All the fannish things. All of them.

[nenena]

So excited for new Soul Eater Not! tomorrow. I don't even care if we get another nine-page chapter of Tsugumi hatching romantic plots revolving around omelets or whatever. Which to be fair is never an unlikely possibility, because Not! may be a lot of things but quality manga it most certainly is not, but IDGAF I enjoy it anyway, especially the parts about the main Soul Eater cast members.

Speaking of which! terajk is posting some excellent short Soul Eater fics on her journal right now.

Also! The Not Prime Time multifandom fic exchange (for fandoms that are too large to be eligible for Yuletide but still small enough to not be megafandoms) is currently accepting fandom promotions. Soul Eater, Fairy Tail, and a whole bucketload of anime, manga, TV, movie, and video game fandoms are going to be eligible this year. So if you have a fandom that you would like to promote before the nomination process officially begins, here's your chance.

Related: Does anybody have any good Lucy/Erza fic they could recommend? I'm dying for some friendship!fic or femmeslash, either flavor.

Unrelated: Pop Culture Boyfriends. Highly tongue-in-cheek and yet surprisingly revealing in terms of the pop media landscape that teen and twenty-something girls are devouring at the moment. Granted, I was surprised to see only three pieces of Western media in there (Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and A:TLA) and VERY surprised to see no Homestuck references.

So speaking of Homestuck... I started re-reading parts of it a couple weeks ago when I was down and out with the flu, and sadly I believe that my love for Vriska/Tavros has been rekindled all over again. I say "sadly" because this is the most unfortunate thing that I have ever shipped. EVER. Because it has got to be one of the most disasterous relationships in the history of epic speculative literature ever created EVER. To put this trainwreck of a romance in context: Vriska and Tavros are alien trolls from an another planet in an alternative universe, and products of a culture that requires them to, at some point, have a hate-fueled "black romance" mating with another member of their species. Most teenage trolls seem to dream of having, as another troll puts it, the type of epic black romance that results in "blood rivers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid fireworks, beautiful and heartbreaking all at once." And yet even by troll standards Vriska and Tavros have a romantic arc that is such an utter disaster that the other trolls consider it to have crossed the line. Even by troll standards. This relationship isn't just a trainwreck, it's a trainwreck and a volcanic eruption and a hurricane and a tsunami and the sun collapsing into a black hole and swallowing the entire solar system all at once. And it all started so innocently, too: Vriska and Tavros were both nerdy teenage trolls who liked to roleplay, cosplay, and even play a certain children's game involving collectible tiny monsters. But then their relationship quickly escalated into murder attempts, spiderweb bondage, amputations, and eventually - of course - a duel to the death. They were poison to each other and even worse, they didn't just manage to doom themselves, but their trainwreck of an aborted romance managed to doom most of their friends too, at least to the point where it directly resulted in Tavros's RP partner getting killed and Vriska's RP partner permanently maimed. And yet - AND YET - for some reason I still have ~so many feelings~ for this pairing, horrible as it was and as horribly as it ended. I think that the horribleness of it all is part of the appeal, of course - who doesn't love a good tragedy? - but I also am kind of fascinated by the way that these two characters stuck together despite Vriska being Vriska and Tavros being so utterly terrified of her, how Vriska believed in Tavros until the bitter end and how Tavros wouldn't stay away from her despite every other troll telling him to do so, and how the fandom around the pairing does some much more insightful and interesting things with the disabilities of these two characters (NSFW) than the canon text ever did. It also doesn't help that despite everything, there is so much about this pairing that is so blackly hilarious - from Vriska's cosplay fetish to ROCKET WHEELCHAIR to "Well I'm lying on the floor in Vriska's room and we're both wearing costumes and I'm not explaining this very well, am I?" to That Thing that Vriska Did With Tavros's Severed Legs - that it's kind of hard not to laugh at it, just like it's kind of hard not to laugh at any of the doomed, doomed romantic pairings that Homestuck loves to revel in.

TL;DR version: This is the worst thing that I have ever shipped, and I have recently fallen in love with the pairing all over again, and I REGRET NOTHING.

Fortunately The Serendipity Gospels updated last week with so much deliciously horrible Vriska/Tavros shipping that it is glorious. Glorious.

