#I don't know if these are the most succinct 5 but these were the first few i thought of

[gumi-writes]

my (grey)hound is named atropos, as they are a part of a trio of mcs derived from the moirai. their greyhound moniker was a play on their role and their age (65; older mc's are fun to write about!) it's quite ironic if you think about it; death is the most free in its inevitability for all things, and here is its personification, bound in a gilded leash. yes, the unliving soulless die by the scissor's snap and their unrelenting chase, but it is not their call that begins the hunt. finality wielded like a blade by humanity on the brink of apocalypse. eventually, patient and unwavering death wearies.

im waiting for the game to drop because 85% of their lore is dependant on the allmother, and so is lachesis and clotho's (who are not the greyhound's sisters, but different selves in different timelines, like the fig tree dilemma), so unfortunately i don't have much else to say about them and their situation as a weapon. atropos is meant to explore the nature vs. nurture discussion of ts' themes, technically the first in line of the timeline (existence is a cyclic curse amirite xx death unto life). greyhounds were born to hunt for their masters, but not every dog can attest to the glee in sinking their teeth deep into the throat of a stag. there is no say to be had, though. it is in your veins and the blood on your hands. refusing this fate would be acknowledging the inherent injustice of your life, and that would hurt more than your own knife. so you swallow the bitter ichor in your mouth. eventually, humans and soulless are nothing more to you like the soft pelted animal you cornered. (there was a moment in the past this bloodlust didn't stain your mother's womb.)

maybe in the next life.

on that note, the hound, the unnamed, and the alchemist were all very interesting archetypes to me. you can dissect so many of humanity's philosophies into 3. the hound is love as desperation, as cruelty, as consumption (and what is desire if not this dog eat dog world?) the unnamed is our desperation manifest as a need for something greater than us that we carve from ourselves; love as something holy, terrifying, all-seeing. the alchemist is our need that scratches under the skin to know all that is greater than and below us (if to be known is to be loved, then maybe we can be the one love if we understand. or are you repulsed? do you bite into the apple knowing the doom that seeps across your tongue? we want to be loved but no one talks about the desire to be the one to subject the other to tender cruelty) violence, god, knowledge. the 3 types of homosexuality babyyyyyy. mashing the moirai into one person but different selves like Evil Scientist Petri Dish Session is quite ambitious but to me, humans aren't just one dilemma. (or maybe im just Evil Gay Scientist trying to smooth talk out of this) we are everything suffering of anything. the sorrows change as the seasons pass. and so in every universe, regardless of theseus' paradox, they suffer. (your post about the li's masochism was really succinct and beautiful by the way, and is it a safe place to say all 5 of them apply to every one of these mc's at once sgshgd i love torturing gay people /silly)

i kind of pegged tien as the unnamed first (i know so unoriginal heartbreak emoji), until i found out she is a love interest. i thought it was interesting to have their holiness addled with destruction, but either way, she proves a really fascinating case. what are their thoughts on higher powers or deities as her role of a nun? when her knees rest before a false idol, do they look down out of grace or to spit at their feet in her mind? what are they like with the other senobium clergy?

(and the idea of tien's blood in mc really brings together that violent, holy, esoteric understanding trio. RAGAGAGAGG!!!!! COMPLEX GAY PEOPLE 5 KM AWAY ❤️❤️❤️ WILL THE HAND THAT FEEDS MC WRAP AROUND THEIR NECK!!!! i volunteer as tribute xx there is no being the exception to one as apathetic as she but there is a chance to be a thorn in their side that stings a lingering saccharine ache. and if you leave they will not glance at your headstone but the dragging of your corpse in her belly is all the same.) also ive seen artworks of tien with lunari and i find them very fascinating! what's their relationship like? thoughts on each other? (your wife is beautifully skilled with their art by the way i start chewing on my lap top everytime i see their post)

hi anon it's another essay for you i'm like

yessss i’m so happy you’re willing to share details of your own mc! 🥰 i LOVE the idea of an older mc, especially since we are dealing with a cast of people with mysterious lifespans, haha. i love the nod to greek mythology as well! but it’s funny how personifications work that way, isn’t it? what does it mean to collar death, if only in embodiment alone? and is there room for anything beyond, especially when the humdrum of routine is so bloodied? are you not simply at that point waiting for your turn, for the blade to finally be at your neck?

that makes sense! i love how you’re incorporating them as different selves as well, i think it’s really fascinating! what better way to explore the potential of a setting and its possibilities with varying faces? and i really love that atropos will explore the nature vs nurture discussion because i think it’s very apt in the ts universe because it has such a high threshold for violence which would further colour the debate, but in a way that i think will draw out its fullest potential. the choice to die or to fulfill your use as a tool is no choice at all, but what can you do but tread the trodden road until the very end? maybe there’s no joy in it. but it’s comforting, if only in its familiarity. any newness feels too raw, and maybe too late—something you might tell yourself, even if it serves as the most bitter of salves. ��

what a lovely way to succinctly split all the backgrounds! i love that an all-too-human desperation seemingly ties them all together—understandable, given that the beginning of the game is an act of desperation. honestly, you’ve basically described why touchstarved has ignited a certain thirst in me to engage with the world in a way i haven’t engaged with many worlds in a while—the extremes of humanity and what we are driven to do in spite of or because of are a breeding ground to explore our own identities in a fantastical way. (also i love violence god and knowledge being the three types of homosexuality LMAO as it should be ♥ also perhaps it is quite ambitious but i’m very excited to see what you come up with, and how the resulting characters will interact with the world at large. (and thank you! i wanted to expand on it at some point but it kept rattling in my head so i just posted it as is. the space is not only safe to say it applies to these mcs, but i would argue that honestly, the baseline level of bloodshed in this universe almost makes it a foregone conclusion. if you are not here for solely malice, then the thread of masochism is inherent.) i’m curious if you’ve picked paths for your ocs yet, if even from the themes that you’ve gauged from each route, or possible dynamics?

haha! honestly, it’s flattering that you did think about them enough to peg them as anything, and unnamed is the best match! tiên would make for a terrible mc in a romance, though, even if it was tempered by horror. she simply does not have the traits in her to pursue anyone, and is actually a little dependent on people having the drive the pursue her, because on her own she will just remain as is. for her to be the protagonist of anything, i suspect it would simply be an outright horror where it ends with a dead world and the lonely reaper that brought about its end.  holiness/destruction is always a fun juxtaposition for me, especially if one is corrupting the holy through violence. i’ll bloody your altar just to bring you down to earth kind of thing. but tiên’s role as a nun is largely a thinly veiled disguise—it’s to help her get around and avoid questioning, but anyone who’s important knows who she is and anyone that isn’t is usually put off by her eerie, ghostlike disposition and terrifyingly tall stature anyway so she pretty much always avoids getting approached. i don’t think she spares a thought to a higher power—acknowledging them would mean yet another layer of injustice she’d have to swallow, a bitter pill that the world and those that might have been able to change it has failed her by strengthening her. her power is but her leash, in the end. as for other senobium clergy, i think they avoid her unless absolutely necessary. much of her social interactions are either the orders she gets and the bloodied kiss of death she shares with her victims, what counts as connection even though it’s an ending. tiên is a very isolated figure in that sense, and it’s not helped by how she isn’t very good at remembering people. most are simply a smear of features that cannot register, the world a watercolour painting that’s muddied and bleeding into each other.

