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lesbianherald · 23 hours ago

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Hi! Just curious. What exactly is that you didn't like about Viktor's arc? I've seen a few people saying the same thing and idk if I'm missing something or I'm just too over the moon about him that my brain has gone smooth haha.

oh no oh no i'm probably going to write like a whole dissertation about this I am so sorry I'm literally cracking my knuckles I have so many thoughts and not all of them I'll even get to articulate here.

Saying this upfront: you aren't smooth-brained for disagreeing with me or liking it. I want to say that outright as I'm a very opinionated person and I am going to state my very strong opinions very plainly.

That being said : I genuinely feel like season 2 needed like... character writing 101 for a lot of these characters, especially the two characters whose names start with a 'V'. I'm so serious if one of my students brought in a story like this, I would (gently) take it apart.

If you don't want to read the whole thing I'm about to unleash, the crux of it is this for me:

Throughout the course of the season, it's very hard to discern how many of Viktor's decisions are his own. He lacks the baseline autonomy that's necessary for satisfying development. The magic of the hexcore becomes a shiny distraction that makes meaningful development impossible. Additionally, season 2 forgets so many of the themes and threads they explored with Viktor in season one explicitly in terms of class and his position on war and weapons manufacturing.

And, like almost everything in season 2, these issues are compounded because his story is done at a pace that's completely lightning-fast and prioritizes the wrong things.

Here's my thesis:

How Does a Man Like Viktor Become the Machine Herald? Arcane's Answer: Magic orb or vague sadness or something idk.

Harry Lloyd said in a season 1 commentary somewhere that one of the main appeals for Viktor is knowing who he is in the game and wondering how you take a man like him, who is so kind and has people's best interests at heart, and see him slowly become the machine herald.

I agree 100% that this is part of the story's appeal for players. And it would be a delight and surprise for non-players.

We... get that very juicy premise ripped from us. We don't see him making decisions grounded in the character they set up in season 1 at all, really. And its very unsatisfying seeing him be rendered a mere victim of circumstance with vague attachments to his past self.

This is not necessarily a complaint about arcane herald vs machine herald (I did not play league and am not attached to the lore) but a complaint that a lot of what happens with Viktor in season 2 seems very unattached to his psychology.

Christian Linke himself said (and I forget where, so I am sorry if I'm paraphrasing terribly) that part of the question he wanted the audience to ask with Viktor is how much of this is really him? Bluntly. That is incredibly silly. It's such an important question that it makes all other interesting questions one might have about him really hard to parse.

That's not compelling. That's a mistake. That's not rooted in character anymore but a vague magical orb.

Here are some questions that would have been more interesting for us to ask, Christian.

How does his desire to tamper out human emotion prompt him to do the unspeakable? What leads him there?

How far is he willing to go to take away human pain and suffering?

Is his version of pacifism really, in actuality, a form of violence?

Will his connection with others be enough to bring him back to his humanity? (this is a question we were not prompted to ask, and if we were, it would have made the final scene (which I love regardless) a lot more satisfying.

What is the root of his hunger for power? How much of his quest is a hunger for power and control over others (rooted in a fractured and tragic sense of self)? and how much is it rooted in his desire to help? Where is that line?

Any of these questions or any other questions we could enjoy exploring with Viktor become tampered with and weakened by the fact that a vague magical entity is controlling him in a vague and unrelatable way.

In short, 'How much of Viktor is still Viktor?' is a far less interesting question than. 'how is Viktor going to act, change, and learn? ' We are forced to ask the first at the cost of the second. He clearly is not fully himself this season.

The Dropping of Themes and Traits

Season 1's exploration of Viktor was multi-layered and fascinating. I feel like we got to see the establishment of a kind-hearted, sometimes awkward yet quite funny, passionate scientist.

I don't feel we see much of any of this in season 2. The stupid fucking orb overrides a lot of the traits we've come to know and love. This would have been cool if done with an ounce of care, understanding, or autonomy.

In season 1, we see Viktor in a position of powerlessness over and over. We see Viktor ignored and looked down upon by those in power both for his disability and, crucially, for his status as a Zaunite.

We're introduced to him as someone who is desperate to prove himself and carve a place for himself. He knows he's brilliant. And he knows he can help people with that big brain of his. That's all he wants. And he wants to make his mark (something I theorize is rooted in his loneliness as well as his ambition)

(Side note: I find a lot of the debate on whether or not Viktor is insecure a little silly because you can be both confident and insecure. He's incredibly secure in his abilities as a scientist, but I fully do believe he places all his worth on his work because he's not as confident in other places - represented visually by him trying to point out his boat when Sky is looking at him in the flashback. A 'don't look at me look at what I've made' type thing.)

Anyways. Viktor is willing to risk his position as an assistant and, honestly, his position at the academy and in Piltover as a whole to help Jayce. This is not just because he's 'lol so chaotic' or whatever. This is actually quite calculated. He knows he will get nowhere in Piltovian society without bending rules, because Piltover was not built for people like him.

"Do you think it was my life's ambition to be an assistant?"

But even in taking that huge step for himself, his new role is complicated.

We see him sit through meetings where his people are talked about like burdens. We see his closest (and honestly only) ally and partner speak over him in meetings and overrule his desires and wants when it comes to the future of hextech in massive ways. We see Jayce call all Zaunites 'dangerous' (I love jayce... don't shoot me please. But we do often forget that this does canonically happen and what makes Jayce so incredible is that he grows from this point)

The moment on the bridge directly causes him not to tell Jayce about what he's doing to himself. Jayce apologizing right after doesn't matter so much as it reinforces one of Viktor's fears: he is alone.

We see his illness, !!!!caused by Piltover's oppression!!!!, take over. We see him and Jayce grow apart. We see the way his loneliness impacts his desperation and the way his desperation impacts his loneliness and we see the way he's so damn afraid and just wants to live. We see how much he wants to help people, and how even though he's tried so hard he never got to achieve that because the limits of this society just don't allow for it.

Season 1 Act one is Viktor taking action for himself. season 1 Acts 2 and 3 are a brutal reminder that no matter how hard he works. No matter how hard he claws. He will always be who he is. And that makes him Powerless in this society. I honestly find it a really compelling storyline in terms of the 'bootstrap theory' and debunking that - but a different topic for a different time!

At the end of the season, he's able to gain a huge amount of power - speaking at the council about freeing his city - through Jayce's platforming and allyship. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter, because what the council is doing is too little too late - people in Zaun are too tired and too hurt - and he gets caught in the crossfire.

Despite all this, Season 2 does not engage with Viktor's being a Zaunite outside of the fact that he returns to Zaun first. But the themes explored related to class and power are gone - as they are with everyone else really.

It makes sense to me that one of the first things Viktor would do when granted a new body and new power would be to go and try to help people in Zaun, but the ambiguous mechanisms of the magic inside him, the immediate divorce with Jayce, and the bizarre way he goes about it don't make this land.

And even the return is rendered sort of meaningless. Where is the personal connection to this place? Why are we given no details related to his past here? Why doesn't he return to somewhere more personal for him?

He speaks in this cold, unaffected monotone. This healing ability seems to be the 'recursive impulse' - so him finally getting to help people just like he wanted feels rooted so much in the arcane influence it becomes murky and strange.

