The Road So Far (This Time Around): the Blog

The trials and tribulations of a no good dirty rotten author as she writes through this beastie of a fanfic https://archiveofourown.org/works/13492527

[louferrignojrofficial]

this moment never fails to make me insane

[mypeopleskillzarerusty]

Watch his thumb though 👀

[8yearsofsilence]

Omgyaad, he draaaags that hand over Cas's shoulder

[8yearsofsilence]

I’m watching good omens, and god do I love the two of them.  The second season’s plot wasn’t the strongest, but I really enjoyed Aziraphale and Crowely's moments together.  I think that’s the thing I – we all – missed out on most in the third season.  But I’m glad we got the cliff notes.  Cliff notes over nothing, every time. 

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

[tronmike82]

I don’t mean to be rude; but I don’t think I’ve ever seen this, does anyone have any examples?

[darkshrimpemotions]

Supernatural

Doctor Who (Steven Moffat specifically)

Sherlock (Steven Moffat specifically)

Actually Steven Moffat is basically just this sentiment given human form.

A version of this happened with The Magicians, tbh. Though instead of expectation: men, reality: women it was expectation: smug nihilists, reality: mentally ill queer folks.

Arguably Game of Thrones.

If we broaden it outside of television…I think Star Wars falls into this, at least the sequel trilogy. Maybe the MCU as well. And I can’t help but think of every band that’s ever complained that their fanbase is mostly women. 5 Seconds of Summer comes immediately to mind.

In general, most white male creators seem to have this massively entitled mindset where they want–and think they deserve–the time, attention, and enthusiasm that creative fandom (i.e. the side of fandom more dominated by women) is known for.

They want our eyes for ratings, our word-of-mouth for free publicity, our metas for social media buzz, and our spending power for merch and cons. But they don’t want us. And they don’t really want the responsibility of telling a story to a thoughtful, engaged audience, regardless of that audience’s demographic makeup. They just want to be praised for whatever schlock they cough up.

And like any other spoiled brat, they will break their toys before they share them.

[pessimisticfanboi]

It goes all the way to the top for kids shows. Toy sales will crash a show. Makes sense, but if those toys are gendered for boys instead of the female viewers, they won’t usually switch up the marketing and move them to the girl aisle. They cancel the show outright.

Mind you it is perfectly possible to make the switch in marketing, but execs would rather throw it all out than have something that doesn’t perform well with male viewers. For example the Rey merch was not expected to be popular, for some reason, there had to be public outcry to get merch of one of the main 3 protagonists. A PROTAGONIST. The fact that she wasn’t a huge part of the 1st launch says a lot already.

And what happened when female fans got too invested in the Sequel Trilogy? The entire writers room didn’t necessarily lash out, but they sure forgot how to behave.

Young Justice

Paul Dini: Superhero cartoon execs don’t want largely female audiences

#WhereIsRey (initial)

#WhereIsRey (ongoing)

'Star Wars: The Last Jedi' owes its box-office success to women

The older, male generation of 'Star Wars' fans may be losing interest in the franchise, but female fans are stepping up.

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was designed to be the opposite of The Last Jedi

[drunkenhills]

You’re all sitting on the hot take of the decade tbh

[vbartilucci]

And yet when they fond out that boys were watching MLP:FIM in droves, they had NO PROBLEM with it.

[jediorgana-deactivated20260403]

#SONS OF ANARCHY!!!!!!!!!!!!!#LITERALLY SONS OF ANARCHY IS THE BIGGEST EXAMPLE OF THIS LIKE EVER#kurt sutter wrote that show for MEN and ended up with an overwhelmingly female audience#because he’s actually a good writer and knows how to develop characters well and wrote excellent female characters#but once he realized that his audience was almost entirely women he literally took it out on tara and gemma in the show#but like tara specifically#he resented her character for being a huge draw for female viewers so he tore her development to shreds and killed her#in the most brutal gut wrenching way possible#kurt sutter you will pay for your crimes#i actually wrote a manifesto about this on one of my old blogs i should try to find it sldkjsldfjsdljf#long post (via@m-oonknight)

OMG YES. I LOVED Sons of Anarchy, especially the women and then I got to season 6 and it was like - everything was just tossed in the trash? And like, why did Sutter hate that Tara drew tons of attention? That should have been a good thing! He should have been like “Hey folks, this girl’s getting us more viewers, let’s put her in more scenes!” It just doesn’t make sense to me. MEN don’t make sense to me.