(idk what it is about blood but it’s way too powerful lmfao. as a theme; a metaphor for strength, or connection; even visually. her blood is the most monstrous thing about her but it’s also the only thing capable of making her connect with people as well. she will not remember how you made her felt but only the vague gap of absence left behind. but if everyone is faceless, does that not at least make you a face?) and aww, thanks for asking! i actually have a slightly different timeline for tiên with an mc/lunari vs one that is less of the mc’s story. but with lunari (which could also work for an mc, i thought), she saw the potential in manipulating tiên to get access to the senobium. so they start that kind of tenuous relationship, only it’s very hard to manipulate someone that doesn’t want anything. tiên themselves, despite how hard she might be to approach, is surprisingly amenable to conversation—at the very least, she seems tolerant to being approached so long as you do not mind the lack of overt enthusiasm. (a carry over from her days as a test subject—she doesn’t have any particular boundaries nor does she socially tire, and responds to questions with an almost suspicious amount of candidness. but why would she lie, and why would anything be too private when she’s never learned of that privacy in her life?) also, to tiên, lunari is cute. which seems like a really slight detail, but it does matter when her own social interactions are usually so shallow or ephemeral that something like being endearing does make a difference. she’s not conscious of it, but she is the slightest bit warmer with people that remind her of small animals. not even to approach them—tiên is not an initiator—but if they continue approaching her, she is not opposed to it. at the very least, lunari incites curiosity in tiên and tiên’s contradictory nature slowly becomes lunari’s obsession. still, it is canonically a tragedy, and while they do end up in something romantic, lunari never learns to trust tiên completely—something that dooms them both. (and thank you!!! i’ll pass on the message haha, but know that i’m chewing right with you!)

[therealvinelle]

Why do you think fanfic writers lie in their fic tags? Like, a fic itself contains several semi-graphic depictions of het sex, and yet the tag is Gen. What is the thought process behind doing shit like this?

They're sick fucks, that's why.

To be more serious: I think few people set out to intentionally deceive their readers, and the ones that do usually want readers so badly they forget themselves. Genuine bad actors are rare, or so I choose to believe.

As it is, I suspect I'm a misleading tagger myself, at least to some.

The way I treat tags is as warnings, so I will tag ships featured in my works even if they're one-sided, background, or in the past because that way people who don't want to see that ship know to avoid my story. Edward/Carlisle and Jacob/Renesmee getting tagged in my fic Bleach on the Brain is an example of this: sucks if you clicked on the fic because you're a shipper but the way I see it, sucks worse if you don't want to see those and now you're reading a fic with father/son incest and a guy in his mid-twenties grooming a child in it. If I hadn't done this, if I'd only kept the pairings which were depicted positively, then the negative tags in that fic (grooming, sexual assault, etc) would have been assumed to be related to those and someone else would have been upset with me.

I tag this way because @theoriginalcarnivorousmuffin learned the hard way (i.e.: got hate) that tagging only for endgame will get a lot of people very mad at you, but now A/B shippers have fics depicting their ship negatively. It's a losing game.

So that's bringing me to a major reason why I think misleading tags happen (which gets a headline so I can tell myself this post is structured):

People have different ideas of how works should be tagged

Some people want to tag for everything that happens in the fic. Literally everything, if it's a smut you know exactly what goes where just from reading the tags.

This also means they might tag characters who appear only briefly in a scene in chapter 35 (the fic having 56 chapters so far and being 500k+ long), because hey, the character appears. Or maybe they're brought up a lot and are very important to the fic even if there's not much actual screentime, so a character like Voldemort gets tagged in a Harry Potter fic focused on the war without him actually appearing all that much.

On the opposing side you have the minimalists. They tag the main two characters and put three more in the additional tags so it won't go in the character tag, and add a ship tag some 30 chapters in. There are two additional tags, both are very vague. If that - I've seen people who don't tag at all, or who just tag with a single character, or just the ship - it really is up to the individual.

I've noticed the type of author (whether Ao3 was their first platform, how much time they spent elsewhere, whether it's an imported fic, and how old the author is) and the type of fic (how old it is, the author's background, and genre (oneshot, drabble, multi-chapter, 5+1, etc.)) influences tagging.

Common to all authors, though, is they try to tag as they feel is appropriate for their fic.

Which brings me to the next issue:

How do I tag?

A lot of people are confused about this.

They're confused about what tags mean - what's freeform (I honestly keep forgetting what this one is supposed to be too), when something should be tagged, what belongs in relationship or character tags vs. additional tags, what additional tags are supposed to be.

Do you, for that matter, try to explain your story in the tag ("this is a roommate AU with feelings") or do you tag succinctly ("roommate AU", "feelings", "fluff") or a combination? A lot of authors seem to prefer the first and last options, from what I can tell it's become the norm. Most authors seem to use the additional tags to connect with the reader in this way, and so you get people placing more emphasis on the additional tags than the succinct tags.

How do I tag? Sensibilities section

Then there's the question of sensibilities: what's triggering to reader A may be great stuff to reader B, with the author not realising it could be triggering to anybody and should have been in the tags, or the author thought knees brushing against each other warranted big red warnings that "they literally had sex, oh god this is so dirty. so dirty!! can't believe i wrote this. ENTER AT OWN RISK" which of course is very disappointing to the sick fucks who wanted porn.

Or the opposite happens: the author knows the subject is triggering, which means people might not click on the fic, and they want attention so badly they ah weasel out. Or option three: the author can't tag without spoiling the story, and so they either put "creator chose not to use warnings", don't rate it, and let the readers enter at their own risk or they use tags uh strategically (have a look at how I tagged Nebuchadnezzar's Dream to avoid spoiling the bloody coup d'état that happens at the end. Today I simply would have gone for no warnings and no rating, but those tags are also a solution which I think is... alright, I suppose "massacre" could have been added but it was entirely off screen so to me would have been an abuse of the tag).

In other words, everyone will be tagging differently and sometimes it's because they've no clue which tag is warranted, sometimes they're trying not to spoil their story, sometimes they didn't realise they should or shouldn't have tagged for something.

Anthologies (when someone posts their oneshots as chapters of a story)

These used to frustrate me endlessly, until I saw a "how to help readers find your fic!" post explaining that with anthologies, your readers get a notification every time you post a new oneshot and it's easy to find them all!

Which, in retrospect, is the most fanfiction.net statement I've ever seen (indeed, OP was an old ffnet dog).

Ao3 allows collections, and is unique in this: to older fandom people, putting your thematically connected oneshots together as chapters of a story used to be how it was done, having 54 connected drabbles on your fanfiction.net profile where readers couldn't filter them out nor select to view only the drabbles put together made perfect sense. And then they never adapted to Ao3's features, and other users seeing these anthologies copied the action because hey, stats.

I'm still frustrated with these people and wish they would just post their oneshots individually, but I think a lot of them are just... really really keen on the numbers on their fics going up, and not thinking about the purpose of the archive, utilising its features, nor that they're making their oneshots harder to find and annoying a lot of people.

The tag difficulty with anthologies, of course, being that if you have two oneshots in it, one with characters A and B and you tag it for X and Y happening, the other oneshot is with characters C and D and you tag it for Z and W happening, and continue like this for 30 chapters, then you have a wall of tags so everyone will see your story, good on you, but your readers have no way of knowing what's happening in your story or to which characters, and they're either patient enough to click their way through every goddamn chapter or they just scroll past your thing. Either way you're cloying a looot of tags and the readers who wanted Z and W happening to A and B are pissed because they clicked their way through god knows how many chapters only to not get what they wanted (and now they don't like anthologies either).

(Disclaimer: sometimes drabbles or oneshots are so interconnected that it doesn't make sense to separate even on Ao3, so to every rule there's an exception.)

In conclusion

Most authors are making tough choices when tagging, or they don't know how to tag, or they want readers very badly (and what you as a reader can do to ameliorate this is to comment and kudos frequently! Even give positive notes in the bookmarks when you make a new one because believe me we check!).

Or they're writing an anthology, in which case you should be very skeptical about those tags.

[fantasycorrupted-a]

GET TO KNOW THE MUN!!

TAGGED BY: @heartxshaped-bruises (thank you!! <3) TAGGING: see this? wanna do it? steal it from me!

NAME? Ani

PRONOUNS? she/her

PREFERENCE OF COMMUNICATION? Tumblr IMs or Discord

MOST ACTIVE MUSE? I like to think my inspiration for characters is balanced; right now I'm writing a novella about Jareth and Rita for fun but oddly enough Fíann has also become a character I can summon fast. Also, Kamael, Luceus and Stefan.

EXPERIENCE / HOW MANY YEARS? 9-10 years at this point. I started writing my OCs in rp about 5 years ago and before that I did this for some manga/anime characters I love.

