk at them like you just saw a celebrity on the street — the ones who are active here are just Tumblr users like the rest of you! Seeing Eret reblog fanart or respond to an ask isn't something to point out.

While we joke about Twitter users joining, we don't actually have anything against you guys, it's just that we've built a very different community here and ask that you respect it and the etiquette we've come to establish! Thank you, and I hope you enjoy your stay on mcytblr ^_^

#long post #ok to rb #mcyt #mcytblr

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cirrus-grey · 2 years

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As someone who has witnessed old, established fandoms get completely erased under a wave of new content, I'd like to put this request out now as early as possible:

Can we all, please, use separate tags for "The Magnus Archives" (TMA) and "The Magnus Protocol" (TMP*) both here on tumblr and over on Ao3.

There will be some overlap, of course, but searching for TMA should turn up content about Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, and the old established set of characters, while searching for TMP should turn up content about our as-of-yet unnamed new civil servant protagonists and whoever shares the show with them.

I realize that people are going to want to keep using the TMA tags for both personal organization reasons as well as visibility, but I promise you, once content for the new show starts really picking up steam it'll be easier on all of us if we have two separate tags to keep them straight.

[If we need an overarching umbrella tag, I'd suggest "The Magnus Universe" (TMU) to cover content related to the world as a whole rather than a specific show.]

*Edit: Some helpful folks have pointed out that "TMP" is already in use as a tag for Star Trek "The Motion Picture," so perhaps a better alternative would be "TMAGP" so we don't erase their fandom, either.

#the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #original post #my magnus archives stuff #my magnus protocol stuff #statement remains #500 notes!#1000 notes!#2000 notes!#3000 notes!#4000 notes!#5000 notes!

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sister-lucifer · 1 year

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can we get gross pervy dom toby content 🙏

Some Gross Pervy Dom Toby Content

Toby Rogers x Gender Neutral Reader

Genre: NSFW

Summary: There is really no plot to be summarized, Toby’s just a horndog and he chased you down. good fuckin luck

Content/Warnings: Dubcon/Noncon elements, implied stalking, horror elements, Toby being creepy, Toby smells you and touches you in the weirdest manner you can possibly imagine, NSFW with minimal (mostly implied) plot, no real sex happens just fucked up shit, no seriously this is nasty as fuck i’m getting put on a list for this

Like my writing? I take requests! NSFW or SFW for any fandoms in my bio (request rules + masterlist in pinned post)!

Also, please reblog! it’s free, takes two seconds, and really helps me out

Feedback is encouraged and appreciated:)

Not fully proofread! Let me know if you see any errors!

A/N: Just to avoid confusion, in my headcanon Toby has a stutter as well as but separate from his tourette’s; i’m writing his stutter, not his tics! thankies!

also READ THE FUCKING WARNINGS THIS ONE IS NASTY

Staring down the barrel of a loaded gun would fill you with less dread than staring up at the lanky boy who’s currently towering over you.

You don’t have to look at him to know there’s a twisted smile filled with crooked, chipped teeth spread across his face, hazel eyes scrunched at the corners as he grins like a madman. You don’t want to look at him, really, but you can’t stop yourself before you’re slowly craning your neck to see. Slowly his face comes into view, and it’s even more unsettling than you could prepare for.

His messy brown hair flicks up in all directions and partly obscures his eyes, and yet they seem to glow in the dim light of the sunset. One of his arms is above you, folded against the wall, while the other cages you into the corner. Besides his fingers drumming restlessly, he’s not moving, but his entire body is trembling with….excitement? His chest is heaving like he’s struggling to breathe, and the uncomfortable feeling of his warm exhale fanning over your face makes you shudder, and…oh god, is he drooling over you? Shit—

You press yourself hard against the wall, face burning hot against the cool air of the drafty abandoned building. Something tells you you shouldn’t take your eyes off of him for too long, but in your peripheral vision you can see through the broken windows. There’s nothing but trees in all directions, and the sky is rapidly darkening with each passing second. You’re watching any chance you had of escaping in the daylight slip from your fingers. Everything is becoming much too disorienting much too fast, thoughts racing and overlapping and screaming at you to do something, but you can’t. All at once you’re trying to figure out an escape plan, how to appease your captor for long enough to execute an escape plan, and how you even got here in the first place.

The last thing you remember is running from him, the branches of the thicket grabbing at your pants and arms as if trying to hold you back. You had no choice but to run into the old hospital, but now you’re wishing you’d simply kept going.

You must’ve moved too much for Toby’s liking, because he suddenly grabs onto your arm with a grip that feels strong enough to snap the bone in two. You yelp in pain, a second gloved hand quickly clamping over your mouth. The echo of your cry rings loud in your ears, and for a moment you wonder if it’ll ever go quiet again.

“You…you…” Toby stutters, and your eyes widen at the sound of his voice. You aren’t sure what you were expecting to hear, but he just sounds so…normal, like any other nineteen year old boy, except if it were anyone else in any other scenario a mere couple of syllables wouldn’t strike such fear into you.

“You ran a loooong t-time…” He scolds, but his grin doesn’t falter. He brings his hand away from your mouth to shake a finger at you, seemingly trusting you not to scream.

Not like it would matter. You made him chase you pretty far in.