[geraltcirilla]

The 100 too. I’ll never forget how Jason Rothenberg would attacked female fans on Twitter and mock them in interviews, and then post links to male fan discussions on Reddit to praise and thank them. In his goodbye letter to the show he SPECIFICALLY thanked Reddit and it was so disgusting.

[annaknitsspock]

Star Trek from TNG on was also a boy’s club, even though the TOS fans were mostly women. Women, in fact, who literally created modern fandom with their zines. But after TNG it was all, “Women don’t understand Star Trek, only smart men hur dur.”

[help-help-i-need-an-adult]

I think it would be harder for us to find examples of when this DIDNT happen than when it did. It happens all the time.

[nova-arcania]

Doesn’t stop it from boggling the mind

(though it could probably start to make some sense if you follow the money past audience bases to maybe a couple of investors or like a rich patron … 🤔)

[ridleymocki]

Stooooop I just wrote a masters thesis on this shit. Media creation and distribution is a means by which dominant power structures consolidate their hegemony. Dominantly situated creators get upset when the audience they attract isn’t the audience they wanted, because they view the whole creation and sharing of the fiction as an exercise to sustain kyriarchal conditions that benefit themselves. When the audience is Other, they see it as a failure of those efforts and lash out.

Simply, they’re trying to assert a particular worldview via fiction, and upon getting confronted with something else, begin foot stamping. It’s not just men wanting male attention and gatekeeping. It’s that the fiction in the first place was an attempt to curate dominance and whoopsie! they miscalculated.

(anyway if anyone wants to read 35k words of philosophy about this, hmu)

[ridleymocki]

Hey folks, for anyone that was interested in the thesis (firstly thank you so much for reaching out I really appreciate the interest) the following is an open access link to download it. Please let me know if it doesn’t work for some reason. Comments are now restricted so can’t put it there, but I hope you see this if you were interested!

I’d also love to hear your thoughts, as I literally wrote it for communities like ours to read, so, thanks.

Fictions are a cornerstone of human cultures: they are created, shared, discussed, modified, and valued. Yet, philosophical accounts which p

[fabuki]

Happy Pride to them ♥️🏳️‍🌈

[moninils]

And all of this at once.

[8yearsofsilence]

Hit that nail right on the head

[pbeeanjay]

reprogrammed

[beggars-opera]

The old school lack of transparency on tumblr is amazing because you assume the people you follow must all be equivalent to you and then you see someone write “I brought my youngest to college today” and someone else write “my mom wouldn’t let me listen to Ariana Grande when I was a kid” and then your head explodes

[formerlyanon]

and we need that! keeps us humble. 

[dabouse]

Then I'm just like WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU’RE AN ADULT

[tomboy014]

It goes the other way, too, because WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU'RE A CHILD?!!

[dabouse]

I'm 16, that's like, barely a child

[tomboy014]

I'm in my 30s. You are baby

[digitaldiscipline]

I'm older than both of you in a trenchcoat.

[kabretoss]

honestly one of the best things we can do for ourselves is realize that people of different ages than us can still be the same kind of person as us. it's humbling and it gives everyone involved a sense of continuity, and it busts those stupid generational stereotypes media is so fond of.

[depsidase]

[8yearsofsilence]

No chapter?

Haha, sorry, my friend, no chapter yet! I've taken on a couple RL projects that are helping pull me out of my depression, but take up a significant amount of time and energy. I'm still chugging away on the story, just slow and somewhat steadily 😅. I'll get you another chapter as soon as I can!

Cheers,

Silence

[calamitys-child]

I truly am obsessed with how Knives Out was like. Hello Daniel Craig, man who has spent the past two decades of his career being alternately beaten up and objectified playing an action hero with no personality. Would you like to please put on a shirt and an incomprehensible vaguely Texan accent and flex your character acting dark comedy muscles as well as your pecs for a while. And he's like BOY WOULD I and they made a work of art. Also love that they put Chris Evans in sweaters. Get your beefcakes then dress them nice make them soft and give them some bonkers character work to do it's what cinema needs more of

[8yearsofsilence]

... you've never been to Texas, have you?