BEST EXPERIENCE? I can't name a single one. I love plotting, I love threads that take turns and involve a bit of conflict (just a bit though) and I love sending stuff to people that reminds me of their characters - the experience in itself is awesome.

RP PET PEEVES? I'll be honest, I thought about this way harder than I probably should've. I don't have many. Extremely long posts to scroll past was definitely one, though they did implement a click to read more to shorten that so it's fine now. Also, agreeing with the mutual who tagged me, the 'reblog from source' thing. A lot of times I have no idea what I'd send sb if they reblog an rp/ask meme from me but folks are free to reblog memes from me. I don't mind!

FLUFF, ANGST OR SMUT? Angst, for sure. And fluff. Smut gets the bronze.

PLOTS OR MEMES? Memes are cool and they've given me great ideas but I gotta say plotting. RP is like a collab story to me, and for that plotting is needed.

LONG OR SHORT REPLIES? I've tried writing long replies; it always ends up draining me. I don't like being verbose, you see. Short replies are... well, too short. Even though I'm trying to learn how to be succinct, short replies don't give me enough inspiration/stuff to work with/a kick/what say you. So I'd rather say, medium replies. Not too long, not too short, the best of both worlds.

TIME TO WRITE? Ideally late morning and noon, but if that can't happen I can make it work anytime. Who needs sleep amirite

ARE YOU LIKE YOUR MUSES? Yes and no. A little bit. I've given a lot of them (like Fíann, Rigmor, Kieran) experiences similar to mine, and our music/art tastes would probably align, but that's it. Even Rigmor, whose story is very personal and describes a somewhat bad time I had at some point in life, is still her own character. Even Fíann, although recently I realised how alike we are, is her own character. And even Savash, who supposedly got inspired by me (she, Rigmor and Arvid used to be siblings in the very first iteration of Rigmor's story, but things changed since), is her own character. If they were too much like me it would be boring. I'm writing urban fantasy, not an autobiography after all!

[lookbluesoup]

3. What was your first impression of the three major City-States, Ul'dah, Limsa Lominsa, and Gridania? Did these change over time?

5. How did you feel about being invited to join the Scions of the Seventh Dawn? Did you travel to the Waking Sands to hear their pitch? What was your initial impression of Minfilia, and her reveal that she also had the Echo? What did you make of the rest of the Scions?

Let's see if I can be REMOTELY succinct about this hahaha (spoiler, I won't be)

Nahte's favorite city of the three is Limsa Lominsa by far. It's not exactly safe but, y'know, neither is the Black Shroud when you live so far out even the Wood Wailers don't tread. It's the only city that allows beast tribes to come in and trade, and has such a modge-podge of citizenry thanks to its bustling port that you can always find someone with a story or a job, if you know where to look. Nahte came here to study Arcanistry at around seventeen years old, and lived in the city for probably about a year, give or take. He'd visited several times before that in his wanderings, and even did a stint on a fishing boat with a Sunseeker tribe which remains one of his fondest early memories. So he knew this city very well by the time he meets Y'shtola on the coast fending off a rampaging goobbue, and Hydaelyn yoinks him into her crusade. He grows more critical of Limsa Lominsa over time, especially as he becomes involved in Scion business trying to mediate their conflict with the Kobolds and Sahagin, and that ARR finale where Merlwyb and the Elder Seedseer just... leave the Scions to die, certainly soured him on both leaders for a while.

Ul'dah is less enjoyable from the start. Nahte had also visited here a few times before the Admiral sent him as an Envoy. It's where he first met his mate, A'mahl Tia, which is about its only redeeming quality. Nahte feels significantly less safe here than in Limsa Lominsa. Though the architecture of the city is beautiful, and he spent some time learning from the craftsman's guilds there in his youth, he has no fondness for the church where heaven is literally bought with gold, or the government where extreme wealth is the one, only qualification for a seat on the council. He was horrified to discover poor like the Ala Mhigan refugees being worked, literally to death, for mere pennies, pulling metals from mines that made the owners rich beyond comprehension. Nahte spent some time using his skills as a healer to mend injured refugees that would otherwise starve for want of coin. And while Nahte acknowledges that balancing an economy in a city is very different from living off the land in a small tribe isolated deep in the woods, and that he certainly doesn't know enough to know how to "fix" things... he felt when he first came to the city, and continues to feel, that Ul'dah is the cruelest place he's ever been to. And that's saying a lot because:

Gridania is... ugly. Nahte grew up in a traditional Moon Keeper village deep in the Shroud, and as such was raised to be wary of Wood Wailers and Gridanians. When he began to wander, as Moonkeeper men do, he did eventually grow curious enough to investigate the hamlets and attempt to meet people and trade. He experienced firsthand how cruel Gridania's paranoia about offending the Elementals could become. He was called names, threatened, even attacked a few times by Wailers who assumed him to be a poacher without bothering to ask questions. He's seen them leave people to die that they could have helped, in the name of their benevolent Elementals, and justify hurting strangers for the same, but eventually came to believe that most of the time the Elementals didn't care at all. Close-minded people did. And they used their pseudo-deities as an excuse to act, or not act, whichever was convenient. Most of their rules were actually about enforcing a kind of uniformity in their citizenry. Despite how homey and familial Gridania claimed to be, people who were different, who were outsiders, were not welcome. Not all of them are bad, of course, and he did make a few tentative friendships. But it was dangerous living in the city's shadow growing up, and that absolutely influenced his view of the place.

He was extremely reluctant to enter the capital with Merlwyb's missive for the Elder Seedseer, as it was his first time visiting Gridania proper. It didn't go as badly as he thought it would. The Elder Seedseer was very polite, and most people were tolerant - presumably because his clothing and the size of the population meant nobody knew right away that he was an outsider. Future visits endeared him to the place slightly more, when he takes on the mantle of a Scion, and later his sister Tsimh is chosen by the Elementals to become a powerful White Mage, which both lead Gridania to take an overall more positive stance toward the Vhia clan, Nahte's family. Unlike Ul'dah, Nahte feels Gridania actually takes steps to improve over time, so they win some brownie points for that.

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5. Answered Here! :D

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New Adventurer Asks

[ryanmillerprocess]

One Thing

January 8, 2023

The task for this assignment is to become knowledgable in one topic, and, using InDesign, create an informational book or magazine.

My first topics to cover were:

The Snare Drum

Traffic Lights

Brake Lights on Cars

Yeti Coffee Mugs

Astigmatisms

I had a few ideas on how to make interesting designs for a few of these topics, but astigmatisms provided the biggest surge of ideas. I will explore some more options, but for now I have decided to stick with this just to get a solid start.

This first day was spent researching and picking which information would be most important, as well as, provide me with options for creative design.

January 10, 2023

Today I spent some more time researching, ideating layouts, and finding the perfect font.

I have a few typefaces picked out, I'll just have to narrow it down to one or two. To represent the cleanliness of a medical professional's office I want the lines to be straight and consistent in width. To represent the nature of eye balls, I am choosing a geometric font to achieve a more rounded lettering.

January 15, 2023

The typeface I have chosen is All Round Gothic. I feel it is the best choice for the book because it offers choice in the weight of the text, and is more consistently round than Chennai.

I spent the day trying to figure out what to do for my cover page and came up with a few rough ideas

I soon decided to abandon the Refractive Error idea, and just title it Astigmatism. The main problem I had with this title was how to visualize the concept in the title. Sure, the word is probably enough, but that's boring and not nearly complicated enough for me to be happy with. So, I got to work on cracking through a few more rough drafts of the title.

I got really stuck on glasses needing to be included with the title. I played with a form designs and wanted to experiment with the letterforms, and push the readability. I ended up settling on the last design, and played with how blurry I wanted the end product to be.

I think to really push the vision problem aspect of an astigmatism, I want to really play with the overall readability of the book.

January 17, 2023

I have begun experimenting with different layouts and so far it is not going great. I can't seem to find something I'm happy with based on the size I chose (11"x17"). My information is succinct and there's a lot of space to be filled.

