MJ. Multifandom, here for the mythology, romance, and character development baby. Sucker for ships with equal power dynamics, respect, and supernatural interference. Sometimes I write meta and I love to chat about other people's too!
As someone who was alive when Bob Ross (and William Alexander before him — that’s where the approach is from) was on PBS, I can 100% testify that you can paint along with him.
You may need to learn how to set up your paints and such… but this is what people did, live, while the show aired. That’s what the show was for. I had family members create lovely works of art they enjoyed, which I still have on my walls, because William Alexander and Bob Ross both said:
SCREW METICULOUS CLASSICAL ART PRACTICES — JUST GRAB A PALETTE KNIFE AND BIG OLD BRUSH AND PAINT!
They freed a whole generation of people who were taught to paint detail and realism and exact representation of reality — people who largely gave up this kind of thing because it got tedious.
I watched the joy of family members as they rediscovered art as a messy fun spontaneous half hour activity.
Fandom Culture in the Rise of Anti-Intellectualism
I've been in fandom spaces since I was a kid, so I take for granted all the knowledge I have from that. Through my involvement in the ACOTAR fandom, I've noticed trends that weren't really a thing back in the day.
• More and more people don't see the point of, or value in, critique and criticism.
• People think if you don't like something about the books then you have no place participating in fandom.
• People need ships to be canon, call anything non-canon a crack ship, and look down on others for liking non-canon ships.
ACOTAR is a lot of people's first fandom, and, because of that unfamiliarity with fandom culture, I suppose this was inevitable.
If you're someone new to (any) fandom, please keep this in mind :
Fandom culture isn't just about liking something. It's also—
a creative outlet : making a piece about
—what you *wish had happened*
—what you think *makes more sense*
—what you just *think would be interesting*
an emotional outlet : being disappointed in media and wanting to talk about it
an exercise of the mind : breaking down the writing of media, looking for the meaning, or explaining an interpretation based on evidence
Fandom is a community and we all have our reasons for being here.
No, you don't have to like a protagonist.
Because stories have different purposes and will convey different things, protagonists aren't always even meant to be likable.
• Writers will sometimes specifically create protagonists they know won't be liked.
• Writers will write character studies of detestable people, who nobody should like.
No matter how likable a writer intended their protagonist to be, someone somewhere is going to dislike them.
• We all have our own tastes, experiences, and world-views.
• We can discuss our points of view and reasoning with each other, but there are things we'll never agree on.
Even if a protagonist is meant to be liked, but someone doesn't, they can still find enjoyment in media. There are other things to interest people besides the protagonist :
—the world-building
—the story and plot
—liking side characters
People ingest media for different purposes.
Even by the people reading it, Romantasy is constantly spoken of as only a "turn your brain off" or self-insert fulfillment genre. It's been put in this box as if it can only serve one purpose. But that is a limiting way of thinking.
People have their own reasons for ingesting media. Just as some are entitled to use media as purely entertainment or escapism, others are entitled to look into and discuss media.
Critique and criticism are healthy and valuable responses to media.
They help people build and exercise critical thinking skills :
—learning about the structure of writing and discussing it
—learning about the issues of bias, prejudiced depictions & harmful messaging and discussing them
They offer ways to shape cultural thinking for the better :
discussing biases, prejudiced depictions, and harmful messaging in writing, we can shine light on the problems in our societies and be aware of issues we need to address
They encourage writers to grow :
discussions about writers' technical shortcomings or personal biases can cause them to see the issues with their writing or personal thinking, and cause them to work on those while creating future projects
They inspire new writers to create their own works :
when someone takes issue with media, comes to understand why, and has suggestions, then they see writing isn't a closed off thing — anyone can do it
Continuing media even if to "hate read/watch/etc" is still a completely valid way to engage with it.
