Welcome to the Nerd Cave

Star Wars, KotOR, Comics and related media fan. Special spot for Blue Beetle and Spider-Man. Sometimes hosts prompting nights

[ur-favorite-fishgirl]

if you vote me for president i vow to make everything the ocean again. no more land only ocean. this will solve all of our problems and replace them with new, far more interesting problems

[the-tardis-is-blue]

hilarious how grace is wandering around that aircraft carrier thinking i'm just a guy. meanwhile his security clearance is technically on the same level as the actual eva stratt herself

[manyblinkinglights]

#phm#in the book he's like#'my office is technically a storage closet. they're gonna kick me out of here when we resupply. i'm about as important as toilet paper.'#man you live on a boat. how many other people on the boat have an office at all.#you're the guy who looks at the paperwork and signs shit that's not worth bothering stratt over#which you can choose to interpret as either not very important or VERY IMPORTANT INDEED.#you're the guy who says 'yeah i think this plan is scientifically feasible'#to which stratt says 'okay my pet scientist says it'll work‚ let's go ahead and pave the sahara.'

[eroscestlavie]

I need to stop replying to “how do you make friends in your 30s?” threads because all my answers boil down to “you have to want to know people instead of have friends” and I don’t think people wanna hear that

[eroscestlavie]

It’s like. People can tell if you don’t really like or connect with them. If you aren’t truly enamored with someone you will have a hard time coming up with activities to do together to deepen the friendship. Because you don’t really like that person that much.

[thesituation]

i don’t feel like debating that topic much farther bc truthfully if it comes down to “women will lose to men in every sport bc they don’t have as much testosterone!!!!!” my elite feminist response is honest to god “ok we will lose with honor as equals instead of having our own special Easy Mode Female category so we can win amongst ourselves” like i’m sorry i just can’t be persuaded. i’m a brick wall. i want co-ed sports

[thesituation]

i bring a sort of “women can lose at some sports against men if it means being regarded as equals” vibe to the debate that “testosterone objectively increases performance” people don’t really like

[chimaerakitten]

So we all talk about being in fandoms for things that are charmingly bad, and being able to acknowledge that they’re charmingly bad. But of course some people are in fandoms for things that are Actually Amazing. There are people out there who write fanfiction for The Best Science Fiction Novel Of The Twentieth Century. Or who draw fanart exclusively of The Best Movie of All Time. And there are even more people who are in fandoms for things that are Actually Pretty Good, which is not quite amazing but is closer to it than to Charmingly Bad.

And sometimes, you have a string of fandoms that are Actually Pretty Good. And the danger of this—the very great danger—is that when you have a string of Actually Pretty Good and even Actually Amazing obsessions, you start to believe that maybe you have taste. Perhaps you are now immune to the indignities of losing it over something mostly bad.

And then it is shattering to discover that no, bad things can still stick a fork in your brain. 😔

[chimaerakitten]

So I understand why the “transformative fandom gathers around things that are not good because there being a problem makes people desire to fix it” model is popular. I even agree that it’s accurate in many if not most cases. However it is not what this post is about. Plenty of people do transformative and creative fandom activities for things that are very, very good. Simplified models do not encompass everything.

And frankly, it’s starting to really get on my nerves when people read “I think this thing is good. I wouldn’t change a thing about it and frankly I don’t even think there should be more canon added to it, but I am still going to write thousands of words of fic, make a cosplay, and draw fanart” and then completely misunderstand and respond with “yes I agree—I like things that are good too. But I never feel the transformative/creative fandom instinct for them because they are too good.”

Some people do not feel it. Other people do. Stop misreading me to avoid having to adjust your mental model of how fandom works.

[blessphemy]

one of the ways a Canon work can be fandom bait is by missing something that fans want to fix, i.e. "it's bad", but i think this is only one way out of multiple that something can be fandom bait.

compelling worldbuilding (invites interaction with the setting)

interesting gimmick (see: daemons, drift compatibility. subcategory of compelling worldbuilding)

shipping bait (duh)

original character bait (in-universe categories/factions and design elements that make it fun for people to create their own characters)

compelling narrative (invites interaction and tweaks to the storyline: AUs and fixits and so on)

basically anything that invites interaction and recombination. but fandom also has a sort of multiplying effect: the larger the interactive audience of fandom is, the more likely it is to generate ideas and works that draw in more participants. so:

network effect (the larger the established fandom, the more likely it has subfandoms and infrastructure that appeals to niche audiences)

[chimaerakitten]

Yes this exactly, thank you bless.

Things that have space to play in are fandom bait, but space to play in does not equal holes.

[reckless-glitch]

[ramblingandpie]

[Video description: Gritty is turning the crank on a flagpole to raise the Progress Pride Flag. He gesticulates angrily that the flag is not blowing in the wind, then gestures offscreen. The flag begins blowing. As Gritty begins raising the flag more, the camera pans out to show a man in a suit and sunglasses, looking like a stern Secret Service agent, is holding a leafblower that points at the flag. End description.]