January 22, 2024

I don't know why I thought I had to make the book so big. Just got those numbers in my head and couldn't let go I guess. I've smartened up, just a little, and I'm gonna start experimenting with smaller sizes.

I also want to continue pushing the readability of the final product. This is an issue of visibility that I suffer with, so I want the experience to reflect the difficulties I have without my glasses.

January 24, 2024

I just continued working on the previous layout of my book and began to hate it again. At least from this point on I have all the information I need in Indesign. If only I could be happy with where I end up putting that information.

January 29, 2024

After more experimentation and reformats, I decided to go with this for critique. I wanted each page to contain one subject comfortably, without the text or symbols being too large.

January 31, 2024

I printed it off on my home printer (not the highest quality), and it is almost impossible to read. I know I wanted to push the limits on readability, but this is a little too far. I'll have to adjust the darkness for my final print for sure.

Critique went well. A few people liked the idea, but also agreed that it was really hard to read. I'll have to adjust the tone and reprint until I have something hard to read, but not impossible.

February 2, 2024

Today is the final day, I have reformatted the book to fit on 5"x5" square pages, and adjusted the tones to get a very subtle, but readable grey.

The front page with the Asrigmatism title, and the back page are blurred to capture the effect I see when I try to read black on white with my glasses off. The words are hard to see because I want the readers to have to suffer like I did for so long and squint their beady little eyes to see what I have written.

Progress Pictures

Final Book

Waste Nothing

I had a couple test prints hanging around, so I wanted to put them to use. What better way to use up extra books about bad eyes than to make a pair of glasses with them.

[winged-void]

Difficult question. Outside of the Kaga games (fe 1-5) they tend to be really good at onboarding the player, and I imagine even the Kaga games aren't too bad as a startijg point if you have the stomach for old game obtusery.

I know too much about this series to really reliably give a good succinct answer here, because I have been playing it since I was literally like 5 and thus have no frame of reference what it is like to not have familiarity.

Fe1/2 (Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Fire Emblem: Gaiden): Don't start here, NES games are bad.

FE3 (Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem): it would be weird to start here since it is a direct sequel to FE 1, but it does have char aznable in it so that might be a plus for some people.

FE4 (Fire Emblem: Geneology of the Holy War): Many people's favorite, I quite like it, but it is full of old game obtusery and frankly strange decisions that aren't super in line with every other game in the series.

It opted for ten huge chapters instead of 20-30 more manageably sized ones. It has some of the most grindy and obtuse systems in the series. I enjoy it immensely but it is hard for me to see it as a good starting point.

FE5 (Fire Emblem: Thracia 776): Probably shouldn't be played without having played FE4

FE6 (Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade): This one has Roy in it, it was never brought to the USA. It was pretty bad. They were not only adapting to the switch from console to GBA but recovering from a huge change in creative lead, and it shows. It's unrefined and just not very interesting.

Honestly, the fact that this is the one Roy is from and yet you basically never hear people talk about it is about as much of an indicator as I can give you as to this one being quite bad.

FE7 (Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade): I can't review this game fairly as a starting point because:

1. It was my starting point, when I was like 5 or six years old

2. I have played it more than a dozen times since then, it is not a game in the traditional sense for me anymore. It is a collection of characters and words and animations and mechanics etched into my brain.

That said, here's me doing my best:

This one was a huge on-boarding point for the series, due to it being the first one released in the US. It is technically a prequel to FE6, but it doesn't really feel like one except for in a couple parts. It's both too simple and weirdly obtuse. It still feels like they didn't really know what they wanted fire emblem to be doing after the creative director left.

But, it has a fun little cast of characters, fairly simple and easy to understand mechanics, it doesn't require a translation patch, and it is on the gba, which means you can pretty easily play it on your phone.

I think if you play it at any other time than your first it will probably feel stripped down, but even then it's hard to recommend because

FE8 (Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones): has most of its good points and few of its bad ones. I think this was when they really got a handle on the series post Kaga.

It's still stripped down from most fire emblems, but it adds a lot of personality back to the classes. It's probably the single easiest fire emblem, but that's not inherently a bad thing.

It's short, too, which combined with its difficulty and being on the gba makes it pretty easy to play on your phone over a week or two.

The story is, like all gba fire emblems, nothing special, but, it has a number of fun and stand out characters that are some of my favorite in the series (hi l'arachel).

Reviewing everything this might be the best "general" recommendation for a starting point, but I'm keeping this big block of text here for thoroughness' sake

FE9 (Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance): the first of Ike's games, if you like Ike.

It's a good game. It has new and interesting mechanics, and the return of old mechanics that had been missing. It's fun and good to play, not much more to say here without getting into weird specific breakdowns of what I like about the specifics of stuff like laguz transformation or whatever.

It would be the single ugliest fire emblem if not for the fact that the DS games kind of sweep that position, but it still isn't pretty. Early GameCube awkward models swinging around paper weapons type feel.

Generally regarded as the point where the series managed to tell a good story again, though it isn't without its weird pitfalls, and a lot of it feels like set up for its sequel.

FE10 (Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn): Might be my favorite in the series. Hard to really say, but it has a lot to offer. I can't go into all of what it offers without leaving the scope of this writing, because I don't recommend starting with a direct sequel.

It's really good and weird and long. Play radiant dawn, everyone.

FE11-12 (Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem):

Bad. Not very good. Ugly. Obtuse. Too simplistic. Ugly again. Remakes of 1 and 3 that don't really understand 1 and 3. Kind of feel like desperate cash grabs because they are both safe and uninteresting, and they probably were because 9 and 10 were commercial failures, despite being some of the best games the series has to offer.

You're better off playing 1 and 3 honestly.

FE13 (Fire Emblem: Awakening):

Now this one feels like a desperate cash grab in an entirely different way, and notably, it was one that worked. Huge onboarding point for the series.

The animefication of fire emblem was realized here and it's full of weirdly horny and painfully heterosexual tropey nonsense.

Mechanically it's fine. The game's big main mechanic (the pair up system) is unrefined and functions as a blunt object for you to demolish the game with, but somehow manages to feel yet more boring than how I described it there.

The story is bad in mostly uninteresting, if sometimes baffling, ways. It has all the appeal of a seasonal anime reboot of your favorite series from childhood that shares none of the creatives involved, and randomly goes out of its way to point at better games and remind you they exist.

I did enjoy this game immensely when it came out, but I was also a teenager hungry for any fire emblem when it seemed like the series was going to die. It's not unenjoyable but I just don't really know why you'd play it these days.

FE14 (Fire Emblem Fates): This game doubled down on literally every part of Awakening, and it feels like it. It's hornier, and in more off putting ways (generally your player stand in will marry one of either their adoptive or half siblings), its story lacks really anything interesting going on, and due to its weird pokemonesque decision, it has three possible routes (sold separately at the time), and two of those constantly have characters almost just turning to the camera and saying "buy the third route for a more satisfying story".

Also it's neither here nor there but it is the first game with mechanically fully canon queer characters and the two of them are a weird predatory lesbian and a flamboyant fem gay guy. I don't really know why they did that.

Mechanically, the Conquest route manages to be a fun and challenging game experience, if you skip the cutscenes and treat it as sort of a generic map pack. It actually refined a lot of awakening's mechanics into something fun and playable. It can be fun but I definitely wouldn't start with it.

FE15 (Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia): Its a weirdly mechanically faithful remake of FE2

Its aesthetic is compelling, and it is fun to play, but it is ultimately kind of very clearly a spiritually empty remake of a famicom game.

FE16 (Fire Emblem: Three Houses):

Nah, not this one.

FE17 (Fire Emblem: Engage):

This game is so strange. If I told you a Nintendo series was releasing an anniversary game that brought all the most popular characters from their extremely disconnected games together you would rightfully think it was a cheap cash grab nostalgia bait game worth only disdain.

And yet! Engage is extremely good, one of the best gameplay experiences the series has ever offered, turning what sounds like a gimmick mechanic (equipping your units with items that allow them to summon popular fire emblem characters) into something genuinely compelling and fun.

The story doesn't do anything terribly interesting, but it also isn't pretending to, which means you can broadly just enjoy the characters and spectacle more easily.