I've seen people say they bought books in a series all at once and felt they had to get through them rather than adding to the DNF pile. They wanted to get their money's worth, and after spending the time they did, they want to offload disappointment by giving their opinions. That's great!
criticism can prevent others from being disappointed too :
people with similar tastes, who would feel their time and money wasted on something, now have a better chance of spending it on something they would actually enjoy
Criticism and critique of media are not automatic judgment of the people who like it.
If your identity is wrapped so tightly with media that you try to shut down discourse or dismiss it because you feel threatened, then that is the actual unhealthy response.
Again : Fandom is a community and we all have our reasons for being here.
“The gates to her mind ... Solid iron, covered in vines of flowers - or it would have been. The blossoms were all sealed, sleeping buds tucked into tangles of leaves and thorns.” and “He’d never once in the two years he’d known her found Elain to be plain, but wearing black, no matter how much she claimed to be a part of this court... It sucked the life from her.”
I am very much an Elucien girly. IMO, one of the best tropes is when a character helps their love interest out of the darkness. Helps them heal. I loved, loved, loved it with Feyre and Rhys. With Nesta and Cassian. With Bryce and Hunt.
(I haven’t read TOG yet but I’m sure SJM has more couples that fall into that category)
I think we’re going to be surprised when we get Elain’s POV. I think she’s still grieving the life she thought she’d have as a human. I think she’s struggling to fully accept where she is. What she is. She needs to find a path forward. Needs her independence.
And as she said herself, she needs the sun.
I think Lucien is going to be that light for her. I think he’ll challenge her. Support her. Cherish her. The potential for their bond is just 🤌🏻🤌🏻🤌🏻
fanfic writers are so fucking awesome man. they write novel length fics that are sometimes even better than some published bestselling books written by professional writers. like fanfic writers are professional writers to me and they gift us their masterpieces for free. they give us something we can look forward to after a long day. something from which we can seek comfort when life is hard. something that can be our own little getaway. in a world of capitalism, despite everything, they give us all of these for free. like holy fuck. shout out to every fanfic writer. I wish all fanfic writers a very ‘I love you with all my heart and soul. I thank you from the bottom of my heart’
The thing that keeps killing me about the Veil discourse and the fact Solas was planning on destroying the world by removing the Veil is that, especially after Veilguard, we have the confirmation that inaction would have been worse.
It's made very clear in DAI and Trespasser especially that the Veil is failing. It's becoming thinner in thinner. Each Blight's bloodshed are so terrible that some places have a Veil that never recovered. There are already hole in the veil in DAO for the Warden to try to fix in places where the Veil has been torn into pieces (Soldier's Peak and the Blackmarshes especially). And Arlathan and Sundermont where also regions that were said to have had the Veil permanently sundered because of the terrible horrors that happened then.
Solas acts panicked when he learns the Wardens are trying to kill the last archdemons saying it will make the situation worse, and for years I argued that the archdemons are probably seals that held the Veil in place and if all of them were killed, it will collapse. At the time i thought it was an elaborated plan by the Evanuris - i didn't think there was a bond between them unless it was true the Old Gods were the Forgotten ones, but that by using the Blight from the Fade the Evanuris were trying to affect those seals to thin the Veil and either a Blight will punch a hole in it, or once all the archdemons will be dead they will be freed.
This isn't the conclusion Veilguard took but i still had a point where it mattered the most: The Archdemons' lives were tied to [the Evanuris who's lives were tied to] the Veil and if all of them died [and killed the Evanuris linked to them by doing so while separated from their respective Evanuris, as evidenced by there being only 2 Evanuris left in Veilguard], the Veil would collapse.
When Solas awoke, it was barely ten years after the 5th Blight. He didn't even know until then that the Blight had leaked from the the prison he had made.
Corypheus acted up on the Wardens' mind BEFORE Solas got involved with him. We know that from Legacy since it's when it started for Corypheus (and Solas supposedly awoke a bit before Mark of the Assassin according to the webseries Redemption).