In an instant his hands are on your waist, slipping under your shirt and eagerly grabbing at the soft flesh he finds beneath. You have to bite your tongue to hold back another yelp.

“Oh, ooohh but it w-was worth it!” Toby slurs with a drawl, “I’ve f-finally fooouund yooouu, aha…”

He sounds so proud of himself. Something about his tone is almost childish, deceivingly so. He truly thinks he’s done something amazing.

Your heart skips a beat when he suddenly freezes, face going void of all emotion, and you wonder if you’ve truly angered him. If you did, would that be the mistake that ended it all?

Fortunately, it seems he was just changing gears. You panic when you realize he’s leaning in towards you, but he moves past your face to practically bury his nose in your neck, taking a long and deep breath. He lets out a faint laugh as he breathes out, and it feels like a horrible sensation crawling down your spine. The only thing you can do is grab onto his arms, nails digging into the dirty and worn fabric of his hoodie. It’s practically caked with dried mud in some areas and you can feel the dry cracking beneath your hands.

“I m-missed your…your s-smell…” Toby whispers. You’re confused for a moment, and it takes a few seconds for it all to set in.

‘Missed?’

He’d…smelled you before?

He ‘missed’ you…

“I-I should have…should have visited m-more…I-I got ssso busy, b-but I didn’t forget you, I-I promise…”

He keeps talking, but it starts to fade out. Only a few words matter, anyways.

There’s an incredibly brief moment of clarity that flashes through your mind, a split second flicker of understanding that you hadn’t just been misplacing or losing things, that you weren’t imagining all those noises or shadows that you told yourself were childish things to be afraid of, and it nearly floods your brain before it disappears as quickly as it appeared. Maybe you purposefully pushed it out, at least for now. There was too much going on to process the past. If you were lucky enough to get out of this alive, you could reflect then.

You’re frozen for a few moments as Toby’s idle hands begin to wander, as they always do. He’s at least considerate enough to feel you up through your clothes, but that doesn’t stop you from sucking in a harsh breath through your teeth when he roughly gropes your ass. It forces you to push yourself into him as you try to get away from the aggressive grip. You can feel him laugh with his chest pressed flush against yours.

He takes the opportunity to wrap his arms around you, and it’s become painfully obvious that he’s much stronger than he looks. You’d never expect someone so skinny to be able to manhandle you like this.

He sways slowly from side to side as he holds you, one unsteady hand toying with your hair in a gesture that, on Toby’s end, seems as though it is meant to be sincere.

“Th-There’s so much I want t-to do to y— to do with y-you…so little time…” He goes on muttering to himself over something or other, but you can’t understand him as he trails off.

He seems preoccupied with his own thoughts, distracted enough that you begin to squirm. He doesn’t react, continuing to quietly rant about nothing while stroking your head. You struggle again, a bit bolder this time. Nothing.

Maybe you actually had a chance, you just had to slip away. Hell, maybe you’d get lucky and run the right way on the first try; for all you know you’re only a mile away from a highway, that could be your lifeline. You just had to slip away—

“Stop it! Stop doing that!”

…Easier said than done, it seems.

Hearing Toby yell, seemingly allowing a genuine flash of anger to overtake him as he slams you back against the wall, chills you to the core. He was unpredictable, bouncing back and forth between the extremes of whatever emotion he was feeling, making it impossible to plan around his potential actions.

His hand splays out across your chest to keep you pinned to the wall. He’s applying much more pressure than he needs to, and he knows it. His smile twitches as you struggle to recover from having the wind knocked out of you.

When he reaches back for his pocket, you expect him to pull out a weapon; maybe a knife, or even a small handgun you somehow hadn’t noticed.

But no. He returns with something much smaller, and your brows furrow in confusion as you struggle to make out the shape among the shadows that have quickly taken over your space.

“What’s t-the matter?” Toby asks, “Never seen a-a condom before?”

He snickers cruelly at the way your mouth hangs open in reply.

“Whaaaat? I-I’m trying to be nice…don’t be a bitch.”

“N…Nice?!” You choke out in reply, and this time Toby’s jaw drops.

“Oh, it does speak!” He exclaims with genuine excitement. “Good, good…s-so good…”

He holds the corner of the wrapper in his mouth so that his hand can be free to fumble with his belt. The sound of the buckle clanking as he slips it off makes your stomach flip. Your gaze flicks quickly back and forth from his pants back to his eyes, and he hasn’t stopped staring at you. You haven’t even seen him blink.

His tongue runs over his glistening teeth as he prepares to speak again:

“I h-hope you squeal for me, pretty thing…When we’re done here, I’m t-takin’ you with me…”

#creepypasta #creepypasta x reader #creepypasta smut #creepypasta headcanon #gender neutral reader #tw dubcon #tw noncon #ticci toby x reader #ticci toby smut #ticci toby #toby rogers

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thevioletcaptain · 5 days

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Almost a decade ago, in November of 2014, I became so exhausted by seeing people throw around the absurd claim that Dean/Cas fans made up only 1% of SPN fandom that I decided to prove how wrong it was. The most readily available data which didn't rely on conducting a survey or poll -- and was therefore a more accurate representation of actual fandom activity rather than just whoever happened to respond to a survey -- came from fic numbers on Ao3.