Profoundly strangely good game.

Probably can't recommend it as an onboarding point because of the aforementioned core mechanic, even if the characters are so stripped down that it isn't like you'd be missing much.

To non fire emblem fans: Thanks for listening, I hope this helps

To fire emblem fans: no you're totally right I was wrong about [FE(X)], and I'm stupid and weak because of it. We don't need to argue because I agree with you completely and you're so smart and yes that lord is so interesting.

I conclusion, I'd probably start with BS Fire Emblem: Archaenea for the satellaview watch.

I feel the need every so often to remind everyone that whatever else is built on top of it, my bones are made of fire emblem fan.

[tutyayilmazz]

måneskin tag game 🖤

tagged by @definitelynotdamiano i definitely wasn't expecting this, thank you! i'm not exactly an active fandom member and 99% of my followers won't care for this but i will take every opportunity to talk about må sooo

1. When was the first time you saw them?

the thing is, my italian mutuals were watching sanremo and i vaguely remember hearing the song and seeing damiano on fedez's insta but i think it was a very hectic time for me bc why else wouldn't i have truly registered their genius until eurovision?!

but as eurovision was nearing i watch the zitti e buoni video (and also perhaps wiwi jam at home?) and gave every vote i had to them and literally ran down the streets screaming with a friend when they won and here we are now :')

2. Chosen, Il ballo della vita or Teatro d'ira Vol.1?

TEATRO D'IRA VOL. 1 ABSOLUTELY NO COMPETITION. i adore the rock sound they grew into. i love that it's a succinct album of high quality songs with their skills they've honed since the previous album

3. Which song would you erase? (I know it’s Beggin’ but it doesn’t count here)

i don't understand how anyone wouldn't say immortale or are you ready lmao

4. What song would you like them to cover?

I'm most desperate for liar by queen i think. the incredible bass solo (imagine vic doing that!!!), the guitar, ethan starting with the cowbell, the "mama I'm gonna be your slave" lyrics which are begging to be sung by damiano... yep

5. What song hypes you up no matter what?

zitti e buoni entered our lives for this specific reason i think. but also l'altra dimensione always has me on my feet ready to dance

6. Fave performance?

oooh well, sanremo amandoti is impeccable, it goes from crooning to hard and heavy so well 😍 if the question is about concerts, ronquieres festival was so fucking wild, i wouldn't loved to be there

7. This or that:

le parole lontane or torna a casa | coraline or vent'anni | chosen or recovery | iwbys or mammamia | lividi sui gomiti or in nome del padre | l'altra dimensione or vengo dalla luna | lasciami stare or morirò da re | la paura del buio or for your love | are you ready? or sh*t blvd

(yes i cheated and chose neither of iwbys or mammamia to choose both lividi sui gomiti and in nome del padre)

8. No pressure tags:

i don't follow lots and lots of måneskin blogs and those i do have almost all done it except @maneskinbrainrot @teatrodellavita @ventvnni @till-you-scream-and-cry and @morirodare? and i should tage my musical taste buddy @il-ballo-della-vita but if there are others among my followers who listen to måneskin consider yourself tagged ❤️

[dani-of-the-cosmos]

you are so informed about astrology! I always begin to read about it and get sooooo overwhelmed. Do you have any recommendations on what to start with when learning it, like should I focus on houses, planets, etc? it's so much I don't even know where to start

thank you so much! <3 you sound a lot like me--being online with all that knowledge at your disposal can be really overwhelming, when you jump from tangent to tangent cause it’s all equally interesting, and end up with barely any new knowledge after 5 hours. how i started learning about astrology was by reading a book my friend got for me, “the only astrology book you’ll ever need” by joanna martine woolfolk. in all honesty it’s not the only book about astrology you’ll ever need, but it covers the basics in a very succinct way. 

if i were you, i’d start reading up on the planets first, because they are the most methodical and least subjective parts of astrology. the book previously mentioned covers the major planets.

after you feel comfortable with the planets and their meanings in the signs, i’d secondly start learning about the houses and which parts of your life they have power over. learn about how the planets act in the houses, and how the houses influence your life depending on which sign they’re in.

by the time you’re comfortable with your knowledge of the planets and houses, you can read about planetary aspects--i.e, how the planets interact with one another based on their positions in the sky. soon you’ll be to the point where you can look at an aspect and be able to describe what it means without googling it--that’s a great feeling!

fourthly, you can learn about major patterns and what they represent depending on the planets involved: yods, grand trines, t-squares, etc.

finally, you can research the asteroids and what they mean in the birth chart. (i have a post about how to find them in your chart.) asteroids are super underrated, and their significance is greatly underestimated in my opinion.

when i read natal charts, i categorize the analysis into 5 categories: planets, houses, planetary aspects (as well as how they act in the houses), major planetary patterns, and finally asteroids. it’s really helpful, confidence-boosting and fun to practice by reading your friends’ and family’s charts as well! 

with something as detailed and overwhelming as astrology, it’s best to be super organized with your learning and separate it into chunks, especially if you’re like me and your brain is hyperactive and distractable haha!

another author (besides joanna martine woolfolk) i recommend is dane rudhyar. he’s incredibly perceptive and talks a lot about north nodes and south nodes, as well as some spiritual theories about astrology.

i hope this gave you some peace of mind and motivation to learn, and made it seem not so daunting! lots of love xx

[argetcross]

Lon’qu for the Ask Meme

Pick a character I’ve written and I will explain the top ~three to five ideas/concepts/etc I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to accurately depicting them.

As asked for by @cupricsulphate​, I split the answer between Lon’qu and Say’ri because, for some reason, I found it necessary to write several thousand words on these subjects? So without further ado, the ultimate husbando, as she puts it.

1. Competitive and Aggressive

Lon’qu is someone who is easily goaded and, whether he realizes it or not, works best with some opposition driving him. He has a very aggressive personality without being dominating, which is a funny way of putting it, but absolutely crucial. He is mostly interest in control over himself rather than influencing others. For an equally driven comrade or lover, the habit becomes endearing over time.

To him, talk isn’t the point and he builds relationships faster through sparring and building trust during war than most leisure pleasantries (peaceful bug gathering operations might be an exception). Lon’qu is someone who expresses himself best through action and therefore experiences the most doubt and insecurity when there is nothing he can do to be constructive.

2. The Sword Arts

I wrote something about this a while ago but I wanted to re-iterate: the sword is a weapon for the noble classes. It's expensive, hard to master, its destructive power seemingly less than an axe or a mace, but it carries so much weight in it. It is the weapon of kings, a symbol of honor, often the gift from gods. Why would a poor Chon'sin immigrant pick up the sword over anything else? Because learning the sword is more than just learning how to kill for Lon'qu, but learning how to kill honorably and not like a brigand or bandit.

When I write Lon'qu, I try to take care as to where in his timeline he is. It's too easy to fall into the trap of Lon'qu being this peerless perfect swordmaster from the beginning. For me, up until perhaps the middle of the Valm arc, Lon'qu is an unpolished swordsman. He is young and talented, with an insane complex driving his rapid progress, but he is still impatient, hasty, and way too cocky. In Regna Ferox, he almost certainly had begun to stagnate even if he hadn't realized it quite yet.

His defeat at the hands of Lucina and his entrance in the Shepherds is perhaps the second largest turning point of his life, the first being Ke'ri. Lucina defeats him fair and square in Regna Ferox because he lacks responsibility and desperation outside of personal conceit driving him. It's not until Lon'qu forms relationships with the Shepherds and learns more outside his Regna Ferox training bubble does he blossom as a swordsman of unparalleled ability. Half of swordplay is a certain mental ability and perception to creatively and aggressively execute your techniques to victory.

Older Lon'qu, post-Grima, is fun to write as well because in some way, his love for the sword becomes purer. He survives world ending wars and certainly becomes in one sense, an expert with the blade. Yet that kind of plateau instead of making him frustrated or senseless in his violence does the opposite and opens him up to more possibilities in his life. Basilio was not just making fun of him when he proposed the possibility of khanship as Lon'qu grows into leadership.