Comments

[corinn]

I broke a friend's brain with Anime Munters last year. I like the name Pop Culture Boyfriends better, haha. Original posting here says it was posted in 2010 but was started in 2006. Wikipedia says Homestuck had been out for a year at the time of posting. Hmm. Perhaps they hadn't/haven't heard of it?

I haven't read Homestuck yet. Mostly because I lack the attention span to try to get into a new franchise right now. I did see a friend's FB entry that turned into a long argument discussion on how it's hard to get into Homestuck if you haven't read previous works by the author and that it's hard to understand period. There were mentions of people having some wiki open in another tab to look things up while they read, or having to read the Homestuck wiki to get all the references or something. But my friend herself was saying she was getting into it despite having times where she was confused. Thoughts?

[nenena]

By March 2010 Homestuck was definitely exerting its tentacles all over the internet, but (if I recall correctly) it wasn't quite the all-encompassing monster that it has become today. So it's possible that the author hadn't heard of it back then. Or maybe she just doesn't like it. :)

it's hard to get into Homestuck if you haven't read previous works by the author and that it's hard to understand period. There were mentions of people having some wiki open in another tab to look things up while they read, or having to read the Homestuck wiki to get all the references or something. But my friend herself was saying she was getting into it despite having times where she was confused. Thoughts?

I think the question of whether it's "hard" to get into or not really depends on what you want to get out of it.

Me, I'm one of those people who jumped in during Act 5, which I was warned over and over again is just something that one Is Not Supposed To Do, yet I've been following along just fine without having read the first four acts in detail (although I did wiki them and every now and then I have to wiki some detail or another as I read along). I can tell that every now and then there are some running gags that fly over my head because I missed part of the setup, but overall that doesn't bother me because I'm still enjoying the fuck out of it anyway. If I were the type of person who was deeply bothered by missing out on ZOMG CONTINUITY DETAILS and stuff, then I probably would have been better off reading the first four acts, but... I'm not.

The question of whether you need to read Homestuck from the beginning or not depends a lot on how you choose to read and enjoy other continuity-heavy media. Like, when you pick up an X-Men comic book and dive right into it, does it bother you that you're missing out on a lot of complex continuity and backstory, or can you enjoy the story and the characters as they are in front of you and wiki whatever necessary continuity you may be missing as you read along? When (if) you ever watched the X-Files, were you the type of person who enjoyed the multi-season story arc more, or the monster-of-the-day episodes more? What kind of a Lost watcher are you: the type who obsessed over all of the little details and the mysteries, or the type who just rolled along with the story at its face value and enjoyed it for the characters and their relationships instead? I don't know if any of the preceding examples apply to you, but in case you answered "yes" to any of the latter, then you can probably dive right into the beginning of Act 4 of Act 5 of Homestuck and be perfectly fine (albeit you will need to wiki the first 3/4 acts). If not, then you should read from the beginning.

As for Hussie's previous works, no, you don't need to read them in order to enjoy Homestuck. There are some characters from Problem Sleuth that show up later as major players in Homestuck, but you're REALLY not missing out on anything by not knowing that they also appeared in Problem Sleuth. It's like when Cid keeps appearing in all of those Final Fantasy games. It's nice if you recognize that he's a character who has appeared in other games, but you're really not missing out on anything if you don't know that.

[corinn]

Hmm. I enjoyed the few random episodes of X-Files I managed to see as standalone things with just basic knowledge of the series premise. (I think I've seen all of three unrelated eps. LOL Am I really a 90s kid?) Tried to jump into Lost mid-first season and was completely unengaged/lost. I watched the X-Men Evolution cartoon back in the day and liked the first two movies (haven't seen others), but those were the beginnings of their own continuities IIRC. If something has an over-arching storyline, I tend to want to know it from the beginning. If I somehow start something in the middle, I usually stop and go back to the beginning. When it comes to books, I don't usually get something new if the first in the series is unavailable and don't, say, skip and buy book five if book four is unavailable. Or if i do buy it, I don't read it until I get book four. When I was a kid I got annoyed when I found out after I had read Little House on the Prairie that there was a series and I hadn't started with the first book. But I was able to read Nancy Drew books out of order. IDK, I guess it depends on story structure. I'm big on crossover fanfics to the point that I can enjoy them even if they're with an unfamiliar franchise. If the author doesn't write as if the series is new to the reader, Wikipedia is my friend then. And crossover fics dragged me back into Bleach fandom a year or so ago after not paying attention for several years, so Bleach Wiki has been my friend for everything after the beginning of the Hueco Mundo arc. Even with that, once I figured out I was interested in it again I started a reread from the beginning.

