stardust_rifle | Entries tagged with m's effortposting

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What the title suggests. Autism won and I almost filled out a full spread in my sketchbook of some VtM Tzimisce OCs (and OCs-to-be who aren't fully fleshed out yet)!

[if you can't read my handwriting, clockwise from the top left corner: Wren Simmons (they/them), Dr. Würger (he?/him?, "The Young Bride" (she/her), "The Worm Queen" (she/her), Anatol Jednyak (any pronouns), and Yulia Obertus (she/it). Arrows indicate that Dr. Würger sired Wren and Anatol sired Yulia. Würger and Anatol are also indicated to have the same sire.]

Close-ups and more about these individual characters below the cut!

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I found this 2024 Year In Review, and I thought it looked fun, so I decided to do it.

1: How many fics have you worked on since January?

Oh god. *opens up Google Docs* 33 unfinished works plus 43 individual fics posted to Ao3... 75?!?!?!?!?!

...I worked on 75 fics since January 2024. Oh god. Caveat that I'm dyscalculic and thus could be fucking up the number, but...

Holy shit, me. Holy shit. Good job. Now time to finish up those 33 works.

2: What's something new you tried in a fic this year?

Yuri! I wrote 2 F/F fics this year, and more if we're counting genderbends of canonically male characters. I greatly enjoyed the experience and am probably going to be doing it again. Thanks, HSR. Now give Jingliu some story relevance.

3: What piece of media inspired you the most? (This can be the fandom you wrote the most for, the one that spawned the most ideas, the one you thought about the most, etc.)

*looks at Ao3 stats* Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. Somehow went from "thing I like but not super intensely" to "thing that consumes every waking hour of my mind" last year and the fic train kept on rolling. Never underestimate the power of having friends to reinforce your obsession.

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csa ment below the cut. this is because of who i am as a person.

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Would like to thank (question mark) this post from r/animecirclejerk for inspiring this one.

I'm certainly not the first person to notice this sort of subgenre of shounen romance, but I don't think it has a name, and I'd like to lay out all of its features in one place just to see 1: if anyone has any ideas for a pithy name so I can discuss this further and 2: to see if people also agree with me that this is a thing deserving recognition as a thing. Gonna start laying out the characteristics right here.

The male lead is usually a very generic audience stand-in character, with a very generic design. Short black, brown, or dark-colored hair, dressed in a non-customized school uniform. Higher-than-average chance of having sanpaku eyes, regardless, they're usually dark in color. He has no unique personality gimmicks that catch a viewer, and more poorly written examples of the type have no unique personality at all. Definitely a cousin of the Stock Light-Novel Everyman and the Stock Harem Protagonist.

The female lead is usually where the interesting stuff comes in. She has a unique personality gimmick that is also the series' "hook", so to speak, and the title usually references said hook. In a lot of examples, she is explicitly the title character. She is likely going to be designed more interestingly than the male lead, but that's not a high bar to clear. The female lead almost always wears a school uniform, and has the Standard Hot Anime Girl Body Type (small waist, large but not too large breasts, long legs). She probably has long hair that's some eye-catching color.

There might be other female characters with equally eye-catching designs and interest in the male lead, but they're never presented as love interests for him in the same way that the female lead is.

The plot is a romcom, set in school.

Honestly, this is all surface-level stuff, I'd like more input from people who've actually watched these series.

I liked it! I know some people in the subreddit didn't, but not everything has to be super in-depth plotty loredumps that advance the ongoing narrative. Sometimes it's fun to just go deep into a new character's backstory and have a fun little sidequest that's wrapped up neatly within one patch. It's fine. I enjoyed it.

Spoilers below the cut!

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The tag is technically wrong, because I've given up on all pretense of keeping up with seasonal anime, but this is my journal and I do what I want.

Oshi no Ko Season 2: Oshi no Ko continues to be good. Less Ai this season than I would have liked, but this season really made me fall in love with Akane- I love the whole part of her personality where she's so into being a devoted GF for Aqua that she's like "Hey, I'll totally kill for you. This is a normal thing to offer your boyfriend of half a year." Also adore that unlike many Ideal Anime Wifegirls she has interests and a personality beyond just obsessing over Aqua- she's devoted to acting and has her own backstory about wanting to be better than Kana, giving them a reason to have a rivalry for reasons beyond "they like the same guy". Also she's just insufferably cute and I want a dumb little plushie of her so I can kiss it on the forehead. Also she gets points for being just very smart. Akane best girl I was horribly convinced that Aqua was going to pick Kana but NO he actually made the correct choice please don't ruin it for me manga readers by saying that he picks Kana in the end. Let me have this one thing. FINISHED.

Blue Lock Season 2: Blue Lock also continues to be good. Genuinely love the plot twist of Ego having to change his entire plans because his sponsors are cutting off his money stream and he keeps getting calls from parents. He's such a delightfully weird character. *shaking the newbies* WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS WHAT CAN YOU DO. I love how the mangaka designs characters- you can't tell just from looking at the designs who's going to be a major character and who's not. ONGOING, GOING TO KEEP WATCHING.