(Also a thing I would like to point out is that sword arts is not something that can be pursued in solitary. Lon'qu's rivals and challengers are key relationships for him, even when he finds them annoying, cough, Gregor, Sully, I could keep going- the point is he really can't avoid people because his passion by its nature requires others.)

3. Meritocracy and the Immigrant Dream

He lives, breathes, and believes in this. I always try to write him with the insecurity and tension of an immigrant who was worth less than dirt in his home country. He comes from a rigid class structure in Chon'sin to Regna Ferox where as long as you can be trained as a warrior, you can rise in society. In consequence, he holds everyone else to that standard as well. He adopts so many Feroxi customs both as assimilation and also because he needs that society in order to become worth something. Talk, posture, class, all of that means nothing if you can't demonstrate your capability right here, right now. Once you do, however, he will respect you - even if you can't tell because he might never tell you so! This applies to things outside of swordplay as well - while the sword arts is his entire world, he thinks highly of competency in other utilitarian aspects. This also feeds into his relentless drive to improve and his true individualist personality.

4. Trauma and Sexism

Lon’qu’s big phobia of women is something he is totally aware of. He knows he's a sexist dick at times. I think this is a big one for me. He's totally aware that his fear of women makes him crass, ungrateful, and an overall sniveling coward. Being rude and mean is too easy, like a scared animal lashing out. It pains him, not because he cares about being polite, but because he knows he legitimately has a problem that interferes with normal life. His heart rate skyrockets, his brain launches him right to the day Ke'ri dies, he disassociates, and lashes out. He absorbed sexist rhetoric as a way to rationalize and deal with his trauma and subsequent fear retroactively, rather than the sexist rhetoric being a creed he believed in first. This doesn't mean he's waiting to be saved from his fear, make no mistake, a writer should hold him accountable for what he says and the way he worsens his own trauma into a complex through self-imposed avoidance of the problem. None of this goes away just because he falls in love or he saves a girl or two. But this leads into the last point which is-

5. Self Actualization

Lon'qu is always looking to improve himself. This accumulates underneath the label of wanting to be "stronger" but we all know strength doesn't just mean getting better at killing people. He is still human and still craves approval, intimacy, and respect. These are all supported by canon, by his desire to impress Basilio, Gregor, to his active search to Tharja as a roundabout way to 'deal' with his trauma to any romantic relationship he might pursue. He is unflinchingly self critical and, bolstered by a competitive spirit, works extremely hard to be an untouchable warrior, a mentally stronger man, and a better role model for his children. A Lon'qu who isn't trying to move forward, fighting for every step, even at his lowest, is a Lon'qu who has finally succumbed to death. He doesn't have time to waste by being half-assed. So even though it means sloughing through his panic and fighting his own fears every step of the way, he can drag himself into a healthy relationship over a very, very long period of acclimatization.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Twenty Titles meme

(x-posted from DW, and gakked from china_shop)

My last twenty fic titles on AO3:

A Jelly Good Show (Whitehead Holmes)

The Adventures of Goatratio Hornblower (Hornblower)

Tell-Tale (Hornblower)

The Taste of Truth (ACD Holmes)

New Year's Snow (Hornblower)

A Well-Rooted Briar (Hornblower)

To Make Dreams Truths (ACD Holmes)

Their Shared Will (Hornblower)

Seeking High-Energy Self-Starter, Flexible Schedule (My Dearly Beloved Detective)

HMK Nonsuch (Hornblower)

The Golden Sand (Hornblower)

Solace and Comfort (Hornblower)

Cock on the Right (Hornblower)

Opinions of her Own (Hornblower)

No. 36 Bannerman Road (The Sarah Jane Adventures)

Any Service Required (Hornblower)

Tea for Two (Moriarty - Horowitz)

A Tendency to Tease (Hornblower)

Kissing Lessons (Hornblower)

William Bush, Oldster (Hornblower)

1. How many are you happy with?

Fourteen, maybe -- I've vastly improved at titling in the last year or so. I require a title to be easy to remember and easy to match with the fic; ideally, a title should furthermore speak to some fundamental aspect of the story, or work at multiple levels. Over the last year, I've gotten better at identifying what is core about a story, and teasing out or devising a phrase that gets at it.

2. How many are... not great?

Eh, three? "Tell-Tale" comes annoying close to being a good title; it almost is a figurative descriptor of the gift as well as a literal one, and yet I'm not convinced it actually comes off. "New Year's Snow" is just blah. I mean, it's fine, but it does absolutely nothing of any kind of worth. "To Make Dreams Truths" is pure ugh: it's a line of poetry that doesn't QUITE fit, it comes off as annoyingly pretentious, I always have to squint at it a bit to remember which story it's supposed to be, I hate it.

3. How many did you scramble for at the last minute?

Nearly every single one -- eighteen were titled as part of prepping for AO3. At least one ("William Bush, Oldster") was actually first published without a title to tumblr. I have sometimes been tempted to keep those tumblr vignettes titleless when I pull them over to AO3, just write "Untitled" where it demands a title. But it's too cumbersome to have a bunch of things titled "Untitled" in my works list, so I've always given in at the last second and put something there.

4. How many did you know before you started writing/creating, or near the beginning?

"The Adventures of Goatratio Hornblower" and "Seeking High-Energy Self-Starter, Flexible Schedule" are the only two I knew well in advance, and it's probably not a coincidence that they're both silly, comedic titles for silly, comedic premises. In both cases, having the title in hand was very helpful in keeping me from losing my way with the stories: I kept drifting serious, then remembering that I had titled the thing "Goatratio" or that long horrible twist of management-speak, and then would use that to give myself permission to be silly and ridiculous again.

5. How many are quotes from songs or poems?

Two: "The Golden Sand" (Poe, "A Dream Within a Dream") and "To Make Dreams Truths" (Donne, “The Dream”). I'm happy with the former -- "Dream Within a Dream" is thematically spot-on for the fic, as is the image of the golden sand slipping through the dreamer's fingers while he weeps. My only discontent is that Poe is anachronistic for the Hornblower canon, but whatever, the stories were written in the 20th century and reek of their era, I don't care. Whereas the Donne... Eh, it's just not a great fit. It'll do, of course -- that's why I chose it -- but I don't like it, and the bad title almost makes me hate the story by association.

No, wait, I miscounted: it's three titles from story/song quotes. "Tea for Two" is obviously from a song, hello! I love it as a title -- such a perky, upbeat, happy song, imagining what a pot of tea can mean to a relationship, and meanwhile Moriarty has twisted that pot of tea -- and the underlying relationship -- into an evil caricature of the song's ideal. You know that thing they do in movies where they play something upbeat on an out-of-tune music box so it sounds evil and creepy and ominous? That’s how that title takes me, and I couldn't be happier with it.

ETA: I correct myself again! @educatedinyellow brought up "Cock on the Right," and THAT'S a quote, too, from a maritime rhyme extolling the benefits of various protective tattoos: <i>Pig on the knee, safety at sea; cock on the right, never beaten in a fight.</i> In my head, the title was a straightforward declaration of the story's most significant element -- the fighting cock tattooed on Bush’s right foot -- but it's actually a quote!

6. How many are other quotes?

Maybe ten of them are quotes from the story itself; another four or so might as well be direct quotes, being descriptions of a time or place in the story. Obviously, I find it very productive to dig into the text of the story for a phrase that sums up one of the central themes or problems of the story.

7. Which best reflects the plot of the story/content of the fanwork?

"Their Shared Will," possibly. Will is literally shared between them, obvs, but in-text it's a reference to his subbiness, and that what is getting him off is that they share a will about how to use him. It works perfectly on both levels, and both levels are a succinct and accurate summary of the fic.

8. Which best reflects the theme of the story/fanwork?

"The Taste of Truth," maybe. The title works literally, of course -- there's a fruit that you eat that allegedly tells you a truth, but it's a bitter, nasty fruit, and it tends to tell you cherry-picked truths designed to fuck you up to the maximum extent possible. Only a taste of truth, one designed to tantalize and ruin you. But the main action of the story is the characters experimenting with candid honesty, and so it's not just that bitter, nasty, poisoned truth they've been tasting, but also the good stuff, that which clears your palate and lays the foundation for fixing your life -- and maybe the taste of that is good enough to lead to better things. (I could probably have played more with that metaphor more at the end? Ugh. Maybe in some covert revisions...)