[banchie]

i've been phasing the phrase 'google it' out of my vocabulary and going back to 'look it up'. fuck you youve lost your generic trademark privileges

[just-another-cat-blog]

pride month!!!

[lemonsharks]

Is that a miette?

[jeanjauthor]

Pride for you!  Pride for a thousand years!!

[lost-and-cursed]

you COME OUT to miette? you come out to her as queer? oh! oh! pride for mother! pride for mother for One Thousand Years!!!!

[andstuffsketches]

carl or whatever his name is

[bedlamsbard]

one thing about being into really mainstream fandoms (as for better or worse most of my major fandoms have been) is that you are constantly at risk of seeing fandom hot takes from people who are not in fandom.

[prokopetz]

You are an unreliable narrator because your coping mechanisms for your deep-seated trauma forbid you from acknowledging the reality of the situation. I am an unreliable narrator because I sincerely have no idea what the fuck is going on.

[afeelgoodblog]

Fantastic idea

[durnesque-esque]

Article about it here. 

[nougatto-archived]

what’s important to note and missing from the “headline” tweet is that they simultaneously constructed additional good public transit to the public transit already in the city (bus rapid transit, train stations). Just removing highway alone isn’t going to make traffic better, the bigger part of the story is that they improved public transportation. And the current mayor wants to do more - cyclist lanes and reinstate a tram system

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

happy pride month, all you lovely people. i am happy you exist and happy you are you.

[awesomelyanon]

Back at it again with my favourite sith lord

[luna-azzurra]

Why Your Protagonist Shouldn’t Be the Only One With a Brain Cell

Your side characters are not scenery. they’re not just there to hold the protagonist’s emotional purse while they go through their Heroic Arc. if your MC is the sun, cool. but the story still needs stars. and planets. and like, a moon or two. or else we’re just staring at one bright dude in an empty void. which gets old fast.

→ So, they should want stuff. and not just “help the main character win the thing.” maybe they want revenge. or validation. or to finally pass their damn exams. maybe they don’t want to be part of the story. that’s interesting too! the point is: they’ve got lives. your protagonist is not the center of their universe (even if they’re in love with them).

→ disagree. please and fight a little. healthy conflict between characters = chef’s kiss. let your side characters call the MC out when they’re being an idiot. let them have their own opinions and morals and trauma. not everything needs to be “yes boss, I’m with you to the end”...some of the best dynamics come from people who love each other but can’t agree on what the right thing even is.

→ disappear sometimes. You don’t need to cram every side character into every chapter. people go home. they get busy. they have their own stuff going on. let them drift in and out naturally. it’s more realistic and it gives you room to breathe between interactions. absence makes the heart grow fonder, or whatever.

→ surprise the reader. I Mean, do you ever get to that one scene where a side character does something way out of pocket and you’re like “EXCUSE ME??” yeah, I love it. it’s not out of nowhere if you’ve built them properly. people are full of contradictions. give your side characters layers and weirdness and secrets and soft spots. make them unpredictable in the way that real people are.

→ Steal the spotlight (just a little) and let them have their moment. their own little arcs. let the reader fall for them. there’s no law that says only the MC can be interesting. in fact, your story will be better if the supporting cast occasionally steals the show. think of it like ensemble energy, your MC’s glow-up hits harder when the people around them are shining too.

[augustheart]

librarians characters ranked by how much eclipso would fuck with them, from least to most fucked with:

ezekiel. i feel like i should just be leaving him off the list because the data is skewed so hard because he's just so Unfuckwithable but c'mon i have to put him here. he would steal the heart of darkness and his natural protection from magic would kick in and everyone would be shocked that he wasn't at all affected. he would be who alex montez THOUGHT he was.

jenkins. unlike ezekiel he would start getting corrupted by the diamond. it's seducing him like crazy. showing him visions and stuff. but his chastity contract is so strong and his stubbornness runs so deep that he's able to beat it back.

cassandra. look. eclipso is going to appeal to her the way the apple of discord did. cassie is an extremely violent person fully capable of murder and it's going to prey on that as soon as it realizes. however, what it fails to realize is that she is fully willing to turn that violence around on whoever/whatever is trying to manipulate her. she would find a way of destroying the diamond within hours. RIP to bruce gordon but she's different.

eve. eve has an extremely strong will, i would put her on par with jenkins, but she's got such an obvious weakness in the form of her friends that she is for sure getting tricked into becoming eclipso in order to protect them as it digs into her deepest fears. sorry. like, i think she can get free of it, We Have The Sun Room, but she would get eclipsoed. For Sure.

jake. who is jake if not the librarians' bruce gordon? he's getting got. sorry. there is simply no way in hell he isn't. it's not a personal failing on his end, he's just absolutely going to possessed by the three hour mark of being in proximity to the diamond.

alexandria. there is no one who is easier to manipulate. she's getting eclipsoed within five seconds of picking up the heart. sad! well there's three other librarians.

[depsidase]