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uhh "villains win" au of jojolion where tooru atticwifes yasuho. she would be pretty hard to keep in that damn attic, though, with paisley park. and wonder of u is an automatic stand, so if she's focused on running away rather than attacking him, he uhh. can't do shit. he just gets his guys to go after her. pathetic fucking excuse for a yandere. deeply fucked shit below the readmore.

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One of the things I find most interesting about Eden is how each one of them parallels a specific member of Trickstar in a sort of “mirror universe”/”twisted funhouse mirror” kind of way. Apologies if this is like, a commonly discussed topic, but I had to get my ideas on paper and I think it’s good to explicitly state these things down.

Firstly, Nagisa parallels Subaru. One of Subaru’s main flaws (at least according to the narrative) is his disconnection from other people. He can’t understand why people do things or why they’re not following his All Cheer All The Time policy, which causes conflict. But in the end, his disconnection from normal humanity is also what makes him such a great idol- disconnected from normal humanity, he can become a genius in ways that normal people just can’t. However, Subaru’s kindness and love for his friends keeps him “down to earth”.

Nagisa, then, is what happens when you take that aspect of Subaru’s character and explicitly interrogate it in-universe. If disconnection from humanity creates genius super-idol-Artistes (and this is a thread that runs through all of Enstars’ writing, from the Eccentrics to Subaru and Nagisa to Sora), then why not deliberately raise someone who’s disconnected from humanity to create this Genius-Super-Idol-Artiste? And then that’s how you get Nagisa. Nagisa is (at least before his character development) someone who finds it extremely difficult to function in society and relate to other people, to the point that he ends up hurting or confusing them. He doesn’t know how humans work to a much, much stronger degree than Subaru. While Subaru is mildly inhuman, Nagisa is an “omnipotent god”. Nagisa, then, at least in ! era, is Subaru Akehoshi’s worst traits on steroids.

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Are there any forums, social media groups, or online communities you frequent to discuss your fandom?

I sometimes hang out on the Enstars subreddit, but most of the time I'm just screaming into the void on Tumblr or Dreamwidth.

How would you describe the overall atmosphere and culture within the fan community?

*laughs uncertainly* It's a community that tends to skew rather young and dramatic, so there's some unpleasant drama, though I do think that the fandom has become less drama-prone over time as it's grown less niche. It's more interested in meta explaining character actions and symbolism than a lot of other fandoms I've been in, so I like that aspect of the fan community.

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Do you keep up with any official or fan-authored wikis or encyclopedias about your fandom?

I sometimes check the Enstars wiki (and i wish them a please please move off FANDOM already) but I wouldn't say I "keep up" with them.

Have there been any significant retcons or changes to the fandom that have sparked debate?

grinchsmirk.gif

Oh yes. The move from ! era to !! era did spark debate, and of course every time a character behaves in a way that is not perfectly in accordance with the morality of Twitterpeople, that sparks glorious debate. There's some Knights-related retcon courtesy of Kinosei that I think sparked a lot of debate, but I ignore the Knights stan part of the fandom so I don't really know the details.

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Have you ever won a quiz or competition based on your fandom knowledge?

Nope!

What are some of the iconic symbols, phrases, or artifacts related to your fandom?

"It's going to be Christmas soon, Keito." "So what, Eichi." AMAZING. Nui. Kogaball. Brand New Stars.

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Who is the creator or original author of the work your fandom is based on?

While Ensemble Stars is a corporate product and thus has many hands in the pie, Akira, the head scenario writer, is considered by most of the fandom to be sort of the "real daddy" of the franchise. This is probably not true, but alas. At least Enstars credits their writers.

Can you name a few lesser-known facts about your fandom that only true fans would know?

Okay!

> Hajime is quite physically strong. He once beat Keito in an arm-wrestling contest.

> Mao has seasonal allergies.

> Shu Itsuki is probably canonically gender dysphoric.

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Have you met any of your closest friends through this fandom?

Not really. I did have the IRL friend that was also an Enstarrie, but I feel we met more through proximity and less through the fandom itself.

Does your fandom affect the kind of events or vacations you plan?

Currently, I'm looking at what places in Japan are likely to have the greatest and cheapest selection of Enstars merch. So, yes.

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More questions!

Have your family and friends been supportive of your involvement in the fandom?

My mother is! (even if she is a filthy casual animanga fan who only consumes Shounen Jump adaptations and officially-localized BL). I remember when we were rummaging through the plushie bargain bin at this anime store and she held up a plush of Mikleo from Tales of Vesperia and said to me "Is this one of your Enstars boys?"

How does your fandom inspire you in your everyday life?

I guess it creatively inspires me to do things like meta and analysis, but I'm not the kind of person who takes a lot of life inspiration from fictional stuff.

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Okay, so I'm going to be answering five questions from this Questions To Ask A Fangirl page each day for Three Weeks for Dreamwidth (while I may not be a fangirl, I am some form of fancat, or perhaps an otaku? anyways,) I'm focusing on Ensemble Stars, which is a Japanese multimedia franchise, primarily based around the idol raising rhythm gacha game with kinetic novel elements of the same name, but it also includes anime, manga, stage plays, loads and loads of music, and a very melodramatic plot.

