#I actually made an active choice like 10 years ago

[theunsinkablesappho]

I bring a certain "I could not care less about male characters" vibe to fandom that almost no one really likes

[mcufandomhatespeopleofcolor]

Some Clarification

Hi so I'm mod ali (original blog here: @aliciadreams  and other newer blog is @aliciadreaming I'm also a mod on fhpoc, fhw and several other blogs)

I want to address the fact that a few weeks ago a follower khalifaziz reblogged something we had posted and pointed out that the op was a terf.  Self described lesbian terf. (post is here)

Now when I had replied to this I deleted the first reblog and just kept the one where I addressed khalifaziz.  Then I confronted mod palette who was the one who reblogged it.  I didn't think to take a screenshot but when I brought it up here was the conversation.  But I'll summarize the contents of the screenshots. 

First I asked mod palette to download shinigami eyes and she said she wasn't going to because it was made by a pedophile.  I consulted with other mods from the various blogs and we couldn't find any proof of that and mod palette never submitted proof of it either.  Then mod palette started talking about "her right to being able to reblog who and what she wanted to.”  I told her she she had a choice a) stop reblogging terfs or b) leave the blog. 

And then she doubled down and REALLY started sounding terfy. 

So I told her she sounded like a full blown terf and I wanted her gone. 

She tried to leave on her terms and even though I said i wasn't going to post this conversation I think I have to because of what's happened to our follower count.  We used to have over 2000 followers and now we have 54 followers.  I've tried searching for things tagged with our blogs url but can't find anything.  I know that the options for the blog were turned off here (another screenshot) I turned them on yesterday but it hasn't affected our activity at all. we've got like 0 notes for the past 6 days.  

I want to take this opportunity to reassert that I and mod Laina the only active mods left here are trans inclusive we use shinigami eyes when we're on desktop.   And we want to keep make this an inclusive blog 

[about 8 or 9 screenshots under the cut]

Below that there’s a partial transcription of the screenshots.

Aliciadreams:

hey how are you?

Um I noticed something troubling in our notes today.

there's a post that khalifaziz commented on https://www.tumblr.com/khalifaziz/761253014092873728?source=share

and I didn't reblog it you did. can you please do me a favor and like download shinigami eyes so this doesn't happen again?

Sep 11 9:53 PM

palettesofrenaissance-main:

No, I don't want to download that. And also that thing was made by a pedophile

Sep 12 1:11 AM

Aliciadreams:

I wasn't aware of that do you have proof?

Sep 12 4:53 AM

Heyyyy so how are we going to resolve this? you can't be reblogging terfs.

Sep 12 7:32 PM

palettesofrenaissance-main:

Don't know what happened to the previous DM. I have some time so here goes. About the creator of the browser extension being a pedophile, rapist, or whichever, that was years ago and I believe you can find it if you Google. You can decide on your own about if it's "evil" or not. It's crazy to give your info to one person. One single person

I don't waste energy worrying about posts or act like an obsessed creep looking back at every single thing before I reblog, especially if the post actually means something itself. I don't care about beef between users, whether someone says "I don't like what so and so thinks" That isn't the purpose of running a simple blog for no money that won't actually make any difference. No one's being paid, endorsed, jeopardized, saved, and there's truly no differences being made through this website anyway

What I'm going to do is continue living my life and coming online whenever I choose to, and reblog nice-looking posts just like literally a good sum of users are doing on here. I'm going to keep reblogging things about characters of color and actors of color, and if there's any posts about people of color, and that's it

Today 10:49 AM

Aliciadreams:

OK so we obviously are having a miscommunication here. I'm going to ask for you to choose: 1) you stop reblogging terfs to the blog 2) we part ways and you leave the blog now.

palettesofrenaissance-main:

That boogeyman word means something to you? I've seen it being thrown around at women and lesbians who don't do what you say or like, calling like a dogwhistle for conservative-thinking "liberals" and/or homophobic narcissists using social justice key words and therapy words to demonize. You say one "wrong" thing and now several cronically online users demonize, point fingers like 5 year olds and trying to rally for a women to wear a scarlet A and get a virtual stoning

Thinking back on it, that post was literally just about women in Afghanistan being oppressed as an effect of a political decision. That's something informative and worthwhile to share whether it comes from CNN, ABC, or someone you had beef with online. Thinking an article with valuable information is suddenly "bad" because it happened to be posted by someone on tumblr labeled "bad" is actually pretty telling about actual values and mindsets

And your priorities are to appear socially pure it's apparent

Today 4:40 PM

Aliciadreams:

I think you're talking like a full blown terf. If you really don't see the harm in terf rhetoric and why it's important to reject terfs and their rhetoric then there's nothing else to discuss. Trans women are women and you sound like jk Rowling. These blogs are unpaid you're right but our followers deserve to know who they're following. If you don't leave the blog within the next 48 hours I'm going to post this entire conversation on the blog complete with your username.

palettesofrenaissance-main:

So you're doing the scarlet letter thing too with no proof, trying to sick your dogs on me now because I said something you deem "bad?"

You're literally one of those online people whom others talk about shouting and whining about things that either aren't true or without proof. You've done it to the point it would be concerning if someone cared. I don't know what jk Rowling did or whatever this has to do with trans people, because it doesn't, but you're a heretic and there's something in your head that isn't right. By you sending this, you also show lack the maturity despite your body physically being grown, lack self reflection, and that you revolve yourself around how you appear online by riding whatever is currently being said, like what you accuse me of believing (without proof, albeit). Obviously I don't know what in the world you're on, but I don't want none of it. Therefore, you're only skin deep, a liar, and possibly a narcissist. And you take blogging WAY too seriously for a sane person

Aliciadreams:

I'm giving you the option to get out of this with no one knowing your url or your blatant disregard for spreading transmisogyny. Or are you having trouble reading that part? You have until Monday at 9pm pacific to leave the blog. If you don't leave I will release this entire exchange.

Today 9:56 PM

[end of transcription I didn't get the rest before she blocked me]

[yume-x-hanabi]

Life update

Posted on DW, but I figured I could update this blog as well now that I'm semi-getting back into social media...

I've sorta fallen off from the fandom and social media space, because life has been a lot these past few years. To sum up briefly:

- I made a couple of posts about it last year, but I bought an apartment in a new building (construction wasn't finished at the time). Running left and right to choose stuff such as flooring etc, getting things organized on the paperwork side (banks, notaries...), plus the move itself, took me a lot of time and energy. I've been living here full time for 10 months now though, and it's been great. Love the building (even tho it's not entirely finished orz), love the neighbourhood, and it's so great to have your own place. Missy seems at ease here, too, which is important. The balconies' guardrails are huge glass panes that go all the way to the floor with no gap, so that means I can let her out without supervision without fear of her falling/jumping off.

- Work, the main culprit for my withdrawal from fandom. I think I mentioned before that I took on more admin tasks a couple years ago, and while I enjoy the actual work when I get to it, it's a huge huge drain to my mental energy, esp when combined with everything else (class prep, exams, meetings etc). So it's pretty much killed my drive, and my already bad work-life balance just became worse and worse. Like, it's not that I don't have free time (perks of teaching = lots of holidays), but when I do I'm so mentally exhausted that I was pretty much only able to play mindless games like Solitaire or Civilization VI (which became like an addiction lol) or doomscroll on twitter or reddit. I pretty much lost my ability to engage with hobbies, except for the ones below, and I'm trying really really hard to come back and make it stick this time around.

- Speaking of hobbies though, I've gotten really into classical music and started attending concerts regularly. By perfect coincidence, my new place is at a 2-minute walk from my city's philharmonic hall, and I've been enjoying the heck out of that perk. My city's orchestra is really good, and their program so varied. When it was time to choose my subscription for next season, it was harder to choose which concerts not to attend (but a choice had to be made ;v;). Also I'm super stoked because they're playing my favorite symphony next year, I didn't expect to be able to hear it live so soon!