I made a post about it at the time (the pertinent figures are included below, or you can see the original post here) and then completely forgot about the entire thing. Until now.

Why? Well, largely thanks to a sudden resurgence of the same old nonsense this week, mostly cropping up in the comment sections of a couple of polls that crossed my dash. The temptation to check if there had been any significant changes to the fandom's activity since I last looked ten years ago was too strong to ignore.

Friends. Things have proven to be shockingly consistent.

With the same caveat from last time -- that this is only showing trends in the subset of fandom who actively uses Ao3, and therefore obviously doesn't take into account the "general audience" subset of fandom who don't participate beyond watching the show and occasionally liking a social media post -- here are the numbers:

Old count | November 9th, 2014 | 4 episodes into S10

Total SPN fics posted - 86,352 Fics listed as gen - 22,718 (26.3%) Fics with Dean/Cas - 33,762 (39.0%) Fics with Sam/Dean - 12,286 (14.2%) Fics with Sam/Cas - 1,634 (1.8%) Fics with Sam/Dean/Cas - 787 (0.9%)

The remaining 18.6% of SPN fics were non-gen fics featuring other character pairings, including reader inserts and original characters.

New count | May 28th, 2024 | 3.5 years after finale

Total SPN fics posted - 290,707 Fics listed as gen - 61,343 (21.1%) Fics with Dean/Cas - 116,925 (40.2%) Fics with Sam/Dean - 34,673 (11.9%) Fics with Sam/Cas - 5,548 (1.9%) Fics with Sam/Dean/Cas - 1,957 (0.6%)

The remaining 24.3% of SPN fics are non-gen fics featuring other character pairings, including reader inserts and original characters.

Notes on data:

All data was collected while logged in on Ao3 to ensure no incorrect counts were caused by hidden works.

There is some overlap within these numbers due to fics which are tagged with multiple pairings. This might be possible to account for if someone felt like doing more intensive data collection, but I've already spent about an hour and a half on this and that's already a lot more time than I'd like to be doing voluntary math. I enjoy statistics as a point of interest, but goddamn do I hate actually crunching the numbers.

It bears mentioning that Sam/Gabriel (5.1%), Sam/Jess (2.2%), & Dean/Reader (2.5%) all have higher counts than Sam/Cas (1.9%) & Sam/Dean/Cas (0.6%), however I didn't make note of those pairings in 2014, so I'm unsure if there has been any change.

I shouldn't have to say this, but literally all of us are just smashing our fave characters together like dolls, so as interesting as these numbers are this post is not intended to suggest that any ship is "better" than any other ship. This post is intended to do nothing more than show the available data which disproves a baseless claim about the size of Dean/Cas fandom within the larger SPN fandom.

TLDR; the percentage of active Supernatural fans on Ao3 who are interested in Dean/Cas as a pairing is significantly higher than 1%, and that has been a consistent pattern within the fandom for the past ten years.

#cass says things #fandom: supernatural #a post in which i get irritated enough by disinformation that i voluntarily do math #i wasn't planning on posting this anywhere tbh #but it was interesting to me and i figure someone else out there might also find it interesting #plus it gave me an excuse to make a couple of pie charts #also if you're about to start wank about this in my notes please consider... not doing that

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fluentmoviequoter · 17 days

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Confident in Us

Requested Here!

Pairing: Tim Bradford x confident!fem!reader (single mom)

Summary: You're confident, you keep Tim on his toes, but he realizes that it's not enough. He learns that you have a son from a previous relationship while Angela is pressuring him to ask you out, but you beat him to it.

Warnings: misogynistic comments (not from Tim), fluff, flirting, Tim gets a little nervous around r, r's son likes Optimus Prime (bc I like Transformers)

Word Count: 2.8k+ words

Masterlist | Tim Bradford Masterlist | Request Info/Fandom List

“C’mon, babe, wake up!” you call again, holding your phone away from your face. “Okay, sorry, Angela, how can I help you?” you ask into the microphone.

“Babe? Did someone spend the night?” Angela teases.

“You know he did. Early morning calls from you are new, though.”

“We’re infiltrating a money laundering scheme. The Metro captain said you’d be a good fit to lead the operation,” she explains.

“Yeah, I can do that. I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Perfect! And I’d tell you to take your time getting ready, but you always look good.”

“Back atcha.”

You end the call and yell another wake-up call with more urgency. There’s a case to be worked on, and you know you can get it done. If you can get to work, that is.

“Sergeant Bradford,” you greet as you approach Angela’s desk. “Detective Lopez.”

“Morning,” Tim replies.

You smile at him before asking Angela where your temporary team is. She tells you they’re arriving shortly and meeting in the roll call room. There’s a case file spread open on her desk, and you lean beside her to look at it.

“When do you think your captain will just realize that I’d be a great permanent fixture on your team?” you ask Tim, looking up through your lashes. “I’d only distract you boys sometimes.”

“I think that’s the major concern,” Tim deadpans.

“Granted, we wouldn’t be able to work together,” you sigh.

“Why not?”

“We’d draw too much attention, Tim. Look at us.”

You smile again and Tim shakes his head. Your confidence reads as flirtation occasionally, but Tim has always been drawn to you. He’s constantly impressed by how good you are at your job, and how aware you are of what you are worth. Your strengths and weaknesses are well-known to you, and you use them to your advantage. Most importantly, you don’t let anyone walk over you. Being a woman in the police force is hard, but you make it look effortless and do it with grace.