This is more nitpicky, and I'd be okay with it being ignored in the right context - but another aspect of his character that gets dropped is his work as a scientist. His desire to help people not through magic, but through invention. This would have been fascinating. (They try to keep this alive through vague allusions to 'look at what I've created' blah blah but again, so much of it is all ORB)

What inventions would a fully autonomous Viktor who decided to leave Jayce and return to Zaun of his own fruition create? Would they toe the line between inventions of progress and inventions of destruction?

Guess we'll never know!

Speaking of weapons. Let's talk about weapons. Let's talk about Viktor's vehement opposition to weapons not being explored within the context of his relationship with Jayce or outside of the rule that there are none allowed in the commune - which becomes quite meaningless when he agrees to work with Ambessa. Yes - he saw those blueprints on the table. But that's all we get.

Also, the fact that Jayce just unquestionably builds hextech weapons in the finale, and they're used as a good thing and a way to fight off Noxus, makes me want to claw my own hair out. Like - my themes ! Not my precious themes !

Let's also talk about him working with Ambessa. There's no build-up to that decision, not near enough character work to make that believable and considering the way the plot is written elsewhere, I fully believe this is a huge part of the problem of the writer's room dropping the issue of class. The idea that Viktor, the character that they set up, would ever willingly work with Ambessa is laughable. There are so many other ways he could have gotten to the hexcore in his fully evolved form, easily bested Jayce, and evolved. And they did absolutely nothing in the writing of season 2 to make that an interesting or satisfying choice.

An arc is only an arc if there is substance between point a and b. There's no substance here. There's vague orb. There are little glimpses of the pain he's in because of his separation from Jayce. Teeny tiny allusions to him trying to shut down his emotions. That's simply not enough.

You cannot bring a character who values choice and autonomy, whose been made to feel so powerless and is empathetic, to "choice is meaningless" without a deep study of his psychology and pain. Viktor taking away the autonomy of others, inhabiting their bodies. Being super chill with it. Okay. Coo.

Where does his desire for evolution even come from? For real? Because they seem to mistake Viktor's ambition with his desire for perfection, which is something that was never really... brought up? It could be believable that he felt this way. But where were the signs of this? Not just in season 1 but in season 2. He always wanted to help, not make humanity perfect. Because this is grounded in so little emotional logic I assume we're supposed to be satisfied with the idea that magic orb + machine herald form = ??? this ??? like ??? why???

If he wants to create a world where nobody can feel pain or complex emotions of any sort anymore, which is not psychologically where he was at the end of season 1 at all despite all he went through, you have to give us an event (ideally multiple) in season 2 that could break his mind this badly. Jayce killing him could have been this, but it happened so fast and was executed so impersonally that it doesn't work. He doesn't really acknowledge it happened the next time they see each other. Which... would probably be important to do... again emotional logic where?

His entire speech about humanity at the end of episode 6 feels like it's trying to be a catalyst. But it also feels... incredibly generic and impersonal. It felt written to play over a flashy montage of all the other characters fighting. Not for Viktor. If this was Viktor's moment where he finally snaps, we should probably focus on Viktor. And, of course, it doesn't help that he has this odd monotone this whole time, as if he's not fully in control of himself (this is not a rip on Harry Lloyd at all. He did what he was told and did it very, very well.)

Because remember. They wanted us to ask this. They wanted us to ask how much of this was orb. I think because they knew on some level they could not create a compelling enough story to get viktor where they wanted him to be for some reason without orb. That none of this would make sense without the vague spice of the arcane. And guess what it still doesn't.

Becuase people will not relate to a vague arcane influence. Connect to it. We would want to see what actually in his life made him become this. What in his psychology outside of magic orb made him do this? They provide vague tastes of this in the same way La Croix flavors its drinks.

Brought Back Wrong Can Work: Here's Why This One Didn't

I also really hate the trope of killing off characters only to bring them back. And back again. And... again. Because guess what. It takes one of the core elements of the human experience - death- and cheapens it. This for sure happens with Viktor the second time he dies.

But what i do like about bringing someone back from the dead is when you consider how doing so can bring someone back wrong. Or changed.

But because the orb is so impersonal. So bland. Such a vague sinister force that has very little to do with character, it doesn't... work. It doesn't hit. Viktor doesn't really grapple with being brought back from the dead against his will in a meaningful way.

Timing

You can see concepts of a plan, if you will, within this story. I can see how Viktor would naturally go to the undercity after waking up changed with new healing powers. But it happens way to fast. So bizarrely. I can see how he would build a society like this (of course, the power of that is dulled because orb and by the fact that we don't see it happen). I can see how the pain of being rejected and left behind by the only person who made him feel like he wasn't alone (Jayce) could have lead to a category 5 'make me evil' sort of meltdown.

Becoming the Herald, asking Singed to begin the transformation, is the only true time in this show in act 2 (before his final moments) where it feels like he's making a choice for himself. But again, we get so little time with him. To see his emotions. To elegantly point from that moment with Jayce to Viktor's need to transform and in doing so rid himself of emotion (something that they did not expand on enough ) Like oh my god, how much more satisfying would it have been to see Viktor torn apart by his own emotions - in his own viktor way - and to have singed offer him a way out of his pain - and then have viktor take it. There are certain things that should be obvious.

But It's both the timing of and the structure of the story - how quickly we cut between plotlines - that makes this really hard to follow. That makes moments that could be something feel rushed and sloppy.

Let's Talk about Sky

Viktor's guilt over sky was absolutely reasonable to explore, but it was not.... all that haunted him. To make Sky the sole guide/companion to him in the astral/arcane headspace I found to be a bizarre and honestly kind of offensive choice.

Amanda overton said she was used as a "Jayce substitute" essentially. And... why? Literally why. Why would you write a character whose sole deal is having an unrequited crush on a man only to bring her back to be 'the embodiment of his guilt and loneliness' as well as a 'substitute' - it feels... icky to me? Just in a writing women and especially women of color point of view? And it didn't feel true to Viktor's character either.

I think if we actually got to know sky better in season 1, this would have worked because it would have been obvious how different she was, how she was a product of his mind or the hexcore or whatever (the lore being vague here doesn't help...)

Plot Twist because I keep hating on Orb: They Could Have Made The Orb Really Cool

Here's the thing. Magic influence on its own can be used to write extremely compelling plots. Walk with me.

Imagine Viktor wakes up. Immediately knows something's wrong with him. That something inside him is toying with him. Making him see things (visions of not only sky, but maybe his parents, Jayce, Heimer). He wakes up earlier in act 1. Despite his anger, he stays with jayce in order to better understand himself and his powers. All the while, he is haunted by whispers and visions of the hexcore. What if it whispers to him of his own insecurities and failures?

What if Things with Jayce are tense. Jayce has to admit to making weapons again, in an argument leading to more haunting visions from the hexcore offering him an out: emotional numbness. You would never have to feel again Viktor. If you let me in fully, you would never have to be alone again. You'd be more powerful, Viktor.

Imagine Viktor is there during that attack ambessa orchestrated. That he has the horror of witnessing Jayce wield his hammer in a genuine attempt to defend himself and the people he loves. He sees first hand how hextech is being used for destruction in a way that horrifies him.