I think this really saved my mental health this year. Like, it's a bit hard to explain, but there's something really unique and relaxing about the atmosphere there. It's a bit intimidating at first, and I was really self-conscious about not making noise at the beginning, but I've gotten used to it now. Mostly, I think it helped me rediscover what it is to just sit down and enjoy the moment, without constantly looking for stimulation to my already overstimulated mind (silly aside, but before that I'd sorta lost the ability to binge a series without mindlessly checking my phone in the middle of episodes. Being "forced" to keep my phone away for the duration of a concert has really helped me recover my attention span). I think it helps my mind rest, if that makes sense? Also there's nothing comparable to listening to the music live in a hall with great acoustics x3

I followed the Queen Elisabeth Competition closely this year, live for a few finals performances when possible, the rest on TV, and it was really awesome. I think in four years I'll get the subscription for the whole finals week :p

- Relatedly, I've also started taking violin lessons. I'd always wanted to learn an instrument since I was a child (loved those mandatory recorder classes we had at school lol), but it never happened (partly because I was too passive as a child to actively ask for it, partly because my parents probably didn't want to have their eardrums massacred, so didn't offer it (wouldn't have said no if I'd asked, but as I said I wasn't good at asking back then)). It took me a while to actually make the jump, because I thought I'm too old now and there's no point, but I finally did with some encouragements from friends and colleagues and I'm really glad I did. Violin is... hard lol. I sound absolutely terrible. But it's also really fun? Like I feel like I'll never be good, but also I've made so much progress since I started. I don't have much time to practice (I aim at at least 10min a day these days, which isn't a lot, but it's better than nothing and it's more important to do it a little regularly than a lot once in a while). I'm really looking forward to the day I'll be able to attempt to play Xillia songs 😄 Also I really love my teacher<3

- Lastly, niece is 3 now and so fun to interact with. It's not always easy, she's very stubborn and willful, but she's also really sweet and funny. Love her ❤️ And she's just got a little sister! who's a very chill newborn, so different from niece#1 lol. I can't wait to see them play together when they're a little bit older.

Anyway, that's pretty much the main things that have been going on the past couple of years. Like I said I'm not sure I can be totally back, I think it's gonna take a lot of adjustment, but this time I really don't want to let another year pass by like that. I'm really gonna try hard to have better balance this time!

[the-dye-stained-socialite]

Number 10 for Marigold :3c <- Guy who totally doesnt know how it ends and def isnt writing anything related to it 2 for Elias becase i always love to hear about the process... and 7!

10: What is their main character arc in the story? Where do they start and how do they develop? Do they get a happy ending or is their story a tragic one?

ohhhhh marigold ;) Their main arc is going to be them slowly coming to shake off the Princess' abuse. That they've lived through so many tragedies, and unfortunatly they must live through another. Finally finding a real bright spot in their life and feeling the warmth it emminates, and the stolen joy they get from it, and realizing their other bright spot is cold and dim in comparision, and that while neither light can sustain them forever, they must make a choice about which light they want to feed, which light they want to die with. When we first meet Marigold they are fully under her thumb, actively enjoying her torturing them without consent. Over time... well. for a long few year they're still unable to find fault in her, but in those last few months, they turn more towards "damning with faint praise". Eventually, they'll leave, but they'll never be fully rid of her influence, and they'll bear the marks of her abuse for the rest of their days, from their tattoos, to the loss of their vision and memories, to the ways they flinch when a voice is raised near them. Marigold's ending is bittersweet.

2: How long was the process before the character reached its final version? (or a version that would be clearly recognizable as the character?)

OH GOSH OKAY UH so Elias started as a vampire character with their partner, @the-insouciant-scientist's mad scientist! that is. about the only resemblance dfjvkdsjbdkvbk they were originally turn of the century edwardians, or just getting into the roaring 20s? we played around with the time period somewhat. this was back in, i believe, 2019, long before i got into TMA and heard how brits Actually pronounce 'Elias'. Elias' whole thing was they were a vampire who had turned recently, but not too recently. like a few months ago, so they're kinda used to it but also still working out a lot of the kinks ;P then i had my accident, and whenever i became a (basically) full-time wheelchair user, so did elias after that, Rye got into TMA and heard The Ad, and we decided to put our funny little victorians in the game!!! this was also whenever i started playing with elias' gender and presentation and made them very femme (as i was figuring out my own stuff) the first year/year and a half Elias was mostly a name and incredibly loose concept, i was just exploring things i thought were fun and cool! it's only within the past two and a half years that i would say elias has become Elias Leroux, chemist, dubious royal, Gonfaloniere, and sweetheart of half the city!!! once i transferred from the reddit side of the fandom to the tumblr side, and got over my anti fears, accepted that i like gothic horror, gothic romance, and gothic tropes, they really kind of bloomed into what they are now!!! my early concepts for them were a lot fluffier and sweeter which... is nice, but not so much my thing all the time, ya know? i wanted elias to go through difficult horrors and make choices from fear and i really wanted to do stuff with blood and giant monsterous bats (especially after heavily playing sskies and seeing the chiropterous hoarder <3) and that's what i've been focusing on mostly!!! a lot of it what honestly kicked off when i went "hey, i wonder what the consequences of this would be" for abandoning light fingers, and also there was a huge turning point for elias becoming their own character whenever i played the Swan Bride ES and they became gonfaloniere, and i got the chance to dive into toxins and- so... about 3 years!! 7: another favorite appearance aspect: okay, i'll finally let myself gush about it a little: ELIAS' WHEELCHAIR!!!!!! it's so fucking prtty if i say so myself!!!! the wood color is gorgeous, the heart back (based on that historical example) is inspired, the way it also kinda looks like a throne? how comfortable elias is in it? the fact that i can have their spokes decorated in flowers of ribbons, or all the scientific add-ons they can have for it? the secret compartments? it's such a fantastic chair, and every day i am so jealous that elias gets to have a HEART SHAPED wheelchair!!!!!!! i love their chair so much!!!!!! and it being a possessive and manipulative gifts from happles where it can easily control their chair? ough j'adore!!! it's a fantastic chair and it makes me so happy to draw and write about :} ask game here

[choicesficwriterscreations]

October 2023 WOTM: peonierose

Each month CFWC highlights one of our talented fanfic writers, and this month’s writer of the month is @peonierose. We hope you will enjoy learning more about them and their work below! The writer is selected at random. More info can be found on the navigation page.

Quick Links:

Tumblr Blog: peonierose Blog Masterlist

How do you want to be known on Tumblr? Peonie or PR is fine 🥰

1- When did you start playing Choices? What was the first book you played? 

Way back when Choices first launched. My first book was The Freshman Series - book 1. It was so fun to play the books and get super excited for new chapters. I was waiting until midnight for new chapters. It was the first time I’ve played an app where I could make decisions and use diamonds for VIP scenes 😍

2- When and why did you join Choices fandom?

I joined the Choices fandom back in 2021. I really missed Open Heart after book 3 ended (and left me wanting more) So I wanted to see if there were any more stories I could binge, and that’s how I stumbled upon Tumblr 🥰

3- How did you pick your blog name? 

It may sound weird but it just came to me. Peonies are my favorite flowers. As soon as I thought peonie I quickly added rose and I was like that sounds so cool and it’s unique which I love 😍 And that’s how peonierose was born. 

4- Pull up the first post in your archive, and tell us about it!  

Gosh. This feels like forever ago. When I first came on tumblr I didn’t post or reblog much 😅 (too shy to interact with anyone 🙈)

5- How long have you been writing fanfiction?

It has been 2 years in August this year since I’ve actively started writing fanfic 🥰 (I still can’t believe I actually made the leap and decided to post any of my stories). 

6- What is your favorite Choices book, and what is your favorite Choices book to write about?

You’re really going to make me choose? There are so many good ones 😱

I love to write for two of my favorite books which are Nightbound and Open Heart. Those are the ones I feel most connected to 🥰 Though I’d love to venture out and make edits or social media posts for other choices books too. 

7- Share the first fanfic you wrote with us. Do you still like it, or would you change it if you were writing it today?

I wrote Robin‘s Tell-All from TNA, and it was the first fic I’ve ever shared. I really wanted to write a story from Robin‘s POV and how all that happened in TNA affected him and all the mistakes he made. 

I wanted to showcase his inner struggle. 

I remember how nervous I was to post something that I’d written. I thought to myself, will people even like my story? And if they do like it, then what? It was a great rush to see the reblogs, and the love for my first-ever posted fic. 

If I could change one thing, it would probably be the moodboard 😅

8- What is your favorite fic that you’ve written?

That is a tough question, because to me every fic I‘ve written has a special place in my heart. So every story reflects the feelings I’ve felt while writing my story. 

Buuuuut if I had to choose: It would be a tie between By a Landslide (Bryce and Luna), the 3rd chapter of my Nightbound series - Unexpected and Go with the Flow (Luna & Bryce) 

9- Do you have a fic that you didn’t expect to be well received, but it was? What about one you expected to be but found could use a little more love?

I actually didn’t think I’m a sucker for you, A Pinch of Pink and Blue…This one‘s for you,  Cinnamon Sugar and Wildflower, to be as well received as they did. 

However, I think Bittersweet Symphony and Losing Game (1 / 4) could use some more love. 

Both stories are amazing and I think you’ll love both my pairings. Luna & Bryce and of course Maxine and Adam. 

10- If you could write only angst, fluff, or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why? 

I am by no means a smut writer 😅 Maybe I’ll get there 😅 But I’d go with a mix between angst and fluff. I think a nice balance between these two would be good. 

11- Do you ever recognize yourself in any of your MCs or in your writing?