“Why am I in charge of this?” you ask.

“You’ve worked a laundering op before, right?” Angela asks.

“I assisted in one when I was on patrol, yeah.”

“A very successful one, from what I hear. Since you’ve been on the ground for one, you were the best choice.”

You nod before you notice the Metro team enter. As you stand and move toward Tim, he wonders if you’re this confident outside of work, or if it’s something you’ve built up to maintain your sanity in a job surrounded by men.

“Think we’ll be done by eight?” you murmur.

“Why? Have a date?” he counters.

“Something like that,” you reply with a wink. “Let’s go catch some money launderers, Bradford.”

“We’ve got three Metro teams here for this op,” the Metro captain explains as you enter. “Work together or get out of my station, is that clear?”

Overlapping replies of “Yes, ma’am” mix as you lead Tim toward the front of the roll call room. A television screen shows the layout of the warehouse you will be infiltrating, but you have to explain all the minor details. Your previous success in a place like this was due to the precision of little movements, and this will be no different.

“So, what’s the plan?” a man in the front row asks.

You nod toward him and say, “Our goal is-“

“I was asking Sergeant Bradford,” he interjects.

You smile at him as you explain, “I’m in charge of this operation, so I can answer any questions you have. Our goal is to infiltrate the operation without breaching. Once inside, we can better understand the operation. Then, three different teams will breach from the locations marked on the map.”

“‘Scuse me,” someone calls from the back.

“Yes?”

“Why leave the front side open during the breach?”

“Excellent question. This unit backs up to a storefront on the opposite side. Patrol units will evacuate that store before the raid, so there will be no exfil points nor civilian interaction.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“No problem. You have your team assignments, and we will ensure each team is in location before the infiltration. In the case of anyone exiting the building before the breach begins, immobilize and detain as quickly and quietly as possible. Are there any other questions?”

Everyone shakes their head, and you hear the first man who cut you off mutter something under his breath.

“One more thing,” their captain adds. “If any one of you have decided to feel misogynistic today, get out now. I will not tolerate you rejecting orders for any reason. One more disrespectful comment toward another officer will get you benched. Indefinitely. Understood?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the men call together.

As they leave, she apologizes to you, but you brush off her concerns with a smile. You’re used to it, and she is too.

“Thank you for letting me join this operation,” you tell her.

“Of course. I hear you and Bradford are the best,” she replies. “Prove ‘em right.”

You nod before following Tim out. There’s a bit of time until you have to change and prepare to infiltrate, and you have paperwork to do until then.

“Good work in there,” Tim says.

“I’m sure you say that to all the girls, Bradford,” you joke. “See you in a bit.”

He watches you walk toward your desk. When Angela slaps his arm, though, he turns away quickly with wide eyes.

“What was that for?” he demands.

“Are you going to ask her out or not?” she sighs.

“Not.”

“Why not?”

“Um, I don’t have a death wish,” Tim says dramatically. “She does not like being hit on, you know that.”

“No, she doesn’t like being objectified. You asking her out – genuinely being interested in her – would get an entirely different response.”

Tim rolls his eyes and notices a man walking toward you. He lays a hand on Angela’s shoulder and turns her toward you.

“Hey, baby, you need someone to escort you home tonight?” the man asks, though his eyes are nowhere near your face. “No need to go home without a man one more time, right?”

“The only boy I’ll be taking home tonight is my son, so no thank you,” you reply easily.

“Son?” Tim whispers.

“You didn’t know?” Angela asks.

“No, I… Look, Lopez, the point is I don’t need her to stop talking to me because I asked her out.”

“Then don’t ask her out like that.”

“She doesn’t want anything!” Tim exclaims. “Drop it.”

You look up when his voice raises, and your brows furrow when you see him talking to Angela. They wave, and you shake your head in amusement before returning your attention to your paperwork.

“I didn’t even know she had a son,” Tim adds quietly. “She keeps me on my toes at work, and that’s enough.”

“Sure,” Angela agrees. “But what about when it’s not enough anymore?”

“So…” Tim begins as you walk down a street to reach the target location.

“Put your arm around me,” you say suddenly.

Tim doesn’t question your request as he wraps his arm around your shoulders. His eyes are on your face, and you smile as you look up at him.

“It’s busier than I thought it’d be,” you murmur. “Don’t need to draw unnecessary attention to ourselves.”

“Not a problem. We’re going to a place that doesn’t exist anyway,” Tim replies.

“You seem… off. Are you okay to do this?” you check.

“Yeah, I’m good. Angela just pried into my personal life again. Made me question things, for some reason.”

You chuckle and shake your head against Tim’s forearm. “Trust me, I know that situation all too well. She’s been trying to get me to start dating since my son got old enough to be left with a babysitter.”

Tim hums and you realize he may not have known as much about your personal life as Angela. You don’t talk about your home life much at work for a couple of reasons, but the biggest is your concern about the comments you’d get. Being a cop is hard enough, but a cop who is a single mother is much different. The things that the men you work with would say require a level of patience that you don’t have, and your confidence can’t conceal that.

“We’re here,” Tim alerts as you reach the entrance.