Imagine him being accused of being a part of it because he's a Zaunite - humiliated in some way. Publicly. Imagine the emotional trauma of this resulting in a falling out so devastating he embraces his visions of the hexcore - gives into the numbness. And only then leaves. With the hexcore... he feels better than he has in years. He hopes he can give the gift of this to others. Now he is under orb influence, but now the way he's gotten there is more satisfying to me at least.

Now imagine him fighting the orb influence in key moments. Imagine the color in his eyes coming back. Imagine Viktor's relationship with the arcane being more of a dance than a vague entanglement. Imagine its influence haunting him in the same way Jinx's visions haunt her. Imagine it being personal rooted in his character.

Old Man Viktor

Listen. I am the old man Viktor connoisseur. I love him. I love the idea of him. I wrote a whole fic about him, during which I had to spend a lot of time with the story. It's sort of... very much impossible to make much sense of?

I'm not mad at the fact that it's an obvious retcon. Honestly, because I think from a storytelling perspective, it worked a lot better than most of the decisions they made this season.

But I'm not a fan of (shocking) how little time we spend with him. How little chance we get to understand his motivatons. And also. What the fuck he said to Jayce to make Jayce's first line of action killing him? In my fic, I made it that Jayce needed to shoot Viktor to get the hexcore out, so he could communicate to viktor without influence. But that felt like heavy lifting I shouldn't necessarily have to do for something so important. It also doesn't feel like a compelling or satisfying question to make your audience have to wrestle with.

The Final Scene

Want to say upfront I am not one of the people who did not like Jayce's speech.

I was quite moved by it. And aside from the perhaps out of place mention of the illness brought on by Piltover which I can understand the criticism for, I felt it was beautiful. (I am disabled btw)

That being said. I think i'd be a sobbing mess on the floor if the themes Jayce is presenting in his speech were more present throughout season 2. Because we really don't see this enough - the desire for perfection.

I'm also not one of those people who thinks Viktor's insecurities weren't present in season 1. To me, they were and were obvious, but not enough in his motivations and actions in season 2 to make Jayce's speech land like it could.

I really loved Jayce's arc in season 2. Him immediately embracing Viktor after he woke from the goo was surprising but felt right. But I wish they had more genuine conflict rooted in their conflict in season 1 that would allow their final moment to land even harder.

I really liked the final scene, and it made me an emotional mess. But weirdly, I'd almost like it as a short film removed from the context of the season two, which says just how little Viktor's arc this season contributed to the moment.

Final Thoughts

I'm so sorry I went so in-depth. I just love him as a character and feel he was very much not done justice.

We can attribute some of this to the lack of time. But when you know you have a lack of time, you need to write with that in mind instead of trying to do it all. And ultimately, I found a lot of scenes this season a waste of precious time. They had so many characters alone contemplating something intangible or alone and trapped for episodes. They didn't plan this with the care and precision needed to pull it off.

I also want to note that I know I say here a lot that there's a lot they needed to make "more obvious". This is not because I'm stupid. But when you're a writer, you need to know what to highlight and what you can leave vague so you leave your audience exploring the right nuances and asking the satisfying questions.

Anyways umm. The end. Holy shit, I'm so sorry I wrote so much.

#i literally typed this in a caffine induced frenzy #oh my god its so long kldfjashdlkfjsd #im sure there are things i missed or did not explain well #ask bee #how many times can i hate on orb #SDKLFJD #its not even an orb #i know this #if someone reads this whole thing they deserve a cookie or something #see this is why tumblr might be a problem for me actually #no character limit DKJFHSDLKF #if you keep reading this could very much be like a do you like the color of the sky situation #where you have to just keep scrolling and scrolling #god i need work to start back up again KLDFJSHDFLK #side note one of my twitter moots got a strawpage anon that was like #you hate his arc you must hate viktor #which is so funny because #i literally love him so much #that's why i hate his arc KLDFJHSD #one thing i do like about viktors storyline and i still dont think it fully works #is how many of his principles he clung to even under magical influence #at least at the start #bee talks arcane

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ao3-top-batfam-ships-bracket · 6 months ago

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Hi, prev anon venting about the Timkon vs Batjokes poll here: would actually find it very interesting to read some analysis on the rising anti mentality, actually. I've been in fandom for a long time, so I do remember when it wasn't like this, and for a while I was like "it's fine, just block and move on, don't engage, it's fine". But IS it fine?? Fans of more complex and not easily digestible ships... we block and ignore and create our own little niches, but at this point I've seen too many cases of shippers saying they're AFRAID of publically liking something darker just because they might get harassed. This shit is getting genuinely harrowing to real alive people, to the point where some poor fans actually buy the bullshit of "you're a bad person if you like That Bad Ship" as if thought crimes exist and we're in the damn 18th century. It's definitely worth studying this phenomenon in fandom because then maybe we can figure out how to fix this? Fandom is supposed to be fun... Lol, really long way of saying that those texts would be cool to see, thank you guys!

Sure!

Here's a huge library of sources about media literacy, lgbtq+ issues, fandom and fan culture. We definitely recommend checking it out!

Under the cut is the list of articles focused specifically on the phenomenon of antishipping. Please keep in mind that some of these articles are master's theses or doctoral dissertations and that we didn't fully read all of them. This is just a general list of what we've found.

Aburime, S. (2021). The cult structure of the American anti. Transformative Works and Cultures, 36.

Aburime, S. (2022). Hate narratives, conditioned language and networked harassment: A new breed of anti-shipper and anti-fan–antis. Journal of Fandom Studies, 10(2-3), 135-155.

Bradburn, M. (2023). Fans Like Us: Anti-Shipping, Othering, and the Reauthoring of Fandom (Master's thesis, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte).

Drouin, R. A. (2021). 'Fans are Going to See it Any Way They Want': The Rhetorics of the Voltron: Legendary Defender Fandom. Bowling Green State University.

Larsen, V. (2021). It makes me, a minor, uncomfortable. Media and Morality in Anti-Shippers’ Policing of Online Fandom.

Salsabila, J. A., & Sulhin, I. (2024). Social Media And Moral Panic: Examining The Case Of Antis Fandom On Social Media X. Eduvest-Journal of Universal Studies, 4(5), 4138-4150.

Stone, A. A. (2023). The Antagonistic Anatomy of Anti-shippers: A Thematic Analysis. City University of New York John Jay College of Criminal Justice.

Urbańczyk, A. (2022). Finding a Dead Dove in the Refrigerator. The Anti-Shippers’ Call for Exclusion of Sensitive Content as a Means of Establishing Position in the Field of Fan Production. Przegląd Kulturoznawczy, 53(3), 404-420.

(Also, adding this screenshot of the table of contents from Larsen's article because it's very funny.)