Yeah. Tons of times. Take Luna for example. She has anxiety like me, and her appearance, such as her blue-green eyes and dark blonde hair, are like mine. But character wise we’re complete opposites. I wish I’d be more artistic like her 🩷

And Bryce is an Aries like me, and so many things he says or does make me go back, and I’m like, yeah, I would say something like that. Other than that, I’ve learned to give my characters real flaws and make them human, if that makes sense. But it does happen that they end up with character traits that are mine, and then I lean back and realize I’ve given my characters some of my weird and quirky character traits 🤣

12- What element of writing do you struggle with most?

Damn. Umm…I struggle with a lot of things. Finding the right words sometimes because English isn’t my first, not even my second language. I speak six languages, so it's sometimes hard to find the words to describe things. 

Showing, not telling that’s another thing I struggle with. 

That and if I have to keep a deadline to post something 🤣 Because it takes me forever to post anything I’m not 100% behind and happy with. 

13- Do you have any neglected work you really want to finish?

How much time you’ve got? I have over 30 wips, that want some desperate attention, and I always keep adding new wips, whenever something inspires me to write 😅 

I’ve found some new inspo for Somewhere Only We Know 🥰 Apart from that I’d love to take another look at my two AU‘s Amber & my Nightbound series. So we’ll see what wips I can manage to finish 😅 

14- If someone you know in real life (who isn’t involved in fandoms) asked to read your work, would you let them? If yes, what would you recommend they read first? 

Sure. I’d love to get an outside opinion of my work and my characters that are so beloved and close to my heart 🩷

I actually tell people that I write fanfic and original work. And I’ve sent some samples their way and they liked it. Which makes me feel more confident in my writing (not saying it’s perfect, there’s always room for improvement, but it’s getting better). 

As for which story to start? I’d say start with Only Love for Bryce and Luna. That was my first story of them and I consider it their start. 

Then continue with Always & Forever and Go with the Flow. 

Those were my first posted stories about Luna & Bryce and I think you’ll like them. It would give you a good understanding of my storytelling and my characters. 

15 - Are there any writers (published authors and/or fanfic writers) who influenced your writing? 

There are a couple of authors I admire - Chloe Neil, Elise Kova, Nalini Singh, Rachel Caine (R.I.), Rebecca Yarros, and many more. They have influenced and shaped my writing, my fantasy world-building, and, of course building my characters. These authors know how to tell great stories, which makes me admire them so much. 

As for fanfic writers who’ve inspired me? I’d love to give a special shoutout to one of my closest friends who’s been my beta reader for almost anything @annieruok She’s an amazing person and writer. Thanks so much for all the times listening to my ramblings about scenes and characters 🩷 

16- Which one of your stories would you most like to see as a movie/series? 

My Nightbound series hands down. That is a story that really deserves to be on the big screen or as a Netflix show. I’m not picky. 

I’d love to see Grey, Gretel and Hänsel kick some ass. It’s a unique enough story to garner some attention 🥰 I’ve worked really hard to write it and it took me a year to come up with chapters, character names and so forth. 

Also Somewhere Only We Know would be cool to see on the big screen. I’d probably weep from joy if any of my stories were ever developed as a movie or series 🥰🥹

17- Do you write original fiction? 

Yes, I actually do. I have several original works in my Google docs. And just recently, I had an idea for another original story (I don’t feel comfortable sharing it yet) 🥰 But let’s just say it’s fun to come up with the characters and world-building and everything in between. 

18 -  What other hobbies do you have?

Reading books, trying out new recipes in the kitchen. This also reminds me I need to exercise more 🤣 

Taking walks & going shopping. 

Hanging out with friends and binge watching shows and movies on Disney+ and Netflix. Just trying to  enjoy every single moment that every day has to offer 🩷 

19 - What’s your favorite emoji? 

It’s a toss between these three 🥰😍🩷 (What can I say I love pink 🩷 not just because of the new Barbie movie and the pinkmania 🩷) 

20: BONUS - tell us anything you’d like (if you want to).

First, I wanted to say thank you to everyone. For being picked as writer of the month is a huge honor 🥰 Thank you to everyone who has ever taken the time to read my stories, reblog them, and leave some unbelievably nice words. 

I’m very grateful that you guys took the time to shower me with love. Sometimes, I wonder what I did to deserve some of your nice words and love. I also wanted to give a special shoutout to some of the people who are very dear to me. 🩷 

Thank you guys for supporting me. Being there for me - through great and not so great times - I‘ll never be able repay your kindness 🩷 You guys make me strive to be a better version of myself and I couldn’t be more happy to call you my friends 🩷

@annieru0k @cariantha @txem @doriopenheart @mysticalgalaxy @aallotarenunelma @inlocusmads @heavenssexiestangel @socalwriterbee @secretaryunpaid @ofmischiefandmedicine @starrystarrytrouble @the-pale-goddess @takemyopenheart @quixoticdreamer16 @princess-geek @eleanorbloom

[delilaahh9]

Pages Turning

September 20th, 2021

2:39 am

Annabelle would rather do anything then be on bed rest, sure she has wasted so many days by just laying in bed but those were illness or pure laziness, when she had the choice to, now she is actively forced. Jack was able to drive her home before practice where he explained the whole situation to his parents since she was still… drugged up from surgery.

Ellen had told her to take a nap to which Anna declined and kept “crunching” herself out of her room, to the point where Jim shut her door at 7pm after dinner and said he’d put a piece of tape at the bottom of her door so if she opened it then the tape would rip off and he would know.

Now she sits up against her headboard with her notebook and guitar in hand.

Her feelings had been getting the best of her, seeing a picture from a party last night and slightly in the background was mark smiling at a girl who had her arm looped through his. Which sent the brunette down a rabbit hole of song writing about her feelings.

“she.. wears your number..” she smiles and writes the lyric down.

She began to hum a melody when her door was lightly pushed open. “Luke no” she scolds when her brother enters the room.

“What?” He asks.

“Dad taped my door I’m gonna get in shit” she whispers.

“um.. there was no tape on your door” he says back with eye brows drawn in, then opens up the door to show her. “Dammit” she groans and sits back.

“Whatcha singing?” He asks while laying down next to her.

“new music” the brunette mumbles and closes her book only for him to take it and flip it to the first page titled “bad ones” and began to read, While she set her guitar to the side.

“Holy shit Annie, who is this about?” He asks and flips to the next song called “rubberband”

“um, those two are about max” she says quietly and embarrassed she writing about a relationship from 3 years ago.

“I always knew he was a dick.. like I always knew” he emphasizes but keeps looking through the book.

“I know Luke, you mention every-” she noticed he was stopped at the one she was just working on so she snatched it away and hid it under her back.

“woah woah woah what was that” he asked.

“Nothing for your eyes” she mumbles and picks up her phone which she hasn’t been on since earlier yesterday when she chucked it on the pavement. Leaving a crack across the bottom.

“woah” she mutters seeing 15 messages from her friends and 10 alone from mark.

Care 🐻

Hey babes!

I heard what happened

I’m gonna drop off some soup my momma made tomorrow Morning.

Thank you carigan 💗

Abigail

Dukers told me what happened.

If you need anything let me know! :(

Of course, thank you 💗

Zo Zo🌷

Talked to e today :(

How’s my girl feeling?

I’m alright

Doc said no dancing till fall :(

Oh my god?!

mhm but it gives me more time to write

Write a song about me before your famous!

I won’t be famous.. but I’ll think about it 😉 

“Wake me if you need anything, okay?” Luke says as he stands up. “night”

“Goodnight Luke” she says back and begins to dial marks phone number.

“Anna, are you okay?” He says when he answers after one ring.

“Yes mark, I’m alright, a little sore but I’ll be.. ok” she sighs, it won’t be okay. She can’t do one of the two things that makes her happy in this world.

“I know you’re not alright, which is why I’m coming over- not now- but tomorrow afternoon. So you aren’t home alone”

“Don’t you have a game to play tomorrow night- actually I have a game to go to.”

“He will be okay if you miss it Ann, and it’s just a practice which is from 8-10 so I’ll get to you about 11“

“Thank you-” she cuts herself off with a loud yawn. “But I think I gotta go to bed”

“You do, goodnight princess”

“Night mark”

It took her a second, but then she realized what he had called her.

*Princess*

[riddleredcoats]

I just finished my first playthrough of Veilguard and boy oh boy, do i have thoughts.

but, TLDR:

Bros, this game is so fucking strange.

It literally giving me everything I wanted; every theory for the past 10 years I've had to speculate is bang on, they bring niche characters in a way that makes sense, they give us nice romances, they give us cool combat, EPIC set pieces and then [gestures].

Anyway, this is more for posterity than any real, coherent thoughts.

The Good:

I don't know what sort of wizardry the devs at Bioware made for this game, but this game runs smooth AF. Actually insane in the year of our lord 2024 that a AAA viddy game manages to do it. Kudos must be given.