Corypheus was affected by the Blight he got from the Evanuris, and wanted to do anything he could to tear down the Veil to get to the Black City.
If Solas hadn't offered his orb to Corypheus, if he had stayed in slumber even, The Wardens may have killed the two last archdemons in panic. Or, and that even if Solas gave up on his goal in Inquisition, eventually centuries down the line the two last blights would have happened and the Veil would have collapsed.
There is no scenario in which Solas doesn't get involved that doesn't end with "The Veil falls down and the Blight locked in the Fade is unleashed on Thedas".
Solas' plan is specifically to take down the Veil in a way that doesn't unleash the Blight and the Last of the Evanuris. He will try to salvage as much as he can doing so but that's the core of it.
Leaving aside all the others dilemma about the People, about the Spirits, about Slavery, about everything that has motivated Solas on top of it all: IF Solas didn't act, the Veil would have collapsed on its own and the world would have ended in a way worse way.
We can debate forever about how deadly Solas' plan would have actually been. In Veilguard he says a few thousands of people would have died because he took precaution. I still believe one of the major reasons people would have died are tied to the way Curing Tranquility Also Leave People Who Were Tranquil In a Vulnerable State That Easily Get Them Killed and it would have been the same for people to reconnect so deeply to the Fade (re why Solas asks Cassandra if she thinks it's worth it to still cure the Tranquils and why it mattered).
We can also argue whether this was the only possible thing that could be done.
But like one thing is certain: even if Solas killed absolutely everyone except the elves by collapsing the Veil, it would still be less damage than if the Veil just collapsed on its own. Which would have happened sooner than later. It wasn't an IF. it was an WHEN.
The "Elven God's blood can keep the Veil up and fully repair it" was a full cope out that makes genuinely No Sense (they were NEVER gods to start with, and personally the reason i liked the Archdemons to be the seals more than the Evanuris was bc of what Yavana says in the comics about the dragons being the blood of the world, something much, much bigger than the elves ever were) just to punish Solas anyway.
But the fact people still act like Solas taking down the Veil was him planning the End of the World and It's Bad are just not interrogating themselves on what the Veil is doing.
It was either a controlled apocalypse that will avoid as much damage as possible, or one that will happen at random and will leave no possible chances of salvation.
Just letting the world end by inaction isn't exactly any better than trying to do something.
It's somehow the same logic as Rook and Varric never being blamed for unleashing the final blights. Accidentally triggering the end of the world, or just knowingly letting it happen are fine, but trying to actually do control damage is bad actually.
The Alternative should have been to find another path. One Solas was too prideful, too blind to newer ways, too isolated to have considered himself. One that could remove the Veil without this amount of destruction. Not to reinforce the Veil all together.
And i just think it's unfair to look at Solas plan of destroying the world as the basis to judge he's a bad person without ACKNOWLEDGING what the options actually are. Not even in term to defend Solas, but in term of, do you understand what's at stake????
Yeah but all of that hand wringing over moral, ethical, and philosophical dilemmas is too complicated for people who’d rather just punch the problem until it goes away. Exploring a lose-lose scenario where the only choices are between something terrible and something worse is too big brain for new BioWare. They’d rather make Fortnite with a few Dragon Age decals slapped on here and there than try to engage with the kind of thought provoking narratives that earned them an audience in the first place. Clearly it’s our job to fall in line and blindly consume whatever they give us, and not their job to make content worth engaging with in the first place.
I liked Lucien almost immediately, in the first book.
He is a very lively and bright character. Against the closed and slightly gloomy Tamlin, Lucien immediately stood out and aroused sympathy. I don’t know how his character will develop, but while I’m reading books, I have never been disappointed in him. I’ll show his mask a little later. For now, let’s look at his beautiful face with a sly smile, the son of the Autumn Court. And the mechanical eye doesn’t spoil it at all, do you agree?