#asks #shipping #proship #antiship #resources

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focusfixated · 6 months ago

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Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

thank you for this! i think my favourite fics i've written are the ones that are basically like. my thesis statement. if you ask me about these characters, i will slide you one of these fics and say: here's my dissertation on the subject. everything you need to know about how i feel is in there.

can't get a life (if my heart's not in it)

libertines rpf | peter/carl | M | 20.9k

When Peter came to London, Carl was waiting for him under the hanging clock in the middle of Waterloo station. It had been romantic, in the way that Peter saw all their meetings as a little romantic – a song in the making, all Terry meets Julie and a sunset over the river. Or: the early days of Peter & Carl's love affair with London - and each other.

note: i wrote this one during my first year moving to london. inhabiting this story with these people and their music helped me settle there. this was also my way of taking every insanely romantic and toxic thing peter and carl did or felt about each other in those early years and weaving it into one point of reference.

on the wings of a nightingale

good omens | aziraphale/crowley | E | 11.1k

Aziraphale liked his body. He liked the shape of it, the way it moved and touched the world, a type of sensory feedback that made him understand the shape and extent of his corporation. Like he wasn’t just an ephemeral vessel. Like he was flesh. Or: Aziraphale gets a tattoo. Crowley is an accessory to this crime against good sense. Everyone’s kinks are very poorly disguised.

note: i think this is the one where i really got to grips with my authorial obsession with bodies, embodiment, sensation as existence. it's probably one of the most personal things i've written, too, in terms of its dissection of touch, and espousing thoughts on faith as tangible feeling vs abstract thought. this is the aziraphale that exists in everything else i've written in this fandom.

i hope i find my home

it chapter 2 | richie/eddie | E | 53k

The peak of summer is long gone, if it ever came, but the funk of stagnant air still hangs low over the suburban streets. Richie Tozier – sallow-skinned and puffy-eyed, wearing a too-small denim jacket that smells of sweat and mildew – hasn’t slept in several days, and he's trying to remember how he got here in the first place. Or: Coming back to Derry, Richie hadn't expected to live. Eddie hadn’t expected to die. In the aftermath of Neibolt, they’re both confronted by another shot at life.

note: possibly actually my favourite thing i've ever written out of all of these. features this ongoing obsession with bodies, though this is from a more confrontational perspective than the good omens one - there's an element of body horror, a sense of fear and discomfort about the body, and grapples with embodied repression. took me two years to write this one. it was a labour of love and hard work, and a proof of my commitment to getting this story about survival and recovery told.

le temps qu'il faut

disco elysium | harry/kim | T | 5k

Snow blows in from the east. It falls on Martinaise, thickening the frigid air like cornstarch, thick enough to chew on. Lieutenant Kim Kitsuragi stands – quiet, watchful, an oddity placed at the centre of a racket – collar turned up against the weather. Or: winter is tough and so is Kim, but a lot can change in ten days.

note: a story where i feel like i got the closest to capturing the mood of the original media. it was such a fucking pleasure to write something that was almost pure atmosphere. felt right that the poetry came out of this cold and battered landscape, and really solidified my interest in capturing environments. (who needs plot when there are buildings and lakes covered in snow).

when we fight about love

our flag means death | multi | E | 41.2k

Bonnet took a dainty sip of rum, then put the mug down with a fussy finality. “Look, I’m not interested in deals and riches and who gets what from who. I want to find Ed, that’s it. You’ll come with us, and you’ll guide us to the Revenge, and when we’re done, you can have my other ship to do with what you like. Sell it, sail away, set it on fire, I don’t care. Do we have an accord?” Bonnet held out a hand. His nails were ragged, and there were blisters on his fingers. Somehow, he still smelled of lavender. With all the recalcitrance of reaching towards an open flame, Izzy shook it. (Or: after brokering an uneasy peace, Izzy Hands, Stede Bonnet and the rest of the Revenge’s depleted crew are thrown together for a mission: find Edward, snap him out of his terrible madness, and then – and then.)

note: this is the one. the story that sums it all up. "how do you feel about izzy? what do you think was going on with him? how would a coherent version of him, flaws and all, realistically interact with the people most important to him during this time?" well: like this. focuses on repression, again, a key theme for me. though the repression here is not just physical, but mental, too. this was an exercise in finding a way to present a dislikeable, misguided, unreliable narrator as a point of view character and still finding meaning and empathy in his perspective. one of the most satisfying things i've ever written.

#my fic #ofmd #good omens #it chapter 2 #disco elysium #the libertines #writing

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weaselbeaselpants · 1 year ago

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One of my pointless, made-for-just-myself fandom dissertations is gonna be about "endgame" philosophy and how fans assume creator's are swayed into bad decisions and writing by their fans. To give you a brief preshow of that, my thesis basically amounts to

"ya'll have fan brain; Lily Orchard has legit poisoned the well of media analysis with her bad understanding of production issues"

So many of you cartoon fans, criticals ect need to unlearn the term "creator's pet" as a term for important character in the narrative that you don't like and who's development isn't written well.

You owe it to yourself to STOP looking at ships that were always gonna be a thing and try and steer the conversation into "the show sucked cuz you all cared more about shipping; creators though x-couple was ungame and now it's ruined!!!"

Starco was inevitable since season 2 of SVTFOE made it clear they were going there. No, I don't like that choice either, but that's the choice the writer's had. Fucking cope. That's what fanfiction's for.

"The creator's didn't think of this twist until fan's started theory-ing about it-" NOPE. Fans just guessed the possible twist and different creators found different ways of hiding, denying or changing how their stories were gonna go because of that.

There is real criticism, hang ups, controversy and anger to be had over bad writing and decisions made in shows. You all have to stop complaining when creators do something you don't like vs something they shouldn't have done. I mean it when I say that, for all possible circumstances where creators' did take advantage of fan hype/ideas and then ruined their shows because of it (Supernatural, Game of Thrones, Star Wars) there are hundreds of examples of series just being bad* on their own and I really wish people would stop throwing around those "endgame", "creator pet" and "fan service" around so willy nilly.

And then I remember VivziePop....

#critical fandom #fandom critical #fandom wank #vivziepop critical #helluva boss critical #hazbin hotel critical

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foggieststars · 4 days ago

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really intrigued by ur masters program. could u tell us more abt it? what sort of reading did u do, ur thesis etc etc

for sure!! i studied comparative social policy, which is essentially a study of the history of welfare state development - policies which are 'social', i.e. in that they are designed to support people. think things like pensions, welfare benefits, healthcare, poverty-reduction, things like that!

more under the cut :)

the programme i studied had a focus on OECD countries, which are generally divided into 3 types of welfare states: (1) liberal welfare states, which tend to be anglosphere countries, so the uk, ireland, australia and new zealand - some models include the US, and some don't because the US is an outlier in that... it just doesn't have a lot of the welfare benefits that other anglosphere countries have (think free healthcare, guaranteed maternity leave) on a federal level. (2) is social-democratic welfare states, which tend to be more generous and universal (nordic countries), and finally (3) conservative welfare states, countries like germany and france where welfare rights have a history of being linked to class struggle and workers rights, and are more likely to be linked to your occupation.

this isn't an all-encompassing model and there have been many attempts to update it to include asian/african/latin american welfare states (this is an extremely eurocentric model) and add nuance to the conversation, but just a general overview of the types of stuff we discussed!

in terms of things i studied specifically, i focused on gender and poverty as my two options, looking at ways that welfare states can alleviate/worsen poverty and gender inequality. it was really fascinating stuff but ultimately hampered by the fact that oxford is an extremely old fashioned organisation and didn't have much in the way of diversity in reading lists.. so it had to be found by myself lmao

as for my dissertation, i compared the levels of generosity in welfare benefit allocation between the united kingdom and the republic of ireland. the uk introduced restrictive welfare legislation which prevented the majority of non-european immigrants from accessing welfare (known as no recourse to public funds) in 1995, but ireland didn't until 2007, so i wanted to know why that was. ultimately i found it was because of 2 things: 1. differing levels of economic prosperity - ireland's economy was stratospheric before the 2008 crash, and the uk not so much. ireland didn't want to introduce deterrent legislation to prevent immigrants coming to ireland because they needed immigrants to join the labour force. and (2) the rhetoric of public debate in the uk was much more harshly anti-immigrant than in ireland, thanks to thatcherism (lol). ireland wasn't exactly Positive about immigration, but political debate had a lot more to do with the economy and appeals to emotion vs in the uk the rhetoric was much more fiercely us vs them, if that makes sense. it was an interesting project!!

