Fandom Addiction Overflow

Mostly general writing/fanfiction themed stuff; previously my Harry Potter blog. Themed sideblogs: Marvel Avengers (lbibliophile-mcu), Avatar the Last Airbender (lbibliophile-atla), Star Wars (lbibliophile-sw)

[meyerlansky]

just. please know. that giffing scenes like that is a fucking nightmare labor of love.

to wit:

bottom's the raw capture, middle's just flat curve correction to make the footage visible, top is the final coloring with /counts seven adjustment layers to add back in Literally Anything But Yellow

every giffer i know does it out of love for the game, but for the record it's not... easy. it's not just slapping the footage in a cap grabber and posting whatever it spits out. "professional" lighting and color grading has only gotten waaay murkier and flatter in the fifteen years i've been giffing on here, so uh. don't repost gifs, please!

[infiniteeight8]

I thought the bottom was a black bar. I didn't even realize that was footage.

Everyone say thank you to your neighbourhood GIF maker! Giffers are so important to the fannish ecosystem, but to so many people the amount of work involved invisible.

[pollsforadults]

You get transported into the universe of the last media you consumed. How are you doing?

This is better than my real life

I'm doing well

I'm doing fine

I'm not having a good time

I'm absolutely cooked

There is nothing different about this universe and my own

Voting ended onMay 29

[stealingpotatoes]

rereading your own fics/wips is a very slippery slope into finding out you actually have to finish your fics if you want them finished

[lanadelreyquasa]

WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT

[kaibas-paragraphical-mind]

YOU COULD BE A FUCKING BADASS DRAGON THAT’S THE POINT

[who-the-f-ck]

“I AM A CREATURE OF DARKNESS” “oh hey sabrina.”

[shitsuren-chama]

I guess the point is that you could shapeshift into the body you always thought you’d grow into when you were a kid

taller, shorter, slimmer, more muscular, purple hair, tattoos everywhere, tattoos nowhere, 

every single shoe would fit you every single time you tried it on, every single article of clothing would fit your perfectly, all you have to do is transform slightly, you’d never run out of ‘your size’ again

and you wouldn’t have to work for it at all, and you’d never be limitted by your bone structure or something. You could just transform at will.

[elvenrainbow]

[bogleech]

I don’t see how this is much of a downside

When you turn into a sixty story tentacle demon and terrorize a city you want to get the credit you deserve

[revereche-deactivated20140508]

Oh man that would be so sweet. I could be an annoying fuck as an insect or something but you couldn’t kill me because everyone would know

[perpetualcombustioninstruct-blog]

That’s great but have you considered

~cosplay

~Halloween costumes

~acting

~cosplay

~stretching to reach stuff and shrinking to fit through spaces

~cosplay

~cosplay

~COSPLAY

[solsolecito]

imagine being at work minding your business and then suddenly you look out the window and see like a 50ft tall flamingo and then someone just says “oh, yeah, that’s just pete, he does this sometimes, don’t worry”

[brightlotusmoon]

“BRB, gonna be a cat-sized dragon for a few hours. Might come home a foot taller with mood tattoos.”

“Don’t antagonize the fae.”

“I AM the fae, Susan.”

[aqueerkettleofish]

Also, consider— people will know it’s you, but it doesn’t say they’ll know what you are. “So is Pete a 50 foot flamingo who changes into a man, or the other way around?” “We.. we don’t know. Barbara asked him once, but he just grinned. She said they weren’t the teeth of a human OR flamingo and she didn’t want to talk about it.”

[frolicking-cat]

Iconic post

[tossawary]

Learning that a story originated as a fanfiction before having its serial numbers filed off... the filing jobs can obviously vary in quality a lot, but I have found that learning this info often explains something (neutral statement) about the story / world choices that was tickling my brain somehow. The element I've been thinking about recently are the friendships within the former fanfiction story.

Like, it's not weird for wholly original romance novels to have otherwise disposable friend characters who act as author mouthpieces at crucial points in the story. (It's also not uncommon for romance novel characters to have NO close friends or family, in my experience, which is a different thing.) Former fanfics do not even slightly have a monopoly on, "Hey, what's up with this weird friend character? They seem a little out-of-place here? Also seems like you're maybe under-utilizing the weird, comedic relief friend, tbh; they could be doing more in this story."