The art-style grows on you really fast, actually. And considering what happens in the game, especially in the back half, I think making it more stylised was necessary to also compliment the aforementioned point of it running smoothly.

There is in fact, a lot of dark themes in this game. I don't know what game some reviewers played, but to say its basically a clean version of a DA game is... just wrong. I have a theory, in the Bad section, about why they believe that is the case, but Veilguard is filled with Dark Themes.

The set pieces of this game are fucking insane. Like, there is no comparison to any other Bioware game. Even ME3 with its bombastic set pieces isn't a match to Veilguard in the prologue. The Siege at Weisshaupt? Gagged the whole way through. That last 2-4hrs of game were amazing and while I have beef with it - further down - for what it is and what it is trying to be? They succeeded. Some of the best viddy game I have ever viddy gamed, frankly.

The lore drops are also insane. I basically watched all of Solas regrets back to back to back and basically it was confirmation upon confirmation upon confirmation. I'm still in the high of the Solas/Mythal confirmation and that happened like 3 days ago, lmao. And if you know me, you know why - it goes wayyy beyond Solas and Mythal for me, personally.

Morrigan's place in the narrative. Keeping it vague, but just [gestures to all of it].

Issenya... Just... Issenya, man.

The companions. Yeah, they're all great, I don't think there's really a dud one. Sure, I connected more with some than others, but man- these companion quests are involved and meaningful and progress the story. You do get to know them very well. Harding, Neve, Davrin and Emmerich will always have a place in my heart for their questlines, even though I love all the other companions too - but those really resonated with me.

Combat. Holy shit, a DA game with a fun combat system. That's all really.

The Middling

The music. I don't love it but I don't hate it. I can count on one hand the amount of times the music made me feel something - basically the last scene of the Harding questline and when The Main Theme came in during the final quests. Trevor Morris reigns supreme; I teared up more for The Lost Elf theme return than any other musical moment in the game.

The pacing of this game is... baffling. I'm not sure if its my own fault for basically trying to do everything in the first act, but Act 1 took me like 40 hours, while the remaining two acts took me 20. Weird. Will need to experiment because it might absolutely be on me, but yeah.

The Bad

It's basically one thing but honestly, every time it was brough up it was like a dagger piercing my heart while my stomach was stepped on by a bronto.

The lack of geopolitical talk both past and present.

Much as been said from the infamous 3 choices that Veilguard imports - and I will say, that even those 3 are laughably implemented imo - but never is it more felt than in this aspect. The past straight up does not matter. Worse; they actively disregard it imo. There is no difference between world states, no world leader talk, no nothing. It is just... nothing. And listen, the specifics deserve their own post eventually, but im just processing shit still.

The game is really fun, and the themes and characters that are there and the lore is fantastic and when im locked in, I'm REALLY locked in, but then when I try to put it in the context of the past games, what I loved about it - the politics, the disagreements, the sheer brutal way that history and prejudice can just fuck up a country, Veilguard just... it feels hollow, without any bite or flavour.

And this is the crux of all the problems, really, in the present in Veilguard.

The way people talked about the dark tone being gone? Yeah, I can see it here considering that there is no distinction between Dalish and City Elves anymore basically. The discrimination against elves is just... gone, apparently? Which is insane - because we are in Tevinter and it's just... abandoned? The way Rivain is all cool and shit about Magic and Spirits with like zero nuance or, more imporantly, any real consequences when [gestures to the past games] - it just makes the South Really Dumb because of course they are now ig. The Crows - these assassins that bought children to train, in what amounted to a sponsored slavery ring - are now freedom fighters and all the nuance of the assassinations is gone? The Wardens are fine mostly, really, but they are suddenly very above board all of the sudden.

And that's the whole thing here.

They have tried to make everyone stay so above board, to make everyone The Perfect Ally That No One In The Real World Can Criticise, that it retroactively sucked all the nuance and Flavour For Thedas At Large out of the story. It made the story worse because everyone is just so gosh dang nice and A Super Ally when in past games the conflict, the flavour of the Whatever Big Struggle was that everyone hated each other and was constantly in-fighting. Which made it fun and interesting to play.

Okay, sorry i forgot I had another one:

the fuck is that ending credit scene? with the executors implying they have been behind everything since DAO? Oh man, Bioware you can't do those types of stories - you tried in ME3 and [gestures]. Why can't Loghain just be a dude traumatized by Orlais which led to All The Things in DAO? Why can't Bartrand just be a greedy bastard whose actions bring about DA2 and DAI and basically informs Varric's character from then on?

What the hell.

Anyway.

Yeah, initial Veilguard thoughts.

Oh yeah, and Neve is hot and I love her.

[mariedemedicis]

I know reddit sucks but gahhh, so pissed. someone made a post asking why dawn doesn’t have any friends in the buffy subreddit and saying that they thought an episode or two revolving around dawn and her friends would be interesting and would give dawn something to do in season 7. the comments are filled with ‘ew no’ ‘everyone hates dawn’ ‘that would have sucked’ ‘she’s annoying’ which are stupid enough but i have to single out these two which really fucking made me want to blow my top:

first comment which is completely fine -

> Dawns a lot more liked now but she was wildly unpopular when the show was airing, it would have been insane for them to take the focus from their lead and make it the Dawn show no one was asking for

It would be a cute idea for the odd episode but not to take the focus of the show

okay that’s not even what op was saying, you’re exaggerating 🙄 but whatever not a big deal

now we have the reply to the above comment:

> Agreed. Because I still don’t like Dawn - and I’m 38 now. Lol

and the reply to that:

> And I'm over 10 yrs older than YOU and it's STILL a struggle to like her...I remind myself of her being-a-key trauma; I remind myself she displays typical young teen annoyingness; I remind myself she lost her parents young, etc., etc. Honestly, I exhaust myself trying to be nicer in my thoughts about her LOL 😅😂😭

sooo, you’re both old enough to be Dawn’s parent at this point based on your own admission of how old you are (which you literally volunteered and no one asked you) and yet in the almost three decades since the show aired, you haven’t stopped hating a literal child character…okay. I think you’re telling on yourself more than you think.

reminds me of that post I saw yesterday about fandom misogyny and having to make an active choice to care about the female characters. that’s never really been much of any issue for me. unlike the typical person ig 🤷🏻‍♀️ I mean I absolutely have my blind spots but I’ve always been drawn to the female characters in a thing and as I’ve gotten older, I’ve also gotten more discerning about not really wanting to even start watching or reading something that has very few female characters.

Idk, seeing those two comments enraged me and like yes, I know, I know, it’s not deep, it’s about a fictional character. My instinctive reaction which (please applaud) I did not carry through on was to say ‘get well soon’. But nonetheless, I hope I never turn out to be like these people. I hope I never end up stuck in my thinking from thirty years ago, unable to reconsider, learn, and admit I was wrong, that I was not working to overcome my inherent/societal biases.

I'm not trying to portray myself as some kind of angel. There are plenty of teen/kid characters that I don't particularly like. But you know what I don't do? I don't go onto posts made by people who like those characters and shit on them. When I articulate a criticism, I also manage to say something more intelligent that that they're annoying.

In conclusion, I would like to share this comment which I vibe super hard with (minimal cut because this was long):

> [...] I'm kinda confused cause I always went into the show thinking "Dawn's a cool plot device but you'll be annoyed by her" and then she does like...nothing. Maybe there's some episode she's a real dip I'm missing but otherwise she's a pretty casual character who occasionally pouts on her bed because she never existed and her family occasionally has to forget about her needs to save the world. Even I think Giles has gotten kidnapped equally or more so I really don't understand the "we have to save Dawn ugh" type thing except for the one season where she was actively being hunted. She also steals sometimes, oh no, send her to Guantanimo I guess.

Honestly the way I saw it was she was always capable but never respected and it manifested in bad ways. She was completely willing and ready to sacrifice what was actually a very short, scary existence for all the people she was made to love which is touching, and she's only like 14. She also watches Buffy and effectively takes on a hoard of demons with her. She has utility even without proper combat training but Buffy doesn't want that because she's her sister and she wants her to live a normal, safe life while Dawn realizes she's more in Xander positions where she literally can't and wants her sister and friends to let her be useful. I think they were finally getting there having Xander acknowledge her efforts and letting her taze him to show urgency as well. Unfortunately they didn't start that sooner and kept babysitting Dawn's character, which is realistic considering her age but definitely a detriment to the character. [...]

[wirewitchviolet]

Thinking About How We Talk

This is one of those subjects I bring up now and then where it feels like I'm lighting a match to inspect some powder kegs. So right up front let me say this is NOT going to be a post where I'm going to actively police the language you use, talk at all about George Orwell, or be some sort older out of touch person who just doesn't understand how younger generations talk. This is all about encouraging personal reflection, considering word choices, inoculating yourself against nasty rhetorical tactics, and history lessons here.

And before I do the whole cut thing I also want to get into a real obvious example of why all this is important. In the last couple of years, people have finally been catching up to this, but for the vast majority of my life, everyone was bafflingly cool with calling the extremists with such a hard-core anti-abortion stance they'd gleefully push policies where people were forced into definitely-a-stillbirth situation which additionally posed a serious risk to their lives and engaged in full on terrorism against people performing abortions or even just potentially pointing people towards the right resources, in a full on bombs and mass shootings in doctor's offices sort of way. And aside from just the disgusting hypocrisy involved in that, this language control was actually effective enough that a huge number of people with pretty reasonable thoughts like "well obviously I don't have a say in what other people do, but I think if I ended up pregnant, even if it wasn't a planned thing, I'd go ahead and have that baby" thought that that meant they were "pro-life" and shouldn't oppose people claiming to be such. That's the sort of terrible situation you get when you just kinda roll with the language shifts total monsters push for.

That's a real grim note to start this off on, so let me dial it back a little. As you may or may not know, just about 10 years ago now, my life went down kind of a weird road where I suddenly found myself spending basically all my time monitoring and combating really hardcore far right extremist groups and their various pushes to mainstream their garbage. The most prominent example of this was the whole Gamergate thing, and the less-publicized string of similar 4chan "ops" where a bunch of creeps from this weird insular pile of misanthropic nazis would do their best to disguise themselves as normal functioning human beings and subtley spread their hateful crap. This was obviously awful in so many ways, but on a certain level it was kind of hilarious because the vast majority of these people were just completely incapable of speaking like normal human beings. They'd be pretending to be concerned housewives or black civil rights activists but still pepper everything with 4chan post signifiers, talking about "cucks" and "fags" and doing the whole bit of ">be me >walk into a walmart >see some SJW talking about mysoggyknees >puke" and whatnot. You could spot them from miles away and see right through them. TERFs of course still work on this level, trying to talk to normal people and rambling about "TIMs" and "large gametes" and "adult human females" and all that.

Now eventually, by and large, they've gotten steadily better at masking this crap. There's some terms and typing styles that have generally dropped off, there's a lot of weird coded phrases they use now that couple plausibly come from the mouths of normal people, but more than anything else, they made this HUGE push years back to infest the hell out of youtube and other websites with a lot of unattended impressionable children. They'd do things like ramble about Minecraft and... whatever else it was 12 year olds were really into around 2015 or so, and subtly pepper in their weird rhetoric, terminology, and conspiracy theories, trying to indoctrinate kids too young to know better, and frankly they made pretty good inroads. I don't know that they were super effective at turning that many kids into full on nazis, but they did a great job of normalizing a bunch of jargon and they at least messed with kids values enough for them to age into the sort of witch-hunting weirdos you see all over Tumblr here just itching to bun people at the stake for being too sex positive or whatever other weird arbitrary reason.

Now, I don't like this because I can no longer look at someone talking about "Chads" and "cucking" and such and know without the slightest doubt that that's one of those hardcore fascist creeps talking, which bugs me but, ow well, damage done. But also, you know, words mean things. You really can influence someone's thought patterns by encouraging trends in their vocabularies. Cults know this, that's why they're so keen on actually policing the hell out of how members talk, getting them to only express certain concepts in certain ways and all, so they don't ever question certain baseline assumptions and whatnot. And that still applies when you freely choose to adopt certain language.

This isn't always a huge problem. Hardcore nazis talk about "Chads" all the time as part of this super messed up offshoot of pickup artistry where there are inherently superior "Chads" that whatever woman you're hoping to manipulate into banging you are always going to pick over you, the wannabe pickup artist loser, because ultimately women are awful contemptible things incapable of seeing your best qualities, and when you go down that rabbit hole far enough people push you into going on killing sprees in hope of the government being brought to their knees and forcing women to ignore their Chad preference and date people like you under penalty of imprisonment or something. Super messed up, but as that one got mainstreamed it seems to have distorted a bit into a general (and maybe even gender neutral) term for someone cool you should try to emulate.

Then you have terms like "cuck" getting mainstreamed. That's a word that just DID NOT EXIST in the popular consciousness until about a decade ago. It was a thing previously, but only in specialized porn circles. It's short of "cuckold," this odd antiquated term, where you have this specific scenario where some white guy walks in on his wife or girlfriend having sex with a particularly physically impressive black man, and just kind of blubbers impotently as she brags about how impressive the new guy is. I assume it caught on with the general public because ha ha, the nazis are identifying with this loser in this obscure porn fetish. Meanwhile for the nazis this is total propaganda for all their garbage about "the great replacement theory" and general threat posed by black men and the concept of women being property to be defended and all that crap, and like... that's just inherently what the concept is here? You can't deploy "cuck" as an insult without at least SOME buy-in to, at the very least, some of that idea of women showing any sort of sexual interest in other people is a sign of failure on behalf of some guy who on at leas some level owns them and needs to defend their property from others and that's just a really messed up world view to enforce? Particularly when you're doing so as an alternative to just calling some pathetic loser a pathetic loser, or any number of other things that get that same point across.

Worse than that though? Cringe. To cringe is to physically recoil in instinctive disgust as an involuntary reaction to something profoundly terrifying or unpleasant. Like opening the door to a closet and having a wall of maggots suddenly collapse down from behind it or something. Fascists love to use this to describe the various sorts of human beings they intensely dislike and want to exterminate. "I can't articulate just what it is about just seeing this queer person existing in public that makes me shudder in revulsion, and that's cool because I love not thinking about my reactions and just acting on them" basically. And when someone who isn't a fascist refers to someone or something as "cringe" they... also mean it in exactly that fashion. The whole concept behind turning the word into an adjective like this is to externalize personal feelings of disgust and turn them into some objective flaw in the source, rather than analyze why you feel that way. It's really just not a concept you should have ANY term for, let alone this specific one. Like it's fine to be disgusted by someone, but you should always be able to clearly articulate why you feel that way. Like, say, "ugh, look at these disgusting losers who set up a whole message board just to stalk a bunch of random queer people. Could you ever imagine having such an inability to find joy in anything that that would seem like the best way to spend your time?" That's totally fine. But if you're ever in a situation where you're disgusted by someone and can't put a finger on why? There's some chance you're being groomed into irrationally hating people over some signifier they're a member of a group hate groups want wiped out. So you know, maybe strongly consider just dropping that one from your vocabulary?

Or how about the real big obvious one, "woke?" I feel like out of all of these, this is the one people are most likely to toss around without really thinking about what it actually means. So history lesson! Back in 2014 there was this absolutely horrific incident where a cop absolutely brutally murdered a child who was walking down the street in Ferguson, Missouri. Shot him six times, in front of a good number of witnesses. When questioned on it spouted off some absolutely WILD BS about him having superpowers, being a demon, and "bulking up" when shot. These are actual quotes, I want to be clear. Not only did he face no actual repercussions for this, he wasn't even charged with a crime, and there was a rather profoundly large number of people in law enforcement lining up to back up this murderer's story that he absolutely had to completely unload his gun into an unarmed child with hands over his head in the head to keep him from using his demonic super strength to tear him limb from limb.

Being such an astonishingly clear cut example of... this thing that cops are constantly doing to black children all over the country and all, there was a good deal of press coverage and protesting over this, and for a VERY brief period, maybe a month or two? People who were on the scene being terrorized by shockingly militarized police while they tried to hold candlelight vigils for this murdered child were referring to themselves as "woke." As in "this incident woke me up to the fact that racist cops really do have complete institutional protection any time they feel like straight up murdering an innocent child like this." Right wing monsters didn't quite immediately co-opt the term. There was a bit of workshopping from the more media savvy/TV show hosting far right types, particularly this whole embarrassing effort to try and make "black lives matter" sound in some way threatening, before they eventually settled on making "woke" into this slur that definitely and specifically does refer to "anyone who objects to police being allowed to murder innocent black children without fear of consequence" but is obfuscated enough to have some plausible deniability.

Now, I'll admit there may have been a bit of linguistic drift amongst the far right with the specific definition of the term. The edges may have blurred some on who it can be applied to, since we are talking about a crowd who relies pretty heavily on growth through emotional appeal, frowns on self-reflection, flattens terminology, and really prefer vague blanket catch-alls to targeting specific minorities because it's just easier that way. The spirit behind it has never changed at all though. It's still a declaration of seething hate and a demand for a general social status quo where it's basically OK for state agents to murder the sort of people they consider to be undesirable.

How about the usage of the term amongst people who aren't complete monsters? Well, the people who were originally self-describing themselves as "woke" stopped using it pretty damn quick, I think around the second time one of them was found with a fatal bullet wound in his chest, in his car, which was set on fire. As in more than one person protesting the whole police murdering innocent people deal was murdered in this specific ritualistic way. Serious stuff went down in Ferguson and we really should talk about it more. Then though, more recently, there are a hell of a lot of people you would maybe think should know much better who are... also tossing the word "woke" around in a sneering slur-adjacent fashion? Sometimes it's in this vague mocking contempt sort of way like "ooh, I guess this movie that just came out is 'woke' right, because there's a black woman as a major character?" Maybe more often though it's in some context of throwing people under the bus? Like, "hey, I consider myself left wing, but I'm not part of that woke crowd!" Which, you know, that's just a whole category of crap people say that should raise a red flag that they're trying to talk fascists into considering them good people before we even get into how you're actually saying you're OK with cops murdering innocent children. Again, I'm not saying you HAVE to immediately completely drop this term from your personal vocabulary, but, you know, I'd really appreciate it if you put some thought into it and whether there's a good reason you shouldn't?

For that matter, it's worth a bit of examination on how the hell this is even an issue in the first place? Like, how do people who aren't just the absolute worst pieces of human garbage constantly getting into a positon where they're talking like creeps making posts on obscure insular hate sites a decade ago? I'm pretty confident guessing it more or less always starts off with some sort of attempt at mockery. Maybe a few instances of trying to talk to people on their own level. And this all almost certainly comes from some kind of weird elitist viewpoint where people end up thinking far right monsters talk the way they do because they're stupid, unlike them, sophisticated well-educated people with refined sensibilities and a snappy sense of humor and wordplay or something.

Now... I'm not going to say that hardcore nazis AREN'T breath-takingly stupid. You have to be a pathetic loser with an extreme inferiority complex to sign up, and once you do you marinate in an echo chamber of propaganda slogans and extremely discouraged from ever taking time to really think about what you're doing or questioning anything you're told and all. That's going to dull your wit quite a bit. But here's the thing. Let's picture someone who just sits in a little shack somewhere who never talks to anyone, never reads, never thinks about anything of any sort to any degree except for forging axe-heads. He's got a forge in there, he was trained in how to do this one specific thing, it's the only thing he does, and he does it all day every day. Odds are pretty good you could beat this guy handily at any sort of battle of wits, trivia contest, philosophical discussion on the nature of humanity, etc. But I think we could all agree that it would be incredibly stupid of you to assume you could forge a better axe than this guy.

Fascists are like this, but instead of forging axe heads, the one thing they do at the expense of everything else is normalizing extreme bigotry. You're not going to beat them at the game of screwing with norms and language usage. You're not going to "own" them by using the terminology they use. You're going to internalize that hateful crap to SOME degree and poison your own thinking with it. Don't ever let them define any terms or otherwise control a conversation. Don't ever assume out of hand you have a shared understanding of what words mean with them. Really try to avoid ever speaking to them at all.

And hey, if you do make it a point like I do of being actively mindful to never use the same vocabulary as fascist pieces of garbage, and get into it with people around you who do, aside from everything else it makes it damn near impossible for any sort of cryptofascists to get a foothold trying to recruit you or mess with you (by which I mean nazis trying to hide that they're nazis not nazis trying to get you into NFTs or whatever but honestly WOW is there a lot of overlap).

All of this being said of course, I again remind you, hey, don't turn into some weird purity purging creep policing people's language. This isn't exactly an adjacent concept to what I'm talking about here. There's a pretty wide gulf. But just in case, I'm emphasizing it here. I've seen people do weird witch hunts over things like someone praising a fictional character as a good representation of someone on the autism spectrum or whatever and not liking the specific language they used to do so. Or like, hell, do I need to get into a whole sidetrack about the big campaign from TERFs to try and convince people that the word queer is a slur and try to ban queer people off sites like this one here for using it? Yeah don't have any part in that sort of crap. Just try to personally not parrot crap fascists say is all I'm getting at here.

[doodles-with-noodles]

*Crashes through your window*

I AM BACK!!!

Group activities they sometimes do?

Which of your characters do you think could beat which of mine in a fight? (See I can do that too >:D)

Was there also an Icarus 8-A? What happened to it?

How many people aproximately are on the spaceship in the mind burglars? Like, 20? 60? 200?

Did Cecil still fake his death? Would he do it after the mission in this case?

Who likes hugs?

What happened with Anthony and Ed that made them fall in love?

Anyone that is very religious?

OC that thinks arson can solve problems very well.

Most likely to adopt a random kitten and/or child.

UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN! *Runs away*

*Falls and trips over a branch comedically"

*sensible chuckle*

I told you about the museum archives group activities, so now I’ll tell you about the Icarus 8-B: crew game nights (micro-g-wrestling is highly beloved by the crew but not by the captain, board games or chucking around a ball are usually the sensible solutions), talking a lot, „family dinners“ that are also used to check on people, lots of talking and reading and doing silly stuff while floating.

Mathildis. His magic and understanding of it are pretty strong. In an absolute worst-case scenario he could even replicate the effects of the Mistletoe (is it replicated if it’s based on him?) and well. explode all of them

Icarus 8-A was a testing probe for their current mission- in fact, Icarus 8-B is the first mission so close to the sun again in 16 years. There was a manned Icarus 1 with six crew members that lost contact all that time ago- most others since were test flights or probes and maybe one or two failed attempts to retrieve Icarus 1. I think it helps if I explain this mission‘s purpose (and I wanna loredrop)

So Icarus 8-B does 4 complete orbits in one year around the sun. The mission has to: get to the sun and collect data, retrieve probe Icarus 4 and 8-A during swing 1 and 2, (4 was for general sun observation and has been circling there for 14 years- Icarus 8-A simulated all successful swing-by maneuvers and the suspected route to Icarus 1). During Swing 3, they will investigate and retrieve mission information on Icarus 1- if that’s not successful, Swing 4 will be the final chance. After that, Icarus 1 will be destroyed since they probably won’t be able to transport anything beyond a few mementos back. Like, a space burial.

4. I wanted to tweak more with character information, so it would maybe be more probable if Roscoe was on his own and they were more „actual“ Astronauts- so it’s only them, 7 people and the stakes for Roscoe are even higher because criminals don’t fly to space. If his secret comes out his entire career is at stake. So it’s only, well, all of them.

5. I‘m… not sure to be honest. I think it would prove quite impossible.

6. Jules, Ed and Norna. Cecil is probably quite unused to it, but likes them too.

7. They were stuck together and discovered the other might not be as bad as they thought, and also began to communicate better. They made a choice one could say.

8. Malik I think, who often prays to the gods and Anthony, because, well. put a man into space and he starts to pray.

9. Anthony, just because he can, Charlie, Cian and Cecil-out-of-his-mind edition (does a giant plasma ball in space count as arson?)

10. Roscoe… he’s that bitch that just becomes the greatest pseudo-father to ever exist and suddenly in twenty years he is the grandfather of your children. Family invasion.

[kuromi-hoemie]

🌻

lol it being completely open ended to talk about whatever i want, i went on a tangent (⁠〒⁠﹏⁠〒⁠) I'm putting it below the read more

i think.. it'll be funny, how when i move and finally say goodbye to this city, people on here who don't know we're in the same city will probably think “what that's where u lived?? why didn't you say anything sooner!!”

buddy i have been here for 8 years and completely lost faith in everyone here, this is a uniquely terrible area with somewhat friendly but extremely impersonal people and i don't care for it or anyone in it anymore!!!!!!!!!!!

i don't want someone to change my mind, I don't want to suddenly find what I'm looking for; I learned a lot professionally and about myself and life in general while living here but its time is up, the people here suck compared to literally every other place I've been to lmfao. I'm sure there's a few gems out there but they aren't worth what it takes to live around here.

when i was trying to figure out where i wanted to move next, I was going to give this place another year since that would arguably the best opportunity I'll have to enjoy it if i move somewhere cheaper (I've had a long complicated journey here).

but then i really thought about it, and being here — trying to chase happiness feels like swimming upstream towards something that's forever just out of reach. and then i thought about the city i decided I'll move to next, and there are so many people there who are always really happy to see me and always inviting me to stuff. and it's not just me, but they're all rly chill with each other and hang together too.

and it felt silly to think of suffering through another year here. why should i fight so hard to find what's already waiting for me somewhere else? life does not need to be this hard and i don't have to suffer another year here actually ✋🏾😭

very cool that i have some mutuals in the area who don't know this yet, but I'm not trying to spend an hour+ in traffic and have to pay to park just to hang out with them lol. wish i knew y'all like a year and a half ago but it's too late for me to really get attached to anything here.

there's literally (1) thing i care about in this city and it's the best friend i have. and being completely real, i love her very dearly but if i felt supported enough as i need from even one person here i wouldn't feel the need to leave. we talk thru text Sometimes very briefly, mostly to just send stuff to each other and ask about hanging out, and we hang like once a month or 1½ months.

like.... this is as good as it gets? 😐 there might be something better but it's going to take a significant amount of time, effort and frustration to find. and i just... do not think it's worth the effort, actually. sometimes taking the easier path is the correct choice.

I've made so so so many friends here that have all fizzled out. everyone I've become friends with will speak to you once a week or two or three maybe. MAYBE!! And it doesn't matter if you sent 1, 2 or 10 messages, it's not just a matter of where you are sending those messages, it doesn't matter what you are talking about or what you may need, you are just not hearing back from them. i could die here right now and no one would even begin to think something might be wrong with me for god knows how long, if ever.

so like. idk. i am extremely over this city and could not be convinced to stay. I'm the kind of person who needs to be talking to 2 or 3 friends every day, i need to be in one or two small but active group chats with people who are dear to me, I need to hang out at least twice a week at one of our places, i wanna go out to something together every two weeks at least.

it just seems like if i move somewhere where people take it a little slower and are more personal, I'll be able to get back into that kind of life i miss. it's so fucking easy to feel like the problem is me somehow until i drive like 25 miles away from here and suddenly the difference is like night and day (⁠´⁠-⁠﹏⁠-⁠`⁠；⁠) like oh i don't suck actually, and I've become much more sure of that over the past year-ish i guess, but the problem still remains and i just have to suck it up until i leave.

also yeah I'll name drop it while I'm at it lol DO NOT MOVE TO SEATTLE 🙅🏾‍♀️ no one here drives, most people hang out in the pay to park/HEAVY traffic areas and everyone here is friendly but VERY very impersonal. if what you want is someone to hang out with every once in a while and to live a hermit lifestyle then it's probably perfect for u but if you want to meaningfully connect with your friends you are swimming upstream here do not do it. this city SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

this is the most trash ass city I've ever been to and I've been up and down the west coast and to other inland states!!!!!!!!! this is not normal!!!!! you people are not normal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! people from here get pissy when you bring up the Seattle freeze but it's real actually you guys do suck supremely and anyone from any place with even a shred of warmth between people in its community can tell you that, and i can say that bc i remember how often I'd be willing to say hi back to people when i took public transit and they'd immediately clock that I'm not from here because No One wants to talk to them otherwise.

i don't know wtf the deal is here but i don't need to navigate it or fight it 🚶🏾‍♀️ I'm just moving to the kinda place you can both live and work in, which is what all the other places I've lived at have been like. I'm sorry y'all live like this and think it's normal, but i don't think locking yourself away for weeks at a time not talking to anyone because of depressive episodes and always feeling lonely is like.. normal.. it's not. and you genuinely do have a lot to be fairly depressed about, and so do i tbh and i fight it so fucking hard but I'm just removing myself from this 😶‍🌫️ good bye and good luck.

[skeefy]

For me, Off was at its most popular during a time where I didn't even know what fandom was. When I was introduced to fandoms, my interests were not in areas that would easily bring the game to my attention. Around 2018-2019 I came across Off through Markiplier but some kind of disconnect happened somewhere. He didn't even make it out of Zone 0 before I just clicked out. It wasn't him personally, i couldve always found a different letsplayer, it was just the game. I added it to my watch later with the intent of getting back to it but I never did despite having to look at it every time I watched the other videos I placed there. Roughly two weeks ago I decided to clear out the clutter of my watch later and was presented with a choice. Watch Mark play Off or delete it. Given that I'm typing this message I think you know what choice I made. Off is an amazing game and I regret ignoring it for so long. Especially once I realized the quiet state of the fandom. The reason I say quiet not dead, the reason I wrote this whole thing actually is to express my thanks to you and the other active Off fans for holding down the fort so latecomers like myself can still enjoy what you've been enjoying all this time. Thank you, God bless

Hello dear, thank you for this message!

I was never interested in joining fandoms, but there were a few tiny exceptions, off being one.

In 2012-2013 I tried to join the fandom but it was very hard for me to express my interests plus some ppl called me a weirdo for liking Enoch, I tried to search other fans of him or of zone 3 and didn't find much (most was focused on batter or zacharie back then) so I thought "I will return here in the future when the game is thriving".

However I forgot about it so I ended up missing everything that happened when the fandom was at its prime ah ah ah!

Only 10 years later I decided I wanted to try participating in fandoms once again. Told myself I'd make things different in 2023 and so, I decided to share my off stuff to the internet!

Thank you for appreciating the game and the fandom, and for your interactions in it, which also contribute! I hope others see this because the fandom hasn't died thanks to many.

I am very happy you have enjoyed my stuff and others, and I am glad others as well as me have decided to share their work no matter how quiet the fandom may seem.

There are people out there writing fics, making art, making fan games, music and even animations so definitely not dead!

Thank you for taking the time to put your feelings and thoughts into words! I love reading what others are thinking and feeling <3

oh and to anyone reading this, don't be scared to reach other to other fans and talk or tell them how much you like their ideas and work. This year I've made so many wonderful and talented friends that I used to admire from far away and it's the best feeling in the world to have common interests that bring people closer

[solar-sunnyside-up]

Im pretty sure thats the post that other anon was talking about. They didn't put it real well but they are kinda right.

Things are not as they were. Unless major reform is enacted a third party will never win in the usa. Not as it is. And any hope of reform will disappear if we get another red prez. Between gerrymandering and the electoral college and the pearl clutching moderates who get scared of progressives, to Republicans with no morals who will 100% vote red without hesitation. We effectively only have 2 parties. At least for now.

A Republican candidate hasn't won the popular vote in decades yet they somehow keep running things.

Everyone I know is scared. Scared this will be our last election next year. But no one is more scared than the disabled. We are terrified. Theres a lot of chatter from the right about "dealing" with us and other "freeloaders" we are legitimately scared for our lives.

Protest votes is what gave us that disaster in 2016 and why roe vs wade is gone now. If they win again they are going to push the rest of their agenda through. These posts about refusing to vote or voting third party are exactly like they were in 2016. We've been down this road once already.

If given the choice of neglect vs active homicidal intent we all have at least a chance to survive neglect.

And neglect gives us time to do something. Work locally. Try and push for reform. It's horrible but it's what we have. And for most disabled it's ALL we have. We can't run, other countries won't take us.

I've even seen some scream about revolution but with zero plans for us. What will their revolution do with us? Will we still have our medical access? Will we still be taken care of? Or will the wheels of the revolution be greased with our blood?

K so this is a lot for first in the morning, and I'm glad that someone has explained it a bit more detail bc I cannot stress this enough IM CANADIAN we live with a mutli party system. We, like most of democracies in the world, function with multiple parties at play. And tbh? They still use "splitting the vote is dangerous" talking point here. Here, it's used to prevent ppl from voting for actual reform in government. It's used to say "Green party will never win in they're trying to do rent caps and UBI!" Despite these being popular standing points with many many ppl and honestly the only reason ppl haven't voted them in is bc of this fear tactic. And yet this year, they've come in 3rd place if not 1st in several towns, cities, and providences. They've made headway, and also a lot of liberal ideals and NDP talking points are just old green party ones so ppl want those policies. But if it wasn't for those tree huggers 10 yrs ago fighting, and losing and being made fun of, as a seperate party and forcing them to move that direction they never would.

And let's be clear, Trump won bc of electoral collage he did not win popular vote in 2016 you where overruled the vote didnt matter. Just like Bush did against Al Gore in 2000

That doesn't mean its hopeless or that you shluldnt vote particularlly on local levels. More ppl then ever in history are voting!! Turn outs are the highest they've been since 1950s!! (Also the last peak in union reforms btw) It's scary flipping parties, you might loose to Democrats or Republicans. It will be horrible. But yall are on the cusp of a civil war and fascism anyway, as an outsider who should hold little say over what you choose in this election, I'd still endorse the 3rd party. idk yall your system seems fucked and legit doesn't seem to care how you vote so scare them into using your vote for someone else and make them admit they're not actually counting your votes.

If there's so many ppl like a different policy and candidate it forms another party then you NEED a different party to have a voice anyway. Even if it's in defeat it must exist and I'll happily be on the loosing side.

These are talking points that are used to stagnate progress and to (rightfully) scare ppl into voting for someone they don't like. So if it scares you too much, i wont be upset with however you vote. Its yours. It's scary out here no matter the outcome rn. But I can't let myself be shaken when there is hope and I will personally work for that hope so it's no longer a scary option for those who can't afford the choice.

[radiantlyrey]

Thoughts on Uprising Episode 5, Identity

- Beck continuing the trend of getting into trouble with Wrong Place, Wrong Time stuffs. poor kid…

- love that Tron is in this episode more, being the same Grouch as always.

- the disc theft is……. Interesting. We know from Legacy that there is such thing as a forged disc (Zuse mentions it in the list of things Sam needs to get to the Portal); perhaps stolen discs is where those come from? And stray programs are mentioned in Legacy as well, though not expanded upon. Honestly, TRON is FULL of Unexplained Worldbuilding Things that I would give my right hand to know. UGH

- stray programs are such an interesting concept. Like the disc is the program, apparently?? It’s like…. well actually thinking about it, it makes sense?? Kind of???? The program is made of fairly basic code; the disc holds that code and its log of activities, while the body is just a physical manifestation of the code itself. Unlike Users/humans, whose code is an inherent part of them/us, and thus can’t be memory-wiped by swiping an activity log. It’s interesting as fuck, is what I’m saying. Like the philosophical implications of the program being the disc and not the physical person—so Interesting!!!!!

- also the glitches are scary as Fuck. One moment you know what’s going on and then the next you don’t know anything?? Terrifying. And well portrayed by the episode, too, with the fisheye effect on Beck’s closeups and the general blurriness from his PoV.

- could have sworn Cobol was voiced by Ron Perlman, but it was some person I’ve not heard of instead. Doing one heck of a Perlman impression, tbqh.

- Lux is EXTREMELY INTERESTING TO ME. Siren who’s gotten caught up in the black market?? INTERESTING. Also she’s a whole hell of a lot more principled than Cobol, because when she sees Tron it’s like everything changes for her. Also the shaved head is just badass looking.

- meanwhile, a three scene B plot with Zed and Mara!! That took up like six minutes of episode time. Like okayyyyy. Turns out I didn’t need to be so worried about Zed joining the anti-Renegade taskforce, because it turns out Mara kind of guilted him into doing the right thing!!! Good for him I guess.

- Also someone commented on my last commentary post that Bartik here and Bartik in Legacy are the same character/program, and uh. Wonder how THAT happens, because damn. How does one go from happily helping Clu’s forces to hoping a revolution against Clu can be sparked into existence???? Color me intrigued as fuck.

- love Tron’s comments about Beck being his friend at the end there. Especially the bit about trusting someone as a friend and being betrayed, bc from what I know of later episodes, that could be like three different programs!!!! (Clu, like Beck assumes; Dyson I have heard was a friend turned enemy; and then Cyrus as well!! Again I have not watched the whole series and my last dip in was 10 years ago, but from what Discussion I have seen I am making some Assumptions.) also love the comment that he “made the right choice this time”, because that is just dripping with implications that I imagine pay off in future episodes…..

- other details: Purgos as the name of the black market district is interesting, with the obvious name tie to Xtian (or at least Catholic) Purgatory; wonder what the creators meant for us to take from that… // Galt was an interesting one off character; total sleazeball of course, but interesting nonetheless // ngl when they were surrounded by all of Cobol’s goons, I was kinda cackling because like. It’s Tron. Even scarred all to hell he’s gonna kick most of y’all’s asses.

- I am probably gonna watch this episode again with captions on so I can get helpful juicy deets for my TRON horror story fic idea. I gotta do some brainstorming on stuffs tonight for sure.

- that said the brainstorming might have to wait bc the next episode has Paige Backstory and also QUORRA sooooooooo…….. yeah

[feral-radfem]

Hi, I'm the anon before who asked about written erotica. Thank you for answering my ask. It was a long response and I'm sure it took a little bit of time, so I'm grateful for that.

As I said I'm new to radical feminism so I haven't had the chance yet to delve too deeply into anti-pornography, just mainly about how women in porn are treated and how it skews men's view of women. So that was why I wanted to ask about erotica. I always saw it as a creative outlet, esp. for women writers since so much of written erotica is... well, you know. But that it rots your brain like any other pornography does make sense actually.

I was quite young when I first got on the internet and I think I may have also been influenced by what you said. And how it kind of fucks with your sexuality. That erotica can also be an addiction never occurred to me, but again, it makes sense.

I've got a lot to think about! I hope you have a nice day.

Thank you for reaching back out. I like knowing that the people I write the responses to do get to see them at some point. Sometimes it feels like answering anons is just screaming into the void, so this was nice.

There is no shame in trying to learn or being new to the subject you're trying to learn. It's good to ask questions. I can definitely see how you came to the conclusion that written erotica is a creative release for women, though. In an era where choice feminism is the dominant strain of feminism all women's choices were framed as a feminist choice. However, things women choose to do, even if they do individually benefit them, cannot be considered feminist if it is detrimental to other women and girls. It's just individualism and women can be just as self-centered as men when they want to be. That's a human condition, unfortunately.

You are not alone in having been young and entering internet spaces that made no effort of regulating this material around the children they knew were there. A lot of them actively encouraged young girls to read it because 5-10 years ago began the revival of the free love movement. Porn, and erotica for women, were equated with masturbation and sexual healthy development. Falsely equated but they were in mainstream media regardless.

It was seen as puritan to try to shame children from engaging in pornography because they hit puberty of course they want to be sexually curious. That was a mass grooming of children being done during the early 2010s on the internet. Now, we have a whole generation of young girls who were pressured or shamed by being told that they were vanilla and to engage with media that continued this pressuring and shaming into their adulthood that they should treat their expressions of sexuality as a performance for others.

Much like Dworkin suggested, we have entered a period in which girls are being convinced that porn is good for them and it's being encouraged by women who have already internalized this message as children. It's our job as radical feminist to make it very clear that pornography of any type has nothing to do with the natural sexual curiosity that comes with puberty nor does it need to be involved in any of your sexuality as you grow older. It never becomes healthy, it is always detrimental, in all its iterations.

Hope you have a great day. Thanks for the follow-up message. :)

[a-s-levynn]

5, 10, 11, 23, 29 & 30 for the music ask game!

Ohh thank you anon! 🫶🏻 This ask game is to be the one that exposes the fact that i listen to all kinds of crap not just the usually assumed metal (which still iss the main gengre i listen to the most but anyway) but i have no shame when it comes to music because i a firm believer that there is no such thing as 'guilty pleasure music', music is either makes you feel something or not. If it does, it's good. itr might not do anything else for someone else. And that is perfectly fine.

But let's get into the gaaame

under the cut because it got long the questions: a song to play loud, one to make me sad, one i never get tired of, one from my childhood and one that rimends me of myself

5:A song that needs to be played LOUD (Every single Sleep Token song)

A Revolution by Patrick J Avard, Anthony Demetrio Arasi, Joey Casanova Look edm is the best when blearing, there is no way listening to it quietly. and this one in particular is just really hit the spot when i first heard it. With this one it's a must to turn up the volume. I also can't stay still either.

10:A song that makes you sad This is not easy. Because yeah i cry on Telomeres by Sleep Token but it doesn't make me sad per se.. it triggers an ache and a longing but.. oh no i got it.

It's either Too late by Dead by Sunrise or Final Masquerade by Linkin Park The entire out of ashes album came out a time when i was just.. boy did it pull me through some stuff. And on one hand it reminds me of that. On the other.. you may know that weird thing when you look up to a public figure because yeah he went through stuff and doing fine so i can too.. and then there comes a moment when isn't? Yeah that was Chester for me at the time and it makes it hard to listen to.

And final masquerade is a song that is just irreparably tied to someone and my relationship to that person and yeah.. it wasn't.. great. Well it was but than it wasn't. I try to not cling onto regrets but that one is.. it's complicated. Okay, not really, but it's not easy to talk about it, that's why i talk around it.

11:A song that you never get tired of Uuuuh the obvious choice is Higher by Sleep Token because that is probably my all time favourite track.

Besides that.. Cyberhex by Motionless in White It's just everything i love rolled into one. Cyberpunk vibes, industrial elements, synths and screamy screams rolled into one with Chris's voice? What is not to love.

29:A song that you remember from your childhood

I don't just remember it but actively still listen to it. Look this song unlocked a mental image of a very very clear scene in the snow and all for me and i have to revisit it compulsively from time to time.

Lady in Black by Uriah Heep My favourite memory of this song actually is from not that long ago. Well.. it's is one of my most cherished memories since. It's been what... 9 years ago by now? relatively when i started uni, in the first couple of years i usually went home for every other weekend. from the same trainstation with the same train at a very early hour. There was this street musician guy i usually gave some change to when i had some. (fun fact he looked exactly like Berger from the 1979 Hair movie just with blond hair) So he had seen me quite often. I already had the very varied black on black wardrobe.

One particularly cold morning he looked at me and started to play this song and i wish i had a recording of it because that was pure magic. I made sure i had some change and arrived at least a little bit earlier just to listen to him. He never played it again but man.. he seemed like a sweet dude. He always had a nice word for anyone who approached him, he only but threw his guitar every single time a dog came by to rush to pet it, and he was always always smiling.

30: A song that reminds you of yourself

People error by the GazettE