#ask #i hope u enjoyed sldkfjls

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drifting-pieces-blog-blog · 11 months ago

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Oh Bushman and his super racist backstory (not that he wasn't a stereotype before). Again it could be done well, but it very much wasn't

also why is bushman and some domi are colored grey when African-American characters like Gena are colored a more brown color often in the same comic? Do you think there was a choice there or it's just the colorists fucked up?

(compared Shang-Chi being orange and his father Fu Manchu being bright yellow but all the other Asians and Asian americans were beige)

Hi there! Yeah... Any time a comic heads into Africa for a villain story I have to take pause and wonder just HOW racist this story is going to get. Or at least the art and the depictions of the locals.

I think in the case of the coloration of Bushman, if you look at the other characters that are coming from his homeland, they all have the same ashen black/brown color. Or… At least the bad guys are.

There's a lot that can be said about that.

I'm going to tred as carefully as I can but it's going to get dicey.

You might have noticed that people come in different colors. Even those colors come in different colors.

Not all black people are 'brown'. Some are lighter and some are much darker. The same goes for Asians and white people and all sorts of ethnicities.

BUT. How do you show that in comics? Comics are printed. And sometimes that printing isn't done well. And not all shades of ink print well.

If you use a darker color, you aren't going to see any shading, details, or ink. You can't use black or you lose everything and you have to start outlining in red, white, or green. Which can be jarring if you are using black outlines everywhere else.

So you get the gray color to show darker black toned skin.

HERE'S WERE THE RACISM COMES IN. Boy howdy.

Remember a moment ago when I said 'the bad guys are'?

There was a very popular notion for hundreds and hundreds of years that the darker you are, the uglier and more inhuman you are. (Thank you colonialism). In fact, there is still a notion in beauty standards that many people are trying to change. The notion that dark is ugly. ANd good luck finding cosmetics for the darker colors. Again, companies are trying to change that and be more inclusive, but this is a VERY recent event.

So it's not uncommon in Hollywood to use the darker colored skin to signify the bad guys.

The same goes for comics.

You have "Beautiful and warm brown" for our heros like Luke Cage and T'Challa and Storm! Then you get ashen gray for Bushman.

Yikes.

And Asians? Well… The more yellow…

So next time you are reading a comic that actually includes POC, take note of the shades that are being used. Then take note of where those people stand on the good vs. evil scale.

If you are reading something more modern and they are still using that scale of shading to denote evil, you might want to stop and think about who wrote this and WHY they might be using that color scale. If you are reading an older comic, this is going to be hard to avoid. But pay attention to it. Realize that even the best comics were not immune to racism.

Good job on noticing this, my friend!

Comics can often show us a pretty good idea on the politics of what was going on during the time it was written as well the mental ideas/pictures of people.

I'm sure there's SOME paper or dissertation or thesis out there that talks more about this. If not, someone should absolutely do one! I'd love to read it!

#Ask away #Talk to me about Moon Knight #Racism in comics

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ellieputellas · 1 month ago

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I’m so excited for part two (especially the smut)

I don’t know how much of a teaser you want to give but I imagine we are going to see super gentle alexia, the inexperience vs experience nature of it all

also I love how long your stories are, bascially novels. I saw you apologising for the length please don’t i absolutely love long fics

it baffles me how you can do it because my dissertation was 10k and I was struggling 😂

thank you! fiction comes easy to me and i write pretty quickly. (though my own thesis now is taking me ages...)

i tried to make the smut worth the wait! i was afraid it would be too much qnd wanted to post it separately but since ppl voted for it all to be just in one part, i'm doing that instead.

#answers 🎀

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vtellswhat · 2 months ago

Text

Thesis Writing Process

The 5-Step Process for Writing a Thesis: A Super Comprehensive Guide

Writing a thesis is a glorious academic moment in which perhaps the cumulative outcome of four years of study and research is being produced. While intimidating as a thought, however, it breaks down into pragmatic steps that ensure clarity and efficiency, and a polished final product. This blog publishes a comprehensive guide on a 5-step process to guide you through your thesis journey.

Step 1: Select and Refine Your Research Topic One first step in writing a dissertation is to select a topic of interest to you, relevant to your academic interest, career objectives, and the study area. Write down general ideas that interest you as well as are applicable to your field of study. Begin preliminary research into your selected ideas.

Narrow the Focus: A narrow, well-defined research question is easier to manage and is more meaningful than an open-ended one. It can be related that a broad topic like "Climate Change" is better narrowed down to be, "The Effects of Renewable Policies towards Reducing Carbon Emissions in Urban Areas."

Step 2: Do a Thorough Research

Having a topic in mind, proceed with research. Research is essentially collecting and synthesizing information that will lead to an excellent grounding for your thesis.

Primary vs. Secondary Sources: Mix primary sources, like experiments, surveys, or interviews, with secondary ones, like journal articles, books, or reports.

Take Notes: Use Zotero or End with the collection of references and systematic notes.

Critical Evaluation: Examine your sources critically to determine if they relate to and support your thesis question and are appropriate to your topic. Maintain a journal of interesting ideas, major findings, and citations as you conduct research. This will facilitate the writing process later on. --- ### Step 3: Thoroughly Give It a Good Framework A good thesis is also well-structured. Before you begin writing, draft a rough outline of your work to ensure it will be orderly.

Introduction: State your research question, objectives and the reasons why your study holds its importance. \

Literature Review: Summarize and critique previous studies to pinpoint what is unique in your study. \

Methodology: Discuss the methods and tools that you used to carry on your research. \

Results and Discussion: Present your findings, analyze them and relate to your research question. Conclusion: Summarize major findings and say what they imply, and indicate future avenues for research.

This road-map achieves proper flow and coherence for both the writer and the reader.

Core Sections First: Prepare methodology, results and discussion first because such parts are often the core sections of your thesis.

Be Clear; Be Concise: Avoid using jargons unless unavoidable and define technical terms to reach more audiences.

Get Feedback: Share drafts with your advisor or peers in order to get constructive feedback.

Edit Ruthlessly: Review for clarity, grammar, and coherence. Tools like Grammarly and Hemingway Editor can help polish your writing.

Set daily or weekly writing goals to maintain steady progress.