He removes his arm from your shoulders and opts to take your hand as he opens the door and leads you inside. The false front, Coo-Coo Cash Checking, is tiny, though you suppose they need as much room as possible for their backdoor counterfeiting business.

“Welcome, folks,” a man says as he steps to the desk. “What can I help you with?”

“My girlfriend and I are looking to buy a house but can’t get approved for the loan we need. A friend of mine told me you, or your boss, Malcolm Dmitri, could help,” Tim explains.

The man nods at the mention of the code word and steps back. “Sure, we can. Mr. Dmitri is in a meeting right now but should be done in about five minutes. Mind waiting?”

“That’s perfect,” Tim replies. “Thank you, sir.”

The door closes behind him and you turn toward Tim.

“Something feels off,” you murmur.

“Yeah,” he agrees.

He looks around, but there isn’t much to see in the five-foot-deep entryway where you stand. You rise to your tiptoes and look over the desk, but there’s nothing back there, either.

“They’re going to do something unexpected,” you say. “Let’s just roll with it.”

“Within reason,” Tim argues.

“What if my reason is different than yours?” you ask, leaning against him and smiling.

“Then I’ll pull rank,” he answers, sounding breathless.

“And here I thought we were friends.”

You pout, and Tim looks away quickly. Just as you stand and prepare to apologize for going too far, the door opens again.

“Mr. Dmitri can see you now. The problem is his office is small, so it’ll have to be one at a time. He’ll see you first, Miss…” he trails off, waiting for your name.

“Walton,” you answer, making up a name quickly.

Tim squeezes your hand, but you run your finger over his palm as you step forward. He registers your signal but doesn’t like what you’re about to do.

“I’ll be right back, honey,” you promise as you walk through the door.

Tim leans back against the wall as he waits for your signal to breach. He will rush inside the moment he hears it. Not a moment before, though, because he knows you and you know what you’re doing.

As you and Tim walk out of the front door after a successful raid, you pull his hand into yours again.

“Ask me what you wanted to ask before,” you say softly. “I don’t keep my personal life a secret from you on purpose, it’s just that some of the guys at work… I know how they’d treat me if they knew I had a kid.”

“I get it,” Tim replies. “You said you’re a single mom. I guess I’m just surprised anyone would leave you.”

“I left him,” you admit. “I know what I’m worth and that didn’t always sit well with him. I wouldn’t change a thing, though, because I got an amazing son out of the deal.”

“What were you thinking?” one of the Metro officers demands as you near the rendezvous point. “Going in there alone was stupid!”

“I had the situation under control,” you reply calmly.

Tim drops your hand and levels his gaze on the man before you. He’s too close to you, but Tim won’t step in unless he has to. You can handle yourself, he knows that, but it doesn’t keep him from getting angry with people who talk down to you.

“Clearly! They could’ve taken you in a second!” he replies. “How do you deal with her, Bradford? You just let her waltz into a death trap.”

“She is good at what she does,” Tim answers. “And you would do well to treat her like the cop she is and not my assistant. This is her operation, so stop questioning her decisions.”

“Oh, she’s got you on a tight leash, Bradford.”

“That’s enough,” you interrupt, your friendly smile long gone. “I know what I am doing, and since you clearly have no trust in me as a member of your team, you can go.”

“That’s not your call, girlie.”

Tim steps forward, but his Metro captain approaches before he can say anything.

“She dismissed you, officer. That means go. Now.”

The officer rolls his eyes and stomps as he pushes against your shoulder to get past. You shake your head before you ask if all of the suspects are in custody.

“Every one of them,” the captain answers. “Excellent work in there.” “I appreciate that,” you reply. “Sergeant Bradford was a great asset in there.”

“I’ll keep that in mind. Reviews are coming up soon.”

She winks at Tim before she pats your shoulder and returns to the mobile command unit. You exhale and roll your shoulders back to stand straighter.

“I’m sorry,” Tim offers.

“I don’t let it affect me anymore. My confidence threatens their insecurity, so they try to knock me down. I’ve gotten very good at standing my ground. But I meant what I said, you were great in there; couldn’t have done it without you.”

“I wasn’t even with you,” Tim argues.

“Yes, you were. I knew that you’d be there the moment I signaled. That’s why I was okay going a few steps further alone because you had my six.”

“Always.”

“There is one thing I’d like to ask you to do, though,” you begin. Tim nods, and you request, “Whatever Angela wanted you to do, go do it. She looks out for our best, even when it just feels like pointless meddling.”

“I can’t do that.”

“Sure, you can.”

“No, I really-“

“Tim,” you groan, leaning back.

“She wants me to ask you out,” Tim blurts out.

You stand up to look at him, and he simply shrugs. Though you suspect why he doesn’t want to do it, based on how you usually respond to being hit on at work, you know that you would say yes before he even finished.

“I have a kid,” you remind him quietly.

“So?” Tim asks, furrowing his brows.

“That’s a non-starter for most guys.”

“Most guys are idiots, then.”

You smile as you agree. “But you’re not. So, what are you going to do?”

Tim shakes his head, so you sigh and do something for both of you.

“Tim Bradford, will you go out with me?” you ask.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m asking you out. Now, my son may have to crash the date because my sitter is supposed to leave early tomorrow, but he’s a good kid. Most of the time.”