But with former fanfics, sometimes you get the lightbulb moment of: "Ohhhhh, this was a former Stucky fanfic and this female best friend is Like That (in a same way that every character is probably also a little bit Like That) because she originated as AU Natasha Romanoff before having the serial numbers filed off! I get it now."

[tossawary]

See, in fanfiction as literature, it's pretty much wholly accepted that a character's role in a story can exclusively be... Being That Character in this AU. Which isn't a bad thing. It's just a thing. It's very often fun.

Audience familiarity with (and affection for) the characters and their relationships to one another can be one of fanfiction's strengths re: storytelling. You can play with a lot of reader expectations this way.

Anyway, if I was reading a Coffee Shop AU Star Wars Reylo fanfiction (you could basically use this example fic to ward me personally off like garlic against a vampire, tbh, but let's pretend)... even if Finn had nothing to do as a character in this story besides be Rey's coworker at the coffee shop, I would be even more suspicious and dismayed if Finn was completely missing. We EXPECT to see at least briefly all of the major members of a cast in an AU fanfic of certain length, barring unusual circumstances.

Even if he is almost completely irrelevant to the meet-cute at hand, I WANT to know where Chewbacca is in this AU! I want to enjoy a little chuckle when, idk, C-3PO is turned into a high-strung, middle-aged office guy with either a short, non-English-speaking husband or a Border Collie-Corgi mix dog named Artoo that runs his entire life. It's delightful to see the characters I know and love in the background!

But when you file the serial numbers off of AU fanfiction, a character's role in a story can no longer be Being That Character. Now, you potentially have a bunch of story elements that conflict slightly or conflict very seriously. Now, you may have additional characters whose presence is no longer perfectly explained by the fact that you are expected to include all the Avengers in your MCU fanfic.

Now, Not-Chewbacca's quirks cannot be explained away by him Being Chewbacca. And suddenly, readers are like, "Hey, kind of weird throwaway detail for Not-Kylo's dad to be a former drug runner who lives in a van with an old, foreign war vet! Is that going to be relevant later???" Once you cut the fanfiction strings, your new story may feel riddled with inconsistencies and missed opportunities. Why are these characters here if they're 1) not contributing to the plot, 2) not contributing to character ans relationship development, and 3) not even really contributing tonally (humor, angst, fluff) to the story?

I'm sticking to talking about friendships and background characters here, because it's what I've been thinking about lately, though you could obviously go on forever taking about all the many nuances of what filing the serial numbers off does to a story and the art of adaptation. I just had a "Oh! It's NAT! Hi, Black Widow! Sorry this story made you kind of boring, Nat!" moment recently.

[coffee-without-anesthetics]

did you know ? you can double-click on text to highlight it , then you can hold ctrl while double-clicking other stuff to highlight it too without disselecting the previously selected bits

[coffee-without-anesthetics]

[johannestevans]

Also, consider. A magical version of the bends. Whenever someone from a non- or low-magical land has to go into a very magic rich forest or land or dimension, having to take breaks to let their bodies adjust to the new magic exposure or else their blood will boil in their veins or they'll Transform

[wormtoxin]

actually the bends only kicks in when you try to LEAVE the high pressure area. or in this case, magic rich area?

Getting deeper and deeper into feywilds and knowing that however deep you get, it’s gonna take twice as long to escape without magic tearing its way out of you

[j-h-cubedman]

Living in Australia, I'm kinda always at the mercy of my posts lining up with crappy timezones, so when I came back to Tumblr and realised there was a fully in-built post scheduling system, I was very excited...only to happily realise that even with that in mind, Tumblr has a much more 'time-blind' and relaxing approach to posts. It lifts my spirits whenever I see that somebody's gone through my catalogue or liked a post that had been put out days or even weeks ago, and it appears that that's a far more prevalent phenomenon on this site compared to anywhere else. A guy could get used to this more easygoing posting experience, although of course that's all thanks to folks like you! Thank you all. BONUS:

[blondebrainpowered]

The Open Book Fountain is a fountain of an open book with water used at regular intervals to give the illusion of a page being turned. Located at Egyetem Square (Egyetem tér), Budapest.

Created in 2012 by artist Kelecsenyi Gergely and engineer Jozsef Szita.