Step 5: Finalize and Defend

Prepare your thesis for submission and defense.

Formatting and Citation: Format according to your institution's guidelines on the formatting, citation, and referencing. Double-check everything for consistency.

Proofread: Read through the document at least three or four times for spotting typos, inconsistencies in formatting, or other mistakes. You might consider hiring a professional proofreader to help you out.

Practice Presentation and Q&A: Rehearse your presentation a number of times. Think about questions that may be presented to you by the panel. Be prepared to back up your statements with evidence and speak assertively regarding the research.

The day you defend your dissertation is the day to celebrate all the hard work and achievement made until then. . Conclusion Writing a thesis is quite demanding but highly rewarding for it tests your critical thinking abilities, researching, and the skill to write. If you break down these steps to the choosing of the topic, research, structuring, writing, and finalizing, you'll be in a better position in handling the entire process. Remember that persistence and careful planning will get a thesis written that will not only demonstrate one's knowledge of the subject matter but also contribute to the field.

In fact, it takes a lot of courage to move on with this project, and these steps shall take you to it!

Need expert guidance for your PhD, Master’s thesis, or research writing journey? Click the link below to access resources and support tailored to help you excel every step of the way. Unlock your full research potential today!

#thesis #phd student #exams #phd life #dissertation #phdjourney #phd research #university #grad school #writingcitation

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jackredfieldwasmyjacob · 2 years ago

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hello everyone !!! as tumblr decided to send me to the shadow real for a month and i do have a tendency to overshere on here, i thought it would be fun to go through my last month to update my lore (the key things are that i now have no bedroom and i am obsessed with ana mena) through my tweets (i was forced to use that website more i'm afraid). and of course, i will translate everything so don't worry :)

hope you like it!!! this is probably gonna be long so i'll add everything under the cut:

we start at day 1 a.T. (after tumblr) which was a very important day actually (pokémon day for those who don't know)

they deactivated my tumblr account for no reason?

2. without tumblr, that day i was forced to go to twitch and see ibai's stream announcing the participants of la velada 3 (unfortunately this won't be my last twitch moment here i'm so sorry)

from left to right and top to bottom:

WHAT IS GOING ON (qrt to: this fight is gonna be legendary. amouranth vs mayichii)

they should kiss (this is about viruzz vs shelao, it is funnier with context sorry)

it's now a reality. this is gonna be insane @/fernanfloo

i think rivers will win (the second tweet it's for context: the second fight of la velada del año 3 is rivers vs la rivers)

3. spoiler alert: i was struggling with uni stuff (and especially administrative uni stuff) all month <3

(it is impossible to translate this tweet literally so bear with me)

it's unbelievable how much the people in the university of wales don't give a fuck

here's the fun little context for this one: i should've started my semester on february 1st. i had received no notice of enrolling in it, there was no way to do it on the page habilitated for it, and my master's director wasn't answering my mails concerning my dissertation proposal and supervisor or anything really. i sent the sorta student help thingie platform a mail on february 28th asking for guidance and they answered me an hour later telling me i could enroll. my master's director also emailed me telling me i had a supervisor now. lol. fun. great.

4. this will not be my only ana mena related tweet in this list i am afraid

(the quoted tweet is the singer ana mena as a little girl in a tv show and a sign that reads 'when she grows up she wants to be an archaeologist') she's made it cause the rest of the spanish musical industry is BONES besides her

5. i swear this is my last twitch moment i think. anyways. the squid games. yeah. it was very funny cause every person whose pov i decided to watch died <3

same order as before:

(the quoted tweet says 'i think i'll watch the squid games from pandarina's pov') tweets that aged up badly: [she died on the first day]

everyone whose pov i'm seeing today dies (ander and zeling) lol

oleeee susi hasn't died let's gooooo

today i won't be able to watch the squid games so i'm only saying @/suzyroxx to the final !!!! [she wasn't in the final <;3]

6. it starts *looks into the distance remembering the horrors*

FINALLY the predoctoral UCM [my uni] scholarships are here folks

and the meme says the same but more accurately <3

7. that time my 55 year old uncle out of nowhere sent me a tiktok of nochentera and told me he loved it

my uncle being a nochenterist exactly (in the pic he only says 'it's so good!!!')

8. there are so many horrors relating to that goddamn predoc scholarship that i don't even remember the context of this one <3

official bulletin of the complutense university or bulletin of shit ??? [this one is funnier in spanish, it's a meme from a show]

9. i do remember this one tho. this was a fun one.

i suddenly have a new thesis director and a master's dissertation supervisor lol

context: this was the day that my master's director emailed me telling me i finally had a dissertation supervior assigned. the other part is funnier. SO. i had a thesis director chosen from when i started all this process. she was great. love you miriam mwah. anyways. she had another student doing the thesis with her (a student that is my friend). turns out, for the ucm predoc shit there could only be one thesis director per person. no fucking clue why. so we all talked it out and thought the best solution was for me to have another one, and maybe miriam could be my co-director in the future. the funny thing is, this new supervisor (cruz) was my first choice way back when i started thinking about doing the ph.d. i just chose miriam in the end cause she was my master's thesis' director. so yeah. i could've chosen cruz from the start and i wouldn't have had these many problems. but whatever.

10. MANDATORY MEMORIAS DE IDHÚN TWEET

plot twist in memorias de idhún the funky little guy is VICTORIA

(they're right btw)

11. the la casa de bernarda alba miami remake incident. this ruined my day, my week, my month and possibly my year as well. if you haven't seen this and feel strongly about federico garcía lorca please skip this one i don't want to ruin your day.

you know the drill:

i'm angry cause i can't go to tumblr and go off [literally it says 'shit on the mothers'] at everyone who thought and adaptation of la casa de bernarda alba IN MIAMI is coherent, logical and necessary.

you have to travel to 2023 to stop that aberration from happening [this one's for my emdt besties <3]

this one is already in english

the only modern adaptation of la casa de bernarda alba i will accept [this day i also realised that episode really is an adaptation of la casa de bernarda alba which made me love paquita salas even more]

lorca reading this

and this one's also in english :)

12. oh btw i rewatched druck s5 and s6 just to feel something. wasn't brave enough to watch s7 & s8 tho <3

[first pic]

the machwitz sisters from druck are the best fictional sisters that exist i don't fucking care if you don't agree

and yes i cried again with them

[pic 2]

the thing about rewatching druck's s5 is that now i want to rewatch druck's s1-4 only because of kiki

literally the best minutt for minutt of all skam i could scream

[pic 3]

possibly my favourite fictional ship above... yes... percabeth

there, i said it

i am once again stanning kieutou i'm so sorry

i was gonna start season 6 tomorrow but it happened

i don't know if i should watch s7 and s8 to be able to say i've watched all druck even if i know they're shitty [spoiler: i didn't do that]

13. maybe i went through a mini-skam craze last month.

people of twitter, it is a pleasure to announce that i have included references to skam in my book [specifically that moment at the end of sana's season when everything with the girls is resolved and she sent a message to yousef to meet up but he isn't answering]

14. i thought this meme was extremely funny and made for me specifically

just in case you don't know; pic 1 is the academy of OT [Operación Triunfo], pic 2 is the geography and history building of the UCM (mini spoiler i went there later in the month), pic 3 is the school entrance in skam, and pic 4 is the pool in druck s3.