“Okay,” Tim says. “Yeah, let’s go out.”

“See, that wasn’t so scary,” you tease. You lean toward him to whisper, “And I promise that I’m not just using you to be a good influence in my son’s life. He has all the father figure he needs in Optimus Prime.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Tim asks quietly.

“Which part?”

“The-“

You cut Tim off with a kiss on the cheek, and when your hands hit his shoulders to steady yourself, he knows that Angela was right. She can never know that, though, and it was a one-time thing. Tim pulls you into a hug before you can pull back.

“Thank you for defending me,” you tell him.

“You didn’t need it,” he counters.

“Yet you did it anyway. That makes it even better, Tim.”

“Thanks for asking me out.”

“Now that we did need. I can get another sitter so we can go on a real date.”

“No, bring your son. He’s important to you, so he needs to be a part of this. If he doesn’t like me, we go back to being work friends.”

“And if he does?”

“Then I guess I have to fight Optimus Prime.”

“Mm,” you hum, pretending to think. “I think you could take him with a little help from me.”

“A sentient robot who turns into a semi versus two human cops? You’re more confident than I thought.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No, I don’t.”

You step away from Tim and smile. “Then it’s a date. Am I in charge of this operation or are you?”

“Well, you did this one so well… I’ll handle the date; you just look perfect as always.”

You gasp and point at Tim as you walk backward toward your car. “You can flirt!”

“I learned from the best,” he replies playfully. “See you tomorrow.”

“Twice!” you remind him. “And, Tim, don’t bother to brush up on your fighting skills. You’re better than Optimus, every day of the week. He’s going to adore you.”

I hope so because I adore his mom, Tim thinks. Maybe more than adore.

#tim bradford x reader #tim bradford x fem!reader #tim bradford x y/n #tim bradford x you #tim bradford fic #tim bradford imagine #tim bradford #tim bradford the rookie #the rookie abc #confident!reader #fem!reader #hanna writes✯#requests

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strawberryspence · 1 year

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Because I am obsessed with the famous trope here’s another one that kept me up all night.

Steve and Eddie dated right after Vecna in ‘86 and it’s perfect. They date each other and it’s like two puzzles clicking together. But they’re young, foolish and they both have mountains of trauma. And sometimes, the passion and love, just isn’t enough to keep a relationship going.

They have a messy break up that has Eddie packing all his stuff up in ‘88. Eddie goes to LA or New York, either way that’s where he gets discovered. He then goes on to write some very angsty and angry rock/metal music about the break-up that gets him up on the map.

Steve hates it. He hates it with every fibre of his soul because it’s one thing when you and you ex still have the same friends and have to be civil with each other, but it’s a whole other thing when you open the radio and this man you dated, this man you loved and cared for and failed is just out here singing it for the whole world to hear.

And yeah listen, it’s petty and dumb. But Steve writes his own fucking songs, it’s not the direct response to Eddie’s song but it’s close. By that time it’s already ‘90 and Eddie’s made a whole name and career out of their relationship. Steve writes the songs, he sings, and he sends the damn demo to almost fifty different companies. And he gets picked up by one company.

Steve takes the pop star route, and with his looks and his somehow amazing vocals, by ‘94 Steve’s on the charts with Whitney and Mariah. The whole Party has solemnly promised to not get involved with their petty songwriting fighting anymore. They also haven’t spoken in person in almost six years, and the only way they communicate now is through the freaking songs.

There’s not a lot of overlap with the rock and pop community, and no one notices it until ‘05. It’s one fan that makes this one blog post talking about this weird freaky coincidence in Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson’s songs. It becomes a whole thing, like someone from Hawkins pulls out the yearbooks and finds out that they could’ve known each other. Their faces are splashed together into every magazine and celebrity entertainment shows.

They don’t say anything about it. No one comments about it for a few years and it infuriates the public even more. The next time Steve comes out with a song, Eddie comes out with another song a few months after and it’s once again a literal conversation about their relationship.

The whole thing continues until ‘11 and by then there’s blog dedicated for all the clues. It’s now a long running thread, and it gets updated when there’s another clue to this massive confusing puzzle. There’s a whole subsection with names of every Party member and how they connect the two artists together. There’s freaking flow charts and pictures and family trees.

It only ends when Eddie finally posts two pictures on Twitter. The first one is taken backstage. All you can see is Steve’s back, but you will know it’s him because of his hair. He’s standing at the side of the stage, and on the stage is Eddie Munson singing. The second one is a picture of Eddie sitting in a couch as Steve looms over him, hands crossed on his chest. Eddie’s signing his own album with a smirk, while Steve glares at him. If you zoom, you can see the sign on the album saying, “To Steve. This album is for you.”

The caption says: “Me and my biggest fan. Circa 2004.”

Steve replies to the original post saying: “You’re sleeping on the couch tonight.”

Eddie deletes the post and reposts it with: “Me and my wonderful, gorgeous, talented husband. I can’t believe I am married to THE Steve Harrington.”

It’s the first time the term “break the internet” is ever used.

Turns out, they were just writing the songs to spite each other and to add fuel to the fandom fire. (In an interview, Eddie says, “It’s our foreplay.” and Steve doesn’t talk to him for a solid 30 minutes for running his mouth. It only lasts for 30 minutes because Eddie made it up to him by using his mouth for something else.)