[beybuniki]

let the angel stay at the motel </3

[8yearsofsilence]

Look how happy the thought makes him, though!

[captainchilly]

One Castiel Quote per Episode 45/136 → 8.07 “A LITTLE SLICE OF KEVIN”

[8yearsofsilence]

I wish they'd given us a parallel of Cas's "You don't think you deserve to be saved' here. Can you imagine, Dean, who's never thought himself worth saving, hearing the angel that chose him, that *kept* choosing him, say he's not worth saving? I feel like he should have lost his damn shit.

[lazarrusrising]

They should have had a scene where Cas is restrained/in trouble and Dean is trying to rescue him and Cas gives him this Look and suddenly there's an angel blade dropping into Dean's hand, Cas's angel blade

[8yearsofsilence]

@lazarrusrising Can- Can I steal this? My writing can only be descibed as Verbose AF, so this will not come up in my fic for some time, but omg, can I still have pls yes thank you? [heavy breathing intensifies]

[lazarrusrising]

Castielism, just fucking leaving Dean halfway through a conversation

[lazarrusrising]

He does do it again this episode lmao

[lazarrusrising]

Another iconic Cas flapping away scene

[lazarrusrising]

[8yearsofsilence]

Dean even calling him out on it.

[beatsheetromanroy]

another thing. demon’s shouldn’t be able to wield angel blades. they should be burning just by being in the mere vicinity of one….

[8yearsofsilence]

Agreed. In the early Supernatural fanfiction days, there was a popular headcanon that only angels could weild angel blades and, in particular, that each angel blade was a manifestation of that angel's grace, it couldn't be yielded by another. Bonus that Gabriel's archangel blade couldn't be yielded by a lesser angel. I loved those head-cannons. The show ended them pretty quickly, but man, I wish angel blades had been more unique than just blades.

[sirpompet]

Castiel makes a ‘friend’ that both Sam and dean know has a crush on castiel. Deans jealous the whole time so when they go out he’s just peacocking their ‘friendship’ to make the guy jealous.

When they go out to eat he orders for cas, castiel doesn’t touch his food but the moment deans done with his he slides it over to him. He orders a slide of pie and slides it over to dean without braking from the conversation and deans pretty smug about it. Dean adjusts the castiels outfit and tie more then usual (and it seems usual because castiel doesn’t say anything about it, Sam either). He makes a point to tell the guy “oh, cas doesn’t like that. Cas wouldn’t like it” and castiel goes along with it. Sometimes he even shrugs at the menu and asks dean “what should i get? You always know what I would prefer” and deans smug as fuck because cas is scooted up right agent him while the guy has to sit with Sam across from them.

[valdelion]

It's Mick Davies

[8yearsofsilence]

It's 100000000% Mick Davies.

[lizleeships]

*GASP*

(EDIT: HERE IS PART TWO)

I spent so much time on this that I feel like I should marry it. I literally giggled with joy once it was finally finished. Gahdamn. 

It all started with that 4th panel which was just a lone drawing at first… and then the rest of the comic just sorta happened, in which Cas somehow gets stuck in his true form, but on the physical plane. (And yes, there is a very strategic Impala head amidst his manifestations, haha) There are still so many tweaks/fixes I could do but I got sick of looking at it so I’m calling it done, lol. I’m also aware that Dean is a little curt with Sam in this (some have mentioned this), but I sorta think he’d be kind of be gruff when his cosmic bf was in trouble. 

I LOVE hearing comments, so tell me what you think! How do you picture Cas’ true form? :D

PS: The spell Dean is holding says something like “the vessel is unbound” or something, I dunno. Don’t quote me on that, it’s just bullshit that looks pretty, hahah :D

(Pretty please don’t repost | Visit my main account @lizleeillustration | If you like my work, consider buying me a Kofi? )

Also, bonus panel because I cannot take anything seriously: