#I wrote posts on here. my blog. about this happening. because the first one sent me into a 9 hour spiral

[padawansuggest]

You know, I've only followed you for a little while and I did so because I was interested in your star wars posts but wow!! I was not expecting the misogyny and kinkshaming!

I also noticed that you tend to say that you're autistic when people call you out on things or you go and start talking about how terrible people are for giving you anxiety or making you sick, which is another wow!! Like being autistic or chronically ill doesn't make you mean or disrespectful. That's all you.

And to then use those things as a defense instead of admitting you may have done something wrong?

I don't think I can read or follow someone who refuses to take responsibility for their actions anymore, so bye I guess.

Bruh just tell me you’re too stubborn to understand narrative tone, it’s okay.

I once more. Never said I hated ABO (tho idk how that counts as misogyny lmao) but that I get. Tired. Of 100% sex and sexual expectation. I even said I read those. Because they aren’t bad. But I don’t think I’ve ever liked one if it’s 100% sex. That’s my opinion, not kink shaming. I’m fucking tired of them all being expected to be smut.

Also. I mention I’m autistic because they (most people that come at me) claim I can’t understand neurological disorders. I mention I’m disabled because they claim I don’t understand disability. I mention those, because we all function differently and what is upsetting to someone else might not be to you. What is upsetting to me, might not be to you.

I haven’t done anything wrong :) and I don’t need to justify that at all. I just went over everything I said and I’m fully blameless, even if I spoke about something that probably shouldn’t be in my notes. I stated my boundaries. I stated I don’t like it personally. I never said they were wrong for writing it lmao clearly I read it from time to time. I don’t care what you write I’m just tired of it being 100% about sex.

And not all fics are 100% about sex but boy oh boy the ones that are. Are.

I stated what made me want to write this, is a personal trigger. That’s it. You can scream ‘you said you hated it’ over and over. And I’ll stand by that too. It’s not even bad to hate something. I hate a lot of things while refusing to kinkshame for it because that’s someone else’s right to write it.

But I’m saying, that I can only be pushed so far before I decide to write my own fic. Which is what I did.

Anyways. What about any of that made you think I was personally decrying their right to write that? I didn’t mention another person the whole time. I didn’t actually say people can’t write it or shouldn’t. I said the opposite. I also said that I read one too many of them for my personal tastes and it’s getting to my head.

What you should have criticized me about???? Why the fuck am I reading abo when it’s clearly a minefield for me??? That part you can yell at me about. But I’m blameless about everything else. It’s not kinkshaming if I state I have a boundary that keeps getting pushed and I’m ranting about it. You could have even asking me to just tone down the rant. But the summary is fine, and maybe the rants in the notes was a bit much. I’m not apologizing for using an actual writing technique to denote the tone of the main characters pov.

[rpgchoices]

More on Davrin's past, arc and journal (part 2)

Part one where I wrote down all the banter about Davrin's Dalish past is here!

I wanted to put all codex (I could find) in order, divided by topic! (Also I wanted to say I will post more Davrin stuff on my personal blog @lucrezianoin haha to not fill this one with just Davrin!)

This is divided in:

Davrin's past and his feelings of guilt for the Dalish clan

Weisshaupt being the only home he has

Meeting Assan and the griffons (and naming Assan)

The Warden vs Nature choice for the griffons

Other (stuff on the Gloom Howler etc.)

Davrin's past and Dalish clan

Just a bit more here on Davrin's guilt for leaving his clan and we do get the confirmation that Davrin has not seen Eldrin since his kids days, and contacted him thanks to a chat with Rook.

Also interesting that the way Davrin was treated by Eldrin is very similar to the way Davrin treats Assan at the start. In the quest we also find out Eldrin was quite harsh (making him eat Halla food as a way to learn, which led to hours of hallucinations and sickness, and kicking his butt when he felt Davrin was wrong).

We don't really get that deep into it, but I like that while Davrin firmly believes in "Throw yourself at it, if you don't learn you get hurt" for himself, he squanders that idea pretty easily when it comes to Assan, even going so far as to start wonder if there is a "non fighting" future for Assan.

I will put this codex later on but I also wanted to show it here for Davrin's past, in "The Nature of Griffons" Davrin says: "Talking to Rook about Assan's insticts got me thinking. Can you change something you're born with? Or are we blank slates who can make our own way? Was I born a monster hunter, destined to do this job, or did I have a choice?" which makes me scream because I need to know what happened in his clan.

From the banter and his personal quests we know that Davrin hunted everything, and then started going to Eldrin's during the summers and he learnt to hurt darkness (monsters) and things that threatened the forest. Did he have a drive to hunt that Eldrin needed to re-direct, where were his parents? Were they the ones sending him to Eldrin? And why is it that a talk of nature vs nurture and his Dalish clan makes him think only of Eldrin and not his parents? (We realistically can imagine Davrin's mother is alive, given that during the gym scene Taash insults her and Davrin says "She can take it" when Taash apologize).

Weisshaupt (and the fall of Weisshaupt)

Davrin often talks about Weissaupt with affection and jokingly but the code really expresses that Weissaupt was his only home.

When Davrin leaves to follow Rook we find out that he knows the First Warden would not take him back. He describes the fortress in detail (loved the "libraries of books I'll never read, getting bruised and battered while sparring etc." as some nostalgic positive thing - miserable and exhilarating). And of course "It's the only home I got", which is telling knowing how he feels about his clan never taking him back if he asked.

And then the heartbreaking entry for Weisshaupt fall.

There are a few other entries:

Which also has a bit about Assan: "I have been thinking of Assan as an assignment: something I need to protect until he finishes his training. But we're in this together now, and it's time to lick our wounds and move on. I'm all he's got, and in some ways, he's all I've got."

How Davrin got to work with Griffons and meeting Assan

My favorite entries are about how Davrin got his assignement and how sweet he was on Assan (unknowingly!!) since the start!

We find out it was the First Warden (from Weisshaupt) that sent him to the assignment. I am still unsure how it works for a Warden who is a Monster Hunter, but we know from the entries that Davrin lived at Weisshaupt and considered it his home, so I supposed he was just sent here and there? Like a specialized Warden? He also mentions he was sent as a bodyguard, basically, and he seems both fascinated and a bit skeptical (they poop a lot haha, and he admires Lancit's patience).

And then he meets Assan. "There's one griffon, this little guy." From Endril's words we know Davrin used to be small and scrawny as a kid, so I wonder if he saw himself in Assan. "He's a little slow on the uptake, but he's fast in the air." And so Davrin suggests the name Assan for him. And my favorite part "If I do nothing else in this life, at least I can say I got to name a griffon".

We also have these late entries about the nature of griffons and Davrin's realization that they are not "made" for fighting by nature, but taught so. "Can griffons do anything else? Would they want to? I wonder". Also he is such a dad, writing about Assan's first taste of an apple.

About Assan and the halla, Davrin writes "the instincts of a dog herding sheep", and I personally think it is about learning. There is a moment in the dialogue at the start of Davrin's recruital where we find out that griffons learn better in groups, they clearly are very social animals. I fully believe Assan fed the Halla simply because he saw Davrin doing that, he learnt from watching, he sees Davrin taking care of Halla so he learns that is the thing to do and how it is done.

Then we have some notes on Griffon's extinctions, and a note about Assan's love for gingerwort truffles (which Davrin tried and did not like.. we also find out Davrin hates broccoli... please Davrin... I love broccoli...)

Warden Griffons vs Arlathan Griffons

These are the two different notes:

Interesting the "Warden" choice starts with "Deciding where the griffons should go wasn't easy" which is not present in the Arlathan choice. I do not think there is a right/wrong choice, but after reading this I will always lean more towards Arlathan.

"it's time they got a chance to explore nature instead. The griffons are going to love Arlathan"

Other codex

Interesting that he says he does feel sympathy for Isseya.

[factcheckingmclennon]

harry nilsson quotes double feature: fact or fiction?

"Someone told me a few minutes ago they saw John walking on the street [once] wearing a sign saying – a button, rather, saying 'I Love Paul'. And this girl who told me that said she asked him, 'Why are you wearing the button that says ‘I Love Paul’?' He said, 'Because I love Paul.'" -Harry Nilsson

"I'm just like everybody else, Harry, I fell for Paul's looks." Harry Nilsson (on John)

these quotes get passed around unsourced, or wrongly sourced, constantly. so...

are these harry nilsson quotes about john lennon real?

shockingly, after getting an anon correction on the first one and then discovering myself on the second one through the world's most random search engine imaginable bc SOMETHING felt unfinished...... the final verdict for both?

...ish? the second one is sort of neutral bc it's taken a bit out of context but i'll get to that

let's get into it, because this one took me on a journey!

(and btw the sources on these were SUCH a pain in the ass to find due to lack of sourcing & wrong sourcing so i am on my hands and knees for these to get passed around w the proper sources now that they're in one place bc they're so good)

first of all, these quotes keep getting mixed up and messed around with different wording. which was my first road block on finding a proper source. second of all, they have been wrongly attributed to a) one single interview together and/or b) a rolling stone interview with nilsson. this made things aggravating. but in the end, an anon sent me the audio for the first quote and for the second one i FINALLY found someone a looong while back actually naming the book it's in & successfully found it!

made a post earlier concluding both were fake, but we just had to go a little deeper folks.

anyway, onto the good shit

who was harry nilsson? he was a friend of john's, specifically during his 1974 lost weekend era. they lived together for a while (along with others, including ringo!) and were pretty close.

"because i love paul"

this one gets misquoted the Most honestly like you'll find a bunch of different variations of it, but you can find it in a 1984 interview with geoffrey giuliano as such:

GIULIANO: Did he miss the Beatles? Was he mournful about what happened, over the, you know—? HARRY: Someone told me a few minutes ago they saw John walking on the street [once] wearing a sign saying – a button, rather, saying ‘I Love Paul’. And this girl who told me that said she asked him, “Why are you wearing the button that says ‘I Love Paul’?” He said, “Because I love Paul.” [laughs]  

(source) (and again, it's a tumblr blog, but given that it's audio, i'm marking it trustworthy. i just uploaded it to archive.org in case it ever gets deleted)

"i fell for paul's looks"

this one. this one was a goddamn journey and a half. this sent me on several rabbit holes and dead ends. the author of the last source said "nope it's definitely not from the tapes i found this audio from or i would've posted it too" and couldn't find the source either. no one had a source. until finally i found someone on a forum saying it was in the ballad of john and yoko published by rolling stone in 1984, in an essay titled "harry remembers" and thank christ it was on archive.org

so here's the full quote, found on page 236

"He spoke the way James Joyce wrote. And to me he was the Beatles. He was always the spark. In a late wee-hours-of-the-morning talk, he once told me: 'I'm just like everybody else, Harry. I fell for Paul's looks. George knew more chords, so he was in. And Ringo, he's just Ringo.'"

(source)

so this one gets a... true/neutral rating from me. why neutral? well, the "i fell for paul's looks" part is certainly there. but in the full context, he's talking about why he wanted each member in the beatles. basically, paul was the pretty face. however, he did say that verbatim and it is incredibly fucking gay imo. like specifically the "i fell for" wording is craaaaazy to me. but i do think the full context should be included if we're talking about it, as well as the actual source.

so no, they were not indeed both from the same interview. one isn't even FROM an interview. but they are both true! which is great bc i love both of these quotes and truly thought they were fake! pleasantly surprised on this one

now, take these with a grain of salt. the first quote is a third-hand source. it's nilsson recounting what some random fan told him john had done YEARS prior. the second one is a second-hand source and nilsson and john were like pretty infamous for getting drunk/high together. but the quotes themselves? certainly exist from harry nilsson, and that's the question. believe them if you want to, or leave them! i'm certainly taking them lmao

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How a billionaire’s mediocre pump-and-dump “book” became a “bestseller”

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/15/your-new-first-name/#that-dagger-tho

I was on a book tour the day my editor called me and told me, "From now on, your middle name is 'Cory.'"

"That's weird. Why?"

"Because from now on, your first name is 'New York Times Bestselling Author.'"

That was how I found out I'd hit the NYT list for the first time. It was a huge moment – just as it has been each subsequent time it's happened. First, because of how it warmed my little ego, but second, and more importantly, because of how it affected my book and all the books afterwards.

Once your book is a Times bestseller, every bookseller in America orders enough copies to fill a front-facing display on a new release shelf or a stack on a bestseller table. They order more copies of your backlist. Foreign rights buyers at Frankfurt crowd around your international agents to bid on your book. Movie studios come calling. It's a huge deal.

My books became Times bestsellers the old-fashioned way: people bought and read them and told their friends, who bought and read them. Booksellers who enjoyed them wrote "shelf-talkers" – short reviews – and displayed them alongside the book.

That "From now on your first name is 'New York Times Bestselling Author' gag is a tradition. When @wilwheaton's memoir Still Just A Geek hit the Times list, I texted the joke to him and he texted back to say @jscalzi had already sent him the same joke (and of course, Scalzi and I have the same editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden):

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/still-just-a-geek-wil-wheaton

But not everyone earns that first name the same way. Some people cheat.

Famously, the Church of Scientology was caught buying truckloads of L Ron Hubbard books (published by Scientology's own publishing arm) from booksellers, returning them to their warehouse, then shipping them back to the booksellers when they re-ordered the sold out titles. The tip-off came when booksellers opened cases of books and found that they already bore the store's own price-stickers:

https://www.latimes.com/local/la-scientology062890-story.html

The reason Scientology was willing to go to such great lengths wasn't merely that readers used "NYT Bestseller* to choose which books to buy. Far more important was the signal that this sent to the entire book trade, from reviewers to librarians to booksellers, who made important decisions about how many copies of the books to stock, whether to display them spine- or face out, and whether to return unsold stock or leave it on the shelf.

Publishers go to great lengths to send these messages to the trade: sending out fancy advance review copies in elaborate packaging, taking out ads in the trade magazines, featuring titles in their catalogs and sending their sales-force out to impress the publisher's enthusiasm on their accounts.

Even the advance can be a way to signal the trade: when a publisher announces that it just acquired a book for an eyebrow-raising sum, it's not trumpeting the size of its capital reserves – it's telling the trade that this book is a Big Deal that they should pay attention to.

(Of all the signals, this one may be the weakest, even if it's the most expensive for publishers to send. Take the $1.25m advance that Rupert Murdoch's Harpercollins paid to Sarah Palin for her unreadable memoir, Going Rogue. As with so many of the outsized sums Murdoch's press and papers pay to right wing politicians, the figure didn't represent a bet on the commercial prospects of the book – which tanked – but rather, a legal way to launder massive cash transfers from the far-right billionaire to a generation of politicians who now owe him some rather expensive favors.)

All of which brings me to the New York Times bestselling book Read Write Own by the billionaire VC New York Times Bestselling Author Chris Dixon. Dixon is a partner at A16Z, the venture capitalists who pumped billions into failed, scammy, cryptocurrency companies that tricked normies into converting their perfectly cromulent "fiat" money into shitcoins, allowing the investors to turn a massive profit and exit before the companies collapsed or imploded.

Read Write Own (subtitle: "Building the Next Era of the Internet") is a monumentally unconvincing hymn to the blockchain. As Molly White writes in her scathing review, the book is full of undisclosed conflicts of interest, with Dixon touting companies he has a direct personal stake in:

https://www.citationneeded.news/review-read-write-own-by-chris-dixon/

But this book's defects go beyond this kind of sleazy pump-and-dump behavior. It's also just bad. The arguments it makes for the blockchain as a way of escaping the problems of an enshittified, monopolized internet are bad arguments. White dissects each of these arguments very skillfully, and I urge you to read her review for a full list, but I'll reproduce one here to give you a taste:

After three chapters in which Dixon provides a (rather revisionistd) history of the web to date, explains the mechanics of blockchains, and goes over the types of things one might theoretically be able to do with a blockchain, we are left with "Part Four: Here and Now", then the final "Part Five: What's Next". The name of Part Four suggests that he will perhaps lay out a list of blockchain projects that are currently successfully solving real problems.

This may be why Part Four is precisely four and a half pages long. And rather than name any successful projects, Dixon instead spends his few pages excoriating the "casino" projects that he says have given crypto a bad rap,e prompting regulatory scrutiny that is making "ethical entrepreneurs … afraid to build products" in the United States.f

As White says, this is just not a good book. It doesn't contain anything to excite people who are already blockchain-poisoned crypto cultists – and it also lacks anything that will convince normies who never let Matt Damon or Spike Lee convince them to trade dollars for magic beans. It's one of those books that manages to be both paper and a paperweight.

And yet…it's a New York Times Bestseller. How did this come to pass? Here's a hint: remember how the Scientologists got L Ron Hubbard 20 consecutive #1 Bestsellers?

As Jordan Pearson writes for Motherboard, Read Write Own earned its place on the Times list because of a series of massive bulk orders from firms linked to A16Z and Dixon, which ordered between dozens and thousands of copies and gave them away to employees or just randos on Twitter:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7emkx/chris-dixon-a16z-read-write-own-nyt-bestseller

The Times recognizes this in a backhanded way, by marking Read Write Own on the list with a "dagger" (†) that indicates the shenanigans (the same dagger appeared alongside the listing for Donald Trump Jr's Triggered after the RNC spent a metric scientologyload of money – $100k – buying up cases of it):

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/21/books/donald-trump-jr-triggered-sales.html

There's a case for the Times not automatically ignoring bulk orders. Since 2020, I've run Kickstarters where I've pre-sold my books on behalf of my publisher, working with bookstores like Book Soup and wholesalers like Porchlight Books to backers when they go on sale. I signed and personalized 500+ books at Vroman's yesterday for backers who pre-ordered my next novel, The Bezzle:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/53531243480/

But there's a world of difference between pre-orders that hundreds or thousands of readers place that are aggregated into a single bulk order, and books that are bought by CEOs to give away to people who may not have any interest in them. For the book trade – librarians, reviewers, booksellers – the former indicates broad interest that justifies their attention. The latter just tells you that a handful of deep-pocketed manipulators want you to think there's broad interest.

I'm certain that Dixon – like me – feels a bit of pride at having "earned" a new first name. But Dixon – like me – gets something far more tangible than a bit of egoboo out of making the Times list. For me, a place on the Times list is a way to get booksellers and librarians excited about sharing my book with readers.

For Dixon, the stakes are much higher. Remember that cryptocurrency is a faith-based initiative whose mechanism is: "convince normies that shitcoins will be worth more tomorrow than they are today, and then trade them the shitcoins that cost you nothing to create for dollars that they worked hard to earn."

In other words, crypto is a bezzle, defined by John Kenneth Galbraith as "The magic interval when a confidence trickster knows he has the money he has appropriated but the victim does not yet understand that he has lost it."

So long as shitcoins haven't fallen to zero, the bag-holders who've traded their "fiat" for funny money can live in the bezzle, convinced that their "investments" will recover and turn a profit. More importantly, keeping the bezzle alive preserves the possibility of luring in more normies who can infuse the system with fresh dollars to use as convincers that keep the bag-holders to keep holding that bag, rather than bailing and precipitating the zeroing out of the whole scam.

The relatively small sums that Dixon and his affiliated plutocrats spent to flood your podcasts with ads for this pointless 300-page Ponzi ad are a bargain, as are the sums they spent buying up cases of the book to give away or just stash in a storeroom. If only a few hundred retirees are convinced to convert their savings to crypto, the resulting flush of cash will make the line go up, allowing whales like Dixon and A16Z to cash out, or make more leveraged bets, or both. Crypto is a system with very few good trades, but spending chump change to earn a spot on the Times list (dagger or no) is a no-brainer.

After all, the kinds of people who buy crypto are, famously, the kinds of people who think books are stupid ("I would never read a book" -S Bankman-Fried):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/11/29/sam-bankman-fried-reading-effective-altruism/

There's precious little likelihood that anyone will be convinced to go long on crypto thanks to the words in this book. But the Times list has enough prestige to lure more suckers into the casino: "I'm not going to read this thing, but if it's on the list, that means other people must have read it and think it's convincing."

We are living through a golden age of scams, and crypto, which has elevated caveat emptor to a moral virtue ("not your wallet, not your coins"), is a scammer's paradise. Stein's Law tells us that "anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop," but the purpose of a bezzle isn't to keep the scam going forever – just until the scammer can cash out and blow town. The longer the bezzle goes on for, the richer the scammer gets.

Not for nothing, my next novel – which comes out on Feb 20 – is called The Bezzle. It stars Marty Hench, my hard-driving, two-fisted, high-tech forensic accountant, who finds himself unwinding a whole menagerie of scams, from a hamburger-based Ponzi scheme to rampant music royalty theft to a vast prison-tech scam that uses prisoners as the ultimate captive audience:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865878/thebezzle

Patrick Nielsen Hayden – the same editor who gave me my new first name – once told me that "publishing is the act of connecting a text with an audience." Everything a publisher does – editing, printing, warehousing, distributing – can be separated from publishing. The thing a publisher does that makes them a publisher – not a printer or a warehouser or an editing shop – is connecting books and audiences.

Seen in this light, publishing is a subset of the hard problem of advertising, religion, politics and every other endeavor that consists in part of convincing people to try out a new idea:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/04/self-publishing/

This may be the golden age of scams, but it's the dark age of publishing. Consolidation in distribution has gutted the power of the sales force to convince booksellers to stock books that the publisher believes in. Consolidation in publishing – especially Amazon, which is both a publisher and the largest retailer in the country – has stacked the deck against books looking for readers and vice-versa (Goodreads, a service founded for that purpose, is now just another tentacle on the Amazon shoggoth). The rapid enshittification of social media has clobbered the one semi-reliable channel publicists and authors had to reach readers directly.

I wrote nine books during lockdown (I write as displacement activity for anxiety) which has given me a chance to see publishing in the way that few authors can: through a sequence of rapid engagements with the system as a whole, as I publish between one and three books per year for multiple, consecutive years. From that vantagepoint, I can tell you that it's grim and getting grimmer. The slots that books that connected with readers once occupied are now increasingly occupied by the equivalent of the botshit that fills the first eight screens of your Google search results: book-shaped objects that have gamed their way to the top of the list.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/03/botshit-generative-ai-imminent-threat-democracy

I don't know what to do about this, but I have one piece of advice: if you read a book you love, tell other people about it. Tell them face-to-face. In your groupchat. On social media. Even on Goodreads. Every book is a lottery ticket, but the bezzlers are buying their tickets by the case: every time you tell someone about a book you loved (and even better, why you loved it), you buy a writer another ticket.

Meanwhile, I've got to go get ready for my book tour. I'm coming to LA, San Francisco, Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Phoenix, Portland, Providence, Boston, New York City, Toronto, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Tucson, Chicago, Buffalo, as well as Torino and Tartu (details soon!).

If you want to get a taste of The Bezzle, here's an excerpt:

https://www.torforgeblog.com/2023/11/20/excerpt-reveal-the-bezzle-by-cory-doctorow/

And here's the audiobook, read by New York Times Bestselling Author Wil Wheaton:

https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_459/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_459_-_The_Bezzle_Read_By_Wil_Wheaton.mp3

[bettyshoweduptotheparty]

My Exit Note (for now) - and A Letter to Taylor

I’m so very sorry to the lovely people on here who will be saddened to read this, but this will be my last post for a while. I re-joined tumblr in June last year to re-reconnect to this lovely community, and it genuinely seemed so much safer to do than back in 2017. I thought the fandom had gained some perspective as a whole. But after only 7 months, the fandom (and by that I mean swifties) has once again become a battle ground for us, fuelled by none other than Taylor herself, and I’m no longer willing to gloss over that. I’m choosing my own peace.

It may seem like a very fickle move after only 7 months in this space, when the good people on here are genuinely some of the kindest and most intelligent people I’ve ever met online, but let me explain why I need to take a break. I don’t intend to leave Taylor Swift and her art behind and never look back. In fact, I have Eras tour tickets for the summer and I want to give myself a chance to actually be excited about that by the time June comes around. But it’s all too familiar, pretty much exactly the same reason I left tumblr the first time in 2017. I’m here to discuss and analyse Taylor’s art with likeminded (queer) people and I can’t respect the artist of that very art when she continually gives her toxic ‘fans’ ammunition to come into our safe space and harass us and then watches as we scramble to keep ourselves safe amidst abuse and threats. They are doing this in HER name. Members of a marginalised community she claims to be an ‘ally’ to are being doxxed and harassed in HER name and she’s doing nothing. If anything she’s fanning the flames while it burns. Whatever it is that she’s doing with her brand right now, her silence when her own crazy fans are sending DEATH THREATS to people for simply interpreting her art, means that I cannot be part of that right now. I thought the fandom had changed, that Taylor had grown more confident defending what she stands for, but clearly, I was wrong.

The tipping point back in 2017 for me, was when she told those kids from the rep secret sessions that the album was all about her darling bf and gave them permission to go after anyone who said otherwise. And boy, did they take that seriously. They came after us in our little corner for gushing over how beautifully gay those songs were, fuelled by words straight from the horse’s mouth. SHE sent those people after us. Because she wrote the gayest album in history and she couldn’t deal with the noise getting too loud. And I lost all respect for her. It was only in 2019 when she was suddenly draped in rainbows that I carefully looked at gaylor spaces online again, because it seemed like she was finally actually committing to it. But we all know how that ended… So, to see one of those very rep secret session kids on my YouTube feed yesterday picking apart this beautiful NY Times article with lies and inaccuracies in the name of Taylor’s straightness, just reminded me whose side she decides to put herself on. She invited those people to her house. She caters to them, not us. She made them think they were her friends and then sent them after us. With HER OWN WORDS. And I can’t be in the trenches for someone who hands my bullies a gun and points at the target.

I will leave my blog active this time, so my content will be here for people to engage with if they want. But I won’t be on here to receive your messages or dm’s. I’m sorry that I’m leaving you guys at a time where we need to stick together, but I’m getting more anger and hurt out of this than joy atm and that’s always the time for me to put myself first and step away. I hope that we will come together again when the tide changes, I’m still somewhat convinced that the clock is ticking towards a better time for us, but I need Taylor to come through for us (and herself) before I can look at her again. And I promise if that happens, I won’t hold a grudge.

And lastly, here’s something I’ve never done because I’m not crazy enough to think that Taylor sees us on here, but I don’t have any other social media and I had to get this off my chest. (If you have twitter/instagram, maybe do something similar, you never know, she might actually see it and I think she needs to know how much hurt she’s causing with this)

Dear Taylor, @taylorswift

What are you doing, love? I wish I could actually ask you that. In fact, I’ve wished it many times throughout the decade that I’ve been a fan of your music. I’ve wished that I could tell you what your music meant to me when I was heartbroken, and how much joy it brought me when I was young and felt invincible. You changed my life when you proudly held a girl’s hand in public with a smile that showed me that love is there for people like me to find, after all. And when the world was hard on you, I wished I could ask you if you were ok. But today, I just want to ask you this: what have I done to deserve you sending the worst kind of people after me? Time and time again. And you can’t tell me you didn’t know that would happen, I know you’re smart. I know you know the kind of people I’m talking about, the ones that worship you like a God, that will stop at nothing to defend the version of you they have in their heads. The ones you built your empire on. Good on you, but when did you stop caring for the people that actually see you and read the words you put out into the world for us? Was that not what you wanted? I can’t claim to understand how you live the life you’ve chosen, but at least your art was always there to bring joy to my life and community when I needed it. I didn’t need you to be a hero, but now you’ve become part of the problem.

So, here’s the thing: choose a side. Commit to us, or let us go. This line that you’re walking has reached the end. You want to be an ally? Fine. Let me help you with that: Don’t claim to be a safe space for queer people and then throw a grenade into our community and watch it burn. That’s not what an ally does. Don’t appropriate our culture by using our pride flag colours or the colour lavender and then deny the cultural and historic significance of those colours, effectively erasing their meaning. That’s not what an ally does. And most importantly, don’t let people be slaughtered, gaslit and harassed on the internet, or mainstream news, for interpreting your music as queer. A young queer woman, who is an incredible journalist, got called ‘inappropriate’ and a liar on national news yesterday, because she picked up what you’re putting down in your music and wrote an article about it. An incredible article by the way, one that made us all feel seen and validated. And then you’re letting old white men on national television call that inappropriate and invasive. You may not have said those words, but you let them stand there uncommented, let your cultish fans think that their hero is offended by being presumed to be gay. You guessed it, that’s also not what an ally does. A marginalised group of your fans got DEATH THREATS in your name in the last 24 hours because we pick up on queer flagging in your art. And you did nothing. You handed our bullies weapons and left us to fend for ourselves. That is not a safe space for LGBTQ people. And for that reason, you’re losing me.

Because I have nothing to believe. Unless you actually choose me (and yourself for that matter). Just once.

Until then,

J

[sophaeros]

love your blog, if possible could I get an Albert and Jules lore dump? I read your other post but I am hungry for more context (and sources)

omg hii glad u like it here !! 😋 umm ok i can try to do like a rough little timeline w notable moments maybe? whatever comes to mind lol

in err 1991 i believe when julian was 13 he got sent to that one swiss boarding school to curb his alcoholism (did not work clearly) and two years later when julian was 15, 13 year-old albert also arrived. julian stayed for two years and albert stayed for six months. julian had this to say about their meeting SNIFFLES. theyre never beating the soulmate allegations i fear

How did you become friends at first? Julian: Two of us arrived in a private school in Switzerland. I felt I had nothing in common with the others. They were so different from people I knew in New York, they were obsessed by clothes Haut Couture. I missed New York so much, it’s really a part of my soul. Meeting Albert was a relief. At last, someone with whom I could talk. There was immediately something, a feeling of complementarity. We talked a lot of music, of our band plans. We gave ourselves 2 years to create a band or to bury this dream. After 2 years, we gave ourselves 2 more years, (laugh).

— the strokes for les inrockuptibles, march 2002 (x)

after albert moved back to la he and julian lost touch until 1998 when albert moved to new york at 18 to go to film school and find himself or whatever. and of course they have the most red string of fate ass second meeting oh my god it makes my stomach hurt. I COULD LITERALLY SEE HIM FROM MY WINDOW. why arent they in a stupid hallmark movie romcom COME ON

“When I first came to New York,” marvels Hammond, resplendent in red and black winklepickers, “the way things happened to me, it was like there was someone… doing it. I moved into my apartment, it was directly across the street from where Julian worked. Like, what are the odds? I could literally see him from my window.”

— albert hammond jr for q magazine, april 2002 (x)

and so albert becomes the final member of the band, completing the set ❤️ (the talk, 2013)

Albert, did you have to try out to be in The Strokes? Yeah. I remember when I met everyone. I met Julian first, then Nikolai, got really drunk one night, and then I went to go try out, even though Julian told me later that in his mind I was already in the band. How come? I was an okay player, I could play chords and stuff, but I looked awesome. (Laughs) I just looked like there was only one thing I could do: be in a band.

albert and julian lived together for seven years from 1998 to 2005 when julian got married, they had two apartments together and the first one is the most well known, it's the dumbbell shaped one. idk about the layout of the second unforch

ehhh scrubbing ahead a bit. julian wasn't there for albert's intervention in 2009 because he was on his solo tour

but happily in 2013 we get albert releasing his comeback ep through julian's label cult records (and then he leaves cult records in 2015. c'est la vie.) (nme september 2013)

“I’d been talking to Julian about wanting to release something on his label since he started it,” Hammond Jr explains. “He was like, ‘Let’s put out a song’. So I went, ‘Alright, I’ll start working with Gus [Oberg] and maybe after we do a few songs there’ll be one that’s fun in there.’ I sent him the first, ‘Cooker Ship’, and he was floored. I got an email back with a million ‘yes’-es on it!”

speaking of which. i've posted this before but SIGHHHH (the talk 2013) that song is for his fucking then-gf justyna. (well, most likely. i dont think hes ever outright stated who he wrote it for but the mv is pretty domestic (for the most part......) and theres a bit where theyre kinda dancing in the living room which is one of the things albert told an interviewer he and justyna did a lot → vice june 2015 but of course i suppose you never know)

Kind of like The Strokes’ song “You Only Live Once”… Julian wrote that. I’m in the band, but I still take his lyrics like a fan would. You always relate lyrics to yourself, and I even do that with him even though he is one of my friends and we lived together when he was writing it. God knows what they were truly about. But it came full circle when he was over listening to “St. Justice” from my new solo EP. It was really cute, he was like, “Is this lyric about me?” And I was like, “…no, man.” It really wasn’t, but it was a good circle because I’ve felt that way about so many of his lyrics. When we got in the band, Julian had such a vision, he was just a strong writer, so the first three records are all his.

and then there's. whatever the fuck is up with one way trigger. i'll make a post about that swear

ending this post here i think bc otherwise i'm never gonna post this SORRY. i'll try to think of more but the tragedy of julian/albert is that it's actually really hard to find fuel for them. unlike milex where they're apparently physically incapable of not being all over and waxing poetic about each other. but then what you Do get is kinda crazy. such is life

[sgiandubh]

Imma need an in-depth breakdown of Puff please! And I’m not being sarcastic either. Puff pre-dates my time in the outlander fandom.

Regards,

Your curious anon.

Dear Puffy Curious Anon,

If my cantankerous boss would have summoned me at 03:03 pm EEST (when your request landed in my inbox), just to tell me "Imma need an in-depth breakdown of the Greek trade unions' position on the current critical understaffing of the HoReCa sector", I would have politely answered "yes, ma'am, when is the deadline". I would have then turned on my heels, rolled my eyes, sworn like a drunk sailor under my breath (fuck my life comes to mind, pardon my French) and quickly be done with it.

You, bless your Anon heart, wrote: "Imma need an in-depth breakdown of Puff, please". Wee difference, Curious Anon: you are not my cantankerous boss. That being said, since the question has been asked by several people in the comment threads of the day's posts, I am gonna give you my two cents on Queen Pufflander, even if you've been around before I even knew this weird place existed. And hopefully put to rest this nonsense forever (wishful thinking, doubt it will happen).

Once upon a time, when S&C's bantering was the plat du jour on Twitter and this fandom a considerably less toxic place, Puff the Magic Dragon of the US East Coast was one of the Queen Bees of Shipperville. Her blog was witty and no-nonsense (if a tad verbose) and, as *urv, she quickly earned her fair share of side performers: Stella and Deep Throat (SOURCES) or the tarot reader(s) immediately come to mind. People loved Puff and that is only fair, to be honest: I bet the farm she was great fun. Little by little, information traded in DMs started to pile up in her famed Vault, from which she was generously sharing, from time to time, sibylline rants ("maybe they did or maybe they didn't, but don't worry, something happened and all shall soon be revealed"). I can critique that forever and a day and tell you that all this sent people's expectations up the roof and beyond, of course. But, again: I was not here. It is unfairly easy to judge all these things with a historian's eye, and people who lived to tell the tale are far more entitled than me to comment their fandom experience, circa 2015.

When the whole Shatner/Watchtower baliverne started (early 2016, if memory serves) things ugly escalated and rather quickly so. People started jumping ship. With McSideburns already in the house (EIFF comes to mind and a certain poignant S&C penguin picture, too), enter Flukenzie Floozy. Thus, after IFH, Puffy decided to pack her crystal ball & tent and move to greener pastures on Wordpress. There, she held court with a keen eye for the Byzantine politicking of this fandom, not unlike what Perfidious Albion did with regard to the Thirteen Rebelling Colonies, after that Boston Tea Party. Her main moments of intersection with the rest of the shipper community are Covfefe Pics (of course) and Remarkable Week-end (of course). With regard to Covfefe, she quickly cried wolf, but by the time Remarkable Week-end happened, she pulled off a mighty witty breakdown of The Nuptial Charade of the Century. Blaze of glory was Quarantein Ha-wa-wee (of course), when she blamed S for all the world's evils and then some more. After that, she concentrated on her Neverending Feud with *urv (a Private Investigator was, at some point, hired and paid for via crowdfunding), which somehow managed to end (nevertheless) with a Report she might or might not have sent to S, "for further consideration".

As all good prophets, Puffy finally went into Occultation circa 2021, not without warning us that she was torn between Gay Sam & SamCait intellectual traditions, with a wee penchant for the first (reason why I completely ditched her peddling, because IYKYK).

I can understand why people might think I could be Puffy. I am, however, very sure about my own identity, whereabouts and creed: to state the opposite would really, really be mental. I fully assumed my responsibility and went ahead to actually prove you, this morning, I wasn't. Reading her rants was useful, but also taxing. I doubt Stella and Deep Throat were anything else but narrative helpers in a sophisticated Greimas actantial model. Something I would never do, for example: I am confident enough not to need any crutches. And I am very, very sorry for this word vomit: it should come, perhaps, as solace its length could never compete with Puff's storytelling marathons.

To wash my sins (not really: because I really love that picture), here's S,C, a penguin and a cakebox (?), at EIFF 2015. This is, you can be certain, the purest thing on this page, Anon:

[darkboysroadtrip]

Helpful Guide To The Road Trip!

First and foremost, the ask box is always open, I haven't closed it before and I'm not gonna start! Which means, send in whatever whenever all the time forever! I will never not want more asks!

Okay! Here we go!

Like the title says, this will be a helpful little guide! Here's what you can expect!

I'll be putting in the story thus far in bullet points if anyone doesn't want to read through everything.

Links to my art (they will be categorized by story, memes, requests, reference sheets, and any others there may be.

Links to things sent in (art/writing/memes)

Links to important parts of the story.

Useful tags I use (even though we all know the tag system sucks but oh well)

A list of all the emojis/names anons have used.

A link to a ficlet I wrote for this.

Links for the boarding school years blogs.

And here we go!! Buckle up! There's this post which is the first five days. Then a link with the rest of the days and THEN another link with all the other things!!

The links are here and at the bottom.

Days Continue

The Other Stuff

If you do want to read the whole story in its entirety and not just the bullet points, AO3 is your best bet to go through it!

The Story Thus Far And Important Story Links! As bullet points!

Not all of the links provided are essential to the story, but I do find them amusing. If the bullet points are enough context for you it's fine if you don't want to read the post.

Day One.

Remus makes the blog, pesters Dee and Virgil to go on the road trip. Link

Remus' car is a 1969 VW buggy, nauseatingly toxic green in colour. He adores this car. (no there is no foreshadowing with this definitely not)

They pack and leave once Remus gets home. (He was at Roman's)

Yes the three of them are in a relationship.

Virgil quits his job to do this (he forgets to quit)

They all met in boarding school, under not so great circumstances.

They have no destination, they're just going and doing, taking suggestions from followers.

They stop to get slushes

They go to the post office? Because it was a suggestion

The post office gets stuck up by a gun toting hooligan

Murder was suggested, they (unfortunately) did not go that route

Virgil throws Remus' slush at the mugger then hides, Remus fights the guy, knocks him unconscious and zip ties him, they leave before the cops get there. Link

It's revealed that Remus has one eye. He always makes a new story on how he lost it.

They get to a campsite for the night. Link

Short answer on how they got together, Bonfire at school, Remus made the first move on both of them. Link

Their ages revealed! Virgil and Dee are 26, Remus is 25.

Their heights are revealed! Remus tallest then Vigil then Dee.

A couple of asks about murder, Remus is for it the other two not so much (dependent on specific situations)

Dee has vitiligo confirmed.

They have been up for a long time, they go to sleep.

Day Two.

Day two begins post. Link

Virgil might have done crimes before. (what crimes? Who knows)

They plan to have a picnic today. It doesn't happen this day.

Dee is used to camping.

Remus likes to cook, he's not bad but he is Inventive. Dee is the best at cooking.

Remus asks Virgil to put 'atrocities' to their list of things to do. He does not.

Remus says money is handled and he will not lose it anytime soon. We'll see.

The anons want Arson. Dee says maybe.

Virgil remembers that he did in fact, not quit his job yet. Oops. He was a manager at an art store, his boss sucks and the job was soul sucking. No loss here.

Dee will not tell you his name.

Virgil puts arson on the list at the request of the anons.

Remus gets into a fight with a rabbit (anon)

Dee knows how to hunt, skin and clean animals for food. His mother taught him survival skills.

His mother is a sore spot for him.

[The anons dub me CC]

They're leaving the campsite, Dee is voted to drive, he loves driving.

They need supplies.

They ask for suggestions on stuff to buy.

A skeleton, beer, chocolate, sandwich bags, rubber bands, lube and water is suggested.

The skeleton is named August.

Their phones gain signal again. Roman is Worried. Link.

Roman is now following the blog.

Favorite food: Remus' sweet spicy ribs, Dees Korean barbecue and sushi, Virgils coffee mocha ice cream.

They get to a mall, it has a Halloween store where they get August, Remus and Virgil also get Dee to dress up in costumes for them. Link

They dress August up in grunge clothes.

Remus is banned from having gum, for multiple reasons, but mostly the gum catastrophe of 2015. No they will not elaborate.

Dee is asked his exact height. It's 5'4, he's not bothered by it at all.

He gains an army of short anons.

They get to the grocery store. They are kicked out of the grocery store. Link.

We learn that Remus (or at least his family) is Rich.

An anon calls Dee and Virgil Remus' sugar babies. Virgil does not take kindly to it. Link.

Like really not kindly to it. He sprains his hand. Link.

We gain our first antagonist anon.

We find out why Virgil went to boarding school, he's trans with transphobic parents. Link.

Dee knows medical things. He went to medical school for about a year.

Remus goes to the pharmacy to get supplies for Virgils hand. He forgot to bring payment.

Instead of going to get payment he... just kinda steals the stuff. Link.

Chatting in the car while driving to a motel, the boys are tired and calming down, Dee reveals that his mom is dead and died the year before he was shipped off to boarding school.

End of day two! Link.

Day Three.

Day three start post! Morning starts, Remus gets breakfast for the boyfs. Link.

The anons want to play truth or dare. It's Remus' favorite game, they can't not do it. Remus will do anything he's dared to do.

The first dare is that Remus needs to paint something on his car. He's down for it, they plan to continue playing and go to the store for paints.

Second dare is also for Remus. Link

Three truths for Virgil. Link

Another truth for Virgil, about his parents sending him to boarding school. Link

They get to the hardware store. It is Life Changing. (more on that in the next bullet points)

A crying small child approaches them. Link

The anons suggest kidnapping.

Dee and Virgil take the kid to look for his parents. Remus is left alone with the paints. He doesn't notice.

Dee loves the child. They may kidnap. Link , Link

Remus is unattended. He's pouring brown paint in toilets. He was alerted about the kidnapping as he was doing so.

They are probably taking the child. Link

Well, that's their child now. They re-name him. Welcoming Thomas to the group! Link , Link

Do we see a hint of abandonment issues in Dee? Link

Thomas' dad got mad at him for making noise.

They go to a Toys R Us and a clothing store to get some essentials.

Remus gets antagonized, it doesn't work. Link

Remus gets antagonized more, it kinda works. Link

Virgil explains what arson is to Thomas. Link

Dee and Virgil realize Remus isn't following them anymore. Link

Thomas is really small for his age.

They finally step into the stores. Thomas gets some new stuff, Remus is weirdly really good with kids. Link

Thomas thinks all rodents are just different rats.

They get back to the hotel, they're just chilling now.

We are informed that Roman is in a relationship with both Patton and Logan.

They start to get ready for that picnic they were gonna do on the second day.

Oh yeah, technically still playing truth or dare, here's a Remus dare that is funny. Link

The last post of day three, they go on the picnic, Remus' car actually gets washed so he can paint it, the rest of the night is peaceful. Link

Day Four.

First post of day four, Thomas is the first to wake, he's quiet about it, his father didn't like being woken up. He unintentionally wakes Remus, Remus does not care. The morning is quiet, they pack up their stuff to get on with the trip, a magic coin is found. Magic anons are on. Link

Of course the first thing the magic anons do... gives Virgil a dick. It's free bottom surgery babeey. (He owes Rat anon a favor now.)

Virgil also now has a pet spider. She is fuzzy, black and purple and kinda sentient. (she doesn't have a name, we kinda forgot about her...)

Magic anon sends bad memories to the boys. A little bit of Lore Link

Talking about Dees mom and abandonment issues. Link , Link , Link , Link

On that same note, was she really sick? It hasn't had a direct answer yet ;p

They pull over to get some air after the antagonizing.

The anons Will Not Let Them Rest. Remus throws the magic coin away in the forest. Link (warning for fake gore)

An anon takes their clothes away for 10 asks, they still have underwear, Thomas is still fully clothed. Remus is loving it, Virgil not so much. Link

Some of the nice anons however come in and give encouragement to our boys. And treats! The coin is unfortunately (for them) back ~Magically~ . Link

They decide to go to another campsite to unwind and sleep, they are going to be there for a while this time. Remus texts Roman to tell him about an ask that came in for him. Thomas is awed by fire. Link

Two anons have hugged them for comforting.

The attack on Roman, basically saying how fake he is and how he's probably jealous of Remus cause he doesn't hide his real self and not 'perfect' saying that people wouldn't like the real him. Remus defends Roman. We find out they didn't always have a good relationship and we find out Roman is a Broadway star. Link

The Main Antagonist Anon asks for hugs. No One Liked That.

Another anon comes in to take away their warm things for the night their blankets are gone and they're not allowed to start a fire. Their clothes will be back soon though. It is still going to be cold.

Another anon... doesn't exactly hug them so much as envelopes them in a sensation of tongues.

Another antagonist anon gives Thomas only a hug. And and ominous message of "I'll be back soon".

People are very huggy today, but at least this time the anon asked first. Virgil is getting sick of them, Remus is enjoying them.

An anon takes away their food by putting it all in a bag and getting it stuck in a tree. Remus mourns the snacks loss.

A ladder is given to them, Remus immediately tries to get the food down but it's stuck with magic. He tries to cut it open with a butterfly knife, still doesn't work and the ladder falls. He falls with it, he lands in a bush, the ladder lands on his face and his nose is bleeding.

Someone gives them bandages, Dee checks for a concussion, he's fine. We learn Remus' full name. Remus Able King, he doesn't seem to like it.

Oh yeah, his knife landed in his thigh when he fell. And his ankle is sprained. Dee patches him up. Link

UFO Anon distracts Thomas with a light show.

Rat anon erases the adults memories of each other, they are mentally teenagers again. This lasts the rest of the night. It doesn't go well. The only thing they remember is school, they don't trust each other. UFO Anon tries to abduct Thomas, Wasp Anon tries to as well. Remus is Not Okay with Thomas missing. The rest of this night is a pretty important part of the story, so there will be many links here for it. Link , Link , Link , Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link.

Day Five.

Day five begins, everything is normal again. They decide today is for strictly relaxation. Link

They talk a little bit about how last night was crap, and about how much they've changed since high school, and that them meeting was the best course that their lives could have taken.

They're determined to have a good day, they decide that swimming is a nice idea.

They get to the campsite beach, they give more insight to how they got together. Link , Link

They talk about how much their lives would have completely sucked if they didn't meet. Link

Talking about their parents reactions to them getting together (hint none of them cared a bit for it). Link

On how the school reacted to it also was not good, but our boys like to go against authority if nothing else. Didn't stop the adults from targeting them and turning a blind eye to anyone else who was deemed 'good' i.e the favorites.

They also didn't like Roman just by association with Remus.

Virgil was roommates with his bully. Here are some pranks he pulled on her for payback. Link

They used to sneak out a lot, to Remus' room or to the forest.

Virgil used to do gymnastics.

Roman begged Remus to join a sports team with him, Remus didn't really enjoy it.

Remus speaks German. Virgil knows Latin. Dee speaks French and ASL.

Thomas knows a little bit of Spanish, so does Roman.

They have yet to get into the water. Dee pushes Virgil in, Dee ends up falling into the lake when Virgil tries to drag him in too.

Thomas does not know how to swim. Remus tosses him to Virgil who is in the water to teach him.

They realize that they should probably be more careful with Thomas. He seems to have no self preservation. Link

They go back to the campsite, Dee says he's going to go to town to get food stuff, he's taking Thomas with him, and the two injured should stay there.

Someone suggests finding Mothman, they want to but are injured. So they make it a plan to go to Point Pleasant.

Virgil and Remus want some *ahem* Alone Time, so they turn the anons to Dee. It is uneventful shopping (except for the fact that I had to have Thomas accidentally erase all the asks cause... I accidentally did that...)

Also the cashier at the store is Suspicious of Dee (he seems to recognize Thomas (though no one picked up on that))

He goes to buy some clean blankets then back to the campsite.

The rest of the night is nice and smooth.

Before sleeping Remus and Virgil tell Dee that they're handing the blog over to The Others for a few days so they can relax.

Days Continue

The Other Stuff

[thestrangestthing89]

This situation with Noah isn't a new problem in the fandom. These fans have been harassing everyone for months in them name of progressive causes they aren't well-informed about. This is obviously not specific to the Stranger Things fandom. Go anywhere online and you will likely see a bunch of teens screaming about something even though they clearly skipped the step of educating themselves. Not only have I been the target of the dumbest shit, but so many other people have too. No one can post here without someone getting self-righteous and yelling about it. I have been accused of the following simply for posting something to my own blog: - I've been called misogynistic because I said El wasn't the main character. A thing the writers have said several times now (it's Will). The writers aren't misogynistic either. - I've been called misogynistic because I said El has character flaws like everyone else. - I've been called a condescending bitch when I politely tried to explain what misogyny actually is. A thing you'd think they'd be interested in learning if they actually cared about that cause (clearly they don't or I wouldn't have been called a bitch so much). - Been called racist because I said Hopper wasn't copaganda, even though I explained clearly why I thought this was. - Got called racist because I pointed out that Lucas was often filling his Ranger role and that's why he is helping Mike in S3 (the boys all play their D&D characters). But the trendy thing to say at the time was that he was being written in racist way so obviously this means I'm racist too. - Had multiple people say I was silencing them when I wrote my own damn post (not a response to theirs) about many of the above topics. I just simply disagreed with their points and that isn't allowed here. - Had someone I never interacted with spread a rumor that I sent them anonymous hate filled asks even though I had no fucking clue who they were. And those posts were anonymous so they have no idea who actually sent them. They just wanted my attention. But I never sent anyone an anon ask before anyway so this was just bizarre. But a several people believed it. - Pretty much every adult on here has been accused of pedophilia for watching a show with kids on it. This gets pretty relentless sometimes. I'm sure I could think of several others and other people have had a lot as well. The thing about this as someone who has actually experienced things like misogyny first hand is that being called this is incredibly upsetting, especially when you are being called this by someone who doesn't know what they are talking about and doesn't care about the impact of these words. They just want you to shut up and stop telling them they did something wrong.

This is all happening because they are watching a show that is overwhelming them and they can't deal with people discussing it in a more nuanced way than they are. This wouldn't be happening if there were more adults here to drown it out. But as it is, no one can actually discuss this show and it has nothing to do with Noah. It's because kids are watching when they shouldn't. And they have weird, boundaries with the fandom and the cast that are constantly causing problems. This didn't happen back in the first 2 seasons because it was only adults watching. I'm not saying adults can't be problematic too, but most of this shit is from people who are way too young to handle this. And now we are all getting lectured by 14 year old foreign policy experts. It's not ok and they need to spend a lot of time learning about how to interact with people online better. This isn't the shows fault. But they can make it clear who this is actually for. Because these kids are going to throw a fit over everything. They always do. They aren't going to like S5 either. They are only watching because it's cool and they have FOMO. They can't understand it and are constantly insulting it and everyone associated with it and the fandom. Seriously, amp up the horror. Make it rated R. A lot of us would really love to be able to discuss this show and can't because of how awful it is here.

[lesbian-deadpool]

The fact that I have to do this is honestly extraordinary... And yet, somehow, not surprising.

In the recent months I discovered that I had one of my fics stolen, by a person kind enough to send me a message letting me know.