#HA #i love famous steddie #theyre so petty #also dont come for me #i dont know where the ‘break the internet’ term came from #so dont get mad #anw #i love them #steddie #daeheadcanons #steve harrington x eddie munson angst #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie ficlet #steddie headcanon #steddie hc #famous steve harrington #famous eddie munson

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annabelle--cane · 10 months

Text

it's fascinating to me the way that different social media platforms result in different types of fandom behavior. while s5 of tma was airing, I spent a good amount of time on tma tiktok (I log back in about once every two months now, going back to in-person school after a year a half of lockdown seem to re-blanace my brain and made me once again not really enjoy the format) while still using tumblr as my main socmed, and while there was a lot of overlap in the fan culture, some things were notably different.

tumblr tma fans had near-encyclopedic knowledge of the source material, but it was kind of an ongoing joke for tiktok tma fans that everyone binged the whole show in a week-long fugue state and lost memory of about 35% of it. tumblr has virtually no character limit and allows posts to be passed around by users indefinitely, which lends itself to fairly in-depth meta analysis being made and shared until most any fan could say "the time and space discrepancies at hill top road? psh yeah, I know all about them, I've read seven scrupulously cited posts that lay out all the details." for the entire time that s5 was airing, tiktok videos could still only be a minute long, and I know from a lot of personal effort that there's only so much you can fit into a one minute script that you also have to memorize and record (and cc manually with tiktok text stickers, as they didn't add the caption feature until april 2021) if you want the process to take less than four hours of your one mortal human life. and then you only see the video if your following or fyp algorithm shows it to you. there were a few tma meta-ish videos that got popular because other people would make their own videos referencing them and tag the account so their followers could see what they were talking about, but it's much harder to circulate content you like there. several times I saw people post videos saying "I got into cosplay to film some [agnes or annabelle or gerry or another secondary character] and I just realized I have no idea what their deal actually is 💀".

a thing that tiktok tma fandom was definitely better at than tumblr tma fandom was accurately remembering certain pieces of characterization and the flow of certain scenes. I've seen a bunch of posts on here where someone is trying to argue a point with excerpts from the text ("x character is nicer than you all give them credit for" "x character is so mean to y character in this scene" "z theory can't be true because y character said a line that disproves it") where the argument only holds up because the poster has gotten these excerpts from a transcript dive and hasn't listened to the episodes they're from recently, because while the text alone can be construed to mean one thing, the way it's delivered on-podcast clearly intends another. tiktok, being an audio and video based medium, allows audio clips to be shared around a lot, and cosplayers would often all make videos acting along to the same show clips of juicy interpersonal drama, and so tiktok fans, though they may have had less overall memory of what characters said, always had a better grasp on how they said it. an average tiktok tma fan might not have remembered melanie's subplot about war ghosts, but they would know the nuances of how the way she talks to jon changes between mag 28 and mag 155.

#prompted by Absolutely nothing #tma #marina marvels at life

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utilitycaster · 3 months

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Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias comes from D20 being edited? It gives the appearance of much more effortless play and lets them control the pacing in a way unedited play like CR simply can't do. They get to (potentially) hide a lot of stuff people would jump on as flaws while CR has no choice but to let it all play out. I greatly prefer CR's approach, despite it biting them in the ass a bit through no fault of their own.

Answering these both together to group cause and my opinions, and I do want to note this is specifically about journalism/press coverage, not their respective fandoms even though there's obviously some overlap.

I think there's a couple things, but I do want to note this was actually prompted by Daggerheart, not Critical Role. The response from several prominent voices in the Actual Play journalism community, whom I will not name here but whom I do not respect intellectually, really was, within hours of the open beta (which as far as I know they didn't have early access to - more on that later) "um it could be better, I don't like xyz and also it's sooooooo important to have criticism" and again, it is important to have criticism, but also you act like D20 has never had a mediocre moment and that Kollok is brilliant, so.

This...got away from me a bit. I'd say I'm sorry but actually I adore writing thousands of words about actual play and it will happen again but I'm putting the detailed answer below a cut. The short answer is I think a lot of Actual Play journalists actually sort of fell into their jobs through being vaguely involved in nerd spaces and aren't actually equipped to talk intelligently about TTRPGs and actual play as a medium that should, at its best, be a perfect fusion of narrative and mechanics. So instead they're distracted by flashy edits and bright lights and cool noises and some abstract concept of "novelty" and write only about that. Also Critical Role is the 700 lb gorilla in the AP space (though not, actually, the TTRPG space) and doesn't give them early access and that's meaaaaaan. Indeed, for all I think a lot of their coverage of D20 and Worlds Beyond Number is obsessively fawning, I also think it's extremely surface level, frequently factually wrong, and fails to get at what's truly excellent about those shows either.

I think, honestly, the biggest one is that I don't actually think a lot of Actual Play journalists watch series in full. I was looking for Polygon coverage of Fantasy High Junior Year and they have one glowing article but it's more about Fantasy High as setting and institution and D20 "changing the game" (also more on this later) to the point of outright contradicting the pull quotes they used from interviewing Brennan Lee Mulligan (also more on this later). So I started looking through their coverage and actually, quite a number of their write-ups are based on only one episode, or half a season. Clearly, they haven't read the full open beta (nor have I, but I think their complaints about the character build process belie a profound misunderstanding of what TTRPGs are, also more on this later). So editing is certainly part of it because it's really easy to see cool special effects and sound design within one episode and shit out a hacky article about it, whereas actually getting to the substance - character relationships, cohesive narrative, storytelling - requires work that I do not think they're doing. And on the one hand I do kind of get it, because yeah, if journalism is your livelihood then you perhaps do not have the time to watch 4 hours of D&D a week for 2-3 years if you're only going to get one article every six months out of it. But I don't think the answer is "focus intently on Microsoft Powerpoint-esque scene transition tricks while ignoring that nothing occurring at the table is actually fun to watch." For more on this, see this post.

The second, which is very relevant to Daggerheart but also is actually a big gap in D20 and WBN coverage in my opinion, and which I put in the tags, is that I actually don't think a lot of journalists have a solid understanding of TTRPGs nor of most genres. And I think Critical Role has a particularly good understanding of both these things, actually, if one skewed towards collaborative storytelling that is not rules-light. I think one really big example is that one person within the space is mad at the Daggerheart questions for the character archetypes because what if your character doesn't fit these. I think this is dumb as shit. I actually think that a common criticism of D&D - that you can't play ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING - is not valid, or rather, it's a valid opinion to hold but if you want to play a character who doesn't fit into the available archetypes perhaps you need to find another game. We all inherently understand that Blades in the Dark characters will be members of a criminal organization in a relatively low-magic setting, correct? That you can't show up to BitD and play a lawful good wizard prince because that's not the story being told? Or like, how in Honey Heist, you are a bear and you are trying to get honey, and you cannot play a human child investigating the old abandoned house at the edge of town, but there's a cool game called Kids on Bikes that will let you do that? Great! Why is this suddenly so hard to understand in the realm of heroic fantasy, that you will fit into specific archetypes? Why do people's brains, if they have them to begin with, vanish suddenly? I know I just did a big old rant that included this within it but genuinely I think a lot of people are deeply ignorant of heroic fantasy, or don't like it, and either is fine, but then they get mad at the heroic fantasy game for having heroic fantasy archetypes when the answer is "maybe this will never make you happy because it's not for you." (Frankly, I think this is also why they love D20, because it doesn't really do straight-up heroic fantasy, and that's fine, but they do keep acting like doing a Game of Thrones pastiche is equivalent to the invention of the wheel.) Like...I remember in the Midst Q&A that Xen said they tend to not like playing typical D&D classes, but their solution was to, you know, create Midst instead of sitting around going "actually, because D&D doesn't support cyberpunk narrative and the character archetypes within very well it is an utter failure." (I could go on forever about how actually TTRPGs are not a showcase for your already extant OCs to prance around but that's a totally separate post).

Mechanics and story are inherently intertwined, is what I'm trying to get at (sorry I'm really tired and have a lot to do but I'm passionate about this answer, it will be rambly, she says like 3 pages in) and I really don't think most actual play journalists get this. At all. And I do think that CR, and Daggerheart, and the people working for it, and especially Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham, get this more than almost anyone else in the field. I also think Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar get this, and the thing is, for all the praise showered upon them, much of which I think is deserved and most of what I think is undeserved is not because they are lacking but because the person writing about them is an idiot crediting them for things they (Brennan and Aabria) would never claim to have invented, their mechanical prowess is rarely if ever written about well. Fantasy High Junior Year's downtime mechanics actually fill in a famous gap in D&D, namely, downtime, and provide an excellent marriage of story and mechanics in my opinion, and I haven't really seen any discussion, because that would require watching the part of the TTRPG show where they play the TTRPG, and knowing the vague word on the street about D&D criticism that isn't just "*nods sagely* capitalism is the BBEG."

And finally: related a bit to the edit but Critical Role used to not be able to provide any early access to press, because it was literally a live show, and I suspect they never broke the habit, and I think that is for the best. As discussed a lot of D20 coverage actually feels like they watched the press screener and then never returned to the show. And I do not know the politics about them, but given that several of these publications (notably Polygon, but some others) have been shitting on Critical Role for several years, and just generally given the way CR's leadership vs. how D20's leadership respond to fandom pressure, I suspect Critical Role does not give these journalists a ton of early or increased, if any. Honestly, why should you, if you're getting interviewed in Variety? And I think the journalists are mad, because they think they're special and should get treated as such.

I do want to wrap something up, and I want to thank @captainofthetidesbreath for talking a little about this in game design/ttrpgs and giving me the idea, but in story, you should be challenging your audience, expanding their horizons, and being new and interesting. In the actual playing of TTRPGs, especially a new one, it is vital to be inclusive and easy to understand and patient and provide points of reference. I really feel like many Actual Play journalists and some TTRPG ones as well have this equation flipped and are looking for challenging concepts that most people will never be able to get a group to be willing to play, and bells and whistles in production, but leave story as an afterthought. Critical Role designs games to actually be played and to be used specifically to tell good stories, and puts story before production, and I think that undercuts those journalists' whole deal.

#answered #Anonymous #long post #cr tag #anyway though i am going to go lie down and try to take a nap bc the daylight savings got me but good.

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