9. Which best reflects the character voice of the story/POV of the fanwork?

"A Jelly Good Show," possibly, being that the character voices are nothing but puns straight through. It was absolutely critical to give that story a punny title and summary.

10. Which is your favourite?

"The Adventures of Goatratio Hornblower," maybe. Distinctive and unmistakable -- I dare anyone familiar with the story to have trouble matching it to its title -- and an honest indicator of the kind of silly fun you're likely to find inside.

[considerad]

I've had several days without a connection to think about and try to parse what the most important things for you to know would be. I've decided to tell you about the currency being devalued and the medicine shortage, and then if I still have a connection I'll write about the "modesty" problem.

When I first came home in 2017, the USD to rial exchange rate was somewhere around 3500 rial to a dollar. Back then this was seen as an economic crisis. If only we'd known how bad things were going to get. Some context: with a job teaching English three days a week in '17, we bought groceries for 4 people, paid bills, and lived a middle class life with the help of the interest from savings. This is important: most people here used to depend to some degree on the very high monthly interest rate that the bank paid out to people on their savings, somewhere between 8% and 18%. I was explaining this a few years back to a Canadian acquaintance who laughed me off - banks paying you each month? Yeah, right. - and I can't stress enough how much this was (and is) the deciding point between survival and starvation for a lot of people here.

I just asked Google's conversion engine and we're at 42350 rial to a single dollar. That happened in just 5 years. Do you understand? What used to buy you fruit, veg, bread, meat, snacks for 4 now buys you a single loaf of bread. Wage increases, predictably, can't keep pace with the sinking rial. People are starving, being evicted, and if this sounds familiar from the pandemic's effect globally then you're absolutely right, the boat is the same one we're all in. The key danger: there's no government safety net here - their "payouts" during the pandemic were one-time and got you one small meal. Then they went back to blaming "the enemy" (a default get-out phrase) and doing nothing.

This country is a rich country with poor people. I won't throw facts and figures at you - looking up GDP changes globally vs Ir*n from when this govt took over ('79) to now will offer that comparison clearly enough - but we have all the resources we'd need to be a successful export-import trading power: all sorts of fuels, oil, precious metals, forestry, fisheries, educated and specialised labour, manpower, cultural-historical artisanal practises, cuisine and hospitality; you name it, we have it. That's why Ir*n was fast becoming an international leader before '79, why it had to be cut down and given to these leeches currently in charge.

They are leeches. They have villas and lamborghinis as people try to earn their day-to-day bread without butter, private lakes during this time of drought, private planes and helicopters when they shot down a plane full of Canadian-Ir*nian civilians without reason and without remorse (I still have nightmares about it), they send their children abroad to live freely and be educated at the finest institutions while denouncing those same institutions as "breeding grounds for evil".

Nobody I know has eaten caviar since the revolution - it's a product which used to be exported almost exclusively from this country. Pistachioes are as normal as peanuts to us, eaten anytime there's a gathering, a pocketful of raisin-pistachio mix in the pockets of old men - but these past few years, we can't afford the most common of snacks. Our rice is a national point of pride - fragrant, long-grained, feather-light, and yet the stores only have Pakistani rice to sell. Where are our own goods going? Why can't we afford our own agricultural produce anymore?

This got long. I'm not sorry. Don't get bored of us, for god's sake. Don't let our cries for help die away, go unheard, because it's "old news". We need you to keep us at the forefront of the public eye - the consequences otherwise are unthinkably grim. Please, please be our voice. We need you right now. Reblog this or find something shorter, more topical and succinct; it doesn't matter. Just don't stop talking about us. I love you all.

idk how this is working but it is so i'll be quick: they've cut off access to most of the net in ir*n and they're going to wait for the news buzz to die down before squashing the protests here for good. please don't let the news coverage die down. don't forget us! and this is very important: don't stop talking about us.

the people here, the university students and kids especially, are being so brave. you wouldn't believe what they're defying in order to be heard, from the govt but also from society, maybe even their own families. they're in the majority (alongside the labourers and teachers and truck drivers and retirees) but they're young and unarmed and without authority. be their voice until we can be our own: speak about the people on our streets, the girls asking not for banning scarves but for the freedom to choose without being afraid of violence from the police, the famine and droughts and energy crises, the economy leading to children and senior citizens digging through garbage to survive, the govt indifferent and greedy looking down on the people they're supposed to represent, the wars they start with money that the country needs for infrastructure and trade, how sanctions hurt only the civilians and have led to a viciously dangerous medicine shortage.

we don't fight now just for our women, although we look to them first and foremost for leadership in this new hope that we have for a different country. help us by speaking and tweeting about our issues, help us by telling your governments that sanctions kill the innocent and make no difference to our overlords who'll sell what they want on the black market, help us by naming the terrorists in charge of this country for the criminals and murderers that they are.

as always i love you all. this country has been bound and brought to its knees for too long. help us now. i hope to be able to welcome you to visit me in my beautiful city with its warmhearted residents very soon.

[johobi]

Let me preface this by saying I'm team JK all the way! Let me tell you why my dear JoJo (can I call you JoJo?). I don't blame Tae for having sex with OC. It was a heat of the moment thing. Def not a good decision in the long run bc it really just IS a heat of the moment thing. She was hurt and feeling nostalgic so she went back to the one thing back then that made her feel better. She clearly needed more time to process everything that happened and you said it yourself, JK is still 1/? -SK

You can ofc call me Jojo (just don’t add Siwa pls my hairline isn’t that pressed)!!!! It was definitely a heat of the moment thing, but the question is, was it a heat of the moment thing that allowed emotions to surface that needed voicing?! Would it have happened any other way? If it ends up playing out that it was, indeed, right for both of them, then it was worth it. If it wasn’t what they needed… maybe it could still be good? Maybe those feelings needed airing anyway? Or perhaps it will all be one, big catastrophe?!

((more under read more))

in her head space. Her feelings for him haven’t left she’s just pushing them aside so she can be comforted by Tae. So that explains why them fucking wasn’t a good choice for them but what redeems JK? Nothing. BUT. He so earnestly wants to fix things and is so dead set on hearing him out that it’s hard to not want to. What he did was bad real bad but he genuinely seems like he wants to fix it and even from an objective standpoint it’s best to here all sides of the story. I’m not saying 2/? -SK

I’m actually really glad that most of you guys want to hear Kook out. It would be hard to pull off the rest of the story if it were a case of you being like ‘whatever his reason, I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it’. That kind of potential reaction to the fic was nervewracking. If your readership reacts waaay differently to how you’re expecting, how the hell do you salvage a fic that late in the game?! wljwalkj Well, I guess you finish it regardless, and hope people just find some merit in the journey somewhere. I’m going off on a tangent, but, yes, there’s something in the way that Jungkook pursues her relentlessly and with sincerity that wants you want to hear him out. And we will!! Next chapter. :)

him hiding his engagement was ok but if OC does talk to him maybe she could get some closure. She seems like an insecure person by nature and immediately blamed herself (only a little) for JK’s actions so she really should talk to him. Also! I refuse to believe JK is a bad person! He’s helped her so much with her depression and general sadness and if he was able to sway OC once from Tae, he can do it again. Plus another anon made a good point in the fact that JK is her future and Tae is -3/? SK

Definitely, definitely, she needs to talk to him if for nothing other than to realise that it wasn’t her fault. Still, the notion of being cheated on will likely always sow a seed of inferiority. Even if his reasons are pure, will her trust in him recover? It’s taken her so long to open up to him.

her past. Tae may be her past home but JK is her present. Even when smth happens in your present home you don’t go back to your past. Even if it’s vacant. Bc the life around that home has changed and moved on and the only reason you’d come back is to reminisce. But there’s no reminiscing when nothings the same. You’d just make yourself sad wishing things were how they once were. So, the only thing you can do is hope that you can have a better and brighter future. Even if it’s bleak rn. 4/? -SK

I’d actually argue that Tae is her past and present, and Jungkook is also her present. Tae very much exists in the present for her, though perhaps not as idealised. They both have the potential to be her future. It’s just a matter of whether Y/N and Tae’s relationship can bloom into something new, because it can’t survive in the mold of their past relationship. Their platonic connection has been snapped now. 