So I bet I'd do best to just start from the beginning. Whenever I get around to it.

It's like when Cid keeps appearing in all of those Final Fantasy games. It's nice if you recognize that he's a character who has appeared in other games, but you're really not missing out on anything if you don't know that.
Good to know. That was a hangup for me.

[the_sun_is_up]

Oh god, I was like curled up in a ball alternately laughing and cringing at that Pop Culture Boyfriends video. OH FANDOM. And as for "the pop media landscape that teen and twenty-something girls are devouring at the moment," what struck me is that most of the stuff on there is aimed at a male audience. I think Fruits Basket was the only girl-aimed thing in the whole vid. Heck, most of it is aimed at a young teenage male audience, and yet the teen and twenty-something ladies love it, myself being no exception. Go figure.

[nenena]

Ladies devouring media intended for boys/men has been a truism for as long as fandom has existed. I mean, Back In The Day what we think of as "fandom" now was mostly Star Trek, Tolkein, and Dr. Who. What's doubly unsurprising is that it's universal across cultures, too. (Just look at Japan.)

[the_sun_is_up]

Yeah, it doesn't surprise me, it just amuses me when I compare it with how a lot of entertainment producers think female audiences want their fiction to be.

[nenena]

lol yeah. You'd think they would have figured it out by now.

It's one of the reasons that I find the horrible Dr. Pepper "ACTION MOVIES ARE FOR MEN!!!" commercial so hilarious. Because it's like, come on, do you even know which gender buys more movie tickets for action movies and superhero flicks and shit like Inception? Really, Dr. Pepper?! Really?!

[terajk]

sadly I believe that my love for Vriska/Tavros has been rekindled all over again. I say "sadly" because this is the most unfortunate thing that I have ever shipped. EVER.

I have this thing where I like putting characters together who bump up against each other's insecurities/trigger each other/challenge each other just by existing, but are still friends anyway--or just aren't allowed to kill each other. I'll also put characters with disabilities together for no reason at all just to see what happens.

So, I, uh, ship Azula/Toph from A:TLA?

For reference: one is a major villain with no conscience whatever who can only interact with human beings through power-plays; the other is the Avatar's earthbending teacher (i.e. she's "good") and once said that people from Azula's nation were "born bad." (She can also put her conscience in a box now and then, and can be a jerk, and once trapped two guys in a metal box for trying to take her back to her parents. They probably suffocated in there.) And even as a hero and villain, they don't interact in canon all that much.

I don't think either of them would get Hurt Real Bad emotionally by being in a relationship with the other, but it kind of...could suck for the universe? Especially because I'm not averse to Toph having a Start of Darkness.

TBH, I think I would ship Vriska/Tavros, too. I've tried to read Homestuck from the beginning but have trouble getting into it--I think because, from the stuff I know about it, I'd be most interested in the trolls. So I'll see how jumping in from Act 4/5 and wiki-ing the rest goes. Because All the Cool Kids talk about Homestuck and I think I'd like it, even knowing that canon's handling of disability is enh or WTF or ew.

[nenena]

I don't think either of them would get Hurt Real Bad emotionally by being in a relationship with the other, but it kind of...could suck for the universe?

omg that is a perfect description of what would happen if Azula and Toph got together.

even knowing that canon's handling of disability is enh or WTF or ew.

Yeah, Homestuck canon is really fail-y on a lot of things, disability being one of the things that it is consistently terrible with. But it's still enjoyable on a lot of levels too, especially if you don't take it seriously and avoid the section of the fandom who does take it too seriously. It has a lot of clever worldbuilding and a neat alien culture with neat alien characters, and that's definitely where I think the best of its appeal lies.