How did you first discover your fandom?

I was farting around on TvTropes, as you do, before I stumbled across the Ensemble Stars work page, which hooked me in immediately.

What was it about the fandom that initially captured your interest?

I can actually name three separate things! The first thing that hooked me, on the TvTropes page, was the immediate appeal of the art- the boys are very pretty and the art is very clean and shiny and has a very recognizable feel, which kept me reading and looking at the page. Then, while I was reading the tropes, I was like "holy shit this plot is insane", which prompted me to actually take a peek at the damn thing. And then, I read Reminiscence*Marionette, fell completely and utterly in love with this story of a dysfunctional found family packed full of doll motifs, an incredibly compelling depiction of an abusive autistic weirdo who is sympathetic at the same time he's a terrible person, a compelling depiction of an abuse victim who loves his abuser about the same amount he desperately needs to get out (and does, happily), and was completely and utterly obsessed.

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Thinking about doing the "unpopular positive opinion" xkcd challenge for anime, using MAL scores. How hard this is depends on what criteria you use.

"Below an 8" is very easy- basically every show I genuinely like (unless it's super popular) is rated in the 7-7.8 range.

"Below a 7" is kind of medium difficulty- for me a lot of stuff that fits here is older BL/shoujo that not a lot of people are fannish about anymore, anime adaptations of otome games/idoltrash, and, weirdly enough, Otherside Picnic. I imagine it's easier the more obscure your tastes are.

"Below a 6"- now this is real hard mode. I mean, I'm the kind of deranged pervert who unironically enjoys Diabolik Lovers, but most people are probably going to have trouble with this one unless you're into obscure 80s OVAs (one of the only other things i like that's below a 6 was Kimera) or specific kinds of weird fetish porn. Anyone else is kind of screwed here.

EDIT: oh fuck i forgot about the "had to have come out/had to have first watched it when you were an adult" shit. that makes this harder.

i think the problem with disk horse around neurodivergent HCs is that some people take "this character is canonically autistic" to mean "the word 'autistic' was used to refer to this character in either Word of God or the work itself" and some people use "this character is canonically autistic" to mean "if i was a psych professional and this character was a person who just walked into my office, i could go through the DSM/ICD and diagnose them with autism"

and the first kind of person looks at the second person and goes "no, they're not canonically autistic, what are you talking about" (what they mean is; "where the fuck was this character ever stated to be autistic because i don't see it")

and then the second person goes "what the fuck of course they're canonically autistic" (what they mean is; "what do you mean 'if this character was a real person they wouldn't be diagnosed with autism? have we watched the same show?")

and round and round, over and over again, they keep having stupid circular arguments and feeling attacked because nobody ever clarified what the definition of the words they're using are

> naruto: first non-ghibli anime i ever watched. important for obvious reasons.

> the hunger games series: a- it informed my preferences for Dark Media in a lot of ways (a list of other things i could put here- a series of unfortunate events, touching spirit bear, a child called it, warrior cats, guardians of ga'hoole) b- it was the series that got me into online fandom

> vampire: the masquerade: made my fleeting teenage love of vampires a firm and unshakable Thing, may have gotten me into guro, taught me some modicum of social skills via the "d&d club" at my school

> green lantern: blackest night OR god loves man kills: the miniseries that got me into serialized comic books. while i may not be in those fandoms anymore (besides x-men) they were still very important fandoms to me while they lasted.

> love pistols: a- one of those Foundational Pieces of BL Media that got me into BL in the first place (a list of other things i could put here- ai no kusabi, gravitation, sakura gari, everything by shungiku nakamura, finder series, sensitive pornograph, harumi bara, some vampire BL i can't name) b- there was a character in in that was ostensibly a cis dude, but as a werecreature he could get pregnant, and also got bottom surgery so he could have a vagina while identifying as a man. i feel like that was influential somehow.

kuroko no basuke- the fandom i came to tumblr for.

durarara- i met my abuser through this fandom!!!! ~~jazzhands~~

visual kei RPS- i used this fandom to pull myself out of my crippling depression caused by breaking up with my abuser!!! ~~jazzhands~~

ensemble stars- the first piece of joseimuke media i got invested in (thanks tvtropes!), spurring on my current joseimuke addiction which has 100% guaranteed that i will never be able to talk about media like a civilized human being ever again.

now that all of the milgram round 1 songs are released, i'm gonna review them, in order of release!

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Chandler's Law: When someone with bigoted ideas also does something cringe, their critics will hyperfocus on the cringe part and only bring up the bigoted stuff when people call them out for bullying someone over harmless cringe.

EDIT: I feel like this is somewhat related to the phenomenon of callout posts which spend 90% of their length talking about the degenerate porn the person likes/creates and keep the Actual, Real-World Bigotry/Sex Crimes to a few-sentence mention at the end.