But it is a huge point that Y/N is very reliant on escaping to the past when troubled, and not engaging with her present (and especially her future). I think she wanted to bring the comfort that Tae provided back then, into the present, and in a more intense form. At first, without knowing his feelings, she just wants to ‘forget’, and therefore seeks to at least have the comfort of his body. When he reciprocates, tho, it totally catches her off-guard and she’s able to find comfort for her heart as well. omg i’m rambling and this probably doesn’t make sense. I wish I could be more succinct about this haha!

But yeah, home, past, childhood - these are all things of comfort and safety (for her, at least). Whether it’s unhelpfully circular/stagnating, we’ll just have to see.

Ahh sorry to get faux deep on you! But anyways TEAM JK ALL THE WAY. Also I don’t why I find the idea of Jimin sitting alone and bored in Tae’s apartment so funny. Realy excited to see THAT interaction. Also excited to see JK reacting to the hickeys and the JK and Tae confrontation. I love torturing myself RIP. ALSO ALSO that last line GOT ME. I don’t undertand how you can set up an entire 18k chp. to put so much emotion and narrative behind ONE LINE. WOw you’re such a great writer. Ily💜 5/5 -SK

Not at all hun!!! I loved reading your thoughts on it all :D! AND YES JIMIN SITTING ALONE IN TAE’S FLAT IS A HILARIOUS IMAGE. They’re gonna trundle in all lovebitten and tousled and he’d just gonna be watching shitty daytime TV (sober) like, ‘..tf you been?? ARE THOSE HICKE–’ you get the idea haha. 

Thank you so much love, for your lovely asks and your unfaltering support/encouragement!!! I appreciate you sm!!!

[bartsugsy]

You've watched the ONS more than once? Why torture yourself? I don't just mean because of what happened, but because it was poorly done too 😂

ofc i have, anon! for the meta. 

and actually, the first time it aired, i really didn’t mind the ons. i felt uncomfortable in the way that i always always feel uncomfortable watching either robert or aaron in a romantic context scene with someone other than each other, bc i’m a monoshipper and that is my lot in life. the actual way it played out made me sort of scream and then laugh more than anything else. like, i just sort of thought it was hilarious. the fandom’s reaction was way more depressing and sad than the actual scene lmao. so in that sense, i was cool with it.

that being said, when it was happening, i was too busy literally yelling at my screen to really pay attention to what was really happening in the scene, but i got enough to know that it was driven by rob’s feelings about aaron.

and then over the course of the next few months, the discourse on this scene was endless and it... it was like a game of whispers. it started out as something and then slowly morphed into something completely different - people were talking about that scene in a way that was just... completely unlike what actually happened on screen, but no one was saying anything probably because literally no one wanted to go rewatch the scene or think about it too deeply to protest, plus it fit the very pervasive narrative that robert was the victim, which i firmly didn’t buy into in the slightest and was low-key really offending me lmao.

i remembered very little of that scene, but what i did remember was that once the episode finished, my immediate thought was that robert had acted so cruel to rebecca and that i was angry on her behalf.

because my view of the scene and how i remembered it was so so so different to the fandom narrative that was making the rounds, i was sort of at a loss. i really didn’t want to share my opinion on the scene because i couldn’t forsee it going down well. i think i ended up venting my frustrations to @dingleautomotives, which was good and helpful.

anyway, ALL THIS TO SAY, i tried to watch that scene multiple times over just because i couldn’t work out how it worked alongside the fandom version of it that had developed - encouraged along by the fact that, i imagine, most people had no intention of rewatching the scene. i literally forced myself to watch it until i was ok with it.

eventually i got an anon that asked me about my opinion bc i guess i’d been hinting/outright telling people i didn’t agree with the fandom-wide interpretation of that scene. i went trawling through my archives around that time and they are... an experience...... 

anyway, i eventually wasn’t all that bothered at all by the ons and now i can watch it whenever and only feel slight discomfort, because it’s more interesting from a robert chraracterisation pov than anything else tbh

(the baby on the other hand sent me through the entire 5 stages of grief over the course of the year and you can literally track which stage i’m in through my tumblr - it’s so funny)

THIS IS STUPIDLY LONG BC I DONT KNOW HOW TO BE SUCCINCT BUT WHATEVER every time i’ve wanted to write meta about rebecca or robert and wanted to get rob’s exact dialogue, i’ve gone back and rewatched it. i like it now, as much as i really didn’t back then lolol.  

[laceyeb]

If you don't mind me asking, how did you find the motivation to start working out/eating healthier? Because I really need to start and i was just wondering if you had any tips or anything (eg healtheir substitutes for foods) and I know you're not a professional but I just wanted something that I could kickstart on if that makes sense. Thanks a ton in advance!

Thanks for asking! I’m going to try to be brief and succinct because I could go on for 27 pages. If anyone is curious about anything else, feel free to ask and I’ll try to answer the best I can! Like you said, I’m no professional, but I am a “normal” who has been quite successful, so I’ll give you my most important tips. 

First of all, the one thing that really and truly got me started was this article here. I read this back in like early October and really loved some of the ideas. Pretty much everything I would tell you about my own work is something you can find there, too. 

Most important things:

1) Rewards: I am (was) so completely unmotivated and that was always my biggest problem. So I took the reward idea from the article and reward myself every time I reach a goal. I do it every 5 pounds lost because I knew I needed a bit more motivation more often. Anything I want but don’t need goes on the list. It’s fun! But the real reward is when you start making real progress. Once you start, you don’t want to stop! 

2) Joining a gym: I ultimately think I had to join a gym to get to where I am now. Not everyone has the time or the money or the easy ability to get to a gym. Mine is only half a mile away and my work is even closer so I’m really lucky. I don’t think it’s 100% necessary for everyone, but I think it was for me. Also, start out small and find out what works for you. Don’t get on the treadmill the first day and try to run 10 miles. That’s dumb. In fact, I lost 40 pounds without ever running. Just walk to start out with (and at a little incline if you can!). Don’t be afraid to try some weight machines. (I watched other people use them for a while then started trying the easy ones for myself.) Once you get stronger and healthier, it gets easier. Then try the running and other machines and other scarier weights and what not. I never thought I would ever want to run. Now I’ve finally started because I can and I actually kind of enjoy it! I like to push myself a little further each day. Plus it’s helping me push past the weight loss plateau I’ve hit. The best advice I can possibly give is to just start trying and see what works for you! 

3) Measure and track food/exercise/weight: You can’t go to the gym for half an hour and then eat whatever you want. What you eat is way more important. What helped me most in the beginning was tracking my food and exercise. I used the Lose It app and I highly recommend it! Count, measure, and weigh everything you eat based on serving sizes and info on the labels. Otherwise you don’t understand what you’re actually eating. I would also eat a lot of frozen tv dinners at the beginning. Seems counterintuitive, but it’s perfect if you have portion control issues or tend to overeat. It really helped me a lot! You can also track your exercise on the app. It was very satisfying to log what I did each day and be proud of my accomplishments! I don’t use the app anymore because I have a better understand of what and how much to eat and how to balance myself out, but it was amazing to help me get started. I also weigh myself all the time. (I bought my own scale for home because the ones at my gym were crap.) Almost every day, if not every day. Always first thing in the morning after I get up or after I go to the gym if I go in the morning (and I usually do). I logged my weight and I still keep track each day. Weighing yourself every day does not work for everyone. And I’ve read all the articles about this. But it does work for me. Figure out what works for you!

4) Just keep going! It’s not easy, but it gets easier! Start off slow and small. Once that starts getting a little easier, try something new and work a little harder because now you can! Trust me!!! If I can do it, you can, too!!!

Believe it or not, that was me being brief and succinct!