15. they interviewed my sister !!!!

here's the link (in spanish) <3

fun fact i found out about this when my mum sent it to the groupchat. my sister and i do live in the same house and speak to each other daily :) they just didn't tell me :)

16. :(

another day missing tumblr

17. i watched a ton of national selections but i only really tweeted portugal's so yeah

i'll go chronologically with these ones so it's less confusing lol

please let nasci maria win it's the only song out of all preselections that i've had stuck in my head

a pretty good top 3 tbh, any of those songs deserves to win

it should be said that i've seen a ton of preselections this year and i've only saved two songs from portugal's preselection in spotify.

well i lied. i think there's also one or two songs from sanremo. but whatever

18. i did this cool pokémon chart which made me realise my favourite pokémon type is steel actually

i've seen fola do this on stream and i wanted to do it myself :)

what do you think people do i have taste or not

here's the chart if you want to take a closer look at it!

19. this was around the time i really started to resonate with carlos peguer's tweets. i think he's the closest thing to a spanish mike's mic so we have to cherish and celebrate him i think.

i felt these tweets about amaia's music on a spiritual level. he was so right.

she really was insane for this

the moon reflects on my BITTEN NAILS [this are the opening lyrics of nuevo verano PLEASE listen to it i'm begging]

20. emdt time!!! i finished s2 but it was so hard to do it without liveblogging it on tumblr :( i tweeted a bit about it tho (but only a little!!!)

why no one told me my town's palace appears in el ministerio del tiempo [i'm kinda glad i wasn't on tumblr here cause i would've purposefully doxxed myself lol. anyways it was certainly something seeing it, especially knowing the actors were IN MY TOWN filming for DAYS and i didn't even know it. disgraceful]

i wish i could talk about the episode i'm seeing of emdt on tumblr cause it's super funny [it was the one where they have to pretend they're a normal ministerio !!!! 10/10 i had so much fun]

21. i also may or may not have gotten addicted to ck3 like a fucking nerd

the way i started playing crusader kings at nine thirty 'to spend some time until i go to bed' and suddenly it's past midnight ????

22. ⚠️the march 15 incident ⚠️ a lot happened today lol. and no, i'm not referring to the ides of march. i even forgot about them. busy day.

you can tell how i went through the whole spectrum of human emotions that day <3 anyways, i'll go in chronological order

how's your morning going people i woke up at 6:45 for a job interview but when i got to the bus stop i realized i don't have the transport chart recharged and i don't have enough money in my bank account to recharge it. lol.

in the end i managed to get to the interview and i even talked with an argentinian guy is this being a normal and sociable person

bomb the ucm

it's impossible for the spring to not be my favorite station, i'm about to cry over how nice this day is

i mean. overall it was a good day. but my memories of it get a bit tainted by the sequel (yes there is a sequel). anyways, let's go with the fun context.

so, yes i did (kinda) have a job interview that day. they haven't called me since so i guess that didn't work out. i had a 1 hour 30 mins trip on public transport to get there so that's why i woke up so early (the interview was at 9:30 i think?). i managed to get there only cause as i got back home to wait for my mum to wake up i got the notification that she had sent me 50 € to my bank account for that day. so i went out again, got to the tram station, recharged my transport card, and then got there. in the end the interview was delayed so whatever but yeah. nothing remarkable there apart from that argentinian guy i chatted with!! like a normal human!!!

anyways, after that i had to go to the ucm (told you i was gonna go there later in the month) because. you guessed it: the ucm predoc. i'm not gonna bore you with the details, but basically i had everything done and filled up, i just needed to sign and sent it to the entity. i couldn't do it online so - after calling and not receiving any answers - i printed everything, signed everything by hand and decided to deliver it in the registry office.

that's what i did, after the registry guy told me i should call the people who were in charge of all that process and calling - i shit you not - 6 different numbers until i got their approval. so that means it was done right? i've finished the process??? right???? lol. we'll come to that in the sequel <3

but yeah, the day was nice, it was super spring-y, and it's always great to go outside of the house so i liked it :)

23. i lost my mind over this tweet specifically

i don't know how to explain how important this picture is to me. like. it's identical to my favourite phrase in the whole world that appears in seneca's mede: medea superest. 'medea remains'. same idea as that sign. i'm gonna combust.

NO WAIT YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND. the context of 'medea superest' is that the wet nurse is telling medea that she's alone in the world and she answers with that. because despite everything, she still has herself.

despite everything, it's still you.

24. i found my favourite twitter account <3

feliç dijous is 'happy thursday' in catalan btw

25. i listened to all esc 2023 songs and here's my top!!

i hit pic limit so i'll continue this in a part 2 (there's not much left i promise)

#god it's good to be back #also. i'm sorry.

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lucienarcheron · 1 year ago

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sorry for this dissertation, but i have some Thoughts and as a swiftie and an elucien, you are my target audience bestie

i was listening to ‘gold rush’ and it suddenly hit me that lucien vanserra may as well have written the song himself. i just *takes deep breath* right from the beginning, where it says, i almost jump in, but i don’t like a gold rush bc the temptation is always there, the instincts. but like, as we know, the whole thing with the gold rush was that many people never found gold. it’s the pull of the bond vs. the woman at the other end of it, who has shown no interest in him. plus it reminds me of lucien asking feyre if elain is worth fighting for in acowar. he’s just so so cautious with his heart now 💔

i don’t like that anyone would die to feel your touch / everybody wants you i mean…… 👀 but we don’t have to talk about that rn. also? doesn’t eris ?? say somethin about “my brother’s pretty mate” ???? or do i just read too much fanfic oop either way, they really out here putting elain in an ugly dress so she wouldn’t accidentally catch eris’s eye in the court of nightmares. everybody wants a slice of that elain archeron pie !!

what must it be like to grow up that beautiful? i mean there’s the obvious, as we just discussed. but also, he really would have to wonder what it was like growing up that beautiful, in the sense that she has faced all this adversity and managed to stay kind and soft. he’d have to wonder what it was like to grow up universally loved. 😭😭

at dinner parties, i call you out on your contrarian shit ok so elain’s not exactly a contrarian if anything, lucien is lol BUT i wanna talk about this lyric in relation to the theory that elain gives people the her she thinks they want. and that lucien at the very least, is able to perceive that. he probably has all kinds of fantasies of ruining another awkward dinner by calling her on it. and to take things further, the coastal town we wandered ‘round had never seen a love as pure as it . walking through far-flung streets with her accompanying him on his travels.

BUT, considering the way things are lookin rn, especially from his perspective…. i can’t dare to dream about you anymore

ugh ugh ugh my heart !! and then the twist??? now saying i won’t call you out on your shit at dinner parties, because he’d never actually do that to her at least not AT dinner hehe so they’ll just eat in strained silence forever, probably. and then there’s the coastal town we never found will never see a love as pure as it because it all feels so hopeless !!! like it’s never gonna happen!! it’s a gold rush ):

As someone who has a whole Elucien (Taylor's Version) playlist with this song on there, I am LOVING this!!! I viewed the song from Elain's POV as she watches Lucien dazzle every crowd he’s in, feeling both proud that he’s her mate (while still nervous and apprehensive around him) but can’t help being slightly annoyed at how many people seem to want his attention. I love how your breakdown and mine are essentially how the two of them would view each other at the same time HKJGUYJG. GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE 'NONNIE!!!