[beardedmrbean]

[seaturtlesayshuh]

Casting spells over long range: I use my amulet

Casting spells with high quality and fidelity: I use my fmulet

[ellienamored]

casting spells: i use my amulet

casting spells that are a lot alike the other spells dignity-wise but CANNOT be combined with them: i use my omtague

[wonder-womans-ex]

casting spells in the present tense: I use my amulet

casting spells in the past tense: i use my wasulet

[problemnyatic]

casting spells: i use my amulet

casting spells on myself: i use my ammelet

[briannyssey]

casting spells: i use my amulet

casting spells in the kitchen: i use my omelette

[dragon-in-a-fez]

casting spells: I use my amulet

casting spells while sporting a distinctive long hair style: I use my amullet

[beardedmrbean]

[blumineck]

Disclaimer: I don’t know for sure if this technique was done historically, but I’m willing to bet I’m not the first person to have ever tried it and found that it works. Do with that what you will!

More archery nonsense, as always, can be found on Patreon

[feldfrog]

If a fantasy world has an ancient tree of wisdom, that means it must also have young trees that are dumb as shit. Just giving terrible advice like, "the evil wizard is kinda hot"'

[tyrannosaurus-trainwreck]

They could also be trees of wisdom, but like the energetic and inexperienced kind that thinks it can reason with you when you're doing something that's a screamingly bad idea.

"How do I defeat the evil wizard?"

Young tree of wisdom: "You're sixteen and leading a pack of fourteen-year-olds. None of you should be fighting an evil wizard. Also whoever's telling you that this is a good idea doesn't have your best interests at heart."

The older trees of wisdom have made peace with the failings of animal minds and will meet you where you're at.

"How do I defeat the evil wizard?"

Old tree of wisdom whose 'none of you should be doing this' advice has been ignored 15 times and counting: "With great sacrifice, much bloodshed, and if at all possible, the advantage of complete surprise. Also you can never go wrong with a solid kick to the nads."

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

lukewarm vampires

[biggest-gaudiest-poltergeist]

no listen to me vampires are only "cold" compared to living humans who have a pulse built-in heating unit. but it's not like they have built in refrigeration. the undead aren't actually "cold" per se at best they're room temperature. lukewarm vampires

[notquiteaghost]

romance story you think is going to be a slow burn except character A suggests fake dating For Reasons and character B immediately responds, delighted, "holy shit you're in love with me" and then the actual relationship plot is A desperately trying to deny this because they have not been allowed their requisite several months to ease into the idea romance is on the cards here for real while B is like. yes i know you have issues, you're very repressed, im tragically into this, but sweetheart. darling. we could be kissing right now.

A keeps trying to bolt from the mortifying ordeal of being known and B keeps yelling no take backsies

[notquiteaghost]

like what if you are an insane person and you are in love with someone but due to being insane you want to try and soft launch dating them. maybe you are aware that's what you're doing maybe you aren't. but they know you very well and they see what you're doing immediately, and then call you out on it, because the dynamic here is repressed neurotic weirdo 4 obnoxious little shit. their willingness to see through you and then point out all the shit you were trying to hide is a big point of how you go to being in love with them in the first place. you regret it now

[echodoctor]

For everyone who’s had their writing done for days and hasn’t posted it because they’re still stuck on what to call the damn fic.

[rainydaydecaf]

The Hobbit movies would have been vastly improved by going the same route as the The Princess Bride movie

Just constant cuts to the future with Frodo chiming in as Bilbo tells the story to be like “that’s not how you told it when I was little!” and “wait, you never mentioned these orcs chasing you!”

And Bilbo hems and haws like “well, I didn’t want to scare the children” etc and we see the same scene get replayed multiple times with slight variations as Frodo and Bilbo bicker about the details of what actually happened

(And then we can do an extra gut-punch at the end where Bilbo tells the little kids “yeah, the dwarves were all fine, nobody died, they recovered from their wounds and went on to rule the kingdom” and maybe we get a glimpse of a universe where that happened… but Bilbo turns away as soon as the children are gone and stared out the window while he relives the truth all over again 😭)

[doctorbluesmanreturns]

plus we could have seen the original version where Gollum just gave the ring to Bilbo as the prize in the riddle contest, and then have Frodo say "That's funny because Gandalf told me...." and then the true version, at which point Bilbo clears his throat awkwardly and looks at the ceiling.