Thank-you to all of my new Internet stranger friends for being so gracious about having my post shoved onto your dashboards. I loved reading all of your kind tags and comments! Both Martin and Bosco have been gone for several years now but for 24 hours, they felt very present in my life. I greatly appreciate this gift. ❤️
#getting choked up about this post again!!!!
#the quiet love of thousands of people for a man and his dog that they never met
#martin and bosco
#thank you for sharing them with us OP
#may all of us be loved this much when our own time comes
@terioncalling ’s tags:
#hello martin and bosco!
#gently nudges them out again with the reblogs like launching a tiny boat
#good luck on your adventures boys
Every morning, I open my Tumblr app and see messages like these in my Activity. How can I not smile and feel a bit of joy? Serotonin I can actually afford in this economy. XD
Over a decade ago, I wrote a lot for a fandom I loved. In recent months, I've stumbled across people rec'ing my fics in the wild (across multiple sites), and often these people gush over how much they love my writing and how they would've loved to see more. I've even found my work spoken of positively on TV Tropes in multiple places, with people saying how awesome my work was and how I was a fantastic contributor to the fandom.
Which is shocking news to me, because even today, the engagement on those works doesn't reflect that response AT ALL. Back then, I received barely any positive engagement and people were actively mocking my fandom-related Tumblr posts in main tags (and those posts got likes/reblogs from Big Name Fans, which played into my decision to leave the fandom before I continued getting hurt).
I'm glad my work has resonated with people, but it's a shame I went so long believing people didn't care if I continued or not. I counted myself lucky if I received 1 comment per several-thousand-words work. I still don't receive much feedback on those works today.
Now I see those TV Tropes pages or my fic rec'd in the comments of someone's TikTok and it warms my heart, but that nagging question still remains... "You say you loved this so much, it's the best work for this pair you've ever read, it changed your brain chemistry, I'm one of your favorite authors... but you didn't favorite / kudos / comment on that work? Even my hits are low. I genuinely had no idea people liked what I was working on. I stopped writing in this fandom because on the rare occasion I got a comment, the people who WERE commenting told me they didn't like my plots or endings. I stopped writing because my fandom peers were liking and reblogging posts laughing at my character analyses. Some people wrote works that bashed on mine specifically (and told me that's what they were doing)."
No one is obligated to kudos/comment, obviously, but it's a weird, disconnected feeling to go digging for my username and see several separate people rec those works 10 years later and say "Anything by this author is phenomenal." If I hadn't spent hours scouring the Internet in search of my username one day when I had free time, I'd have NO IDEA that several people consider my decade-ago writing "some of the best in the fandom."
I probably would have continued writing for that fandom another 10+ years if I'd gotten positive comments, even if the negative comments were still there. It would've helped me weather the storm. Heck, I'd go back quick if I started getting positive comments now. But today, I glance back and the comments I see on those works are still largely hurtful... I've come close to deleting those works several times. I genuinely had no idea people liked them. It's an odd place to be.
i love how Gandalf invested in Hobbits in year one and has been pushing them ever since. Thorin, i hear you need help with a breaking and entering. Can I recommend one of these little cunts? Silent as fuck, trust me. Elrond my dude i know you're skeptical but these four chucklefucks just transported a weapon of mass destruction all the way here. Theoden, you've gotta get yourself a hobbit man, I've got a spare one here. Denathor you big prick, take a hobbit - literally this is the bottom of the range but listen to him sing. Beautiful little bastard.
In "Unfinished Tales" there's a section where the Fellowship gets Gandalf to tell his side of the story about how he recommended Bilbo to Thorin's company and this is literally how it went down:
Oddly enough, the costumes for these guys were the easiest to deal with. They live in the mortal lands, so they dress in the fashion of the mortals of this country (???? Geez someone tell me what the piece of Prythian where the mortals live is called? Is it a country? What??????) khem… So… We all know Lucien is the most fashionable fashionista, so he looked at his friends, grabbed his heart and made them both change into decent clothes!