This person who had indeed stolen my work was already on my radar, as I myself had spotted another person's work that they had stollen.

Their blog used to be @gayestfeels26 but they now go by @simp4wanda26.

The first time they had stolen my work, I politely sent them a message asking them to take my work (and all other work that did not belong to them) down, seeing as this could greatly affect someone's love and want to write, instead of taking it public like I have been forced to do now.

They gave an... In my opinion, ridiculous excuse as to why they did what they did. They apologized, and never replied back.

Which was fine by me.

My work (and the other person's work I had spotted) was off of their blog, and I thought that was the end of it.

Until, that is, a few days ago.

When I received yet another message from someone telling me this person had stolen another work of mine.

Now, this work was stolen prior to me messaging them the first time, I just didn't spot it when I checked their blog for any more of my stolen work.

After some minimal plot that I'm assuming they wrote themselves, it cut straight to the smut I had written over on my NSFW blog, only with the names and other features changed on the character.

But now, for the receipts:

(WARNING: NSFW)

First off, proof of names and dates:

(And not only is this insulting to me, it's also insulting to the person who requested this, only to be given work by stolen someone else)

'She really should know better' than to steal other's work and claim them as their own:

Even the spelling mistake I made is there, only further proving that they copy and pasted my work:

And lastly:

But, if you need more proof... here are the fics:

The Original The Stolen

The only reason I am even making this post is because when I tried to message them about stealing my work once again, they turned off the ability to send them messages... and my stolen work is still up.

As can be seen here:

(Text scratched out for privacy reasons)

So this is my... call-out post for lack of any better words, for them to take down not only my stolen work, but everyone else's that might have been stolen.

I'm expecting that they will also change their name again, and try to pretend that none of this has ever happened, which is honestly fine by me, as long as they take the work down, and do not do it again... but my hope is not that high...

[dailysinclair]

Sinclair no. 02

Title of Abnormality: Ibuprofen Sinclair

Type of Abnormality: ZAYIN

If you are seeing this blog, you can see the name being "daily sinclair", but, upon reaching the dates of the last post in here, you will see that it was April 30th, almost a month ago! Wow! Does this means that whoever was behind DailySinclair gave up on him? No! It was because whoever was behind DailySinclair is a MORON

What happened was that i created the blog in mobile, and, upon writing the email for this account, i didn't notice that it was written wrong in the dumbest way possible (Like imagine the email being like S1inclairSweep@limbus.com and i wrote it as Si1nclairSweep@limbus.com) so, upon logging off the account in less than 10 minutes of its creation to go in my main, as i tried to log back, I COULDN'T, AND I DIDN'T KNEW FOR THE LIFE OF ME THE REASON FOR SUCH THING

And then, in a state of complete shock, i went to tumblr's staff to ask to please give me back the DailySinclair blog. Could i have just created a new one? Yes, i could, but no. I wouldn't be locked away from my account for such tomfoolery, i NEEDED DailySinclair back, it was a thing of honor already, so, i went and sent all the info i had to the staff, could they give me it back? Without me even knowing the email of this blog? Would they do so?...Well, after a week, nothing, then 2 weeks...Nothing again...And then, i went to check back my email...And it had only the email they sent me a day after i sent the forms, which i thought was just an automatic email so i didnt even read it...

...At the end of it, they told me to send reply to the email to continue the proceedure. Which i. Hadn't done.

So again, i was a fool, a dumbass, a moron, if you might say - but i replied to the email, trying to now show how desperate i was to have DailySinclair back.

And then, 1 week after...They sent me a link to put a new email in the account, and there it was - DailySinclair was back. After so long, we were back.

What have we learnt from it? Well:

Check your email first before logging off your new account

Read the emails people send you until the end

Do not tell your friends about your tomfoolery, they will call you a dumbass.

And there is it, thank you to whoever was with me in this, i love you all.

[inevitably-johnlocked]

Hi Steph. I have some... Mary thoughts, specifically in regards to her shooting Sherlock. This is, taking TST at face value (although one weird moment to me was Mary asking Sherlock if she ever told him she liked him and he said yes, when she only said it in front of John, which could support the s4 is in John's head theory).

Her reaction to Ajay being shot, the way she screamed, changed the way I thought about her shooting Sherlock. I always thought she meant to kill him, but I never considered Mary could genuinely like and even love Sherlock and still be willing to shoot to kill.

She said AGRA was family, she was excited to see Ajay and yet she did threaten to kill him. And I believe she meant it. I think in her mind, killing to keep John around, or to save John (in regards to Ajay) is... justified?

I don't know how to feel about her yet, I can like her on the surface level if I don't think about her too much? But some things (one that always stood out to me was in the TAB plane scene where she is weirdly smirking and almost reveling in others' pain?) I know others picked up on it to, liking Mary at first and then beginning to find her suspicious upon rewatches and with new context was a very common fandom experience.

I guess I am sharing thoughts and kind of asking for your opinion? I chose to go off anon, and I am fine with it being public. Just saying that, because sometimes when I sent asks off anon people would assume it is like a private message. Still new to Tumblr etiquette, sorry -AA

Hey Lovely!

OOOOOOF I have SO many thoughts about Mary.... my blog was pretty well-known back in the hey-day for all the ridiculous amount of meta I wrote about her and coining 'the mary problem'...

I actually personally found her character interesting and fascinating up until S4, within which I feel they did a complete 180 on her character and instead went with a SHITTY "redemption arc" that was anything but.

As for her killing Sherlock, I have to disagree, she ABSOLUTELY meant to kill him. John was a trophy to Mary, and Sherlock threatened that prize being taken away from her. Ajay threatened to also upend her life, so he had to die. Mary cares about no one but herself. That much was clear even on the surface level of S4. She literally ran off without as much as a goodbye and abandoned her NEWBORN CHILD AND depressed husband. Like, she's a HORRIBLE person even if you're not reading any of the subtext, so I'm BOGGLED how Mofftiss thought that Mary doing an impossible jump in front of a bullet was supposed to redeem her character when... *waves all over* ALL THAT happened before the final moments of T6T.

ANYWAY, I wrote a LOT about Mary... you can check out the majority of my writing on these posts here:

Mary is a Femme Fatale

The Problem with John x Mary

Mary’s Brand of Abuse

Mary Meant to Kill Sherlock

Mary’s Gaslighting

The True Sociopath: People Fail to See It Unless It Happens to Them

And of course there's a TONNE to read in my 'the mary problem' tag too :)

Thanks for this ask!!! I like griping about how they ruined an amazing villain that could-have-been!

[dawnrider]

*jingles cup at you*

Hello @xanthippe-writes! A great question and one I will try to give an array of answers to. I hope at least one of them is helpful!

Prompt lists: There are a ton of great writing prompt blogs right here on Tumblr that provide frequent, sometimes even daily, prompts that you can use to get juices flowing. It doesn't have to be a whole story, doesn't even have to be relevant to what you're writing, just a way to get the brain working.

Ask for prompts from mutuals or in servers: Sometimes a little community is really what you need. I don't always get to the prompts people have sent in my inbox, but on occasion I can get a lot of inspiration from that. Some of the servers I'm in have prompt channels, specifically where you can look for or request prompts from others, or where people leave ideas that they aren't going to get to for others to use at will.

Write the scene you want: Some people write linearly, as in completely in order of the story. That works for them and that's great. But when you're stuck, and there's that far off scene that you really want to get to, or is the inspiration for the story, it can feel really frustrating and out of reach. Write the damn thang. You can always modify it later if it doesn't quite fit once you build the rest of the story ahead of it. But if that scene is nagging at you, WRITE IT.

Write fanfiction of your fanfiction: Sometimes there are what-if scenarios within your own story that plague you. "What if they DIDN'T kiss here?" or "What if he ends up much more injured than I first planned?" Those can be worth it to explore in a separate document. Maybe you use it, maybe you don't. But it gives you the room to explore the webs of happenstance that are created when your characters make choices... or don't make them.

Let yourself have multiple WIPs: I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but hear me out. Sometimes the reason I feel stuck when I'm trying to hammer out part of the plot for say, Your Lying Smile, is because my brain is just not feeling it. But my brain is all over Stealing Home at that time, so I go work on that. And I can get a few paragraphs in, or maybe a chapter. Then I return to YLS with fresh eyes and I can think more clearly about what I want from the story because I feel successful and productive from what I was able to accomplish on a different story. You don't have to have multiple stories you're posting, if that isn't your jam, but sometimes letting yourself work on multiple things allows you to set aside your block on one story and get your juices flowing by working on something else and it doesn't feel like avoidance because you still made progress on something specific.