I made a whole-ass playlist (read: thesis statement) maybe three years ago? I gotta find it and make updates to add Taylor's newer songs on there omg.

#elucien #elain archeron #lucien vanserra #AHHHHH you got me in my feels 'nonnie #asks #anon

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regulusrules · 1 year ago

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Hi! Don't feel obligated to reply to this if you don't wanna answer for any reason, but I saw you answer an ask where you said you archived a fic so you could use it in your personal career and I was wondering what that would be? Like, in what ways can you use fic like that? Again, don't feel like you have to answer if that's a more personal question than I think it is and you want to keep it private 😊

Hi, no worries! Thank you for being very respectful about it 🤍 I think I understand where this question is coming from. We often confine fanfiction to only being a creative outlet with no other usage, when actually it can have a great impact on other aspects of our lives.

I'll list you some of the ways:

If you're an author, you can use your fics by restructuring them into original works of art. (This is generally the most common case, but it involves losing your non-profitable voice. However, there are other ways you could benefit from your fics without monetizing them).

If you're an academic scholar, you can use fanfiction in the fields of literature, interdisciplinarity, creative writing, and linguistics. Whether this may be writing a research paper / thesis / dissertation about fanfiction as a genre, or analysing fics themselves. People really underestimate the power of fanfiction on academia and vice versa.

If you're applying for postgraduate studies in some of the previously mentioned fields, some universities require a portfolio of your creative writing. You can tailor your fics and include them as samples.

In your postgraduate journey, you can exercise applying critical literary theories (eg: feminist theory, postcolonial theory, etc) on fics if you're reluctant to start straight on books. I even like to believe that critical writing is in itself a form of fic writing, because you're writing and trying to prove your opinion about an outer text. Only difference is that critical writing is evidence-based.

You could do comparative studies on books and fics to further understand the workings of monetized vs unprompted writing, the difference in style, or even the use of diction.

If you're applying for certain jobs in the writing field aka content writing / copywriting / script writing.. some companies also require a creative writing portfolio.

All of these are ways you could benefit from fic writing, aside from the obvious which is writing for your good self and evolving your style. I said it before and will keep on saying it: fanfiction is one of the purest forms of love out there. We write fics because we want to share our love of certain characters with the world without a need to financially gain anything from it. It is a small restoration of human goodness and human connection. However, that doesn't say you can't use it for anything else. Quite the contrary, when you understand the power of your words and the influence they could make, this will be the greatest pro of all

#on fanfiction #LJ answers #fanfic #fic writing #fanfiction #ao3 #fanfiction writing #regulusrules answers

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mademoiselle-red · 1 year ago

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Reading the Renault fandom dissertation, part 3

An academic decided to write about us, online fans of Mary Renault’s works, for her phd dissertation in 2018, and as the subject of her research, I will be covering & commenting on what she wrote over a series of posts ✍️📑

(Here is part 1, part 2, part 4, part 5, and part 6)

And now, for part 3 we jump to the Renault chapter:

“Chapter 2: From Greek Love to Boys’ Love: Mary Renault’s Romanticization of Pederasty”

Personally, I don’t read Renault’s works as romanticizing the institution of pederasty. They instead set up the ideal of “Greek love” in order to explore its problematic place and inadequacies within both its culture of origin (The Last of the Wine) and within early twentieth century gay culture (The Charioteer).

“Despite her contemporary fame, however, she is rarely mentioned today in either mainstream media or academic circles. Only in the form of a niche online fandom do Renault’s works continue to generate enthusiasm and contemporary relevance: male homoerotic fan art by women.”

I’m really surprised to see that she chose fan art as the primary form of fan media through which she uses to analyze the Renault fandom. I know it is more convenient to compare fan art to BL manga since both are visual mediums, but it doesn’t make sense for the Renault online fandom. I’d say the online TC community is 90% fanfic & meta and only 10% fan art. Even the Alexander Trilogy and LotW fanworks are mostly fic and meta. So focusing on art doesn’t make sense when you are trying to study the online fan reception of Renault’s works. This oversight in Chou’s methodology leads to some interesting results later…

“The second part of this chapter brings in the latest online fandom devoted to Renault, which focuses on Renault’s representation of male homoeroticism. These fan artworks and discussions based on Renault’s novels are located squarely within the BL sensibilities that I discussed in the previous chapter. By examining the unexpected affinities between the mid-twentieth century lesbian author and her millennial online fandom, I contend that the apparent contradictions between Renault and her works is best understood through the BL logic—which is the logic of fantasy.”

This is her central thesis about Renault and us, the fandom. A preview of what these “unexpected affinities” will be:

“More specifically, I argue that what critics have found problematic about Renault—her idealization of male homosexuality, her misogyny, and her indifference to identity politics—make sense for BL aesthetics.”

I will discuss Chou’s argument that Renault’s works appeal to her online fan community because they are indifferent to identity politics and modern reality in my next post (part 4), but first, the author explains her definition of “queerness,” which is crucial to understanding her distinction between BL/slash sensibilities vs queer sensibilities.

“Although Renault’s novels since The Charioteer almost exclusively focus on homosexual characters and relationships, and the word “queer” is in fact scattered all over The Charioteer referring to gay men in the postwar era, her books have never been considered “queer” in the post-gay, academic sense.”

This is a baffling sentence. And this definition of “queer” really narrows her analysis of queer fannish activity in my opinion, and prevents her from recognizing Renault’s online fandom as a form of queer culture and queer community. Also, I didn’t realize there is a “post-gay” academic culture. What does “post-gay” even mean? She goes on to explain:

“Queerness is understood as a mode of critique rather than about a specific sexuality, which is where queer theory divulges from lesbian and gay studies: whereas lesbian and gay studies tackles homosexuality as an object of study, queer theory defines itself as a philosophical and political strategy of critique rather than a study of particular objects. With representation no longer the measurement of political efficacy in textual analysis, writing about “queers” and being politically queer are two different, although not incompatible ideas.”

So queerness in Chou’s understanding for the purposes of this dissertation does not refer to a group of people who can be studied. I’d say it’s fine if you want queerness to be a mode of critique of normative structures in fiction & philosophy, but how useful is this definition when you are studying a fan community, a living breathing organism comprised of real people?

“The silence around Renault in academia today is a result of the awkward combination of who the author is, what she writes about, and how she proclaims an apolitical orientation. Queer criticism is used to heteronormative subjects being silent about politics and the mainstream’s lack of action is easily understood as complacency and sometimes homophobia. But queer criticism is not geared towards handling a non- normative subject with a voice that does not articulate political aspirations.”

Queer people can, you know, just exist, and write about other queer people, and have bad politics.

“In what follows, I propose that reading Renault from a different perspective—the BL perspective—not only dissolves her hopeless contradictions but is also more productive in understanding how her works can still be (if not more) relevant today.”

Buckle up, friends, she’s gonna analyze the TC fandom (us!!!) next 👀👀👀