Brainstorm: This is a community thing again, but a really helpful one. If you're stuck, sometimes some outside perspective can help you get unstuck. If you have a trusted mutual, or a server space where brainstorming is welcome, utilize those resources. I admit to being a bit stingy when it comes to sharing my future plots because there's that part of my brain that insists that no one will want to read what I wrote if they already know what's going to happen. But you can absolutely ask for feedback from other folks, writers or otherwise. Bouncing ideas off of them can help you figure out what you might want to see going forward in your story, and what you don't. (Sometimes those "no way!" ideas are even more important than the "oh, maybe that would work...")

If anyone else has good advice to add, please do!

[ineffable-snowman]

Fic Tag Game

Thanks for tagging me @gingiekittycat 💜

I already did this a few months ago (and somehow managed to find it on my blog, wow!), so I've copy pasted most of the answers and updated some of them.

How many works do you have on ao3?

fifteen

2. What's your Ao3 word count?

403,077

3. What fandoms do you write for?

right now I'm not writing much, just occasionally trying to work on my Good Omens wip.

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Maybe Someday - 1,114 kudos

Trouble Man - 853 kudos

Pet Psychopath - 738 kudos

Match Made on Earth - 616 kudos

Partners, Accidentally - 571 kudos

5. Do you respond to comments?

I try, because I think interaction is important to keep a fandom "alive" (even if often I don't know what to say apart from "thanks for reading and commenting"). That reminds me that you, @gingiekittycat, sent me the nicest comment and I still haven't responded yet, will do now right away!

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I don't write angsty endings. But some readers didn't agree with me that Match Made on Earth had a happy ending, so I will pick that one here.

7. What's the fic your write with the happiest ending?

They all have happy endings, but the ending of Four Chord Songs and Sentimental Lyrics is particularly sappy. I was wondering if that love song in the last chapter was *too much*, but then I thought: nope, it's Anakin, *too much* is his personality trait.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Some months ago I got two very rude anon comments on one of my Obikin fics accusing me of horrible things. The accusations felt pretty generic and did not fit that particular story at all, so probably from someone who had not even read the summary, but they still left me a little shaken. Fortunately, the people in the Obikin discord were really kind about it and helped to cheer me up.

Back on FFNET I received the occasional "ew, they're not gay, why would you write that?" Also there were some people who were angry at the way I wrote Obi-Wan, saying things like "how can you say he's your favourite character and then characterise him as weak/flawed/incompetent... and make so many bad things happen to him?"

BUT, all in all, fandom has been a positive experience and the many good interactions far outweigh the odd rude comment.

9. Do you write smut? What kind?

Does one awkward sex scene per multi chapter fic count? (No.)

10. Do you write cross-overs?

No.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I don't think so, not that I know of.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, a long time ago on FFNET when I still wrote Harry Potter fic.

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yes. Would love to do it again but I'm a very slow writer and would hate to leave someone waiting for too long.

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

I feel like Obikin is the "correct" answer because I always come back to them.

15. What's your WIP you like to finish, but doubt you ever will?

Step into Christmas with me. So far, I've managed to add two chapters every season. If I continue at that pace, I might finish it in two more years...

16. What are your writing strength?

Beginnings and endings.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

The long middle parts that always become too long and repetitive.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I don't really like it because it takes me out of a story. I don't want to check footnotes or use google translate in the middle of reading. I prefer if it's done with descriptions or dialogue tags matching the perception of the pov character, for example, if the character doesn't understand Spanish but I do, it's better if it's written like "...she said something in Spanish that sounded like a question to him" instead of writing down the actual question in Spanish.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Just for myself: Harry Potter. Posting online: Star Wars.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

Servants of the Force is definitely not my best writing but it's still my favourite fic anyway because I've never put so much effort into a fic before and I'm proud that I finished it.

tagging @chanihobbit, @saddybildaddy, @sky-kenobye, @ineffableobikin (no pressure tags!) and everyone who wants to do it (again).

[mizkit]

new blog post: developing a book proposal

new blog post on https://mizkit.com/developing-a-book-proposal/

developing a book proposal

Earlier this year, before acquiring an agent, I wrote a very short, like back-of-book-blurb, romantasy proposal that I sent to an editor I had access to. She asked for a full proposal (a full synopsis, 3 chapters), and that’s been on a back burner while I’ve been doing a thousand thousand other things. But yesterday I got to get started on it, and…

I’ve talked often about how I tend to get to the 1/3rd mark in any book, no matter how long, and hit a wall that I have to go back and fix stuff to get past. Happens again at the 2/3rds mark. So yesterday I was working on the synopsis, and I got to…basically the 1/3rd mark…and was like “…okay, so what I have here in this original ‘back of book’ synopsis is the beginning of a book, and then no plot, and then a resolution. That’s not gonna work, is it…”

This morning on my way to work I said to my husband, “Yeah, so, now I have to go figure out a plot for this book,” and he went o.O because he thought I had one, and I WAS like WELL, SO DID I, BUUUUUT, SO I explained the above and where the 1/3rd mark that I was currently at was, and then I ended up sitting back down and brainstorming with him for half an hour or so, at the end of which I had most of a plot.

Came into work, got that all written out, ok, yeah, oh hey ok thought of some things that’ll work in there, ok great, ok, but… then I hit another “but what happens next” moment which is IN ALL LIKELIHOOD, THE 2/3RDS MARK OF THE BOOK.

Sooooo I texted my husband, said, “This is where I am NOW, what X fits here to make Y work?” and weirdly he said something that actually fit perfectly with the last paragraph of my back-of-book synopsis. And now, albeit with a fair amount of handwavium, I’m writing up the last third/climax of the book for the synopsis…and have the launch point for a sequel, which has an OBVIOUS title to match the first book, so now all I need to do is write three amazing chapters and have my agent sell it and the sequel, ideally for a shit ton of money, ideally on proposal so I don’t have to write the whole book before selling it. :)

[garoujo]

TO ANY WRITERS WHO HAVE RECIEVED AN ANON IN THEIR ASKS TALKING ABOUT ME.

i wanted to actually post one final time about this since i’m feeling a lot better, unfortunately this anon just happened to crop up at a bad time.

as a lot of my moots already know, there’s been an anon on my blog and forcing themselves into other peoples safe spaces to spread rumours about me. not only are these rumours absolutely not true, but i also want to apologise to anyone who has been made uncomfortable by those allegations and has been roped into this drama.

this anon in particular has been following me on this app for around a year and a half. one of the points they have made is that i apparently was “chased off of my last blog” which again, is not true. the reason i left / deactivated my last blog was due to being one of the blogs who was doxxed in the hq doxxing discourse last year, that was the only reason because this same anon, was posting my personal information aswell as my ‘nudes’ and face reveals into my moots inboxes.

before the doxxing had taken place, i had 2 hate blogs made around that time [which again i believe to be the same anon / person who doxxed me considering they were made consecutively and seemed to pop up whenever i stopped answering their asks] one of which had began because they felt i wasn’t being inclusive with skin tone in my visuals, which is valid and completely understandable.

when i had received the first ask about it, i made a post about how i wouldn’t be doing anymore [n]sfw visuals until i was able to properly represent everyone and make them feel included, that’s always been the forefront of my blog and i want everyone to be able to enjoy my work. this was at around 7am before i left for work, i never heard again from that anon before my shift. [im not too sure if the anon who raised the issue first was the same one who then went on to make the blogs or if they simply used the ask for their own game, considering they’d already been harassing me in my asks for months]

since i couldn’t check my phone during work i then came back into tumblr after my shift to the anon, who now had a blog, doing the exact same thing as they’re doing now — they said i hadn’t been answering their asks so they took it to dash to tell people that i didn’t care and that i had no intention of changing [not true considering i had addressed it in my post prior to my shift] i then showed screenshots showing that i was at work with timestamps to when their asks were sent compared to when my shift started, but i still apologised and took accountability for it ever being an issue in the first place.

that blog was then deactivated suddenly, before another one came around 2 days later with the same issue, doing the exact same thing — forcing themselves into other people’s safe spaces to spread rumours about me. that blog deactivated and the next day, my personal details, full name + ‘nudes’ were in my moots asks, the blog who ended up exposing these people then was in my asks to offer me help and i deactivated for my own safety.

that is the reason i deactivated, it wasn’t to “start over” or “rebrand” like they’re claiming because i’ve always been emmie on my nsfw blogs, my aesthetic has remained the same as has my writing style. this anon has continued to harass me for almost two years and has been on every blog i have ever had, even before i came to this blog — i wrote tokyo rev sfw hcs for around a month, but they found me on that blog also.

again i apologise for anyone who’s been unfortunate enough to have this anon in their asks, my blog being inclusive is always my top priority when writing and putting out content and will remain one of the most important things to me while i’m here. so i apologise about issues like these being forced into spaces, i won’t be commenting on this again as i’ve already made around 4 posts concerning this anon before, but if anyone has any questions feel free to come into my dm’s.

— emmie. <3